[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 35 (Tuesday, March 18, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1078-H1083]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gibbons). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.

[[Page H1079]]

  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, for tonight's special order, the topic that 
I would like to address is campaign finance reform.
  I wanted to point out that today at a press conference that was held 
by several of the women members of the Democratic Caucus, they 
basically urged Speaker Gingrich and the Republican leadership to stop 
the delay on campaign finance reform, and I know that some of the 
Members who were at that press conference will be joining me tonight to 
discuss the issue.
  Obviously campaign finance reform is certainly not a new issue to 
Members of this House or to the American people. The Democrats have 
been leaders on this issue for several years and the Republicans, I 
believe, have been obstructionists. As I mentioned in my remarks to the 
House this morning, for the past five Congresses the Republican 
leadership has pulled every legislative maneuver known to the Congress 
to keep campaign finance reform bills from becoming law. Now of course 
there is a renewed interest in the issue, and of course the flaws that 
the campaign finance system and that the Democrats have highlighted for 
years are becoming more prevalent and the American people have had 
enough. According to one poll, 85 percent of the American people think 
the campaign finance system is now in a crisis state. I have to point 
out, though, it did not have to come to this. If reforms the Democrats 
have been proposing since 1989 had been in place today, the country 
might well have been spared the abuses and excesses that we are hearing 
about. Unfortunately the Republicans stopped us cold. They have delayed 
and filibustered and stalled in really every conceivable way on this 
issue. I just wanted to point out, and then I would like to yield to my 
colleague from Hawaii, that on the first day of this session of 
Congress, every single House Republican voted against requiring action 
on campaign reform in the first 100 days of the new Congress. That was 
rollcall vote No. 4. Then when the President and the congressional 
leaders met in February, Republican leaders rejected the Democrats' 
suggestion that campaign finance reform join the priority list for 
bipartisan action. In the agenda Republicans laid out for the 105th 
Congress on March 6, their stated position is the status quo, to ensure 
that current laws are followed and enforced and require full and timely 
disclosure of all campaign contributions. Specifically in the case of 
the Speaker who testified before the House Oversight Committee on 
November 2, 1995, he said, quote, he would emphasize far more money in 
the political process.

