[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 119 (Wednesday, September 10, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H7185-H7192]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM: A DEMOCRATIC PERSPECTIVE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Allen] is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, we have heard during some of the 5-minutes a 
bit earlier about the topic of campaign finance reform. I want to put 
that on our agenda tonight for a conversation among Members on the 
Democratic side of the aisle. I want to begin by drawing a contrast. 
This Congress is spending millions of dollars and months of activity to 
investigate alleged abuses in the 1996 election. The question that 
people across this country need to ask is will this Congress not just 
investigate, but will this Congress legislate, will we start to do 
something about the problems of our campaign finance system?
  I believe those problems are clear and apparent. We know what they 
are. Those problems are highlighted and I think many of us in this 
Chamber could come up with a campaign finance reform bill. The problem 
would be that those bills would differ greatly from one another and in 
fact they do. We have over 80 campaign finance reform bills in this 
legislature, in this House right now.
  So the question is, how can we come together? How can we reach a 
conclusion and get to some success? One of the problems in our campaign 
finance system, one of the problems, is that soft money goes to the 
national parties in unlimited amounts, it goes from corporations, it 
goes from unions, and it goes from wealthy individuals. There are no 
limits to the soft money that can be contributed to the national 
parties. I will come back in a moment to the bipartisan freshman bill 
which addresses soft money and a couple of other matters, because I do 
believe in that freshman bill. I think that it is the major bipartisan 
effort in this particular Congress.
  I want to say at the beginning, this issue is becoming a partisan 
issue and Democrats are rising up and demanding that we have a vote on 
campaign finance reform before we go home in the fall. But it does not 
have to be a partisan issue. In fact, the freshmen showed on a 
bipartisan basis with six Republican freshman and six Democratic 
freshmen that we could develop a proposal that would cross party lines 
and represent significant reform.
  Let us step back just for a moment and look at what happened in the 
last cycle: $240 million in soft money contributions were made to the 
national parties. The way that money is used now is different from the 
way it was planned when the law was first introduced. When this law was 
first introduced, this money, soft money, was to go to party-building 
activities, the kinds of activities that involve grassroots activities, 
that encourage the participation of the people across this country. I 
know that during this last campaign, I had a letter from one of my 
constituents, he sent me a $20 check, and he said, ``I hope when you 
get to Washington, you don't forget the people from the grassroots who 
sent you there.'' A $20 check.
  I believe that soft money, $100,000, $500,000, million-dollar 
contributions diminish the role of every small contributor and every 
voter. If we look at what is happening to our campaign system in this 
country, there is too much money in politics, the amount of money is 
growing too fast, and this institution is becoming more and more 
affected by money. We have to change that. We cannot do it all at once, 
but we need to turn back the clock and start to make a difference. I 
think that is what we are here for tonight. I am happy to talk about 
some of the proposed solutions.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. KIND. Just to pick up on a point the gentleman was making a 
little earlier, is that not really the crux of the issue, and why we 
are working so hard in the freshman class at least to enact campaign 
finance reform? It is about the influence of money in the political

[[Page H7186]]

process, the fact that there is too much in it. All of us Members know 
what is going on around here. The system stinks. It is run amuck. There 
is too much money in the political process.
  Back home in western Wisconsin, the area that I represent, you talk 
to anyone on the main streets in any of the small towns in western 
Wisconsin, they all feel the same way, that there is too much money in 
the political process and it influences what takes place out here, the 
decision making process, what the agenda is ultimately going to be and 
the final decisions that are ultimately reached.
  The gentleman talks about his contributor back in Maine who sent the 
$20 check with the proviso to not forget about the average person, the 
common person. Again, that is really at the heart of this issue right 
now.
  I have been a proud Member of the bipartisan freshman task force 
these past 8 months working with my distinguished colleague from Maine. 
It has not been easy. There has been no issue that has been more 
frustrating, I think, to work on in this session of Congress than try 
to enact a piece of finance reform which can receive some bipartisan 
support. I think the legislation that we are reporting out, that we are 
offering as a proposed change to what is going on right now, is good. 
It does take care of a lot of the poison pills that both parties 
wrestle with, which are basically nonstoppers in this debate and is 
something that we all hope right now since we put in so much work in a 
bipartisan fashion that we will at least get a hearing from the House 
leadership, the majority party, willing to schedule this for the debate 
and for the vote and the ultimate decision on the House floor, so we 
have a better understanding who here, what Members in this institution, 
with the proud history and the proud tradition that the U.S. Congress 
has, where each individual Member stands on the need to get big money 
out of the political process.
  I do not think there is any bigger issue that we should be dealing 
with in this session of Congress, but I am fearful that time is running 
out. We have just a very short period of time left in this session, in 
this year, before we adjourn in the fall. Next year is going to be 
another political campaign season. Lord knows, it is going to be very 
difficult to try to enact any type of campaign finance reform at that 
time, with both parties and individual Members going home to campaign 
in their respective districts. The year after that, we are already 
starting to engage in the Presidential race in 2000, so I am not too 
optimistic that we are going to be able to take this issue on head-on. 
I think the time is now.
  The excuses we are hearing daily, but the people back home do not 
want to hear the excuses anymore. Sure, we can investigate, sure, we 
can explore these issues of possible violations in the last campaign. 
As a former prosecutor myself, we hold people responsible when they do 
violate the rules and do violate the laws, but there is no excuse to 
wait and postpone what I view as a very important issue in this fall, 
in this session. I, along with a lot of the other Members, are calling 
on the majority leadership to give us our day on the House floor. After 
all, is that not what democracy is all about?

