[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 131 (Friday, September 26, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H8047-H8051]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 IN PREPARATION FOR HEARINGS IN THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND 
                               OVERSIGHT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from California [Mr. Horn] is recognized 
for 60 minutes.
  Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, what I want to discuss today is some of the 
reactions that we have found on the Committee on Government Reform and 
Oversight as we prepare for witnesses at the forthcoming hearings. What 
Members see here and they will see in the next few minutes is 58 
witnesses seem to be unavailable. We are going to break down, where are 
they.
  Eleven of these witnesses have simply fled the country. Let us take 
them one by one. Charlie Trie. He was last seen in Beijing, China; a 
former restauranteur, old friend of President Clinton, who tried to 
give $640,000 in suspicious contributions to the President's legal 
expense fund.
  Now, we cannot seem to find him. The U.S. Government cannot seem to 
find him. The Chinese Government cannot seem to find him. It is dubious 
whether the last two entities have even sought to find him. But Tom 
Brokaw, of NBC Nightly News, they can find him. Of course, the 
Government, with all the law enforcement forces available to them, with 
the CIA, the FBI, all the rest, they cannot seem to find him.
  Pauline Kanchanalak in Thailand had $235,000 in Democratic National 
Committee contributions returned because she could not verify that she 
was the source of that money.
  Then there is Ming Chen, a businessman in Beijing, China. He runs the 
new Ng Lap Seng's restaurant business in that city. He is the husband 
of Yue Chu.
  Agus Setiawan, Indonesian employee of Lippo, that is a major firm in 
Indonesia, who signed many of the checks to the Democratic National 
Committee drawn on Lippo affiliates. Of course, that is a violation of 
the law, neither corporate money nor money from non-U.S. citizens.
  Dewi Tirto, John Huang's secretary when he worked for Lippo, now 
believed to be in Indonesia.
  Subandi Tanu Widjaja, in Indonesia, gave $80,000 to the Democratic 
National Committee for a dinner with Clinton which may have come from 
wire transfers from his father-in-law, Ted Sioeng, who lives in China.
  Arief and Soraya Wiriadinata, an Indonesian couple who gave the 
Democratic National Committee $450,000 after the receipt of a half-a-
million-dollar wire from Soraya's father, a co-founder of the Lippo 
Group, a prominent major corporation in Indonesia and throughout much 
of the Asian area.

