[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 63 (Wednesday, May 14, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H2614-H2615]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              FEC FUNDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore [Mr. Goodlatte]. Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Meehan] is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, the last action on the rule that has 
resulted in this time for the Republican leadership to kind of regroup 
is very important, because that rule was defeated in a bipartisan vote, 
and there is no fundamentally more important reason to defeat that rule 
than the fact that that rule eliminated the need for funding for the 
Federal Election Commission.
  Mr. Speaker, last February, the FEC asked for a supplemental 
appropriation of $1.7 million needed to address the campaign abuses 
from the 1996 campaign, which the Committee on Appropriations granted. 
Up until last night, there was every indication that the appropriation 
would go forward. But last night, the Committee on Rules unilaterally, 
and without warning, left the public hearing and behind closed doors 
deleted the appropriation for the bill. They did this even after the 
gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Maloney], the gentleman from 
Connecticut [Mr. Shays] and myself asked that the specific 
appropriation be included and that certain restrictions be removed.
  The FEC funding was the only funding deleted, and it was no accident. 
This, after all, was the first money that Congress would have 
appropriated to allow investigations into the congressional campaign 
abuses to go forward.
  Make no mistake. What we have here is a total abuse of process, a 
total violation of fundamental fairness. In fact, today we now have the 
majority really committing a double abuse. First, the majority is 
abusing the legislative process which we were counting on to make sure 
that the FEC is able to enforce the law as a small first step to clean 
up our campaign system.
  Second, Mr. Speaker, as a result, they are obstructing the FEC's 
ability to investigate congressional violations of Federal election 
law. This was a hatchet job, and it is especially outrageous in light 
of the Congress's alleged outrage over the 1996 campaign and its 
providing of millions of dollars to investigate politically charged 
investigations, allegations that have been ongoing over the last 
several months.
  It was interesting, because just last week, Michael Kranish from the 
Boston Globe reported that an organization created by former Republican 
Chairman Haley Barbour to boost the GOP's image wrote a fundraising 
plan that relied partly on newly available documents disclosed. The 
organization, a Republican think tank called the National Policy Forum, 
wound up receiving a $2.2 million loan guarantee from a Hong Kong 
business and then failed to repay $500,000. Since that time, the 
Republican National Committee has agreed to return the money.
  When are all of these stories going to stop, and when are we going to 
do something about campaign finance reform? The Federal Election 
Commission, and I just left a hearing before the Subcommittee on 
Commercial and Administrative Law of the Committee on the Judiciary 
where officials from

[[Page H2615]]

the FEC reported before that committee that they cannot even get to 68 
to 70 percent of the cases because of their inadequate funding.
  I am amused by all of the dialog, the political rhetoric, the 
partisan rhetoric on both sides of the aisle about how we need to have 
these investigations by Congress, and the only nonpartisan group that 
is discharged with the responsibility to conduct investigations of 
congressional campaigns is the FEC. The FEC puts in a request for an 
appropriation for $1.7 million in order to get funded, and what does 
the Congress do?
  The Committee on Rules, in the middle of the night, decides we are 
not going to take this up. This action is outrageous, and when the 
Republican majority is meeting to try to figure out, they are all 
meeting, how are we going to get this bill passed, what they ought to 
do is put the request for the FEC funding into the budget. It is 
significantly less money than we have appropriated for literally 
millions of dollars for politically charged investigation. Let us let 
the FEC do its job, and we ought to start with this supplemental 
appropriations bill.
  Now is the time for Congress to put its money where its mouth is and 
provide the FEC funding to investigate congressional abuses.
  Mr. Speaker, it was the ax last night, nothing less than a midnight 
massacre, on the obstruction of the process and the ability of the FEC 
to conduct investigations of the congressional campaigns that were held 
in 1996. It is an outrage.
  I think the fact that this rule was defeated lends credence to the 
fact that we need to make sure that we fund the FEC if we are serious 
about conducting fair, nonpartisan investigations and giving the FEC 
fair enforcement power so that they can do their job. Let us make sure 
we include that funding.

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