                              {time}  1845

  Mr. ALLEN. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from 
California.
  Mr. MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding and for 
arranging for this special order where we would have an opportunity to 
talk about campaign finance reform, since we are precluded from talking 
about this in the regular order of business because of the reluctance 
or complete unwillingness of the Republican leadership to schedule this 
vote.
  I want to commend the gentleman from California [Mr. Allen] and the 
gentleman from Wisconsin and your colleagues, on both sides of the 
aisle, who worked on this bipartisan reform.
  I think one of the important highlights of the reform that the 
gentleman put together was to show that, in fact, it could be done on a 
bipartisan fashion. Historically, when the Democrats are running the 
House, we reported out campaign finance reform. It was reported out of 
the House and sent to the Senate and died. It was reported out of the 
House at one point and sent to the President and President Bush vetoed 
the bill. The theory was, as the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Kind] 
said, the advantage had to immediately go one place or another.
  I think what the freshman task force has shown is, in fact, we can 
achieve legislation that cleans up this absolutely unacceptable finance 
system that we have today, and it can be done with agreement between 
Republicans and Democrats on how that can be done.
  At a minimum, that ought to be allowed to be heard in this, the 
people's House. The notion that we now have is essentially one 
individual, the Speaker, standing in the way of the people of the 
United States being given a chance to hear a debate and to resolve some 
questions about campaign finance reform and about a current system that 
is corroding and corrupting the principles of democracy.
  Mr. Kind is quite correct. This is changing the way we make 
decisions. It was not by accident that the tax bill that we just passed 
was late at night, loaded up with a number of provisions that go to 
benefit people who had made huge soft money contributions, huge soft 
money contributions, and they were put into a bill that none of us knew 
about until after the fact.
  That is what is happening when people give parties, give individuals 
hundreds of thousands of dollars, they expect something in return. It 
is just a simple fact. And that soft money is now becoming inconsistent 
with our acting in a democratic fashion about the issues that confront 
this country and confront our constituents.
  I have to tell the gentleman that I think that as this issue 
progresses, as we continue to demand a vote by this House on these 
issues, that hopefully part of that process will be to give air to the 
proposal that the gentleman has brought forward to this House, because 
it does, as the gentleman points out, contain a ban on soft money. I 
think it is terribly important.
  That soft money is overwhelming everything we try to do in our 
districts. You can go out and run a grass-roots campaign, and go out 
and shake every hand and knock on every door, go to every rotary and 
Lions Club, meet with all the business organizations, and what happens, 
a couple of weeks out from the election, boom, you get hit with a media 
campaign, and it is about soft money and it is about characterizing 
your record, and it undoes your relationship with your constituents. It 
puts mistrust in, it characterizes you in a negative fashion, and you 
have no ability to fight back.
  The old campaigner, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] is here, 
he was one of the authors of the campaign reform that came out of 
Watergate. Those limits, that have in fact worked, have been 
overwhelmed by soft money.
  I want to again commend the gentleman for this special order, for all 
of the time the gentleman has spent in hammering this out, and I want 
to thank our colleagues on the other side of the aisle that tonight 
spoke out in favor of the gentleman's legislation and in favor of a ban 
on soft money. Hopefully, more of them will do that, and we will 
eventually have a vote to end the influence of soft money in politics.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. ALLEN. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin, 
Mr. Obey. The gentleman has been around for a while, and has been 
through several periods of reform.
  Mr. OBEY. Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I simply wanted 
to take this opportunity to again congratulate the gentleman personally 
for his leadership in this area, also to congratulate my two Wisconsin 
colleagues, Mr. Kind and Mr. Johnson, and the others who are here and 
the others who participated in developing this proposal.
  I think it is incredibly sad that the original intention of the 
reforms back in the midseventies have now been so subverted by both 
misguided Supreme Court decisions and clever lawyering on the part of 
people who want to influence politics.
  The Supreme Court a long time ago passed a one man-one vote decision. 
One of the reasons that Congress passed campaign finance reform 
legislation in the seventies was because we wanted to see to it that 
the one man-one vote philosophy was adhered to,

[[Page H7187]]

and that the man who had the money would not, in fact, be able to 
overwhelm the voice of the man who did not have the money, whether it 
be a candidate or an average citizen.
  That is, I think, going to have to be at the core of any changes that 
we make. When we passed that bill a long time ago, we thought that what 
we were doing was passing legislation which would limit to $1,000, 
period, what any individual could give, whether he was a man of 
moderate means or a millionaire. And we thought that the most that any 
organized group would be able to give would be $5,000, and that that 
would both be on the top of the table, not under the table, fully 
reported, fully disclosed.
  Instead, today we have a system in which one person in my State has 
been able to contribute more than $1 million to the political 
operations of the Speaker, and if it were not for the aggressive 
actions of reporters, no one would ever have known where that money was 
coming from.
  I think we have to have, as in any reform effort, as the core of the 
effort, the effort of the gentleman and his colleagues to severely 
limit or eliminate soft money, and I hope we can also add to that other 
provisions that are necessary so that we end these phony independent 
expenditures, we end these phony issue advocacy campaigns, that are 
really efforts to get around the law.
  We also, I think, have to educate the public they cannot expect 
candidates to be financed through immaculate conception. There are too 
many people that want to see us not accept any private money, but they 
do not want to support the principles of public financing, either.
  I think people need to understand that campaigns are going to cost 
money and that they have to be financed, they should be financed in the 
most open possible way, which also makes certain that whether you are 
giving individually or collectively, that wealthy people cannot have an 
undue influence in American politics. I congratulate all of you for 
taking the lead in trying to be part of bringing that about.