                              {time}  1545

  John H.K. Lee, South Korean businessman, president of the Cheong Am 
Inc., Democratic National Committee had to return $250,000 to Cheong 
Am.
  Antonio Pan, ex-Lippo executive, friend of Charlie Trie and John 
Huang, who delivered cash to individuals for conduit payments. And, of 
course, we have obviously traced where they went to here, here, here, 
and here and just mysteriously ended up in various bank accounts for 
sort of a little overnight session and then off to the committee.
  And lastly of the group here who have fled, Ted Sieong, father of 
Jessica Elnitiarta, who donated $100,000 to the Democratic National 
Committee. He is reportedly connected to the Chinese intelligence 
community.
  Now, we also have witnesses who have left, besides the ones that have 
left the countries, there are 11 foreign witnesses that have refused to 
be interviewed by investigators in those countries where they are now 
located, conveniently, presumably out of the reach of American 
congressional subpoenas or, if there is a special counsel, out of the 
reach of the special counsel's subpoenas.
  Now, those individuals, again another 11, are the following: Stanley 
Hoe, wealthy Macao businessman, associate of Ng Lap Seng.
  Suma Ching Hai, head of a Taiwan-based Buddhist cult that tried to 
funnel foreign contributions to President Clinton's legal expense trust 
through Charlie Trie.
  Roy Tirtadji, Indonesian managing director of the Lippo Group, sent 
John Huang a laudatory letter for his efforts in money raising for the 
Democratic National Committee.
  John Muncy, executive vice president of the Hong Kong Chinese Bank 
owned by the Riadys, major family in Indonesia and the Chinese 
Government.
  And then there are the three Riadys, Mochtar, Stephen, and James. 
They are members of a very rich Indonesian family. Mochtar is the 
father of Stephen and James, and they own the Lippo Group, about which 
the newspapers and television stories on this investigation feature 
rather prominently.
  They visited the White House dozens of times. They did not go through 
on the early morning congressional tour where you see the china and you 
look at the East Room and the Red Room and the Green Room. They got 
upstairs. They were able to sit down with the President of the United 
States and they have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to 
the Democratic National Committee, all illegal.
  And then there is Ng Lap Seng, Mr. Wu, Macao businessman whose 
company wired $900,000 to Charlie Trie while Trie made large 
contributions to the Democratic National Committee.
  Then there is Ken Hsui, a Taipei, Taiwan businessman who attended a 
July 30, 1996 dinner with President Clinton and gave the Democratic 
National Committee $150,000. He has dual United States-Taiwanese 
citizenship.
  Then there is Eugene Wu, Taiwanese businessman, coowner of 
California's Grand Sunrise, Inc. He attended the July 30, 1996 dinner 
with President Clinton.
  James Lin, Taiwanese businessman, coowner of California's Grand 
Sunrise, Inc. He also attended the July 30, 1996 dinner with the 
President.
  Now, that sort of rounds out the 11 witnesses who have left the 
country that we cannot seem to get our enforcement agencies to find, or 
the cooperation of foreign governments to turn them over to us; and 11 
foreign witnesses who have refused to be interviewed by the respective 
investigative bodies within their own country.
  Now we get to the 36 House and Senate witnesses who are asserting 
their fifth amendment rights. These are essentially many U.S. citizens 
here, obviously. Now, let us go over them.
  John Huang, very active in this whole setup, conspiracy you might 
say, former Democratic National Committee fundraiser, former Commerce 
Department official, cleared for top-secret, who just happened to go to 
an office outside the Commerce building and make telephonic reports 
back to Indonesia after he was briefed by some of the highest 
intelligence people in the country. And we would like to find out just 
what was he sending.
  Now, he is a Lippo Group employee. He solicited more than $1 million 
in questionable contributions.
  Then there is Jane Huang, wife of John. Her name appears on the 
Democratic National Committee documents

[[Page H8048]]

