[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 36 (Wednesday, March 19, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1172-H1175]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Smith of Michigan). 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.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, last night myself and other members of the 
Democratic caucus gathered here to discuss the issue of campaign 
finance reform, and we had a good constructive discussion, I believe, 
about what is wrong with the present system, and we again appealed to 
the Republican leadership of this House to put a campaign finance 
reform bill on the table for us to consider.
  This morning, roughly about 10 hours after we concluded our special 
order, I picked up the Washington Post, and I read that the Republican 
chairman who is in charge of the partisan investigation into campaign 
fundraising has himself abused the system. According to the story on 
the front page, the chairman of the House Committee on Government 
Reform bullied a lobbyist for the Government of Pakistan for campaign 
money in the manner the lobbyist described as a shakedown. Not stopping 
there, the chairman then contacted the Pakistani Ambassador, 
complaining that the lobbyist could not raise him enough money.
  My colleagues, this is just the kind of abuse the chairman himself 
has been empowered to investigate.
  Originally I was concerned that these hearings would be too partisan, 
but after stories in this morning's Washington Post I now know that 
these hearings will not just merely be partisan, they are going to be a 
joke. How can the gentleman from Indiana hold the gavel and conduct 
these hearings in an objective manner?
  In light of today's allegations the gentleman from Indiana should, in 
my opinion, recuse himself from the committee's investigation, and he 
should also open up his committee's probe to a much wider scope than 
the White House and include both parties in Congress.
  Tomorrow the Republican majority of this House will likely ask us to 
vote and probably pass a $12 to $15 million budget that will be placed 
in Chairman Burton's hands for this investigation, and how they can do 
that in good conscience after today's headlines really baffles me.
  I want to say today our House Democratic leader, Richard Gephardt, 
because of his concern over the nature of this investigation and where 
it is going, the House Committee on Government Reform issued a 
statement, and I would just like to read from part of that statement. 
He says that the vote on committee funding scheduled for tomorrow 
sanctions the Republican leadership's decision to make 12 to 15 million 
taxpayer dollars available for a one-sided, open-ended investigation of 
White House campaign fundraising. This partisan investigation flies in 
the face of a unanimous vote in the Senate to broaden the scope of the 
inquiry into improper and illegal activities in Democratic and 
Republican campaigns in the last election.

  Let me just for a moment not read from that statement anymore and 
explain that essentially what is happening here is that the Republican 
leadership and the chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform 
are suggesting that this investigation essentially be limited to the 
White House, and they are not interested in broadening the 
investigation, the way it was done in the Senate, to include both 
Democratic and Republican campaigns, congressional campaigns, Senate 
and House campaigns, in the last election. The budget granted to 
Chairman Burton is $8 million more than the Senate investigation.
  Further, the House investigation could go on for the duration of this 
Congress instead of the year-end resolution set to conclude the Senate 
investigation. Chairman Burton has granted himself unprecedented 
subpoena power and refused to provide the Democrats on the committee 
any resolution on the rules of conduct that would allow us assurances 
of the same fair and balanced process that will occur in the Senate 
investigation.
  Now the Republican leadership, as myself and other Democratic 
colleagues have pointed out many times on the House floor, has ruled 
out so far any consideration of a campaign finance reform bill, and 
they are preventing Congress from being included in the House 
investigation. Their action begs the question of whether they are truly 
interested in reforming the campaign finance system or merely bent on 
attacking a Democratic administration, and that I think is what this is 
all about. What the Republican leadership wants to do, what the 
Republican chairman of the committee wants to do, is limit this 
investigation to the administration, to the White House, to the 
Democrats in the White House and not consider what is going on in 
Congress on both sides of the aisle.
  The gentleman from Indiana has also abused his power, and the 
Republican leadership has been a willing conspirator by allowing him to 
run over the rules of the House in this investigation. Improper or 
illegal activity, whether it occurred in the Democratic or Republican 
campaign, should be included in the House investigation. Anything short 
of that smacks of protecting our self-interest at the expense of 
rooting out the abuses in the entire campaign finance system.
  Now in the statement that the Democratic leader put out today he also 
released a letter to the Speaker signed by the Democratic leadership 
and the Democratic ranking members serving notice that we, the 
Democrats, will oppose the committee funding resolution and use 
whatever parliamentary tools we have available to block its 
consideration unless he reconsiders bringing this resolution to the 
floor in its current form.
  And let me repeat. All that we are saying is that this investigation 
should be like the one in the Senate. The Senate one makes sense. They 
are not limiting it to the White House; they are including Democrats 
and Republicans and congressional campaigns as part of the overall 
inquiry.