  Mr. ALLEN. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey]. As the 
gentleman well knows, there are a number of bills out there, and a 
number of different approaches to this particular set of problems, and 
certainly the freshmen are not saying there is only one answer. In 
fact, we are even saying that the bill that we have drafted is only a 
partial step toward more complete campaign finance reform, but it is a 
step in that direction.
  Mr. OBEY. If the gentleman would yield further, I would simply agree 
with the gentleman from California. If you want exhibit A of why 
campaign finance reform is needed, it is the tax bill that just passed 
this place. There would not have been any $50 billion gift to the 
tobacco industry with the lights out. There would not have been any 
spectacular giveaway to Amway Corp. You would not have had those items.
  So it is not that we are just interested in this for academic 
reasons. We are interested in this because without it, we cannot make 
things better in this country for working people.
  Mr. ALLEN. I just want to also say that the gentleman from Wisconsin 
[Mr. Obey], for those who may not know, has been in that chair almost 
all day today; he has been in this House chamber dealing with the 
Labor-HHS appropriations bill. The fact that the gentleman would stay 
here in this chair into the evening to speak out on this issue is 
something I want to commend the gentleman for and say we admire his 
leadership, and we know he is going to be back in that chair again 
tomorrow.
  We will try to keep this going with Members from Wisconsin. I would 
like to yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Johnson].
  Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the yielding, and 
I, too, appreciate the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] staying here 
tonight and adding to our voices, because a veteran voice is needed 
here with the freshmen voices people are hearing.
  We may think we are speaking to an empty House, but we know that 
across the country people are listening. People have been waiting for 
this word, and the word is rising up, not just here in Washington but 
across the country, that campaign finance reform is the order of the 
day.
  People want to hear about it, people want to know about it, and I am 
especially pleased as a member of the freshman class that we are able 
to offer something. If it is my understanding, we have at least one 
promise. We have a promise to be heard in a committee; is that correct?
  Mr. ALLEN. That is correct. The gentleman from California [Mr. 
Thomas] of the Committee on House Oversight has stated publicly that he 
will hold a hearing on our bill. We just need to encourage the 
gentleman to hold it this year, and not in 1998.
  I think that this session is drawing toward a close, and that is why 
we have Democrats here tonight, and Democrats standing up during the 
day, to say to the folks on the other side and say to the American 
people that this issue will not go away.
  The American people care about this issue. They are not going to let 
it go and we cannot let it go. We have to do something about it, and we 
need to do something about it in 1997.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. I thank the gentleman. We do have the 
promise, and I appreciate that.
  The gentleman talked about what happened in Maine, and you have done 
a lot in campaign finance reform in Maine, California, and Florida. We 
have heard from their voices tonight, and Wisconsin. We know that 
people back in the States from different backgrounds are working 
together, tackling a problem together. It is not unusual.
  In Washington, I think a lot of people have the perception that 
partisan conflict is the preferred order of business. So if you listen 
to what people think are the established rules that we have to follow 
in Washington, one of the rules may be that freshmen are not supposed 
to tackle big issues.
  You hear that elected officials are not supposed to get serious about 
reforming the way that we pay for campaigns. After all, are we not 
concerned about reelection?
  We are. This freshman class I think is different. We are not bound by 
old Washington ways. When we looked at the current campaign system, 
when those of us who came through it for the first time had to 
participate in it, we realized it is badly broken. Together we set out 
to fix it. We may be new to Congress, but we know that too much money 
is spent in political campaigns. Everybody knows that.
  Real people just feel they are losing their voice in elections. We 
tonight are talking about a bipartisan approach on behalf of the 
freshmen, introducing a bill that takes aim at the system's largest 
problems, but not every problem.
  It occurred to us when we first met as a freshman class and we talked 
about this when we got together in our orientation session, what can we 
look at, and we introduced then, from months of work, a bill that takes 
aim at the problems.
  It does not touch every new answer of the system. It is not a big 
bill. It may not include every reform I want, it may not include every 
reform that the Republican colleagues want, but it is a giant leap 
toward bringing sanity back to the way we run campaigns.
  It is a bipartisan bill, first of all. It would ban the millions of 
dollars in soft money used to dodge and evade the campaign finance laws 
on the books that were illustrated earlier in the soft money. If people 
did not understand, I think the words of the gentleman from Wisconsin 
[Mr. Obey] tonight gave them a clear example.
  The bipartisan freshman bill would demand accountability from the 
faceless outside groups who attempt to influence campaigns, so that 
when people see the commercials on TV, that they are not quite sure who 
they are from, but they know who they are about or who they are 
against, this bill would demand accountability.