  Recently one of our colleagues from the Senate, Mitch McConnell, 
stated, ``We're not spending too much on politics in America. This 
whole notion that we're spending too much on politics is nonsense.''
  Clearly again the Republicans are in the majority and they have done 
nothing to suggest that they will be willing to move on campaign 
finance reform this session.
  I would like to yield now to my colleague the gentlewoman from Hawaii 
[Mrs. Mink] who was one of the Democratic women Members who 
participated in this press conference today.
  Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  The press conference that the Democratic women held at noon today was 
to emphasize our great frustration at the failure of the leadership to 
schedule even hearings at the committee level on this very critical 
problem. Any blind person, I think, could realize that the whole system 
is in crisis and it is really up to us. No one else can change it. No 
one else can fix it. It is up to the Congress of the United States to 
take this issue and to hear all the different versions. I am not 
certain exactly where I am going to stand in the final analysis on many 
of these aspects of the reform legislation, but I do think it is time 
to start, and so the women gathered today to make a special appeal to 
the country to contact the leadership of this House and to stress the 
point that they, the public, is really exhausted with their patience in 
waiting for this Chamber to begin its deliberations.
  Last night, the Speaker took the floor during special orders and 
outlined a 13-point program in which he explained in great detail in 
his 1-hour special order exactly what positions and programs the 
Republicans were supporting. I listened the entire hour because my 
special order came afterwards, and I was astounded that he did not 
include mention of campaign finance reform, something which really goes 
to the very heart of our democracy. It is challenging the viability, 
the essence of our democracy, all the things that we read about. When 
$2.7 billion is being spent in campaigns to elect us and the President, 
something is strictly wrong, and we need to fix it. There have been a 
lot of different suggestions that have come forward and the gentleman 
in the well pointed out to me a short little column which I am sure he 
will explain later in detail from the National Journal on March 13, 
reported that a group of political science professors forming a task 
force by the Citizens Research Foundation came up with certain 
recommendations on campaign reform. They are saying, ``Put aside all 
the stuff that you have been debating in the past. Start anew. Look at 
this problem fresh.'' And I think that is a very interesting approach 
and something which this House probably ought to consider.
  We have had no hearings yet. There are investigations which I 
certainly support. One of the reporters asked at our press conference, 
well, does it mean since we are pushing for campaign reform that we are 
minimizing the importance of the investigations of the past activities?
  Certainly not. We want to see those investigations carry forth. But 
they have no ending if we at the same time are not considering ways in 
which we can make the system better, bring back the importance of 
ordinary people, not big financial contributions.
  The campaign reform report that the Citizens Research Foundation task 
force recommended said, abolish soft money. I totally agree with that. 
And many of the suggestions that have come forward have made that 
suggestion. I do not know if it will be in the final form. I hope so. I 
have introduced a bill to do exactly that. I do not think the American 
public out there wants to read in the paper night after night about 
contributions coming in to the various party organizations, of 
$500,000, $600,000, maybe cumulatively over a 2-year period of $1 
million. Something has gone amuck if we tolerate that kind of 
interventions of big money into a political process that should belong 
to the ordinary citizen.
  The gentleman and I running for Congress operate under severe limits. 
Our individual contributions are limited to $1,000 for the primary, 
$1,000 for the general. We have PAC contributions that come to us, but 
they are limited, $5,000 in the primary, $5,000 in the general. Why can 
the others in our society that want to participate in a different way, 
not to our campaigns but to our parties or to independent organizations 
not operate under the same rules, $1,000 for individuals and $5,000 for 
the larger entities or committees that are contributing? I think that 
is fair.
  The Supreme Court's decision with regard to campaign contributions 
was that the limitations on how much people can give is a perfectly 
legitimate limitation, and we operate under that. No one has said those 
limitations are not proper or are unconstitutional. We have lived under 
it for many, many years.
  What the Supreme Court has been challenging as a free limitation is 
the spending end and that brings into picture a much more difficult 
part of this whole reform effort. But for the moment, it seems to me 
the people are concentrating on the whole idea of these uncontrolled 
contributions, and the court has never said that we cannot establish 
limits there.
  And so I support this task force report. It is remarkably in line 
with what I think. But that is really not the point of my presence here 
tonight, because myself together with the other women who joined in the 
press conference are not championing any particular reform or 
particular items. What we want to see is the beginning of serious 
consideration of this issue, putting it on the priority list, for 
instance, that the Speaker came to the well last night to announce to 
the American people. Why is it not on his agenda for America? Americans 
are concerned about it. The pollsters are telling us 85 percent of the 
Americans think there is a crisis today in campaign spending and 
campaign contributions. And so what this tells us and

[[Page H1080]]

what our mail certainly tells us, what the phone calls are telling us 
that are coming in from our districts, we better pay heed. The American 
people are really disillusioned about this process and we cannot afford 
to let this go by unattended.
  Again I join the gentleman who is doing a wonderful job in leading us 
in this whole effort about campaign reform, to get with it and call 
upon the Speaker and the leadership to bring this matter to a head, 
call the hearings, let us have a chance to express ourselves on behalf 
of our constituents, bring together both sides, call task forces, bring 
in the parties. They do not want to give up this opportunity to raise 
large money. We cannot expect them to come in with voluntary solutions, 
voluntary limits.