                Announcement By The Speaker pro tempore.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman should refrain from 
characterizing the Senate action.
  Mr. PALLONE. Excuse me; thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Now the problems that I mentioned with regard to the gentleman from 
Indiana and the reason that we are gathering here tonight, or the 
reason that I am here tonight, and some of my colleagues, is because we 
want to see campaign finance reform. Again the Republican leadership is 
missing a great opportunity here because there are some serious 
proposals that have been introduced by Members of the House on the 
campaign finance reform issue. We may discuss a few of them tonight. On 
the Democratic side we have formed a campaign finance reform task force 
in order to review all legislative proposals for reform and to try to 
develop a consensus position, and I want to stress that many of my 
colleagues, including some of the Republicans, some of the rank and 
file Republicans, have introduced some good proposals in this regard.
  There are bills out there that address spending limits, the role of 
political parties, political advocacy, tax-exempt organizations, 
contribution limits, greater disclosure, FEC enforcement, soft money, 
free commercial broadcast time, public financing, and the list goes on. 
But the bottom line is these bills mean nothing unless the Republican 
leadership of this House, which is the majority party, sets the agenda 
and decides to act.
  I would like now to yield, if I could, to one of my colleagues who is 
here tonight to talk about some of the same concerns, the gentlewoman 
from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee].

[[Page H1173]]

  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey, and I believe 
that the important focus of our conversation, and certainly debate as 
well, over the past couple of weeks and our conversation this evening 
is to really elaborate on the facts and begin to clear the air that 
there is opposition in totality really, Republicans and Democrats, to 
the question of campaign finance reform. I think we have unanimity, if 
you will, in the whole concept of campaign finance reform in terms of 
its importance. We do not have that commitment in terms of having it 
come to the floor of the House and immediately address the concerns in 
a nonhysterical but rational way to respond to the concerns of the 
American people.
  Now yesterday I joined Members of the House, colleagues of mine that 
happen to be all women, and it was a symbolic press conference to 
suggest that we who are women know how to clean house. The only thing 
we are lacking is a good broom, and we had indicated that we want to 
clean house and want the Speaker of the House to bring to the floor 
viable campaign finance reform legislation that all of us will have an 
opportunity to debate, and as you have indicated, I am part of the 
campaign finance reform task force.
  There is good legislation on both sides of the aisle, so this is not 
a suggestion that there are not Members on both sides of the aisle 
ready to roll up their sleeves and work. The problem is that there is a 
roadblock, if you will, to be able to bring viable legislation to the 
floor of the House and viable legislation for this body to discuss.
  I do not believe the American public is really looking for us to turn 
on ourselves. The comments that I made yesterday were I want to see the 
homemaker, the scientist, the bus driver, the teacher, have access to 
the U.S. Congress. I want to see them get up one morning and say, I 
would like to be in the U.S. Congress, I have an issue, I have a 
passion, and therefore with those individuals running, we realize that 
we have to have ways of electing Americans to the U.S. Congress.
  There is nothing wrong with that. That means there has to be a form 
of fundraising.
  I certainly think there are very positive ideas, such as access to 
the electronic media or to the media that should be given in an 
organized manner to provide reasoned debate, to have us express 
ourselves to the public with no sort of flowery advertising around us, 
but just look our constituents in the eye and have the ability to 
communicate through the media.
  There are many ways that we can address this question of campaign 
finance reform, but in the shadow of that discussion, and I hope that 
it is discussed or I have discussed it in a manner that is not 
confrontational, I am outraged presently by the efforts now of the 
majority on the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight in terms 
of the structure, and I think it is important for those of us in 
Congress to be able to come to compromise. We just had Hershey and the 
bipartisan approach to this Congress, and I believe in it.