                              {time}  1900

  It would raise the bar for candidate disclosure so people can 
identify where exactly a candidate gets his or her support. The reforms 
that we came through with are agreeable to freshmen in both parties and 
senior Members. They are responsible, they are workable within the 
current political climate. That is important.
  While I have the opportunity, I want to commend my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle who earlier joined in this campaign finance 
reform

[[Page H7188]]

effort. The easiest thing to do, obviously, is to do nothing, to say we 
are going to do something. But we have a promise, as the gentleman 
pointed out, that we will get a hearing. We have stepped forward and 
taken a stand.
  Let me finish by saying, I think the time, as has been mentioned 
before, is now to bring campaigns back to basics and back to people, so 
that they care again about going to the voting booths. We have a very 
small window of opportunity to act, and we should act right away. Our 
freshman bipartisan campaign finance reform is the best way to begin to 
fix a broken system.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for his 
remarks.
  I yield now to the gentleman from Florida, [Mr. Boyd], one of the 
distinguished Members of the Freshman Task Force.
  Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Maine [Mr. 
Allen] for giving us the opportunity tonight to join in this colloquy 
on campaign finance reform.
  I want to start by acknowledging some people that got us here. That 
is, the freshman class presidents: the gentleman from Florida, [Mr. Jim 
Davis], who is our freshman class president on the Democrat side; and 
the gentleman from Missouri, [Mr. Kenny Hulshof], on the Republican 
side. They made a commitment and were instructed by their Members to 
work on this issue, and appointed the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Tom 
Allen] on the Democratic side and the gentleman from Arkansas, [Mr. Asa 
Hutchinson] to help the task force to work on this issue. I am proud to 
be a member of that task force.
  I go back home and people say, ``Boyd, why are you working on 
campaign finance reform? Why is it important to you?'' I say, well, 
there are two reasons. One is I just came out of a nasty campaign. 
During that campaign I saw the effects of soft money pouring into 
congressional campaigns and how it distorted the campaign, at times. So 
I think that is the first reason.
  The second reason is, I believe that the longer we stay in Congress 
the more calloused we become to the system, the campaign finance system 
we live under here. We become calloused to the blight that it gives our 
image, this institution, this institution, the U.S. House of 
Representatives, the congressional body of the most powerful Nation of 
the world, which has relatively low marks in terms of public support 
compared to years past. A lot of it has to do with the tremendous 
amount of money that is pouring into the campaign system.
  Mr. Speaker, as we stay here a long time and we get our committee 
chairmanships and we get our leadership positions, we learn how to use 
the system better. We become calloused to the bad effect that it has on 
our democratic form of government.
  So those are the reasons that I feel very strongly that we ought to 
do something about campaign finance reform. As 1 of 72 new Members of 
the U.S. House, I was glad to be part of the task force.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a bipartisan task force. I heard the 
distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Solomon], say earlier this evening, just before we 
adjourned he was talking about ethics legislation, and he talked about 
bipartisanship and how important bipartisanship was going to be to 
advancing reasonable, responsible ethics reform.
  The same holds true with campaign finance reform. We cannot come out 
here and fight with these close numbers and ever accomplish anything. 
We have to work together. The gentleman from Maine and the gentleman 
from Arkansas, [Mr. Hutchinson], got our groups together, and we looked 
at all of the issues. The issues we could not agree upon we sort of 
laid off the table.
  We heard from many different kinds of groups during that process. I 
thought it was a stroke of genius the way the Members set that up. We 
heard from the Democratic National Committee, the Republican National 
Committee, the National Broadcasters, the National Right-To-Life, Bi-
Pac, the League of Women Voters, environmental groups, labor groups. We 
heard from all kinds of groups who have a vested interest in this 
process.
  After we heard from those groups, we determined the things that we 
could agree upon and the things we could not agree upon. We laid off 
the table and removed from the table those things we could not agree 
upon, and we have come to the conclusion that the removal of soft money 
from this system is the one thing that we can do that will best reform 
the current system that we have.
  Is the bill, House Resolution 2183, which is called the Bipartisan 
Campaign Integrity Act, is it perfect? No, it is not perfect. I would 
submit that there are very few perfect pieces of legislation that ever 
come out of this congressional body. But it is a bipartisan proposal 
that will eliminate soft money and will go a long way towards cleaning 
up the campaign finance problems that we have in this Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to implore the leaders of this body, who I think 
do a good job overall. We are experiencing some bumpy times here in the 
last few days, but I think generally the body has been going in a very 
positive direction in the 6 or 8 months that we have been here as 
freshmen. I want to implore the leadership to address this issue.
  We have been promised, the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Allen] and the 
gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson] extracted from the Republican 
leadership a promise to have this House Resolution 2183 heard. I want 
to implore the leadership to give us a chance to have it heard. If we 
can make it better and pass it off this floor, let us do it.
  I want again to thank the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Allen] and the 
gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson] for the work that they have 
done, and I want to encourage the people back home to call their Member 
of Congress and encourage them to get involved in this campaign finance 
reform, and let us get it done.
  Mr. ALLEN. I thank the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Boyd] for all his 
help on that task force. He did a great job. Now we simply have to keep 
pushing this issue as hard as we can until we get the kind of hearing 
that I think we all agree we are entitled to.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ALLEN. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. McGOVERN. First of all, I want to commend the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Boyd] for his very eloquent statement, and I want to thank 
my colleague, the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Allen], for organizing this 
special order today, and commend all of my colleagues who have spoken 
so passionately on behalf of this issue.
  There are many different campaign finance reform proposals that have 
been introduced in this House. Most of them, quite frankly, if they 
came to a vote on the House floor here, we all could support. Some of 
them only deal with a portion of a problem, some of them are more 
comprehensive. But most of them, quite frankly, would improve this 
broken system that we are now faced with.
  But the frustrating thing for all of us here is that we cannot get a 
vote. We cannot get a day on the House floor where we can debate this 
issue and where we can vote on it. It is frustrating, because the 
American people want us to fix this system.
  Forgive me if I do not get too excited about the promises that have 
been made about hearings and about taking action on various bills. We 
have heard and we have been given promises in the past. We have even 
seen handshakes on this issue. The fact of the matter is, we have 
nothing to show for it.
  The Speaker of the House has not allowed there to be a vote on 
campaign finance reform in this House. I think that is very 
unfortunate. When I go home to Massachusetts, to my district, whether I 
am speaking before a town hall gathering or a business group or a group 
of senior citizens, I always get the same question: When are you going 
to clean up the current campaign finance system? When are the hearings 
going to end? When are the investigations going to end? When are you 
going to actually do something and fix the system?
  My response is always the same. That is, I would like to do it right 
now. I would like to do it yesterday. I would like to do it several 
months ago.
  The President has indicated that he would sign a campaign finance 
reform bill if it was presented to him. But the problem is right here. 
The problem is

