[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 123 (Tuesday, September 16, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H7284-H7285]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               TIME FOR ACTION ON CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, each day that this Congress has been in 
action, and not very complete action since we began in September, there 
have been Members of this House who have come to the floor and have 
raised the issue of campaign finance, because we realize that unless 
the House acts within the next month on the issue of campaign finance, 
that there may be more headlines of people complaining about campaign 
finance but absolutely nothing will be done to remedy the problems 
before the 1998 elections. The time for action is now.
  As I was home in Austin, TX, this weekend visiting with people, I was 
reminded again of how much Americans are concerned with the way that 
their government is operating and with the fact that the cost of these 
campaigns just seems to go up geometrically with each election. And I 
came across a book down there in Austin that would suggest that even 
our children can understand what is at stake with reference to this 
race for campaign dollars. It is called ``The Money Tree'' by Sarah 
Stewart.
  It is a book about gardening really, a woman named Ms. McGillicuddy 
who is quite a gardener, and one day a strange new tree begins to form 
in her garden. She is not really sure what it is. But before she knows 
it, it is doing something that maybe all of us have dreamed about at 
one time or another. The leaves are coming out as long, green hundred-
dollar bills.
  At first she is pretty happy about the idea that she has got a money 
tree growing in her yard. She continues to cultivate it, along with 
doing her other work. But soon she finds that she has many new friends, 
and it seems like everyone in the area is coming to look at the money 
tree and to borrow a ladder and interfere with all of her normal work 
as a gardener, a housekeeper, and someone who takes care of the animals 
and does other things in her area. She cannot get any of her ordinary 
work done because people are over there trying to grab those hundred-
dollar bills off her money tree.
  Finally, after a long time, she decides that maybe she is better off 
without the money tree, and she chops it down and converts it into 
firewood. This is a story our children might understand, and a story 
that people who observe their Congress might also understand. We have 
Members of Congress and any serious candidate for Congress out trying 
to find the money tree just about every day of the year, every year, 
year in, year out.

                              {time}  1045

  Some of those who have experience with gardening and cultivating on a 
larger scale, like the tobacco companies in this country, seem to have 
mastered the money tree and its influence over Members of Congress 
pretty well. They are the top soft money contributors of dollars that 
are largely unregulated and uncontrolled and which have a truly 
corrupting influence on the operation of this Congress. That is why 
many of us are coming out day in, day out now and saying, put a ban on 
soft money, cut down the soft money tree,

[[Page H7285]]

as Ms. McGillicuddy did, and make this Congress a place that more folks 
can be proud of instead of simply cynical about.
  Indeed, members of the freshman class, our newest Members of this 
Congress, under the able leadership of the gentleman from Maine [Mr. 
Allen], but including both Republicans and Democrats, have come 
together with a proposal to ban soft money and to make certain other 
modest reforms in our system. Yet their proposal, though it has been 
discussed briefly on this floor, has never come forward for full debate 
because Speaker Gingrich refuses to schedule any proposal on campaign 
finance at a time that it might really make a difference for the next 
election.
  To understand why he will not schedule this proposal, one need only 
look at his comments over time. A few months after he had shaken hands 
with President Clinton and promised bipartisan campaign finance reform, 
he had this to say in a committee of this Congress:
  ``One of the greatest myths of modern politics is that campaigns are 
too expensive. The political process, in fact, is underfunded; it is 
not overfunded.''
  I think the people that are out there tending to their families, 
tending to their gardens across America, and looking at this Congress 
with periodic interruptions for 30-second TV spots do not share the 
Speaker's enthusiasm for spending more and more money on our elections. 
They want honest, bipartisan reform. We call on Speaker Gingrich again 
this morning to give us that by scheduling campaign finance reform and 
a ban on soft money immediately.

                          ____________________