                              {time}  1945

  I think it can work. But in the shadow of all of us committing to 
campaign finance reform, taking the broom and sweeping this House 
clean, this structure that has now been offered to investigate possible 
campaign abuses requires outrage. Nothing less. It does not require 
solid commentary. The reason why it requires outrage is that we are 
doing ourselves a disservice. It is limited to the so-called 
improprieties and possible violations of law by the executive branch 
officials and Government agencies in the 1996 Presidential campaign.
  This is a much narrower scope than our other body, the Senate, 
adopted in a 99 to 0 vote. These are the same representatives that 
represent this Nation and constituents, they are Republicans and 
Democrats alike, and they have indicated that the value of having this 
process is to ensure not that we look to blast and castigate, but that 
we look to correct and uplift.
  How can we correct and uplift if we do not find or get to the bottom 
of the issue, if I am not afraid to come forward and say, for example, 
some of the improprieties may be just that, incorrectness, mistakes 
that were not intentional? God forbid if we are in this highly 
politicized atmosphere. We want to fine someone and hang them up by 
their fingernails, if you will. It may have been just an impropriety. 
If that is the case, do we not want to find that out in the light of 
day? Why are we narrowing the House investigation to just the President 
and what happened in 1996, when the Senate has very well covered itself 
to find out the truth and to improve this structure.
  Let me also acknowledge that the format gives pause. With the 
subpoena powers, we know that we have a Democratic Party and a 
Republican Party. We recognize that the great American people have the 
right to vote Democratic and Republican, and in some instances vote a 
third party, and I appreciate and respect that.
  We realize that we, in different parties, get together and we 
strategize. We talk about how we are going to win this election. There 
is nothing sinister about that. But yet there is unilateral subpoena 
powers so that this particular oversight committee under this chairman 
will not only seek subpoena powers and subpoena data that may be 
relevant, but they will seek subpoena data on the strategies of the 
Democratic Party that would violate, if you will, really free speech 
and the way this country is run.
  As long as we are not creating criminal activities, there is nothing 
wrong with analyzing how we can beat the other fellow, how we can get 
our message out. Why is that relevant to campaign finance improprieties 
or campaign finance reform? There is no limitation on this committee's 
or the chairman's subpoena powers so that private matters may be 
investigated.
  Let me also bring to the attention of our discussion this evening a 
precedent that I have never heard of; that is, the unilateral authority 
of the chairman to release documents. Now, I want all of this to be 
discussed in the light of day, but let me share with the American 
people that that would mean that confidential financial records and 
trade secrets could be released without the opportunity for committee 
review or anyone else's input but the chairman; medical histories and 
other personal records of individuals. The identity of confidential FBI 
informants and other confidential law enforcement information could be 
presented without any challenge. Privileged attorney-client 
communications.
  No document protocols conducted by any other committee have ever 
given the chairman this authority. Mr. Speaker, let me cite for my 
colleagues, Whitewater did not have this authority. Iran Contra, the 
resolution did not allow this unilateral distribution of private 
records. And again, let me stand here and say, I am not looking for a 
cover-up, I do not want a cover-up, I want fairness.
  Certainly the ethics investigation did not allow this random 
distribution of papers that might in fact suggest that someone is 
criminally at fault if they made a mistake. As I said, if we are truly 
looking to get this solved, we need to be able to have people come 
forward so people can say I made a mistake and I want this committee to 
know about it, because I want it to be fixed.
  As I yield back to the gentleman, and I see that my good friend has 
joined us, and I happen to be a cosponsor on Congressman Farr's very, 
very able and very responsive bill on campaign finance reform that 
responds to my concern about how the bus driver can come to the U.S. 
Congress, the school teacher can come, the average American can get 
elected because there is a proper process of campaign fund-raising.
  Let me tell my colleagues what I am most concerned about. We have not 
passed a budget yet. We have not talked about the 10 million, and when 
I say talked about, let me stand corrected, we have not addressed the 
concern of 10 million uninsured children in America without health 
care. We have not looked at and resolved the questions of seeing how we 
can implement this new welfare reform.
  We have not addressed the security of pension rights for Americans, 
and yet this committee may already have at its finger tips $8 million 
to spend and possibly upwards of $15 million to spend on this 
investigation, when young people in my district are fighting to get 
summer jobs, where the lines are teeming

