[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 41 (Wednesday, April 9, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1375-H1378]
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 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] is 
recognized for 30 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, the spirit of Hershey does live on, and I 
would say to the gentleman that I enjoyed the time that I spent at the 
conference on a bipartisan basis.
  My concern today, however, and I suppose in a sense this is sort of a 
reaching out to the other side of the aisle, is that we need to address 
the issue of campaign finance reform. I say this not in the spirit of 
trying to attack anyone or to suggest that anyone has a solution to the 
problem or that the problem necessarily can be decided on either side 
of the aisle, but the bottom line is that the Republicans are in the 
majority in the House of Representatives, and the Democrats 
increasingly, including myself, have been frustrated by the fact that 
we have been unable to get the Republican majority to bring up the 
issue of campaign finance reform either in committee, with hearings or 
markups, or on the floor of this House.
  Many of my colleagues know that in the President's State of the Union 
Address he called upon the House of Representatives, both Republicans 
and Democrats, on a bipartisan basis, to address the issue of campaign 
finance reform.
  Democrats have increasingly, over the last few months, requested that 
the House Republican leadership address the issue, again have hearings 
on legislation, bring the legislation up in committee, and set a 
deadline on when campaign finance reform reaches the floor of the House 
of Representatives so we could have a debate and be able to vote on a 
bill that most of us could agree on.
  Unfortunately, that has not happened, and, as a result, the Democrats 
have been forced to use procedural motions, as we did this afternoon on 
one of the suspension bills, to raise the debate and to allow us the 
opportunity to discuss campaign finance reform.
  Mr. Speaker, on several occasions during special orders over the last 
couple of months, myself and other Democratic colleagues have come to 
the floor to both speak out on the issue and also to talk about some of 
the proposals that have been put forward, many of which have been 
introduced, many of the bills, on a bipartisan basis. But, 
unfortunately, we still see no action.
  I think the issue is important for a number of reasons. First of all, 
as I mentioned earlier today, when I returned to my district for the 2-
week break that we had, the 2-week district work period, it was 
repeatedly mentioned to me by my constituents at every location, a 
supermarket, a coffee shop, wherever I happened to be, many people came 
up to me and said: What is the Congress doing? It does not appear to be 
doing anything.
  The term has already been coined by the Washington Post, which on 
this last Monday did an editorial, calling the Congress the do-nothing 
Congress. I think this editorial has already been read into the Record, 
and I will not repeat it again, but the bottom line is that we have 
taken up almost nothing of substance in the first 3 or 4 months of this 
Congress.
  When I talk to my constituents, they say, well, it seems the only 
thing Congress does is to call upon investigations of the White House 
or investigations of campaign financing, but, at the same time that 
they are spending money on these investigations and doing subpoenas and 
calling for hearings about investigating finances or campaign finances 
out of the last November campaign, no one in the majority, no one on 
the Republican side in the leadership, is proposing that we move 
forward on campaign finance reform.
  I would maintain, just based on talking with my own constituents in 
the last 2 weeks, that that is not acceptable. The public is really 
tired of hearing about all the investigations and all the problems with 
the campaign finance system. We all know there are problems. We know 
there is too much money in the system. We know that Representatives, 
Senators, the President and the Vice President, and everyone who is a 
Federal officeholder has to spend too much time raising money, which 
takes away from the time for them to do substantive business.
  So the system cries out for change. It just cries out for change. 
Whether it is public financing or it is a cap on spending or it is the 
various proposals that have been put forward, the bottom line is that 
we have to address the issue. It is time for action. It is time to stop 
worrying about all the myriad of investigations and all the myriad 
charges and to simply do something legislatively to make the system 
work. That means campaign finance reform.
  Just to throw out an example, in New Jersey we are now in the midst 
of a gubernatorial race, and for a number of years in my home State of 
New Jersey we have had a system in place where there is a cap on the 
amount of money