[[Page H7189]]

getting the leadership of this House, the Republican leadership of this 
House, to schedule a vote and to allow us to have that debate, and to 
allow us to send a bill to the President.
  I have no doubt that if we could bring a bill to the floor tomorrow 
that really reformed this system, it would pass. People who would vote 
against it, quite frankly, I think would be ridiculed back in their 
districts. I think that is one of the reasons why we do not see a vote 
coming up.
  I just want to join with my colleagues here in making another plea to 
the Speaker of the House, as we have done over and over and over again: 
Give us our day. Allow us to have a vote, up or down, on real campaign 
finance reform. If he does not want to bring a comprehensive package to 
the floor, at least let us vote to ban soft money. There are not too 
many people nowadays who will stand up and defend soft money.
  Let us bring that to the floor. Let us ban that. Let us restore some 
public confidence. Let us eliminate some of the cynicism out there. We 
could do that very easily. We could do it in a way that would impact 
the very next elections.
  I want to commend my colleague, the gentleman from Maine, for 
allowing me to participate in this special order, and I hope that the 
next time we talk about this issue it will be to rejoice in the fact 
that we have been given a commitment, a date certain, when we can vote 
on this issue.
  Mr. ALLEN. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. McGovern] 
for all his help on this issue. He certainly makes a good point. We 
would not have to be here in the evening speaking about this issue if 
we had a full-fledged debate on the floor of this House during the day. 
That is what we are asking.
  It is real simple. We have only 6 or 7 or 8 weeks left in this 
session, depending on how we count and how long it takes. I think a lot 
of us feel that this issue will not go away and we should not go away, 
we need to deal with it during this year in this House.
  Since we will keep it in the family here, I am happy to yield to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Tierney].
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts 
for setting up this opportunity to speak on this issue tonight. We are 
hoping that those who are watching are going to be able to hear a 
message that we are unable to bring to the floor, because, to be 
partisan for a minute frankly, the Republican Party that does set the 
agenda in this House has decided not to have this issue come to the 
floor.
  I listen to everybody talk all day long about bipartisanship. 
Frankly, I say to the gentleman from Maine, I think he knows my 
feelings on the matter, I am not a big supporter of bipartisanship, I 
am an advocate of partisanship, but with a lot of civility, where we 
clearly establish what our positions are so the public is aware of what 
the choices are; and in a civil manner we have discourse, we 
deliberate, we debate, and we vote. And everybody has, hopefully, 
respect for each other, and that is how we live with the result of that 
vote and go on.
  Unfortunately, I think there has been another path taken by this 
particular majority, some of whom in the Republican party are clearly 
with us on the issue of campaign finance reform; they want to debate it 
and they want to discuss it and vote on it. But the majority over there 
would not have the ability to bring forward the prospect of having this 
issue debated and voted upon, and they cannot get those numbers 
together.
  I clearly relate to the gentleman that the Democratic caucus has 
decided that, as a group, Democrats are in favor of campaign finance 
reform. We are very desirous of having the matter debated, having the 
deliberation in front of the public, talking about what might be right 
or wrong with a particular bill, and then moving forward on that.
  I am told over and over again that the public opinion polls do not 
support it, a public desire for campaign finance reform. I think the 
gentleman knows as well as I do that, frankly, what it is. If you ask 
the question, what issues are most on your mind, people may well say, 
education; they may say health care, other issues which may not get the 
attention that they deserve, but get some attention at least in this 
House.
  But if you ask the question, what really undermines the credibility 
of any action taken by Congress, whether it be on health care, whether 
it be on taxes, whether it be on education, people will say, we do not 
believe that decisions are made independently. We think large amounts 
of money go into the people that run our Government, and somehow they 
have an effect; and it has a sort of corruptive influence, or at least 
perception, on the work we do down here.
  The gentleman and I both know people are down here working very hard 
and that the system is such that you cannot win a seat here unless you 
can get your message out, get your visibility up, get people to know 
who you are and what you stand for.
  So I have a challenge for the public. Basically, we all rely on them, 
so we need not to try to get anybody upset, but I have a challenge for 
the public. If they want to get rid of the corrupting influence, or 
perception, of money, then we have to decide how we are going to do 
that; and I favor comprehensive campaign finance reform.
  Frankly, as much as I applaud the gentleman's efforts, and I think 
they have been wonderful and I think we may end up standing behind the 
gentleman's effort, because I have told the gentleman over and over 
again, those who believe we have to move forward on this issue will not 
stand behind a bill we file or cosponsor as a defense to not voting for 
anything or having nothing at all passed. We will be open-minded and we 
will try to move forward in the area of reform.
  But I am strictly an advocate of comprehensive campaign finance 
reform, because I do not believe in unilateral disarmament. I think 
that is what stops bills from passing here. Incremental bills are 
always subject to the attack that they leave somebody with more 
weaponry in the campaign battles than somebody else, whether they take 
PAC money and somebody feels that working people, environmental groups, 
and groups like that may have more of an influence, if that is left but 
soft money is taken away, or whether they attack business PAC's and 
soft money and feel hard money is left, there is always a feeling in 
less than comprehensive reform that somebody is left on the short end.
  So I put forward the bill, H.R. 2199, that talks about what folks in 
Maine did. It talks about public financing of campaigns. It talks about 
the public stepping forward and saying, we are upset about the 
influence of money, soft money or hard money, that we have to do 
something about it.
  When businesses want to hire people to go down and do their business, 
they make an investment. They invest a reasonable amount of their money 
as a business in defining the best people, going out and getting them, 
interviewing them and hiring them. For less than 1 percent of the 
smallest estimate of what this Congress produces and what we now call 
corporate welfare, we could fund congressional elections with public 
financing with the option of candidates to get public funding.

