[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 92 (Thursday, June 26, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H4819]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            H.R. 1494, THE APPREHENSION OF TAINTED MONEY ACT

  (Mr. GEKAS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, I wish the gentleman from New Jersey had 
remained so that he would be able to assert that the provision that he 
was talking about in the inheritance tax portion of the tax bill was 
recommended for the package by the Democrats, the Clinton 
administration Secretary of the Treasury. And we are wondering whether 
or not Senator Kennedy or Senator Rockefeller or which Member of the 
Senate has approved of that provision. So we welcome debate with the 
gentleman from New Jersey about the source of that provision.
  In the meantime, we remember, do we not, when the Democratic National 
Committee declared that some moneys that they had received, thousands 
of dollars from a convicted drug dealer, were illegal contributions to 
the Democratic National Committee. We were all shocked, not just by 
that but by the assertion that the Democratic National Committee was 
going to return this money to the convicted drug dealer. That is more 
shocking than anything.
  We have introduced legislation to cause those kinds of declarations 
to result in illegal moneys being put in escrow to see if the taxpayers 
can recover some of this money for good purposes, not for drug 
purposes.
   Mr. Speaker, once again, I would like to draw the attention of this 
body and the Nation to an absurdity in Federal election law--an 
absurdity that is causing criminals and alleged wrongdoers to be 
rewarded with thousands of dollars in tainted money.
  Federal election law requires political committees that have received 
illegal campaign funds to return that money to the illegal donors who 
gave it. This means that the very people who inject tainted money into 
our campaign finance system get that money back--if their wrongdoing is 
discovered.
  I have introduced legislation to correct this absurdity.
  The Apprehension of Tainted Money Act (H.R. 1494) would tie up 
illegal campaign contributions that a political committee would 
otherwise return to donors and give Federal officials a chance to 
investigate. Specifically, if a political committee were returning 
illegal, or certain other campaign contributions, it would have to 
transfer this tainted money to an escrow account at the Federal 
Election Commission. Funds in the escrow account could be used by the 
FEC or the Justice Department to pay appropriate fines and penalties 
under our election or criminal laws.
  There is a special urgency and importance behind my message today 
because of two events happening next week.
  First, June 30 marks the date on which the Democrat National 
Committee long ago promised to return the tainted money it received 
during the 1996 election cycle. This money was used by the DNC in the 
election, so justice is not done by returning the tainted money at this 
late date. But to add injury to injury--a mere insult would be a 
blessing here--this tainted money is going back to the illegal 
contributors who gave it! Having influenced a Federal election and 
perpetrated a fraud on the American people, these criminals are getting 
back the tools of their trade!
  Second, July 4 is the date next week which President Clinton made a 
target in his State of the Union Address for Congress to get campaign 
finance reform legislation to him for signature. As everyone knows, the 
ambitious reforms have hit many stumbling blocks, and they are not 
likely to pass. Therefore, modest, incremental reforms like this one--
which only tries to assure that campaign finance laws are enforced--
must move forward.
  I introduced my tainted money bill on April 30. The House Judiciary 
Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law held a hearing on 
this bill on May 14. We took testimony from the Federal Election 
Commission, the Department of Justice, election law practitioners, and 
an ethics and campaign finance watchdog organization. In light of their 
very instructive testimony, we have revised the bill, improving it in a 
variety of ways.
  At the appropriate time, I will offer my revision as a substitute for 
the original language of the bill because of the many improvements the 
revision makes. Among them, the revised bill extends its coverage to 
illegal soft money contributions. The revised version also gives the 
Federal Election Commission disgorgement authority so that the FEC can 
prevent unjust enrichment of campigan contributors who would receive a 
return of tainted money.
  The revised bill ensures that `innocent' contributors--those who have 
not violated election law or who have mistakenly violated the law in a 
trivial way--are not subjected to public embarrassment or stigma.
  The revised version also improves the ``escrow trigger'' so that more 
illegal contributions go into escrow, while only a small number of 
innocent contributions would be delayed by return through the escrow 
process. The ``automatic return trigger,'' which assures that agencies 
cannot keep money in escrow forever, is changed so that the Federal 
Election Commission and Department of Justice can keep investigations 
confidential if prudence requires it.
  There are several other changes that improve the legislation further. 
I will happily make available to any member a copy of the revision and 
documentation of the changes.
  As I have said before, there should be no delay in moving this 
legislation forward. Tainted money is out there right now awaiting 
return to the people who violated our laws in giving it. The 
Apprehension of Tainted Money Act (H.R. 1494) would simply stop this 
practice and advance the uncontroversial goal of enforcing current 
campaign finance law.

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