[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 126 (Friday, September 19, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9717-S9720]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST--CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the majority 
leader, after consultation with the Democratic leader, must turn to S. 
25, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill prior to the close 
of the 1st session of the 105th Congress, and Senator McCain be 
immediately recognized to modify the bill, and it be in order for the 
majority leader to immediately offer an amendment relative to campaign 
finances. I further ask unanimous consent that it not be in order for 
any Senator to offer any legislation regarding campaign finances prior 
to the initiation of this agreement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DASCHLE. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the minority leader.

[[Page S9718]]

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I am very disappointed on what I thought 
was an understanding the majority leader and I had about the way we 
were going to do business around here. I worked very closely with him 
all day yesterday. We were able to get quite a bit done legislatively 
on Interior appropriations, and work through an agreement on FDA that 
required my cooperation. Yet I am presented with this about 30 seconds 
ago--no consultation, no discussion, no deliberation, no way with which 
to discuss whether this makes sense for either side; an ultimatum, take 
it or leave it.
  That is not the way to do business around here. It is an affront to 
the Democratic Caucus, to me personally, and it begs the question about 
how sincere this offer really is. If it were sincere I would think the 
majority leader and I would have a chance to sit down and talk about it 
together, work it through. No effort was made to do that.
  So, it is enlightening, it is instructive, and it will be 
reciprocated.
  I am delighted that the Republicans have finally seen fit to 
recognize the importance of dealing with this issue this year. I am 
pleased that at long last they have agreed at least to taking the bill 
up, the McCain-Feingold bill, that 45 Democrats have said they support. 
It only takes 2 more Republicans and we will have the 50 votes 
necessary to pass McCain-Feingold as it was introduced, as S. 25. So we 
are looking for two more Republicans. We are hoping that 5 Republicans 
and 45 Democrats will pass this legislation sometime this year.
  What the majority leader is asking in this unanimous-consent request 
is that at some point between now and the time we adjourn--it could be 
the last day of this session--that we give consent to go onto this 
legislation.