                              {time}  1930

  It is time for us to enact laws to safeguard that very precious 
element of the public's right to really participate in the electoral 
process, and they cannot if they are swamped by big money.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me tonight.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Hawaii 
and particularly in your pointing out that after all we, as Democrats, 
are in the minority here. What we are asking is that the majority, the 
Republican majority and their leadership, bring this issue to the 
forefront and make it a priority, and, as you mentioned, they have had 
several opportunities to do that: first with the President who called 
for this issue to come to the floor and be resolved by July 4; and then 
there were bipartisan meetings at the White House, and once again the 
Republicans refused to put it on a priority list; and now the Speaker 
has come forward again, and it is not on the priority list of his 
agenda for this Congress.
  All we are asking is that this be prioritized and a date certain be 
set when it is going to come to the floor, and, as you know already, 
some of our colleagues, some of our Democratic colleagues, have started 
to use procedural motions, motions to adjourn, on other bills to try to 
make this point because that is really the only avenue we have to make 
the point to speak out and say that it must come forward.
  I just want to mention one more thought that you pointed out and I 
think, as we have been saying, we just want to bring this issue up and 
we want it to be heard. We have not necessarily come up with a specific 
proposal about how to address it. But you made a very good point when 
you said that when it comes to our individual races for Congress we 
have very strict requirements in terms of how much money we can raise, 
a thousand for individuals, $5,000 for PAC's, and all of that has to be 
disclosed.
  And when you look at this report that was done by the Citizens 
Research Foundation at the University of Southern California, one of 
the points that they make in their summary, and of course it is endless 
and you know we are not going to be able to go through it all tonight, 
is that they are very concerned about the lack of disclosure for 
sources and receipt of money outside the confines of individual races. 
They talk about the issue advocacy now, the independent expenditures, 
issue advocacy being done by party committees, independent expenditures 
being done by various organizations, and in each case the biggest 
problem there is lack of disclosure. And I think that is one of the 
things that I think is almost universal. Regardless of what program or 
bill comes to the floor, the real problem is that one of the major 
problems is once you go outside of our individual races, disclosure is 
much more difficult, it is more difficult to track where the money is 
coming from and where it is going to.
  Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. If the gentleman will yield, that is precisely 
the point why the public is so disillusioned, because this matter is 
being disclosed in the newspaper. Nobody has access to the records. We 
cannot go anywhere to see the degree to which this type of fundraising 
has gone on and who has contributed. We wait every day for new 
announcements.
  That is simply not the way to preserve democracy in America, so I 
really commend the gentleman for his point. It is very, very critical 
to this debate.
  Mr. PALLONE. Well, thank you, and I see my colleague from 
Connecticut, Ms. DeLauro, who joins with me on a regular basis here. I 
would like to yield to her. I know she has made a major point of this 
issue of campaign finance reform.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for taking up 
this special order tonight, and I am sorry I was not here for the first 
part of the dialog, but I think in what I have been listening to, the 
issue of the 1996 elections, I think it was clear that the 1996 
elections prove that there is too much money in politics.
  What does it mean when you say that? It means that there is too much 
influence for special interests, not enough representation for people 
who work hard every single day and who want government to represent 
their views and their needs, and government is not in a sense an 
abstract concept. Government means that they want the people who they 
have elected to represent them, to make sure that their views are put 
forward.
  I wanted to join with you tonight just simply to say that I want to 
call on the leadership of this House to take action to reform our 
campaign finance system. Again I am sorry that the 1996 elections were 
record breaking in what I view as the wrong way. The final tallies 
reported in the Washington Post show that the campaign was the most 
expensive ever with an estimated cost of $2.7 billion. If we were to 
adjust for inflation, spending on campaigns tripled during the past 20 
years, and what they reinforced was that we need less money in our 
political system.
  Now if you take a look at the leadership of the House, Speaker 
Gingrich thinks that we should have more money in the political system. 
The majority leader of the House believes that there should be more 
money in the system. The majority whip believes that there should be 
more money in the system. The former head of the Republican National 
Committee believes that there ought to be more money. Now I am not 
making that up. Those are statements that are on the record.
  So, in fact, there is a philosophical difference in terms of the 
Republican leadership wanting more money in the process, and a 
Democratic position in the House has been to see limitations put on the 
amount of money spent in the process. The Washington Post further 
showed that 8 in 10 Americans agree that the money has too much 
influence on who wins elections. When you take a look at what the 
preponderance of views are amongst the Republican leadership, you can 
see that there is that tie on why we see a refusal, if you will, to 
bring campaign finance reform to a vote, and I have to believe it is a 
sincerely held view that they do not think that there is a problem with 
the role that money plays in the American political system.
  I think that the American public believes differently from that, as I 
am sure that you have talked about and our colleague from Hawaii is 
talking about, but I think it is so real to the American public that 
there is too much money in the system. I think it has been reflected in 
their staying away from the polls in their, if you will, disappointment 
and potentially even their disgust with government. They have little 
faith in government. You know, in terms of staying away from the polls, 
we have had less than half of those eligible to vote voted last 
November.
  One 50-year-old woman in the article who said she might expect to 
live to age 80 said, ``I will be dead in the ground long before 
anything changes.'' It is a sad day if her words accurately reflect our 
perceived ability to tackle the challenge of campaign finance reform.
  I think we have a wonderful opportunity here, and that opportunity is 
to restore faith in the Government, in the Congress. But in order to do 
that we have to prove that we are serious about reforming campaign 
finance and that we have to do that now. Waiting would push campaign 
finance reform efforts closer to the next election season and likely 
doom campaign finance efforts as happened in past Congresses.

  I was pleased that the President, in his State of the Union message, 
talked about a realistic challenge for the Congress, and that is to 
pass campaign finance reform by the Fourth of July.