as a solicitor of some Democratic National Committee donations while 
Huang was at Commerce.
  Then, of course, there is Mark Middleton, former White House Deputy 
Chief of Staff, who became an international businessman. He worked with 
the Riadys and Trie to deliver the bacon.
  Maria Hsia, Taiwan born consultant who helped Huang organize the 
temple fundraiser. That was the one that Vice President Gore attended.
  Manlin Foung, sister of Charlie Trie, was given thousands of dollars 
to donate to the Democratic National Committee in her name by Charlie 
Trie. Busy person.
  Joseph Landon, Manlin Foung's friend, was given thousands of dollars 
to donate to the Democratic National Committee in his name by Charlie 
Trie.
  David Wang made a $5,000 contribution to the Democratic National 
Committee at Trie's request.
  Nora and Gene Lum, a fundraising couple who pled guilty to various 
violations of Federal election laws.
  Webster Hubbell, one of the closest associates of the President of 
the United States, Rose law firm senior partner in Little Rock during 
the 1970's and 1980's, former Associate Attorney General of the United 
States, one of the most powerful positions in any administration, and 
he, of course, is now a convicted felon who received hundreds of 
thousands of dollars from Lippo after leaving the Justice Department.
  Why did somebody pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars after he 
left? Why did people pay him after he was in prison? Are they trying to 
shut somebody up? And who are they that is doing the payments?
  Well, Mr. Hubbell has asserted his constitutional right to take the 
fifth and not give us the answers to those questions.
  Then there is Hsiu Luan Tseng, a Buddhist nun at a Hawaiian temple 
who contributed to the Democratic National Committee at the Hsi Lai 
Temple event.
  And then there is Judy Hsu, Buddhist nun who contributed at the 
temple event.
  And then Yumei Yang, Buddhist nun who contributed at the temple 
event.
  Seow Fong Ooi, Buddhist nun who contributed at the temple event.
  All of these people have written checks and they have taken the fifth 
so they do not have to explain a lot of it. Now, some will be probably 
granted immunity by the Senate committee or the House committee.
  Jen Chin (Gary) Hsueh gave $2,000 to the Democratic National 
Committee, listed the address as home, owned by the temple, but does 
not live there. So much for home.
  Jie Su Hsiao, Buddhist nun who contributed at the temple event.
  You can see why so many people fly to southern California to raise 
money for their campaigns in the East or nationally.
  Gin F.J. Chen, Democratic National Committee donor at a fundraiser at 
Washington's Hay Adams Hotel who may have been reimbursed by Hsi Lai.
  Hsin Chen Shih, Democratic National Committee donor at a fundraiser 
at Washington's Hay Adams Hotel who may have been reimbursed by Hsi 
Lai.
  Bin Yueh Jeng, Taiwanese national who, at John Huang's urging, gave 
$5,000 to the Democratic National Committee.
  Hsiu Chu Lin, employee of Hsi Lai, who gave the Democratic National 
Committee $1,500.
  Chi Rung Wang, a California man who gave Democratic National 
Committee $5,000 at the temple fundraiser.
  Nolanda Hill, business partner of the late Secretary of Commerce Ron 
Brown.
  Yogesh Ghandi, while receiving $500,000 in wire transfers from a 
Japanese bank, contributed $325,000 to the Democratic National 
Committee. Of course, we would like to know what happened to the other 
$175,000. He has taken the fifth, as have all these.
  Jane Dewi Tahir, college student, related by marriage to the Riadys, 
who received $200,000 in wires from the LippoBank and gave $30,000 to 
the Democratic National Committee. Well, what happened to the other 
$170,000? We would be curious about that also.
  And then Duangnet Kronenberg, sister-in-law of Pauline Kanchanalak, 
one of those that has fled back to south Asia, Taiwan area, attended a 
coffee at Vice President Gore's residence.