[[Page H1376]]

one can spend, and if a candidate raises a certain amount of money 
through individual as well as political action committee contributions, 
they get public funds to match it, with the understanding that there is 
a cap on the amount of money that they spend on the campaign.
  Now, I do not have to get into all the details of the New Jersey 
system, but the bottom line is, it is essentially a way of trying to 
reduce the amount of money spent on a campaign, trying to provide some 
sort of private funding either through political action committees or 
individuals at a certain amount, which is also capped, and then to 
match it with public funds. As a consequence, our gubernatorial races 
in New Jersey are reducing the amount of money that has to be spent.
  If we look at how much is spent on a gubernatorial race in New Jersey 
statewide as opposed to how much is spent on a senatorial race where 
there is no public system of financing or no restrictions in the way 
that we have in spending on the State level, there is a big difference.
  Really, at this point in New Jersey, it is not that difficult to run 
for Governor, raise the money to do so, if an individual wants to. On 
the other hand, it is very difficult to run for Senator because of all 
the money that one has to raise without any matching requirements.
  So I do not want to get into the details of the specific proposals 
today, although I think some of my colleagues may decide they would 
like to, and that is fine, but the bottom line is, we are calling for 
action on campaign finance reform by the Republicans. They are in the 
majority; they have the obligation to bring up the bill, to have the 
hearings, to mark it up and bring it to the floor.
  We suggested that that be done by Memorial Day. The President 
suggested it be done by July 4. In either case, it needs to be done and 
we need action.
  Mr. Speaker, I know I have some of my colleagues joining me today, 
and I would like to yield at this point to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Tierney].
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to address the lack of direction and the absence 
of any agenda addressing issues of importance to the people of my 
district as well as the people of this country.

                              {time}  1515

  Frankly this body has been behaving as an institution so gripped by 
political tensions and acrimony that any action claimed as nonpolitical 
appears only to be a pretense. Most Americans can remember when the 
distinguished Congressman O'Neill from my home State of Massachusetts 
was the Speaker and members of both parties conversed, they met, they 
socialized, they civilly debated issues and they deliberated all the 
proposed bills and amendments and finally they voted moving an agenda 
forward.
  What has changed, Mr. Speaker? Who has changed to make this different 
so that the majority now proposes bills designed not for debate, not 
for contemplation or improvement, not even for amendment, but only for 
votes along party lines that are phrased in such political terms that 
are so stark that they are not even faintly disguised as other than 
campaign hype for the next election. Again, who has changed and what 
has changed, Mr. Speaker, so that this is the way things are today?
  People expect us to debate here. They expect us to deliberate and 
they want an exchange of ideas and votes on the issues of importance to 
them. They want us to be dealing with campaign finance reform, with 
education, with health care, with Social Security and Medicare, the 
budget and economic growth. Our colleagues across the aisle complained 
when they were in the minority. Well, they are in the majority now, Mr. 
Speaker. Show us the leadership. Show us the fairness. Show us the good 
faith. Show us the nonpartisan governance. It is simply not happening. 
Some assert that they are not extremists on that side of the aisle, and 
that may be so, but check out the party-line votes and those assertions 
seem to lack merit. The protestations of moderation are contradicted by 
their party-line behavior, and their votes support the extremism and 
the politicization. Perhaps the greatest example, Mr. Speaker, is the 
committee funding. We are not here today debating campaign finance 
reform, as we should be, or the economy or health or education. We are 
not addressing campaign finance reform because we are busy dealing with 
the budgets for committees like the Committee on Government Reform and 
Oversight, where the committee chairman appears bent on orchestrating 
an investigation that will be without credibility. Why will it be 
without credibility, Mr. Speaker? Because, unlike the Senate committee 
dealing with the same subjects, it is going to be partisan. It is going 
to be more about the next election than about oversight. It is going to 
be limited. It is not going to be about the entire House and people 
running for the House or the entire Senate and people campaigning for 
the Senate. It is not going to be about Republicans and Democrats 
running for President, or the Republican as well as the Democratic 
party. Unlike the Senate, it is going to be focused only in a partisan 
manner. It is a committee that is seeking some $16.2 million, Mr. 
Speaker, using $3.2 million to investigate, using as much as $3.8 
million of the base budget to supplement that investigation, and 
reserving some $7.9 million in a slush fund in case it needs more to go 
about its partisan limited attacks. That is $14.9 million, Mr. Speaker, 
potentially for that limited partisan political investigation that will 
be totally without credibility and will be a partial duplication of 
what the Senate is doing. That Senate, Mr. Speaker, will be doing a 
broader, bipartisan, more objective and I suggest more credible job for 
$4.35 million.
  Are the majority afraid, Mr. Speaker, to investigate Republicans and 
Democrats who ran for the House and the way they did it? Or Republicans 
and Democrats who ran for the Senate and the way they did it? Or both 
parties? We need to know what the past practices were. We need a 
thorough, inclusive investigation. We are 100 days into this session, 
Mr. Speaker, and there has been no campaign reform debate. We need a 
credible, valuable investigation that will cover all practices of all 
parties and all candidates. The purpose of the oversight portion of 
that committee, Mr. Speaker, should be to learn from the errors and the 
problems of the past. The goal, Mr. Speaker, should be to use that 
information as we deliberate proposals for campaign finance reform. We 
should be dealing with that business now, Mr. Speaker, so we can then 
address the budget, the economy, health care, economic growth and other 
issues in such a way that the public will not have the perception that 
special interests are taking charge but rather will have the confidence 
that we are doing the people's business.
  Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentleman, and I think, Mr. Speaker, 
we increasingly see the sense of frustration that many of those on the 
Democratic side of the aisle fear right now over the fact that there 
has been no progress in terms of the Republican leadership bringing up 
the issue of campaign finance reform. We are just going to continue to 
speak out every day until they take some action on this issue.
  I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Waxman].
  Mr. WAXMAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, there is an important reason why the House of 
Representatives and the Congress ought to investigate campaign finance 
abuses. Such an investigation is perfectly legitimate. But the one that 
is about to be conducted in the House is not legitimate. That 
investigation by the Government Reform and Oversight Committee is now 
on a path to a very partisan investigation. I believe if we are going 
to look at campaign finance abuses, we ought to look at the whole 
spectrum of how this system supposedly works. We ought to find out what 
has been going on at the White House but we also ought to understand 
what has been going on here in the Congress. The scope of the 
investigation ought to be to look at all of these matters, because the 
only legitimate purpose of an investigation is to lead to campaign 
finance reform.
  It is this system that is driving Members of Congress and candidates 
for President to go out and raise money.

