[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 119 (Wednesday, September 10, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H7183-H7184]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               JOIN IN SUPPORT OF CAMPAIGN INTEGRITY ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Montana [Mr. Hill] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, recent campaign finance revelations only make 
me more convinced than ever that now is the time to bring 
accountability back to the political system, and I want to urge my 
colleagues tonight to make campaign finance reform changes now and make 
it a reality now by joining with those who are cosponsoring the 
bipartisan Campaign Integrity Act.
  I have heard a lot of Members take the floor, urging Congress and the 
leadership to bring campaign finance reform to the floor this fall; and 
I am one of those that join in asking our leadership to do that. But I 
would say to those that have taken the floor urging campaign finance 
reform that they ought to show the sincerity of their commitment by 
joining with those of us who worked to build the bipartisan Campaign 
Integrity Act.
  This is an effort that resulted from a task force of freshmen, 
Republican freshmen and Democrat freshmen, who met together over a 
period of time and held hearings and developed a bipartisan effort; and 
I would like tonight to just address briefly for the House what those 
reforms would do.
  First of all, and I think most important, it would ban soft money. I 
want to remind my colleagues what soft money is. Soft money is 
corporate contributions, it is labor union contributions, and it is 
large contributions that arise from individuals that are given to the 
national parties.
  What is particularly insidious about soft money is, first of all, 
there is no limit on where it can come from or in what amount that it 
can be raised. But probably even more concern arises out of how soft 
money gets used, or at least was used in the last political cycle.
  Many of us, I think, can recall the last series of campaigns in which 
there was probably more than ever negative political campaign 
advertising. And one of the reasons for that was that soft money can 
only be used for issue advocacy, and more often than not, it is used 
under the term ``issue advocacy'' to attack an incumbent. That led to 
more negative campaigning in the last cycle than perhaps we have ever 
seen.
  This bipartisan effort would ban soft money going to the national 
political parties. It would ban soft money from corporations, it would 
ban soft money coming from labor unions and it would ban soft money 
coming from individuals.
  That is not all that it does. It also requires greater disclosure, 
greater disclosure from those people who in the last campaign cycle, 
for example, did independent advertising, advocating issues that really 
were targeted at either unseating an incumbent or defeating someone, 
but under the name ``issue advocacy'' ran negative political campaigns.
  It would require those organizations that buy broadcast advertising, 
radio

[[Page H7184]]

and television advertising, to disclose that to the House of 
Representatives so the citizens would be fully informed about where 
that money came from and where that money would go.
  But banning soft money to the national parties is not all that we 
should do. I believe that we also have to look at where the source of 
soft money comes from, independent of the parties; and that is why I am 
also a cosponsor of the Paycheck Protection Act.
  The Paycheck Protection Act, Mr. Speaker, would prohibit employee 
wages or dues from being withheld or used for political purposes 
without the written consent of the wage earner.
  Why is that important? Today, literally millions of wage earners are 
having their paychecks reduced, with the money going to political 
purposes over which they exercise no control. And what the Paycheck 
Protection Act would say is that that money cannot be taken from their 
paycheck without first getting their written consent to use it for 
political purposes. It can be used for other purposes, collective-
bargaining purposes, for information purposes, but, Mr. Speaker, it 
could not be used for political purposes.
  This is one of the largest areas of soft money abuse that is 
occurring today.
  So, Mr. Speaker, for those who have taken the floor and have said, 
let us take up campaign finance reform, I would say to them join with 
the bipartisan group that are sponsoring the Campaign Integrity Act and 
who is sponsoring the Paycheck Protection Act.

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