  Maria Mapili, employed by Trie, familiar with the wires that he 
received from Ng Lap Seng.
  Jou Sheng gave the Democratic National Committee $8,000, listing a 
Maywood, CA, Buddhist temple as his home address, but he does not live 
there.
  Maria Mapili, employee at the Daihatsu International Trading Co., 
which is owned by Charlie Trie. Mapili reportedly has detailed 
knowledge of Trie's financial transactions.
  Keshi Zhan, a welfare department employee who served as hostess for 
Trie's fundraisers, gave $15,000 to the Democratic National Committee. 
She has received immunity from the Senate.
  Suh Jen Wu, abbess of the Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, CA, 
immunized by the Senate committee. So they will not be able to take the 
fifth after that since they are immune from prosecution.
  What we are after is the truth and the facts and, of course, as was 
noted by a speaker earlier this afternoon, we have a tremendous number 
of cases of amnesia, where people say I cannot recollect.
  The gentleman from Florida [Mr. Scarborough] who made that point, and 
I have made it on other occasions, we are very worried, of course, as 
many are, about the Washington, DC, water supply. With all the metallic 
aspects that are in that supply since the Civil War, and the 
distribution system has not completely been renewed, we are worried 
that people that have any contact here just seem to have a great backup 
of amnesia and lack of recollections on some of the simplest things; 
like did you bring the half a million dollars hither or yon?
  Now, maybe you would forget what you did with a dollar, maybe you 
would forget where your purse or wallet is, but I do not think you 
would forget where a half million dollars are. So we face some 
interesting situations there.
  Now, the abbess of the Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, as I say, 
was immunized by the Senate.
  Man Ho, the Buddhist nun at the temple who gave the Democratic 
National Committee $5,000 has been immunized by the Senate.
  Yi Chu, Buddhist nun at the temple who gave the Democratic National 
Committee $5,000 also has been immunized, and you saw some of that 
testimony when it occurred a few weeks ago.
  Siuw Moi Lian, Buddhist nun at the temple who gave the Democratic 
National Committee $5,000 and was reimbursed by the temple, has been 
immunized by the Senate, as has been Man Ya Shih, the Buddhist nun in 
Texas affiliated with the temple.
  And another one immunized by the Senate was Hueitsan Huang, Buddhist 
nun at the temple who gave $5,000 to the Democratic National Committee.
  Then Yue Chu, the wife of Ming Chen, reimbursed for contribution to 
the Democratic National Committee at the temple fundraiser by money 
from a joint Ng-Trie account also immunized by the Senate.
  Now, Xi Ping Wang, Ming Chen's cousin, reimbursed for contribution to 
the Democratic National Committee at the temple fundraiser by money 
from the joint account in which Trie was involved, immunized by the 
Senate.
  And that takes care of most of the 36 House and Senate witnesses. 
There was some overlap. And now where in the world are the committees 
key witnesses?
  Well, I think America was exposed to the testimony of Roger Tamraz, 
who was detained in Georgia, and that is Georgia, the former portion of 
the Soviet Union, now Russia, an independent, who was interested in 
building a pipeline. And he testified honestly, everywhere people asked 
him the question, either the Senate committee, where he had taken the 
oath, or news reports, TV programs, all the rest, he said sure I paid 
hundreds of thousands of dollars. I wanted to see the President. And he 
did. He had a chance to tell the President about the glories of his 
pipeline because a few hundred thousand dollars gave him access.
  Now, a very courageous woman on the President's national security 
staff said the President should not see someone like that who was in 
flight and so forth and various other charges.