[[Page H1377]]

 They are constantly out raising money and not doing the job of 
representing the people. We need to understand how this system has 
brought us to the point where we are today.
  When we meet tomorrow on the Committee on Government Reform and 
Oversight, we are going to, for the very first time, discuss our 
committee's investigation. We have never had a meeting to discuss it. 
We are going to have a vote on the scope of that investigation. The 
chairman, Congressman Dan Burton, has suggested that the scope be only 
limited to President Clinton.
  Can anyone believe that that is not a blueprint for a partisan 
investigation, a partisan witch-hunt? There is no reason for the 
Congress of the United States to use millions of dollars of taxpayers' 
money to pursue a partisan agenda. The only legitimate investigation, 
in my view, is to try to lead to reform and to understand how to 
accomplish that reform.
  We have another important issue that is going to be coming up in our 
committee tomorrow, and that is the question of issuing subpoenas and 
disclosing confidential information. There has never been a committee 
of the Congress, to my knowledge, that has ever let one person, even 
the chairman, unilaterally issue subpoenas. Subpoenas have always been 
issued either by concurrence with the minority or a vote of the 
committee. The investigation is not the chairman's. The investigation 
is the committee's.

  For that reason, we are proposing that the rules under which our 
committee operates protect the interests and the accountability of the 
Members for this investigation. If we do not issue the subpoenas in 
that committee and it is simply the chairman, how do we answer for it? 
And if the chairman is issuing them alone, how do we know it is not 
just his staff issuing subpoenas? This is important, because when a 
subpoena is issued to someone, they have to go out and hire an 
attorney. They are facing possible criminal sanctions for violation of 
that subpoena. They have got to worry that they are not going to comply 
in a precise way. I cannot tell you how many people have told me if 
they are the subject of a lawsuit, they get a little knot in their 
stomach of anxiety.
  Can you imagine what it means for an ordinary citizen to be issued a 
subpoena by a committee of the Congress on a highly charged political 
investigation as we are now seeing conducted? In the Senate of the 
United States, there is a similar investigation on campaign finance in 
the committee chaired by Senator Thompson. In that committee, he is 
operating under a scope that will look at all campaign finance issues, 
and he is conducting himself under the traditional rules of all 
committees where the chairman issues subpoenas only with the 
concurrence of the minority or a vote of the committee. He is taking 
the same view when it comes to releasing confidential information. Yet 
Congressman Dan Burton, the chairman of our committee, thinks he alone 
should be able to release confidential information whenever he sees 
fit.
  We are talking about releasing, unilaterally, virtually all documents 
given to the committee. These documents were given to the committee, 
not to one member but to the committee itself. And we are talking about 
confidential financial records, trade secrets, medical histories, the 
identity of FBI informants, and privileged attorney-client 
communications. There may be times when such information should be 
released, but that decision should not be in the hands of one person 
alone, even if he is the chairman of the committee.
  I am using this occasion to alert the Members to the fact that a very 
crucial decision is going to be made by the Committee on Government 
Reform and Oversight tomorrow. If we accept the protocol the chairman 
is setting out for us, we are going to be on a path of a partisan 
investigation which serves no legitimate purpose.
  Why do we need to change the rules and let the chairman have this 
power? No one has explained to me why that is the case. By tomorrow, 
the chairman will have unilaterally issued around 100 subpoenas. 
Members of our committee are here today, and they are going to speak on 
this issue, but they are members of the committee and they have never 