  Before the majority leader leaves the floor, I will have a question 
for him, if I could pose it? At least I would appreciate that respect.
  Is it the intention of the majority leader to bring this bill up at a 
point that will allow a deliberation and consideration of the 
legislation well before the adjournment of the session in order to 
afford us the opportunity to have a good debate about the bill? Mr. 
President, I would ask the majority leader that question.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the majority leader.
  Mr. LOTT. In response to the question under the Senator's reservation 
to the unanimous consent, this agreement says that it would be done 
prior to the close of the 1st session of the 105th Congress. Certainly, 
there would be notification of what date that might be. I think, you 
know, we would have to talk to a lot of people on both sides of the 
aisle, including Senator McCain, among others, who could not be here at 
this hour because he has had a commitment and had to leave by airplane. 
It depends on a lot of other circumstances that we would have to take 
into consideration. We might want to do it early. We might want to do 
it later. But it would not be my intent to do it right at the end of 
the session. But I don't have a date in mind. We will have to look at 
what is happening with other bills all the way from FDA to 
appropriations conference reports.
  Next week, for instance, the focus has to be on getting the 
appropriations conference reports agreed to. It would depend on what is 
happening with other major legislation like the transportation bill, 
the administration's proposal with regard to fast track--all of these 
will be taken into consideration. We want to do it in a time when it 
can be fully debated. I think it is important that we have a chance to 
look at different proposals and see if a consensus can be reached, see 
if there is some way that we can deal with the way the laws were broken 
in 1996 but see if it can be done without another big Government gag of 
free speech.
  So, we fully intend to have notification of the date and an adequate 
discussion on all sides of the issue.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Is it the majority leader's intention to adjourn on or 
about the date of November 14?
  Mr. LOTT. I beg your pardon, repeat the question?
  Mr. DASCHLE. Is it the intention of the majority leader to adjourn on 
or about the date of November 14?
  Mr. LOTT. As we have discussed in the past, at the beginning of the 
year we sort of laid out a schedule for the whole year of the times 
that we would be in and out in each month. At the beginning of the year 
we had talked in terms of having a week in October off for the Jewish 
religious holidays as well as the Columbus Day period, and that we 
would--you know, our target day to adjourn was the 14th.
  There has been some consideration of it being earlier than that. 
Senator Daschle and I, as you recall, we did discuss the possibility of 
November 7. So I don't think we can at this point fix a specific date. 
I think more important is to get the work done that we must get done 
before we leave. But I think we are sort of shooting now for the 7th of 
November. But at the beginning of the year we said we would be out no 
later than the 14th.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Well, if it is the 7th, or the 14th, somewhere in there, 
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the request made by the 
majority leader be amended to say that ``at a date no later than the 
31st of October.'' That would leave, according to the Senator's answer, 
at least 1 week for us to debate this and not make a sham of this 
request.
  Obviously, if he has no intention of bringing it up until the last 
day, this isn't a meaningful request. If we have at least a week to 
debate it, it is a meaningful request. So I would propose that we take 
S. 25 up before the Senate at a date no later than the 31st of October.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I do not intend to have this issue come up 
the last day or the last week of the session, because I think we will 
have other issues that we would have to deal with or want to deal with 
and I assume the administration wants to deal with at that point. I 
presume that we would probably want to look for a date earlier in the 
month of October, maybe even the end of October.
  But I think this consent request is an honest one and a fair one for 
now. I would like to leave it the way it is so that we will have a full 
panoply of options to make sure we have it brought up at the right time 
and we can have a full debate and look at all the other things that we 
need to consider.
  So I object at this time to changing that date. Let's leave it for 
the end of the session. I do not intend to bring it up the last day. I 
don't want to do that. I don't want to go out and be cramped on this 
issue. I would like to have a free discussion much earlier, but I would 
like to have a chance to talk to Members who have worked it on both 
sides--Senator McCain, Senator McConnell, Senator Feingold, the 
leadership on both sides, the committees that are involved--and come to 
an understanding and agreement that everybody is comfortable with.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, can I just request for the record why the 
majority leader has seen fit not to share this unanimous-consent 
request with me until we came to the floor? This is a highly unusual 
matter. I would be interested in the leader's response.
  Mr. LOTT. If I could address that question, if the Senator is 
surprised, he is the only person in the room, in the building, in the 
media that is surprised by this. This has been a running discussion for 
quite some time. In fact, yesterday----
  Mr. DASCHLE. Has the majority leader shared the language----
  Mr. LOTT. Let me respond to the question, if I can, and give a full 
response. We were working on the language of the UC. I believe a copy 
was given to Senator McCain, perhaps a copy to Senator Feingold. I 
understand Senator Daschle saw it. It is not a complicated UC. 
Basically, all it says is we are going to bring this up and how it will 
be brought up and it will be done before the end of the session.
  As a matter of fact, Senator Daschle and I sat right there yesterday, 
and we talked about the parameters of this agreement, and I had the 
impression he knew full well what was in it.
  The only difference in it now to what happened yesterday was to 
clarify that we are not going to have this popping up all the time 
while we have an agreement to get it brought up at a specific time.
  So that is why it was done the way it was. He was notified I was 
going to make a unanimous-consent request. We don't have, usually, 
necessarily hours or days of running discussions. This was very simple 
and clear. I thought

[[Page S9719]]

everybody would be delighted with this. Senator McCain is comfortable 
with it. I had the impression Senator Feingold is comfortable with it. 
Senator McConnell is here ready to comment on it. He is comfortable 
with it.
  If this is a sneak attack, there hasn't been such a well-covered 
sneak attack since Pearl Harbor. So everybody knew what was going on. I 
think it is a fair agreement. If we want to get this issue up in a way 
everybody understands and deal with some of the changes that we can 
make legitimately in campaign finances, including allowing employees 
and union members to have some say in how their dues and their fees are 
spent in campaigns, then we can do that.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Well, the Senator from Mississippi is a smooth sell. Let 
me just say this. Senator McConnell ought to be very happy with this, 
because this plays right into the hands of the opponents of campaign 
finance reform. Senator Feingold didn't know about this. I didn't know 
about this. There is no Democrat I am aware of who has seen any of this 
language.