[[Page H1174]]

with individuals who are looking to get summer work and may not have 
the kind of investment from this government that will help them get 
summer jobs, when people are without housing.
  I cannot understand how we would put in one source, if you will, or 
give to one entity that is narrowing its investigation, with no ending, 
some $15 million. I think it takes my breath away. If I was not 
standing on the floor of the House, I might not be able to stand. To do 
this kind of investigation with no commitment to coming forward with 
real campaign finance reform.
  The American public, I believe, does not want us to be in a witch-
hunt. What they really want is for us to sweep our own House clean. We 
can do that by violent discussion on the floor of the House of real 
campaign finance reform and take those good millions of dollars and 
help with affordable housing and the uninsured children, for working 
families, for health care, and making sure that the welfare reform 
works.
  The gentleman from New Jersey certainly has been one of the leaders, 
along with the gentleman from California, and I that we will be heard 
and that we will have the kind of debate that will help us solve the 
problems that the American people would like us to.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I just want to thank the gentlewoman, 
because I think she really encapsulated the way I feel and the way many 
of us feel.
  I have to say last weekend when I was in the district, I had people 
come up to me and talk to me about the amount of money that is going to 
be spent by these committees on investigation, and people were 
literally outraged by the millions of dollars. But the amazing thing is 
that this funding resolution that the House Republicans expects us to 
vote on tomorrow would spend $8 to $11 million more than what is being 
proposed in the Senate committee, and yet limiting it exclusively to 
the White House, not even discussing congressional activity on the 
Republican or the Democratic side, and yet it is $8 to $11 million 
more.

  Again, I did not want to dwell on the fact of what the chairman is 
doing here, but I have to conclude that the chairman himself, based on 
what was in the Washington Post today, clearly he does not want this 
investigation opened to deal with congressional activities, because 
maybe it will implicate him perhaps. That is what is really an outrage 
here, that they are trying to make this so partisan, just the White 
House, all of this money, and refusing to deal with any investigation 
of activity on either side of the aisle in the House of Representatives 
and in congressional campaigns; then at the same time saying we will 
not consider campaign finance reform, we will not bring it to the 
floor, we do not have a deadline, we do not have a proposal.
  Fortunately for us, we have someone here with us tonight who does 
have a proposal and has been out there talking about us and has 
concrete ideas and has put them in bill form.
  I would like to yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr].
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me and 
for the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee], for her very 
articulate outline.
  I am an author of one of the proposals for campaign finance reform, 
and I am not going to dwell on my particular bill. But I am going to 
point out that we certainly need to address this problem. The American 
public heard the President right here in this room just a few months 
ago ask us in all sincerity to deliver to him by July 4, our Nation's 
birthday, a campaign finance reform bill.
  Tomorrow we will be recessing for our Easter recess, for our homework 
back in our districts, and we do not return here until April 8, I think 
it is. So April, May is a month, June a month. We have about two-and-a-
half months left after we get back to meet the President's deadline. 
What have we seen? Absolutely nothing. There is no committee hearing 
scheduled, there is no work in progress on a bipartisan effort.
  I want to point out that this campaign finance reform has to be 
bipartisan. It has to have four principles that I think are essential 
in any bill. It has to be fair. This bill cannot be designed to help 
the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party. It cannot have the favor 
of one party over the other.
  Second, the bill has to reduce the influence of special interests. We 
have to bring down the amounts that political action committees can 
contribute. We also have to limit large single donors. I think we have 
to limit the amount that an individual can give, as the gentlewoman 
from Texas just pointed out, so that this House should be accessible to 
anyone, not just those who are millionaires and go out and spend their 
own money.
  Third, it has to have a level playing field. We have to make 
campaigns competitive. How do we do that? By enacting spending limits 
so that essentially everybody who is in this process knows exactly how 
much is going to be spent and those who just spend the most are not the 
winners.
  Fourth, the principle for campaign finance reform has to include 
access to the system by nontraditional candidates. I was sworn in in 
the very spot that the gentleman from New Jersey are standing in in a 
special election in 1993. It was the first time I stood on the House 
floor. I looked out, as the gentleman are looking at me today, to a sea 
of white males. Sandy was shocked coming from the California 
legislature, where it is much more gender balanced and ethnic balanced 
than the U.S. Congress, and it hit me that indeed, if this institution 
is going to be of, by and for the people, then it has to have people of 
America in here, and it is not doing that. We have 48 women in the U.S. 
Congress. There are more women in the United States than there are 
males. This ought to have a majority of women.
  How are women going to get elected to the U.S. Congress? How are 
people of color going to get elected to the U.S. Congress? We are only 
going to do that by a campaign finance reform system that is fair and 
makes it possible for minorities to run for this office. We cannot 
require that people have to raise all of their money in their 
districts.
  There are people here in very, very poor districts. Under the Federal 
law, anyone can move into a district to run. So if we limit the 
incumbent to saying you have to raise the money in the district, we 
will send a message out to anyone of wealth to say, aha, I can get 
elected to the U.S. Congress, all I have to do is move to a particular 
district, because that candidate is now required to raise all of her or 
his money in that district. That is not fair. That does not make the 
process accessible.
  So these ingredients of fairness, reduce the influence of special 
interests, level the playing field so that it is competitive, and to 
make the system accessible by nontraditional candidates I think are the 
four principles of campaign finance reform.