been consulted about issuing these subpoenas. People have called me, 
and maybe them, asking how such a subpoena could have been issued. We 
do not know. And we do not think it is right. No one person should have 
that kind of power. Power concentrated in that way is an invitation for 
abuse, and I do not think we ought to give Chairman Burton that option 
which may be too attractive to him and to his staff for them to abuse.
  So when we meet tomorrow, we are going to propose a bipartisan 
investigation. Why should this be partisan? It ought to be something 
done both with the Democrats and the Republicans working together, just 
as in the Senate they are working together under rules that they have 
agreed to on a bipartisan basis to conduct this investigation that they 
are conducting.
  From my point of view, I do not see any reason why there ought to be 
two separate investigations. I do not know why there is a Senate 
investigation and a House investigation and other committees are 
conducting parallel investigations on parts of the campaign finance 
issues. Can you imagine the amount of money that is being spent, in 
fact wasted, when the House is paying for a separate investigation than 
what the Senate is doing?
  We had joint House-Senate investigations in the past. I think it 
makes a lot of sense for us to do one now. But not only is the 
taxpayers' money being wasted in the funding of these investigations, 
but when an agency gets a subpoena from the House and the Senate and 
different other committees, they have got to stop everything they are 
doing and devote staff time and resources to comply with the requests 
for information, and they are wasting money by the multiplicity of 
committees that are asking them to comply.
  Mr. Speaker, I alert my colleagues that now is the time, if we are 
going to have a fair and bipartisan investigation, to get the ground 
rules straight. I hope tomorrow the members of the committee will go 
along with the suggestions that were adopted 99 to 0 in the Senate and 
ought to be the blueprint for our investigation in the House.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WAXMAN. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. MILLER of California. I want to commend the gentleman for the 
position that he and a number of his members on the Democratic side of 
the committee have taken. I only wish it would be taken by the entire 
committee, by the chairman, and by the leadership of the House.
  One of the things that is becoming very clear, as we watch your 
investigations and others get under way with respect to the White House 
and the whole question of campaign finance reform and what happened in 
the last election and the incredible amounts of money, is that we do 
not have a lot of credibility with the public on this issue.

                              {time}  1530

  They really do believe that in some cases the fox is guarding the hen 
house here. The only way that we can start to reestablish that 
credibility is with a complete, comprehensive, and a bipartisan 
investigation.
  One of the finest hours in terms of the public's understanding of the 
Congress and appreciation for the Congress was in the Watergate 
investigations, which were done, in fact, on a bipartisan basis because 
what was at stake was, in fact, the very institution of the Presidency, 
of the separation of powers, and of our democratic institutions.
  I would suggest to the gentleman from California, and I would suggest 
to Chairman Burton, and I would suggest to the Republican leadership 
that no less is at stake here. No less is at stake here because what we 
have seen is, in this last campaign in action, by the White House, by 
the Republican National Committee, by the Dole committee, by the 
Democratic National Committee, by Members of Congress, what we have 
seen is that we have essentially lost the confidence of the American 
people. That becomes very clear in any sampling done of the American 
public.
  There is no substitute for a bipartisan, comprehensive investigation 
into irregularities with respect to this, into the legalities of 
various activities, into the ethics of these activities. If we fail to 
do that, whether or not you can pin