                              {time}  1915

  Those that still want to go to private funding could go to private 
funding, but there would be certain carrots and sticks. Publicly funded 
candidates would have a limit, because the public clearly wants a limit 
on the amount of money that we spend campaigning. And by virtue of when 
the money is disbursed, we would have a limit on the length of the 
campaign, because the public clearly wants an end sometime to the last 
campaign and some time to govern before the next campaign begins.
  The public wants to know that people in office will not be on the 
phone or at fundraisers day in and day out instead of on the 
government's business. So once somebody decided to get publicly funded 
in a campaign, they would get a limited amount and they could raise no 
other money, hard or soft, because many people have a hard time 
believing that the person who gives $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 is 
without influence any more than the person who gives $25 or $50 in soft 
money.
  So, frankly, that is the direction that I think we have to move in. 
We have to have free air time for those people that

[[Page H7190]]

adopt public financing to get the message out. The people that want to 
stay and be private candidates would not have that free air time. But 
if they overspent the limit of the publicly funded candidate, the 
publicly funded candidate would get matching funds. That is the 
disincentive in order to have them not be private candidates. It is the 
incentive to bring everybody into the one package that gets the public 
to have credibility for its candidates and office holders. It lets them 
say we have bought back our Government. We own this enterprise now. We 
do not have to worry about foreign money influence. We do not have to 
worry about hard money or soft money or large contributors or small 
contributors. We do not have to worry about the pervasive attitude that 
we do not have an open government here that has credibility.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that we push out on comprehensive finance 
reform. I understand that we may, if anything, get the freshman bill, 
which is a good bill, and the gentleman understands the compromises 
that we made there to get something that we hope would pass. But, 
frankly, if we do not bring pressure on this body, we are not going to 
get anything at all.
  The reason we are here tonight is because somebody has to have a 
vehicle to get the message to the American people. The Democrats are on 
record as wanting campaign reform. We have a dozen or so proposals. We 
would like to debate and deliberate them and get the best final 
proposal together and bring it to a vote in this body.
  But even though there may be some Members on the Republican side that 
do want to come forward for campaign finance reform, the majority over 
there do not. The public has to know that is why this issue is not 
being heard on the floor. That is why it is not being voted on. That is 
why the public business is not being done in campaign finance reform.
  Mr. Speaker, we have to keep this up and I commend the gentleman from 
Maine [Mr. Allen] for giving us this opportunity and everybody for 
participating in it at this hour of night, hoping to convince people 
that this has to be done. We are doing our best to see that it is.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Tierney], and I want to say I appreciate the effort that the gentleman 
has made on behalf of a public funding bill. I think it is one of the 
many interesting ideas that are out there and need to have a full 
debate on this floor.
  I have to say I am proud of my home State of Maine for passing a 
referendum proposal that would encourage public funding, would provide 
voluntary public funding for the Governor's races, all of the State 
Senate races, and all of the races for the State House. That will take 
effect in the year 2000. And I just believe this is one of those ideas 
we ought to have out here on the floor of the House and have a good 
solid debate.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, 
the fact of the matter is that the citizenry of Maine voted in big 
numbers for that particular concept. In Vermont, the legislature voted 
for a similar concept. In 12 different States throughout the United 
States, even conservatively perceived States like Arizona, have voted 
in overwhelming numbers to show support for this concept.
  But, Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that while we are down here debating 
incremental approaches, what is going to happen is that several more 
States are going to have the people speak up. It is a grassroots 
effort. There are people out there that are fed up with the current 
system, and the people down here are going to try to run to the front 
to get out there and lead.
  It is our job. We should not wait for opinion polls. It is our job to 
perceive what it is that the public needs and to get out front there. I 
think this bill gives us a chance to do that. I think your bill gives 
us a chance to start in that direction. I think that Mr. Gingrich, the 
Speaker, the others on the other side, are not living up to the 
responsibility and the promises to the American people and the 
President to get this issue before us before we go home for recess.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the 
gentlewoman from Oregon [Ms. Hooley].
  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maine 
[Mr. Allen]. First of all, I thank the gentleman for the leadership 
that he has shown in this area, Mr. Speaker, as the cochair of the 
bipartisan task force, the work that he did.
  I think it is important for people to know that this committee spent 
months hearing every group imaginable talk about this issue. What we 
came up with, and what I am proud to be part of, is a piece of 
legislation that actually hopefully has a chance to pass. And I guess I 
am just practical enough that I want something that can pass.
  I mean, Mr. Speaker, I would love to see comprehensive campaign 
finance reform. I wish we could make it happen; it is probably not. So 
how do we do it incrementally? And I think this piece of legislation 
that the freshmen introduced is a way to go.
  Mr. Speaker, when I got here people asked me, what is it like and who 
are the people that you serve with? I talk about my fellow Members of 
Congress and I talk about the fact that people are here, they have 
integrity, they work hard, they care about their districts, they really 
work hard to care about their districts. Yet, I find that three-
quarters, according to a poll, and I know we are not supposed to listen 
to a poll, but when you hear a poll that talks about three-quarters of 
Americans believe that public officials make or change policy decisions 
as a result of money that they receive from major contributors, that 
perception tells me that this campaign system is morally bankrupt and 
that if we want to get back the confidence of the American public, we 
absolutely have to do something about campaign finance reform.
  Mr. Speaker, soft money came about. It was never intended to happen, 
and that is where so many of the large donors give large chunks of 
money. And I do not think they want to do it any more either. But it is 
a system that literally has exploded. Both parties collected twice as 
much as they did 2 years ago. What is it going to be like in the next 
year? What is it going to be like 3 years from now?