  So, I am very disappointed. We are not going to relegate our right to 
offer campaign finance reform in some form to other bills prior to the 
last day of this session, and that's really what the majority leader is 
asking here. He is asking us to forgo the opportunity to debate 
campaign finance reform until what could be the very last day of the 
session, and we will then be under the terms of this agreement, an 
agreement that I have not seen. And yet, yesterday we worked through 
several unanimous-consent requests, back and forth, in detail, in 
direct consultation, he and I working together to get an agreement on 
Interior appropriations, to get a deal, as difficult as it was, on FDA 
reform. We worked through that because he knows it is one thing to say 
we are going to schedule FDA next week, it is another thing to come up 
with an arrangement that brings about the unanimity of all 100 Senators 
that takes care of all the concerns raised by Senators who have issues 
and concerns that they want to raise.
  That's how you work through unanimous consent requests. You don't 
bring it to the floor and say, ``Here it is, take it or leave it.'' You 
negotiate it.
  If there was a real intent, a sincere intent to negotiate a real 
unanimous-consent agreement, do you suppose I would have been presented 
with it 2 minutes ago on the floor with no discussion, no negotiation?
  We did have a discussion here on the floor a couple nights ago, or 
whenever that was. But it was, ``You know what, we may actually bring 
up campaign finance reform and we may actually have an agreement I 
would like you to look at.'' I am looking at it, but this is the very 
first time.
  In all the time I have been leader, every single time when there has 
been a sincere effort to resolve a unanimous-consent request, guess 
what happened? Senator Dole and I worked on it together, Senator Lott 
and I worked on it together, and jointly we presented it to the body 
because we wanted to get it passed, we wanted everybody to agree.
  This is designed for disagreement. This is designed to surprise. This 
is designed so all the people up there will write, ``Democrats objected 
to a unanimous-consent request.'' That's what this is about. He knows 
it; I know it. We are playing a game this afternoon. We object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I think we have made a very fair unanimous-
consent offer here that we would bring this issue up before the end of 
this session of Congress, that we would bring up McCain-Feingold and 
then the latest iteration of that, which I believe is the McCain bill, 
and that I would have the opportunity, as majority leader, which I have 
anyway, to offer an amendment or a substitute for that. A very clear, 
understandable, fair process.
  Now, if the Senator is surprised, I thought he had been talking to 
his own Senator Feingold. I have in my hand a press release from 
yesterday that went out from Senator Feingold's office announcing that 
Senators McCain, Feingold, and Lott, much to my surprise, ``will 
discuss the McCain-Feingold campaign finance proposal in coordinated 
statements on the Senate floor this afternoon.'' That was yesterday. 
``Attached is an outline of the new proposal.''
  I thought if it had gone that far--which I thought was certainly 
jumping the gun because we were trying to make sure everybody had an 
opportunity to know how this unanimous-consent agreement was being 
constructed and what was in it, and Senator Feingold, to his credit, 
apologized that it was done in the way it was. I said, no problem. I 
understand how sometimes we get a little carried away, maybe staff got 
a little exuberant and released it before it was completed.
  For instance, I felt like I ought to at least talk to Senator 
McConnell and make sure he was aware of what we were developing here. I 
thought this was a very good proposal. This is a fair way to get the 
issue up, have a full discussion, for us to offer proposals that would 
correct some of the problems and abuses of union members, abuse of 
their dues, to deal with the illegal foreign contributions that we have 
seen over the past year in 1996, to deal with the other abuses of the 
law, tighten up the law and make it clear, or clearer if we need to, 
about the President and Vice President should not do certain things 
while on Federal property. Whatever.
  It seemed like a fair proposal to me. And I was ready to go with 
that. And my intent is to try to get an agreement where we could do 
this some time early in October. But if the Senator feels constrained 
to object, that is certainly his right.
  Mr. DASCHLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the minority leader.
  Mr. DASCHLE. We will do it in October. I guarantee the majority 
leader of that. But we will do it either the easy way or the hard way. 
We will do it the easy way, by scheduling Democrats and Republicans in 
a way that makes sense in getting a unanimous consent that works, or we 
will do it the hard way, we will do it the way we had to do on Kennedy-
Kassebaum, we will do it the way we had to do it on minimum wage, we 
will do it the way we did it on disaster. But we will do it and do it 
and do it until it is done. That is a promise.
  So we can play games on schedule and we can position ourselves and 
talk about how much we are in favor of campaign finance reform, but the 
bottom line is it is going to be more than rhetoric. We are going to 
get this job done the hard way or the easy way. It is going to get 
done.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, the road to campaign finance reform is 
obviously a long, hard one. But we are going to keep on it. I just want 
to say, because I am involved in a bipartisan effort here, that I 
believe the majority leader was engaged in the last couple of days in a 
good-faith effort, negotiating with Senator McCain, of course, with 
members of his own caucus, to try to resolve this issue.
  I believe there has been a relatively small misunderstanding here 
with regard to the specifics that sounds a lot worse than it actually 
is. What we are down to here is merely a difference, based on the 
conversation I just heard, as to whether the bill will come up in early 
November or whether it might come back some time in October.
  Surely, we will not allow such a difference to make the difference 
between whether we debate campaign finance reform or not.
  I just had the opportunity to speak with Senator McCain briefly. He 
and I share the view that I think most of the American people share, 
that too much has happened with regard to this scandal in this area to 
not address this matter.
  I think we need to work a little more on the UC. I had not seen the 
UC. I want that noted in the Record. I had not seen the UC, but I am 
not complaining. That is not my role in this institution to be the main 
person reviewing an agreement of that kind.
  But I am confident, once this small matter is resolved, that we will 
have an agreement very much like the one that was just propounded. That 
agreement would be a historic agreement. I think it would be the first 
time in memory that the leaders of both parties in this body had agreed 
to bring up bipartisan campaign finance reform.
  The nature of the proposal was quite reasonable. The proposal 
suggested