[[Page H1378]]

somebody's hide to the wall or not will not resonate with the public in 
terms of whether they believe we have done the kind of investigation, 
whether we have really cleansed this system of what I believe is such a 
corrosive level of special interest money that it is now distorting the 
processes by which this institution arrives at conclusions and I think 
is undermining our democratic institutions.
  I would hope that when the gentleman starts his hearings tomorrow and 
the committee deliberates this, that there would be some fundamental 
understanding by the Republicans that this is larger than their party 
or our party, this is about the survivability of this institution in 
terms of the confidence of the American public, and that is very 
important.
  That is very important because when this is all said and done, we 
have a lot of other issues where, if we do not have some level of 
confidence with the American public, the decisions about tax relief or 
the balanced budget or Medicare or Social Security were made without 
the corrosive influence of special interest money, then we are going to 
have a lot of trouble in terms of the future of this country and the 
future of this institution being able to make those difficult and tough 
decisions that are so necessary to our future.
  And I just want to commend my colleague from California for his 
tenacity in this argument. I can appreciate that it appears that, this 
is simply prepared to overwhelm you, they are prepared to go on with 
business, as they view, as usual. And I want to thank the gentleman on 
behalf of one that serves in this institution and one who tries to 
represent to his constituents the democratic process in this 
institution for your efforts to try to balance out this investigation 
so that when we are all done, we can be clear with the public that we 
have done our very best, that we have been the fairest we can possibly 
be, that we have been bipartisan and we have arrived at some support 
and conclusion.
  I want to thank the gentleman for his efforts.
  Mr. WAXMAN. I thank the gentleman for his kind words.
  This investigation is too important to play petty politics with. I 
think that the American public is thoroughly cynical about the role of 
special interest money and the way the candidates run after that money. 
We have got to reform the system.
  This is an opportunity for us to understand the system, where it has 
been abused, where illegal actions have taken place, if any. But there 
are a lot of legal actions, as we all know, within the campaign finance 
area now, particularly with the opening of loopholes for soft money and 
independent expenditures, that are perfectly legal. Some of the most 
scandalous activities, I think, are some of the most legal activities 
in the campaign finance area.
  The Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, spoke to a group the other 
day, and he said that he wants a thorough investigation about whether a 
foreign government is trying to influence American elections. How can 
you have an investigation about whether foreign governments may be 
trying to interfere in our elections but only for the Presidency, not 
for the Congress? If that is an important issue, let us put it all on 
the table. There are other members of my committee.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I know the gentleman wants to be kind, but 
I have to say that, you know, the ultimate irony in this whole idea of 
foreign governments is that, and one of the reasons that I believe that 
the chairman of your committee, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. 
Burton], is not willing to open this up to include the House, both 
Democrat and Republican, and the Senate, is because he himself has been 
under investigation.
  There have been allegations, as you know, that he in fact----
  Mr. WAXMAN. Let me reclaim my time and just tell the gentleman, I 
hope he is incorrect, and I want us to work on our committee in a 
bipartisan basis and to go forward together legitimately to understand 
the system, find abuses, hold them out to public scrutiny, learn how to 
reform the system that no one, I think, can defend.
  I know that there are members of my committee here that have taken 
out this opportunity for Special Orders.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WAXMAN. I am not going to yield to the gentleman. I will yield 
back my time to the gentleman from New Jersey and hope that he will 
yield to the other members of the committee that are here and others on 
our side of the aisle who want to express their views.
  But I thank the gentleman for taking this opportunity on the House 
floor so that we can alert the public as to what is going on.
  Mr. PALLONE. What I would like to do, with the indulgence of my 
colleagues, Mr. Speaker, is if I could yield back my time with the 
understanding that the Chair will grant that time to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts [Mr. Tierney].

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