  We absolutely have to do something about soft money. There is no 
control over it. So banning soft money, which this bill does, I think 
is again a step in the right direction.
  There were a lot of ads on TV and most people have no idea where they 
came from. If it was our ad, we had to put our name on it and usually a 
little picture so that people knew who was putting that ad out. But we 
saw other ads on television for issues, advocacy issues, that said who 
it was sponsored by.
  But then there were ads, and it does not matter whether it was for or 
against us, there were ads that came from committees like the Good 
Government Committee. Mr. Speaker, tell me, who is the Good Government 
Committee? It could be anyone. The name is made up.
  Mr. Speaker, we have several donors. There is no disclosure on those 
independent campaigns of who those donors are. People say, well, what 
difference does it make if we know? I think it is important. People 
make decisions based on who financed; what do they really care about; 
what is the message they are really trying to get across; who donated 
the money to those independent expenditure campaigns?
  Again, Mr. Speaker, these ads are going to happen and it does not 
matter whether they are for or against us as Members of Congress, the 
fact is we need disclosure. We need to know who funds those campaigns.
  What this bill does very simply is it just says, if candidates are 
going to fund independent expenditures, they have the right to do that 
under the Constitution. They can do that. But if they are going to do 
it, then they must, they must tell who funds those campaigns. So it is 
a little disclosure piece.
  Mr. Speaker, the third part that I really like, campaign disclosure 
for candidates, how much is spent, where candidates get the money. We 
are back in the dark ages. It is the days of writing it out with a 
scroll and the pen and ink.
  Mr. Speaker, we now have computers. We have fax machines. We can or 
should be able to get the information to the Federal Elections 
Commission much quicker than what currently happens. Again, people have 
a right to

[[Page H7191]]

know where candidates are getting their money and how they are spending 
it. So, I would like to see us get into this next century and do it in 
a way that makes sense for people.
  Again, this is not comprehensive campaign finance reform, which I 
would like to see happen, but it is an incremental step that has 
bipartisan support.
  I guess the problem I have as a new Member is when an issue like this 
is important, and it is important to the public's confidence in this 
institution, and I am very proud, as a new Member, very proud to be 
part of this institution. But when people lack faith in us, it is 
really an incentive for them to not vote and not be part of a system. 
This is a system of self-government and we want people to be involved 
in this process. It is critical to our democracy that we have people 
involved in this process.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I would like to at least ban the soft money; at 
least have the disclosure of independent expenditures; and those of us 
that are candidates, let us make sure that people also know where we 
get our money and how we spend it.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Allen] for 
all of the work. I guess I have a problem with not having this up for 
debate and a vote. I do not think there is any issue that is not 
worthy, or at least I cannot think of any right at the moment, that is 
not worthy of debate and a vote. This is a critical issue to our 
democracy and all we are asking for is that it be allowed to the floor 
before we go home for the winter recess and that we have a chance to 
vote on it. Up or down; any one of those bills. Mr. Speaker, I thank 
the gentleman for his hard work.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Oregon as the 
current president of our freshman class. The gentlewoman has plunged 
into this issue and is helping to build support for it in these halls, 
and I appreciate it.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman makes an excellent point. One of the 
points she makes is that essentially we are going to be embarrassed if 
we have all of these investigations and we do not get to legislate. 
That is what we are here for.
  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, that is why I came.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield to the gentlewoman 
from New York [Ms. Maloney], who is another leader in this particular 
area. I hope the gentlewoman will talk about her bill tonight.
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman 
organizing this hour tonight for us to express our support for campaign 
finance reform, and I congratulate the freshman class for their work in 
their task force.
  As my colleagues know, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton] 
announced today that his committee will move forward with hearings next 
week. The gentleman has replaced his lawyers. He has got roughly a $15 
million budget to go forward. There have been 46 depositions. Yet not 
one penny has been spent, not one hearing has been held, and not one 
witness has been called in an effort to figure out how to solve the 
problem.
  Mr. Speaker, the closest this Congress came to making any real move 
on this issue was in March, when the Senate voted down a resolution 
which proposed a constitutional amendment to allow mandatory campaign 
spending limits. Yesterday, the President repeated his request for a 
resolution on campaign finance reform. He has pledged that he would 
sign one into law.
  There are 85 different pieces of legislation floating around Capitol 
Hill now trying to address the problem of campaign finance reform, and 
there is a virtual graveyard of proposals that have died in former 
Congresses. Yet none of these 85 proposals have had a hearing or have 
been given serious review or consideration by a committee in this 
Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, if we take a look at this list, of course, there is the 
bipartisan Freshman Task Force proposal which would ban soft money. 
There is the bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 1997, which would award 
postal and broadcast discounts to those who voluntarily limit spending. 
There is the American Political Reform Act, which bases spending limits 
on how much a candidate's opponent spends. And really there is my 
personal favorite which would ban soft money and combine it with the 
Independent Commission on Campaign Finance Reform of 1997.
  Mr. Speaker, of course this is my bill, which is a bipartisan effort, 
along with the gentleman from California [Mr. Horn], the gentleman from 
New Jersey [Mr. Franks] and the gentleman from Washington [Mr. White].
  Mr. Speaker, this bill would establish a commission that would come 
up with a plan for reform. The plan would have to come up this Congress 
for a vote in this session.
  Our proposal is based very strongly on the successful Base Closing 
Commission, which passed in a former Congress. We all agreed that we 
had to close the bases but we could not agree which ones had to be 
closed, so we had a commission. It came forward with a plan and we 
moved forward and closed the bases.
  We have a similar problem before Congress now. Everyone says they are 
for campaign finance reform, yet they cannot seem to agree on a 
proposal or get one to the floor for the vote.