                              {time}  2000

  Do Members know what? We have the bills to do that. We have more than 
just my bill. We have a bipartisan bill; different, not much different. 
We have different approaches. We have people who want to clean up 
pieces of campaign reform, those who want to clean it all up.
  None of these bills, none of them, have been able to be scheduled for 
a hearing. I speak tonight in this colloquy with my colleagues to ask 
the American public to rise up and demand that the leadership of this 
House, that the Speaker of this House, set for a hearing, set for a 
vote, a campaign finance reform bill. We must bring that to the House.
  I plead with my colleagues to help alert the American public that 
this process is broken and it is not going to get fixed, it is only 
going to get diverted by attention to what is going on in the White 
House, what is going on in the Senate, but not to what is going on to 
fix campaign laws in America.
  I would be glad to be involved in any discussion the gentleman wants 
to have.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. He 
has really been very modest, because the fact of the matter is that he 
knows this issue very well, and that his legislation is very well 
thought out and very specific about what we should be doing.
  I think what the gentleman is saying, and I think we all agree, is 
that there are a number of bills out there. There is not necessarily 
any miracle

[[Page H1175]]

cure. We have some areas where we agree and others where we do not. But 
the bottom line is that we are in the minority and we do not control 
the process here. Unless the Republican leadership and the chairmen of 
the committees have hearings, let legislation come to the floor, set a 
deadline when we can consider these bills, nothing is going to happen.
  All we have really been doing for the last month or so on the floor 
here almost every night or every other night is to demand that some 
action be taken, and that the Republicans allow some of these bills to 
come up.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee].
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to say a few 
comments, and I would like to engage my colleague in a colloquy on his 
legislation, though he has been kind enough to acknowledge that there 
are many others. We are not here to at this time debate the pieces of 
legislation.
  I think something is important that goes to the point that we have 
now agreed with on the average person having access to the United 
States Congress. One of the most successful processes is, as the term 
is used, bundling. I want to raise that because it does not sound good. 
It is important as we have the discussion that people would understand 
that there are a lot of processes in campaign finance that are not 
negative, that are in fact enhancing and helpful.
  If we do not get on with the people's business of debating, we are 
going to get the American people so angry they are not going to be able 
to accept anything that may come forth, and there are some positive 
aspects.
  I might ask my colleague, the gentleman from California, one that 
comes to mind, of course, is a group that so intelligently organized 
around helping women to get to the United States Congress. I was one of 
them who received the support. The minute I received the support from 
this group by the name of Emily's List, that takes $10 and $5 and $1 
from women across the Nation, it seemed to be a band of acceptance. And 
certainly I started with very little in running for this office.
  But it is important for people to understand that there can be good 
concepts that allow the average citizen to give a dollar, and before he 
or she knows it, a person who they care about, who has their 
principles, can be elected because someone in New York gave $1 or 
someone in Florida gave $1.
  Would the gentleman just share with us how he perceives that to help 
diversify and help this Congress?
  Mr. FARR of California. Let me explain that by going back to the 
State that I represent, California. When I was in the California 
legislature we had to run for that office with very tough rules in the 
State, disclosure rules. Essentially those rules have been drastically 
amended and modified by an initiative that the people enacted last 
November which severely restricts not only what contributions can be 
given, but how much one can spend in a campaign.