[[Page H1081]]

  Lest their be any confusion about what we are talking about here 
tonight, I would just say very forthrightly that we do have 
investigations underway and if there was any wrongdoing, then in fact 
wrongdoing should be punished. No one is suggesting that that is not 
the case. I think very honestly, and investigations will go on, but 
what we need to do is to--we know that the system needs to be reformed. 
So let us have the opportunity to debate the number of initiatives that 
already on both sides of the aisle have been brought to the table, 
including the Meehan-Shays bill and the Senate Feingold--the Feingold-
McCain bill. Our colleague from California, Sam Farr has a good working 
piece of legislation. There have been two constitutional amendments 
that have been introduced or that you put a limitation on the amount of 
money that is spent to contravene a Supreme Court decision a number of 
years ago. So that we have opportunities here to have a debate, and a 
number of people have talked about, you know, different pieces which 
can be debated so that in fact we can come to some consensus on both 
sides of the aisle about how we ought to be raising money for campaigns 
in the future.
  I think if we can use the goal post of July 4, it is a decent period 
of time in which to have the debate, and it is also symbolically, I 
think, very important in terms of it being Independence Day in that we, 
in fact, you know, wrest the control of our campaigns from the special 
interests and return it back to the people. And I would urge the House 
leadership to move to campaign finance reform by that time, and we can 
start working now at this effort.
  I was proud to join my Democratic colleagues. The women, Democratic 
women of the House, today had a press conference to talk about this 
issue to have a full debate, which I am sure my colleague from Hawaii 
talked about. I understand that Members of the freshman class on both 
sides of the aisle, a bipartisan effort is underway to talk about how 
we can move this forward.
  I am a cosponsor of our colleague Sam Farr's bill. I think there have 
been some good suggestions about the broadcasters and issuing free 
time, especially in light of what is going on with the sale of the 
spectrum in which the broadcasters are going to reap, you know, myriad 
of benefits. Therefore, in fact, they could talk about free air-time to 
candidates. I think there are some good measures is essentially what I 
am saying, and I know my colleague from New Jersey feels the same about 
this.
  And let us take this opportunity to take some of these good measures 
to develop consensus on this issue and move forward to meaningful 
campaign finance reform. I think it would do so much for our ability to 
go to the American public and say, ``We're responding to what you are 
talking about with your disgust and with your lack of faith.'' Let us 
do this, and let us talk and then allow them to believe us when we talk 
about wanting to ensure, making sure that 10 million kids in this 
country have health insurance, which they now do not have, and that we 
are serious about doing something about their ability to be able to 
send their kids to school and so forth. I think it would go a long way 
in restoring faith in what we do in this body.
  So, as my colleague has also called for, I join him in calling for 
the passage of campaign finance reform as soon as possible. But first 
and foremost let us have the debate and the hearings that are necessary 
in order that we can pass campaign finance reform, and I thank you for 
calling this special order.
  Mr. PALLONE. I thank you too and, you know, I think that one of the 
things that you pointed out which is, I think, very sad, and of course 
I do not buy it, is that many people do believe, and I hear it all the 
time, that we are just never going to see this, it is not possible for 
Members of the House of Representatives to limit campaign finance 
reform. It is not going to happen, it is not in their interests, they 
will not do it. And of course I have been here long enough to know that 
the reality is around this place fortunately because it is a democracy, 
and we are representatives, that if people demand that certain action 
be taken on this floor, it will be taken, and I need to, you know, 
stress that again. I think our colleagues all understand and I think 
the people should understand that if there is enough pressure, if 
people speak out and they feel strongly that there needs to be reform, 
and I think that is the sentiment out there now, this House will take 
action, and I think that the President's proposal to have a date 
certain--he mentioned July 4--is really what we need. We need to set a 
deadline and say, OK, this is when we are going to do it, and we need 
to have Republican leadership basically come forward and say July 4 is 
going to be the deadline or whatever the deadline is.
  You mentioned a few things though that I just wanted to add to, if I 
could, when Congresswoman Mink was here from Hawaii and we talked a 
little bit about disclosure and the need to have disclosure. You 
stressed the problem of too much money in the system and the need for 
spending limit which I think, as much as disclosure is important, the 
need for spending limit is also important. And I have been very upset 
really to hear some of the leadership and some of our colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle talk about how there is not enough money in 
campaigns. And we mentioned before, I think, on the--in the other body 
Senator McConnell who stated just recently we are not spending too much 
on politics in America. His whole notion that we are spending too much 
is nonsense. That is simply not the case. We are spending too much.
  I mean there is a need for some kind of spending limit. I think that 
has to be the heart of this thing. And also again the cynicism with 
regard to small donors. I have people come up to me now and say, 
``Well, why should I contribute $5 or $10 or even $100 to the 
campaign?'' You know, this is all big money now. This is $1,000, 
$5,000, $10,000, a million--you know, depending on whether it is going 
to a national committee or independents. This is big money; the little 
guy does not matter.

