[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 118 (Tuesday, September 9, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H7014]
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 21, 1997, the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Allen] is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ALLEN. Madam Speaker, I want to talk about campaign finance 
reform this morning. I want to say that campaign finance reform does 
not have to be a partisan issue. It is becoming a partisan issue, but 
it does not have to be. The question before this Congress is whether we 
are going to spend millions of dollars and months of time investigating 
and never get to the step of actually doing some legislating.
  I believe that we came here to legislate reform and that we ought to 
do it. Investigations, millions of dollars and months of hearings, are 
not enough.
  I said that campaign finance reform does not have to be a partisan 
issue. The freshmen have proved that. The gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. 
Hutchinson], a Republican freshman, and I from Maine, have been 
cochairing a bipartisan freshman task force composed of six Republicans 
and six Democrats.
  After 5 months of hearings, after 5 months of negotiations, after 5 
months of consultations with experts from outside this Congress, with 
people who represented organizations, who participated in the 1996 
election in one way or another, with advocates ranging from those who 
want to take all limits off campaign spending to those who want to put 
more limits on candidate spending, after all of that activity, we came 
up with a proposal, with a bill. It is H.R. 2183. It is the bipartisan 
Campaign Integrity Act of 1997. It is truly bipartisan.
  What does this act do? Well, quite simply, it takes the biggest of 
the big money out of politics. All of the hearings that are going on on 
the House side and on the Senate side involve what is called soft 
money. These are the $500,000, the $1 million contributions to the 
national parties, and they did not used to be able to be used for 
television ads, but that is what they are used for today; that is what 
they were used for in 1996. We need to stop that practice. We need to 
ban soft money.
  The Campaign Integrity Act does that, H.R. 2183. We take the biggest 
of the big money out of politics by banning soft money. No Federal 
candidate, no Member of Congress, no Member of the Senate could raise 
soft money either for the national party committees or for State party 
committees.
  We also make sure that we speed up the process of candidate 
disclosure so those of us running for office would have to report our 
contributions on a monthly basis and do so electronically.
  Third, we make sure that people will not be able to run third party 
ads and not tell the public who they are. So there would have to be a 
filing with the Clerk of the House and with the Secretary of the Senate 
to make sure that third party independent groups identify who they are 
and identify how much money they are spending.
  As I said, this act is truly bipartisan. The question is, when will 
the Republican leadership of this House allow a vote on the bipartisan 
Campaign Integrity Act? When will it happen? We are not asking for a 
vote next year, we are not asking that this issue once again be put off 
sometime into the indefinite future. We are saying, act now, do not 
just investigate now.
  This issue will not go away. The American people will not let this 
issue go away, and this House should not go home, this House should not 
adjourn without having a vote on a bill to ban soft money.
  I suggest to my colleagues that H.R. 2183, the bipartisan Campaign 
Integrity Act of 1997, is that bill. We need a vote on that bill and 
all we ask from the Republican leadership is a vote on this House 
floor.

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