[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 95 (Tuesday, July 8, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H4840-H4841]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          LEGISLATION TO EASE IRS BURDEN ON ELECTION OFFICIALS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Gekas] is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, it is not an overstatement to say that our 
system of free elections, which is the envy of the world and the envy 
of the history of civilization, depends a great deal on the volunteer 
election system that we have in manning and womaning the polls, our 
election workers who come from our neighborhoods and who help every 
single election day to put through a process which, as I say, is the 
envy of the world. Yet over the last several years we have found a 
subtle threat to these free elections. I say again I am not overstating 
it. What has happened is that the IRS has mandated that even these 
workers who only work once or twice a year, who most of the time are 
senior citizens who have long since retired and are only helping out in 
their precincts because they have been requested to and because they 
want to help out, they are being subjected to the same tax regulations 
as the high-earning citizens of our communities.
  A long time ago the Congress took a step to try to help the 
situation, to say that if a person earns less than $1,000 a

[[Page H4841]]

year, they would not have to file FICA, the Social Security mandated 
provisions. What my legislation does is to take it a step further and 
to say that those who are earning $1,000 or less, and most of those 
people would be found in the category of these election workers, if 
they earn $1,000 or less not only would they not have to comply with 
Social Security as is already the law, but now they would not have to 
file the W-4's in response to the W-2's and that the local election 
officials would not have to bother with that if they are reasonably 
certain that the people they are employing for these 1- or 2-day-a-year 
jobs would not be earning more than the $1,000 that would qualify them 
for the Social Security in the first place.
  This is a problem for every single Member of the House and of the 
Senate. The election workers are the people who make our system work. 
The less we bother them with details that are meaningless, the better 
off we are and the better off they are. They will be more easily 
recruited for these positions on the election precinct basis and we can 
be certain that the free elections of which we are so proud can be 
guaranteed.
  So I am offering the legislation. I have the cosponsorship of the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Frost], who is well aware of the program that 
we are trying to inject into the system. Now I invite the cosponsorship 
of others. It is a simple in my judgment technical amendment to conform 
to another technical amendment that already is on the books that would 
exempt our senior citizen election officials from the FICA portions, 
now we want to exclude them from all the paperwork that has been so 
burdensome to them and to the county officials who have to implement 
the election laws.

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