                              {time}  1945

  That is not true and we need to dispel that. I think that a spending 
limit could go far to dispel that.
  What I would like to see, just my own view, not even in a bill form, 
but I really think that if we had a spending limit, and we said, say it 
was $5,000, which really is a lot of money, but that could be a limit, 
I just take it out of a hat, and then we say that we will use existing 
means, we can still have $1,000 for individuals and $5,000 for PAC's, 
but we have some requirement of small donor contributions, either small 
donor individuals, or small donor PAC's, and then we couple that with 
public financing. I know it probably is the case that the majority of 
the Members of this body are not in favor of public financing. I happen 
to be in favor of it.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, so am I.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I think that if we take a spending limit 
and we then require a small amount of donations and then we still have 
larger donations, individual donations and PAC's, and then we have a 
public mechanism to match it, that would go far toward keeping the 
amount of money down and also making people understand that the small 
donations really are meaningful in this process, which I think that 
they are. However, again, the issue right now for us is not what the 
reform is going to be, but that we need to address reform.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, that is the 
point. We did pass a bill in this House, and then when it went over to 
the Senate and the current Senator from Kentucky, who is still of the 
view that there is not enough money in politics, filibustered it and in 
the last session it was turned away. In a prior session when it was 
passed in this House, the then President George Bush vetoed the 
legislation.
  The fact is that we passed here spending limits. We need to limit the 
amount of money it takes to run for a congressional seat or a Senate 
seat.
  There are differences with regard to public financing. I support 
public financing, a voluntary, that is nobody should be coerced, or the 
other pieces, the ban on soft money which is in the Farr bill, which I 
support, a ban on soft money. These are all pieces, again, the 
constitutional pieces, the broadcasters you can deal with. We have to 
get to the point where we can have a good,

[[Page H1082]]

hard debate on these issues, and a place in which they can unfold so 
that we can try to come to some consensus and viewpoint as to what we 
ought to pass.
  Without that debate, we are not going to see anything happen here. We 
are just going to go along and the public will be reconfirmed in their 
view that this body is not able to police itself or to look at ways in 
which the amount of money can be curtailed.
  There are a number of ways in which we can go after this goal. What 
there has to be is the willingness and the will, if you will, or the 
political will, to determine that we are going to pass meaningful 
campaign finance reform and that we are going to take it on.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I agree. The gentlewoman did mention this 
idea with regard to the broadcast time, and if I could just develop 
that a little bit more, because I think that is important. One of the 
proposals that has been laid out is with regard to premier time for 
political ads.
  The gentlewoman is in Connecticut and I am in New Jersey, so we are 
both in the New York metropolitan area. Members who live in the New 
York metropolitan area know how expensive the radio and TV market is 
for New York. If one is in New Jersey and one is running statewide for 
Senate, for example, one has to contend with not only New York, but 
Philadelphia; in both cases very expensive markets for TV time.
  So I think that when the President recently suggested linking free 
broadcast time to the stations' interest in some of the spectrum, or I 
guess it is this digital high definition television, these licenses 
that are now being put forth, I thought that was particularly 
interesting.
  There was an article in the New York Times on March 13, just a few 
days ago, and if I could just bring out a couple of points in that. It 
said, ``Supporters of free political ads have proposed a national 
political time bank into which every radio and TV station would deposit 
one or two hours of prime advertising time for each two-year political 
cycle.'' It says, ``Based on the $500 million and the time back, the 
Federal Election Commission would dispense vouchers redeemable at any 
station. Half the vouchers would go to qualifying congressional 
candidates * * * Using vouchers, candidates could buy blocks of time at 
any station during any program, and such flexibility is critical, 
because different campaigns have different audiences.''
  The way I understand the President's proposal, he asks that 
broadcasters surrender time to candidates in exchange for new licenses 
to provide this digital high definition TV.
  The President said that the free broadcast time would take the 
pressure off candidates to raise money, obviously, and the time bank 
would reimburse stations that provided more than 1 or 2 hours worth of 
free time using money from the stations that provided fewer.
  I thought it was an interesting proposal. Again, this is something 
that the President put forward. We obviously can debate it. If we look 
at one of the reasons why so much money has to be raised, particularly 
I think for races in the other body, but also for many in the House, it 
is because of the cost of TV time in these very expensive markets. This 
would go far toward alleviating some of that problem.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I think most campaigns, and this is across 
the board, if we talk to anyone on both sides of the aisle about where 
the bulk of their money goes in a campaign, and it is to pay for the TV 
costs, for the broadcast costs.
  I was just looking at an article from the Hartford, CT, paper, which 
actually said what the broadcasters could do here in terms of what they 
are about to reap in profit from the sale here and the licenses is that 
they ought to give back something and take on some responsibility here 
in terms of the free air time. I think we ought to move in that 
direction, because the costs obviously vary in different parts of the 
country, but the fact of the matter is that we do run for reelection 
and we do have to raise money. But whenever we are listening to people, 
it is mostly because the volume of money that they are trying to raise 
has to do with trying to be on TV and to pay those costs. Even some of 
the solicitations from Members to folks that they want contributing to 
their campaigns, say such and such an amount of money will allow me to 
be on television so many times, so that that is where the bulk of the 
money is being spent. I think we need to take a very, very hard look at 
that and a look at the various proposals that are on the table with 
regard to that issue.
  I think what we have to do on this is do what similarly was done with 
regard to the minimum wage legislation in the last session of the 
Congress, and that is to use every opportunity that we can on this 
floor to raise the issue. Some Members were engaged in that effort last 
week. I suspect that they will continue to try to raise the issue.