                              {time}  1600

  That is when somebody in the White House called Bob at CIA and said, 
you

[[Page H8049]]

know, can you help us get him into the White House? Now this is unheard 
of. This is the 50th anniversary of the Central Intelligence Agency. 
President Nixon tried to politicize it to save his White House where 
they ill-served the President, just as the current President is being 
ill-served by many of his friends. That often happens. It is no excuse. 
But we have got to watch our friends more than our enemies.
  So what happens? The professional in the National Security Council 
gets overruled, and with whoever Bob is, maybe he works for the 
Democratic National Committee, the CIA, I do not know, but the fact is 
he admitted that he paid even more to see the President. Business is 
business. Whether he can take a tax deduction I do not know, but not 
under our laws.
  Now Charlie Trie, of course we mentioned him a number of times. That 
is one Mr. Brokaw could find, but nobody else seems to be able to find. 
And Webster Hubbell, we know about him, one of the most powerful people 
in the Clinton administration. John Huang living in California, He is 
all over the place. Mark Middleton, a key Clinton aide, he is living in 
Washington, DC, and took the fifth. Then we have people living in Hong 
Kong; the Lippo Group; the Riadys living in Indonesia; and Pauline 
Kanchanalak living in Thailand.
  Now where does this all get us in terms of the investigation and in 
terms of the various witnesses? Where it gets us is this: We have 
talked about the recollection problem in this town, and a lot of people 
have accused various Presidents in press conferences over the years of 
not being able to recollect. But now we have just sort of a plague on 
our hands, not as bad as the bubonic plague of the Middle Ages, but 
certainly bad for good government and bad for civility and bad for 
obeying the laws, because they just brazenly seem to have broken every 
law on campaign finance, some of which have been on the books a 
century, some from this century. And they just say, gee, I do not know, 
you know. Gosh, I just cannot remember.
  And then, mysteriously, the papers they cannot find, they show up in 
previous investigations, either in the residence part of the White 
House, downstairs in some of the offices, and it is like Peter Pan to 
sort of flit his or her way, as the case may be, in this age through 
the residence, through the White House, and drops little important 
papers everywhere or hides little important papers so we do not find 
them for months.
  And when our subpoenas go down for all the papers related to the 
White House, counsel now for 5 years has simply stiffed us. They say, 
``We do not have to answer to Congress. We are above the law. You 
cannot have it. It is executive privilege.''
  And when we followed them down each little rat hole that they are 
claiming it is executive privilege, as they did in Travelgate, 
Filegate, and all the rest that this committee has investigated, we 
find that the only thing that gets a reaction out of them is when we 
say, OK, you have held us off for about 5 months when the papers are 
right under your desk, right under your nose, and we will just have to 
get a contempt of Congress citation, which does carry criminal 
penalties. And so, that resolution starts moving.
  Finally, at 8 o'clock at night, guess what? Boxes of paper appear, 
and we find interesting little things like ``Call Bob at CIA.'' So 
maybe they have not burned all the papers. We will be talking about 
other Cabinet officers down the line that have burned various papers 
not relevant to this investigation, but relevant to another 
investigation which will be underway.
  And so, we have the recollection problem. And whether we can develop 
a pill in time and put in a couple million maybe in the budget for the 
National Institutes of Health to help us on recollection, and we can 
give all these people recollection pills, and they seem to just fade 
away until the heat is off.
  Now, is there obstruction of justice in this case? You bet there is. 
How high does that go in the administration? We are not sure at this 
point, but it goes very high. It goes very high because this kind of a 
conspiracy to raise millions of dollars of money illegally in violation 
of every single law of the United States that relates to campaign 
finance, they say, ``Oh, well, everybody does it.'' That is a lie. And 
we do not need to take the oath to make that statement. That is a lie.
  Most Members in this House, most Members in the Senate of the United 
States, they conform to the laws of the land when it comes to campaign 
finance because they know if they violate those laws, it is an issue 
for their opponent, and most people will want to do the right thing.
  But the White House line is, ``Oh, everybody does it. We should pass 
some laws to do something about it.'' We have got the laws. We do not 
need to pass new laws that say aliens cannot give money in American 
political campaigns. We do not need to pass new laws that say, hey, we 
cannot use the telephone in a Federal office to make political calls 
for money raising, we have got to go somewhere else; like use your 
home, use your credit card at home, et cetera.
  Now that little spin, which the White House publicists, which must 
take up half the White House now to explain away all these things, but 
I want to congratulate the American press. The major exposes so far, 
the House has not begun its hearings, the Senate has, it is doing a 
good job, the major exposes have been delivered by the print media in 
this country, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New York 
Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times. When the 
Pulitzers are handed out this year, if they do not go to a number of 
those papers, then I do not have much confidence in the judges that run 
the Pulitzer Prize.
  The L.A. Times months ago put together an investigative team of 
people that did know what they were talking about when it came to 
campaign finance money. They were experts on going through the Federal 
Election Commission's records, and they have written a number of 
stories that are worth reading and will be sort of the example of fine 
journalism in every journalism classroom in America.
  So what we need, of course, in this case that we do not have and that 
we did have when President Nixon's administration was under 
examination, what we had was a tough Federal district judge, known as 
Judge Sirica; and he threatened to put the whole bunch of, quote, 
plumbers that had gone into the Democratic National Committee, put them 
in jail, prison. Well, that softened up a few, and people started 
talking. And when John Dean was fearful, the White House counsel at 
that time, of going to prison, he talked.
  Now, it would be wonderful if the recollection pill could be given to 
the series of White House counsels. No White House in this century has 
had a turnover of White House counsels like this White House. It is 
just one a year. Now are they just overworked? Are they worn out? Or 
maybe they do not like what they see and they are tired of defending 
it.
  There are some very distinguished people that have been in that job. 
But they ought to start cooperating with Congress and obeying the oath 
one takes in the courtroom and the oath one takes before investigating 
committees of the House so we can get at the truth of the matter.