  The point is that running for public office is a very exciting 
opportunity. We ought to allow people to receive contributions. I think 
we can limit the amount of contributions, and we can limit the category 
of those contributions, but we ought not to limit the source of 
contributions. By that, going back to the gentlewoman's point, is that 
Emily's List, like others, there is the Wish List, a more conservative 
group, but there are groups out here that call out to people who are on 
their lists, who have signed up and said we are supportive of your 
cause.
  A mail solicitation goes out to those people and says, ``By the way, 
Mrs. Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas is running for Congress. We support 
her activities. She is a woman, she has served in the Texas 
legislature, she has a distinguished background, and we think she 
warrants election to the United States Congress, and would you women 
around the country please send us a small contribution. Together we 
will put these contributions together; that is called bundling, and we 
will send them to Sheila Jackson-Lee.''
  I do not see any problem with that. That organization does not come 
down here and lobby. It does not ask for any votes. It does not have an 
agenda in politics. What it is doing is trying to elect the right 
people to public office. There are a lot of groups like that. I do not 
think we ought to restrict them. Some of these campaign finance reform 
bills say that should not happen.
  I was a former Peace Corps volunteer. When I ran for Congress I wrote 
people that I served in the Peace Corps with. Why? They knew me. I was 
also in a university. I wrote to the people that were in my class in 
the university. I graduated from a high school. I wrote to the kids 
that were in that high school. Some lived in my district, some lived in 
the State, some lived out of State.
  When you run for public office, the way you get elected and the way 
you start a campaign is call up your friends and your family. I called 
up my family, and they are Republicans and I am a Democrat, and they 
said, we will support you. We probably never supported a Democrat 
before, but we will support you because we are your family. That is the 
way you get into public life. None of these bills should stifle that.
  What we are trying to talk about is finance reform. Take the 
incredible obscenity of having to spend $1 million to get elected to 
the United States Congress. The bill that I propose, and almost all of 
them, recognize that the average costs of a campaign to the United 
States Congress is a little over half a million dollars; $600,000. That 
is the cap. We say you do not need to spend more than that to get 
elected.

  We also say the way you collect money ought to be limited. You ought 
to have how much money you can raise from PAC's, and it cannot all come 
from there; how much can come from wealthy individuals, it cannot all 
come from there; how much can come from yourself, you cannot just pay 
for your own campaign out of your own pocket. That way we allow this 
diversity of contributions to be getting in, limiting the amount, 
limiting the total capacity of that particular area, and allow you then 
to run a competitive campaign for $600,000 or less.
  Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate the comments the gentleman made. I know 
that our time is running out, because we want to yield for another 
special order tonight, but there are going to be a lot more 
opportunities.
  We are going to be here every night, if necessary, to make the point 
that we want campaign finance reform to come to the floor, and that the 
Republican leadership has an obligation to make sure that that happens 
in this session of Congress and as soon as possible.
  I thank the Members again for joining with me. This is just the 
beginning of a lot more discussion on this topic.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very 
much, and I certainly hope that the outrage over $50 million is 
something that we can focus more on what we should be, which is getting 
real campaign finance reform.
  Mr. FARR of California. It is too bad we have to schedule a special 
order to discuss campaign finance reform. We ought to be doing this in 
a regular session, in a regular time, to vote on a bill, not just to 
talk about the bill.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________