  This has now been, what is it, January, February, March, and there 
have been letters. I do not know if it has been mentioned before, but a 
bipartisan list of Members sent a letter to the leadership asking that 
campaign finance reform be made a high priority, and so far we have 
seen nothing as an opportunity for us to move in this direction.
  So what we need to do is to utilize the opportunities that this 
institution offers to raise the issue continuously so in fact we can 
have some meaningful dialog on this issue.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I have noticed, I am certainly not an 
expert on it, but if we look at some other countries in Western Europe 
and other democracies, many of them do in fact have the free TV time or 
the free newspaper time or whatever. It is not an unusual thing to do 
that. In fact, I think it is very common in a lot of other democracies. 
So there are precedents for doing that, and I think we need to look at 
some of these precedents in deciding what kind of a forum we should 
make.
  I guess we are running out of time, but I just wanted to finish our 
special order.
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has his special order next, 
so I am not going to yield to him at this time.
  Mr. GEKAS. The gentleman is not going to yield to me?
  Mr. PALLONE. No, I am not.
  Mr. GEKAS. I feel offended. There is certain blame being cast here 
that I wish we could rebut at this time. I am offended.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I did mention earlier this report on this 
task force of campaign finance reform that came out from the Citizens 
Research Foundation of the University of Southern California, and this 
is something that we could talk about and we probably can discuss more 
as we go on, but it is called New Realities, New Thinking. I think the 
one thing that it points out that I am thinking about a lot, because I 
think it made me rethink the whole idea of what we need for campaign 
finance reform, is it says that ``Campaign finance today is 
characterized by an expanding political arena in which significant 
amounts of money flow in new and constantly changing ways.''
  This is a quote.

       We have gone from a process where parties ran campaigns to 
     an area where candidates ran their own campaigns and now we 
     are experiencing a much more dynamic, diffuse funding system 
     in which a broad range of political entities, political 
     parties, individuals, PAC's, issue organizations and others 
     spend money in campaigns that candidates neither raise nor 
     control.

  The report indicates that these new realities, basically, raise 
serious questions about accountability, electoral competitiveness, the 
sources of campaign funds and resources. So you are thinking new 
realities, and what they are saying is that the nature of campaigns 
have changed dramatically in the last few years, with the issue 
advocacy, with the independent expenditures, and I think that that is 
the reason why there is a need for reform, because there is so much 
more money now and it is going in so many different ways. We do not 
know where it is coming from, disclosure, enforcement, all of these 
things that were mechanisms that we relied upon in the past where we 
were only dealing with our own campaigns, this is increasingly a thing 
of the past.
  That is why the system cries out for reform. There need to be 
changes. We just cannot pretend that we are living with a system that 
we lived with 5 years ago or 10 years ago. It is not the same anymore. 
So that is why I think that we need to continue with our effort to say 
that this campaign finance

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reform issue has to be addressed on the floor.
  I just want to thank the gentlewoman again. I know this is just the 
beginning of our effort to make sure that this issue is raised by the 
GOP leadership and that we do have the time when it is considered.

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