  Now, we tried that on Travelgate, and we found it all out. We tried 
it on Filegate, and we still do not have answers to some things. Why? 
Because some of their friends up here said, ``Hey, you do not have to 
answer them.'' We started on that when we were in the minority. They 
said, ``Yeah, you do not have to answer to them. Do not worry about 
it.''
  When we were in the majority, we could hold the hearings and get the 
truth, and we did. And the jury involved in accusing people that should 
never have been accused of misdeeds cleared them, but at a personal 
expense to their own human relations, with all their friends, their 
family, the tremendous tension you are under when you are falsely 
accused, as the people in the White House Travel Office were.
  And they had one lucky break. They worked for the press of the United 
States. Those people that covered the White House knew these were good 
people. And when they were thrown out of their jobs, hauled off and 
flattened in a station wagon one day, and political appointees and 
relatives of the President were put in charge, the press knew something 
was rotten here. And when we became the majority, we

[[Page H8050]]

could follow it up. Mr. Clinger, the then chairman of what was known as 
Government Operations, he was right. Nobody would listen to him, but he 
was right. And he was proved right, and the court proved him right.
  So what we need is a few people that will not do their duties as 
citizens to start talking and not all of them, 36 of them, taking the 
fifth amendment. They have a right to take the fifth. Jimmy Hoffa took 
the fifth. There is a long line of distinguished people that have taken 
the fifth before congressional committees. But I think what we need are 
some tough Federal judges.
  Now the question is, special counsel. A lot of us have written the 
Attorney General over the last few months to say, why do you not 
appoint a special counsel to look into this, to use the subpoena power, 
to bring people before a grand jury, to immunize some of them so they 
will talk and you can trace the conspiracy as far up the hierarchy as 
it ought to go, and it goes very high, and then bring the appropriate 
charges?
  And, of course, the Attorney General, for whom I have very high 
respect, and I had met her 10 years before she became Attorney General, 
and when she came to this town and there was a dinner and the President 
would show up and she would show up, she would get more applause than 
anybody in the room because we had great respect for her integrity.
  Now, most people have read a cartoon or two that shows the Attorney 
General sort of like see no evil, hear no evil, gee, I do not see any 
evidence out there. Now they are talking about, well, let us have a 
special counsel. Well, now the suspicion would be if we have a special 
counsel, maybe it is designed to shut us up on the House side as we are 
about to begin our investigation, because generally there is some 
cooperation between Congress and a special counsel, where we do not 
want the person to have revealed the situation under our particular 
procedures because we might want to immunize them to get them to do 
that, and maybe the special counsel does not think that is a very good 
strategy. If we can get someone to talk in the room with a grand jury, 
we can get something done and get at the truth here.
  So there is a lot of unanswered questions. When our investigation 
starts under the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton], the chairman, we 
will get some answers to those questions because we have already 
immunized a few more witnesses that the Senate had not immunized, and 
we will be working on this diligently, because this country needs 
reassurance that the campaign finance laws of the United States will be 
obeyed, and there will not be a conspiracy going to the highest level 
of the administration to raise millions of dollars specifically outside 
the laws of the United States, particularly in Presidential campaigns.
  Now, a lot of people say, oh, well nobody cares about campaign 
finance reform. I have heard that for years. I have been interested in 
this subject for 3 decades, and I have tried to do something about it 
as an elected Member of Congress. I tried to do something about it when 
I was a professor of political science. And the fact is, people do 
care.
  That is why Mr. Perot rose to prominence in 1992. He had the right 
issue. That was campaign finance and how campaigns are conducted in 
America. People can just simply try to buy the seat. I was faced with a 
person that spent $1.2 million to my $400,000. I am outraged that I 
have got to raise $400,000.
  Fortunately, I have got a good group of volunteers and they raise it, 
but we should not have to go through that unlimited bet where several 
million dollars are thrown at you. One person who was a Republican 
spent $29 million to seek the Senate seat in the State of California. 
His opponent, also a millionaire, probably spent about $9 million of 
her and her husband's own money.
  But we do not need to turn this Nation over to plutocracy. We need to 
put the lid on campaign finance. What is stopping us here is a decision 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, known as Buckley versus 
Valeo. I think that Court ought to rethink that decision.
  When I came here as a freshman in 1993, I got a bipartisan group of 
Democrats and Republicans to sign on to a proposed constitutional 
amendment which would permit the Congress to overthrow that kind of 
decision because they claimed that when you limit money in campaigns, 
you are limiting free speech. That is utter nonsense. All due respect 
to the nine justices of the Supreme Court, but that was a decision made 
over 20 years ago.
  Let us pass the McCain-Shays-Meehan-Feingold bill, which started 
debate today in the Senate and, hopefully, will come over here next 
week. Let us pass a bill that gets at disclosure, deals with the soft-
money scandals, and we have had them in both parties where political 
committees in the State get a lot of money from big donors like Charles 
Keating. You will remember him from the savings and loan debacle. Well, 
Mr. Keating gave $800,000 to the Democratic Party at the request of 
Senator Scranton, who was a very distinguished Senator in California 
and has served the people as hard as he could. He made one major 
mistake in that area, and that was getting the money for the Democratic 
Party in California, legal though it was, and put his son in charge of 
it. I would say that is a little bit of a conflict of interest.
  But that kind of money gets access for a lot of people. We have got 
to stop that, and we have got to close that. That is why Mr. Perot got 
a lot of attention in 1992 and why politicians take their polls instead 
of doing the right thing, which you do not need a poll to do, and they 
say, well, gee, people do not seem to care that much about campaign 
finance.