[[Page S9720]]

that there would be full and open debate on this issue without a time 
limit, that there would be an opportunity to amend. We can fix the bill 
with amendments. We can accommodate Members' concerns. We can improve 
the bill or we can even defeat the bill, as my colleague from Kentucky 
may choose to do. But that is different than last year when we were 
given only 2 days, no amendments, and a cloture vote.
  The agreement that was just propounded was significantly better in 
that regard. The agreement would give the American people the 
opportunity with some certainty to know about when this issue was going 
to come up so that the people across the country could write their 
Representatives, call their Representatives, e-mail their 
Representatives, and say, ``We'd really like this bill passed'' or 
``We'd like it killed'' or ``We'd like it changed.'' I think all of 
this is embodied in the proposal.

  So I say, on behalf of myself and Senator McCain, if I may do so, 
that, apart from this small issue of the exact timing, that this 
agreement, once agreed to, will do what we want it to. It is what we 
want. It is what we worked for for a long time, while all the pundits, 
especially in this town, have said that the issue will never come up. 
Most importantly, when we have this debate--and it will be in the near 
future--I am confident it will be done in an orderly manner. And it 
will give the American people what they deserve, an opportunity to have 
a real debate on this issue instead of just an endless stream of 
reports of abuses with regard to campaign financing throughout their 
Government.
  So, Mr. President, I am very optimistic that this brief conversation 
here was merely a blip and that we will not be forced to use the tactic 
of having to try to attach this legislation to other bills and in fact 
S. 25, which of course is still the McCain-Feingold bill, will in fact 
come before this body in the relatively near future.
  I want to thank the majority leader for his cooperation on this. I 
want to thank my leader for his efforts to try to resolve these 
differences at this point. I want to thank all 45 members of my caucus, 
all the Democrats for having signed on to the McCain-Feingold bill. Of 
course I want to thank the other cosponsors of the bill, Senator 
Thompson and Senator Collins on the other side of the aisle.
  I want to thank the President. The President has been very steadfast 
in trying to move this legislation forward. His staff has worked 
closely with us on a day-to-day basis to try to see if we could resolve 
the very difficult differences between the parties so we could have 
this matter debated.
  Mr. President, we will get there. We are getting there. I hope we can 
today begin to tell the American people they are finally going to be 
able to participate in, hear and understand the debate about whether 
big money is going to continue to control the Government of the people 
of the United States.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from 
Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I listened with interest to the 
comments of the Democratic leader and Senator Feingold. I would just 
like to say briefly in response, there is no reluctance to debate this 
issue. Those of us who oppose McCain-Feingold look forward to the 
debate. We relish the debate.
  My colleague in the chair remembers when we stayed up all night to 
debate this about 5 weeks before the 1994 election, which was the 
greatest victory for my party in congressional races in this century.
  So let me just disabuse all of my colleagues of the notion that there 
is any reluctance on the part of those who oppose putting the 
Government in charge of political speech of individual groups, 
candidates, and parties in this country, any reluctance to debate the 
merits of that proposal. There is no reluctance whatsoever.
  What the majority leader was trying to do here today was to structure 
that debate in such a way as to provide minimal inconvenience to 
Members of the Senate. The Democratic leader said we can get there the 
hard way or the easy way. We have no reluctance to get there the hard 
way, Mr. President, no reluctance whatsoever.
  The majority leader was simply trying to accommodate all of the 
Senate by providing an orderly, structured way to have a debate that we 
relish, look forward to making. My experience with this issue over the 
years is the more colleagues and the American people and, yes, the 
press learns about the issue the better, the greater likelihood the 
first amendment will be protected.
  So bring on the debate. We are ready for it. But, obviously, it will 
be a lot easier on everyone if we did it an orderly, structured way. 
That is what the majority leader was seeking to do. I commend him for 
that, and look forward to the debate that will be forthcoming. We will 
be happy to do it either the hard way or the easy way, whichever seems 
to suit the Senate the best.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). The Senator from Georgia.

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