                              {time}  1930

  Our commission would require a vote in this Congress on campaign 
finance reform.
  The legislation, the 85 proposals that are before us, are very 
varied. Some are good. Some I agree with. But there is one point that 
all of them have in common: They do not have a chance to become law 
because not a single one of them has been permitted to come to the 
floor for a vote.
  We have not even been permitted to examine any of these proposals in 
a formal hearing. Meanwhile, many of us who serve on that committee, 
the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, will have to sit for 
hours, possibly days, possibly months, at hearings in this committee 
which will do nothing more than point fingers at people who have 
already been accused and little to correct the problem.
  As you have pointed out, and many of your colleagues in the freshman 
class, we need to be putting more of our efforts in trying to solve the 
problem.
  In 1996, the House and the Senate, the candidates for the House and 
the Senate spent more than $765 million to get elected. That is $765 
million. This is up 72 percent from 1990. The Speaker of the House has 
been quoted as saying that there is not enough money in the campaign 
system. Well, Mr. Speaker, how much more money would we have to spend?
  This election system is one that turns elections into auctions. We 
need to show the American people that our Government is not for sale, 
that our elections are not for sale to the highest spender. We need to 
move forward with meaningful campaign finance reform. It is very simple 
to do the math, $765 million on elections.
  This adds up to one strong point: We need campaign finance reform. We 
need to bring a bill to the floor of this House for a vote before we 
ask our constituents to go to the polls and vote for us.
  I congratulate the gentleman and the freshmen class for all the hard 
work that they have done on this issue.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York.
  You have been a real leader in this field. You have one of the major 
proposals that ought to be debated here. This whole question of an 
independent commission, I think, is one that we need to look at very, 
very carefully. You have generated support on both sides of the aisle 
for your proposal. It is time, as we have said, it is time to get down 
to business and hold this kind of debate during the day, not during the 
evening.
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, that is true. We have roughly 
100 cosponsors on our bipartisan effort, and certainly 100 cosponsors 
shows a depth of support in this body and one that certainly should 
merit a hearing and a vote on this floor.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. 
Snyder].
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and I thank the 
Speaker and the staff this evening that are letting us talk about 
campaign finance reform.
  I noticed we had the gentlewoman from Oregon [Ms. Hooley], the 
gentleman from Maine [Mr. Allen], the

[[Page H7192]]

whole country is interested in campaign finance reform. I am from 
Arkansas. I know that the influence of money in politics concerns 
Arkansas.
  We also had a referendum in our State that was passed overwhelmingly 
by the people to deal with State elections. Some of the polls say 
people do not have that really high at the top of their lists. They 
have jobs and the economy and education. Well, of course, they do have 
those at the top of their lists. But if you ask them, is this an 
important issue, absolutely, it is an important issue.
  I know in Arkansas people are very interested in how I think about 
elections, how I think they ought to be elected. They are interested in 
us improving our democracy. When we are talking about campaign finance 
reform, we sometimes get lost in all the details. We are talking about 
improving our democracy, the greatest democracy in the world.
  Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman. I know he has worked very hard 
in a bipartisan manner with the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. 
Hutchinson]. You and he have done great work together. The gentleman 
from Arkansas [Mr. Hutchinson] is a Republican and the gentleman from 
Maine [Mr. Allen] is a Democrat. I commend you for your work, and I 
look forward to working with you in the next few weeks. Hopefully, we 
can bring one of these bills to the floor before we recess.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I appreciate all his 
support in this area.
  I would simply say, in conclusion tonight, that I thank all of the 
Members who have been here to discuss this issue. This issue will not 
go away. This may not affect people in the way that paying for an 
education affects them. It may not affect them in the way that losing a 
job or finding a new job may affect them. It is not their Social 
Security payment or their tax bill. But they care about this issue. I 
hear about it all the time. I know the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. 
Snyder] and others do.
  The fundamental problem is, we have to be able to take the issues 
that are of concern to people across this country and not just talk 
about them in the evening but vote on them during the day. That is what 
we are asking.

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