                              {time}  1615

  I think our hearings, if the networks ever broadcast them, my 
colleagues will notice there is sort of a black out in America's 
television. They do not care too much about their public interest 
responsibility, except for Mr. Brokaw, who has done some very good 
stories on money and politics, and I would like to see the other 
networks match NBC. They should try.
  And then we see people on weekly talk shows that say, oh well, they 
all do it. Well, that got my wife so irritated that she wrote a long 
letter to one of them last week, and she had never written a politician 
or a journalist in her life, and that is because she was outraged by 
that comment. That is the White House line, oh, they all do it and we 
have got to reform it. Hey, help us reform it. Years ago when we tried, 
and yet this Chamber, the Committee on Rules when it was under the 
control of the Democrats refused to give us a vote on the compromise 
bill put together by 5 Democrats and 5 Republicans, 10 in all.
  The gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Beilenson] and myself, neither one 
of us take political action committee money. We are from California. 
The gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], now chairman of the 
Committee on Appropriations, was the head of this. Mr. Synar, the very 
respected subcommittee chairman on Commerce, Democrat from Oklahoma. We 
put together a bill that would have passed, but they knew they could 
beat the Republican bill, which said let us get rid of political action 
committee money.
  And I regret to say some of my colleagues in my party seem to love 
some PACs because they found out why the Democrats have stayed here for 
40 years; they just pick up the PAC money every quarter by $5,000 a 
clip from a particular--during their election cycle from some of these 
committees.
  Now they say, oh, we are not trying to influence the Congressmen, we 
just sort of want access. Now I have never known anybody that gives 
away $5,000 bucks or $100,000 that is just talking about access. They 
want their vote, and those of us that do not take PAC money, every 
night when we walk out of here at weird hours after signing the 
constituent mail, we all feel happy that we do not take PAC money. It 
is legal, we can do it, but a lot of people would love to get rid of 
PACs. I do not think we have the votes to do it this year, but an 
overwhelming number in this body want to get rid of soft money.
  And what we need to do is let us put everybody to the test, and if 
the McCain-Feingold bill, McCain being a Republican Senator from 
Arizona, Feingold being the Democratic Senator from Wisconsin, if that 
bill will pass the Senate, and majority leader Lott has scheduled that 
for today, Monday and Tuesday, and can come over to the House, we can 
have an up-

[[Page H8051]]

or-down vote on that measure, and if we are permitted to amend it, we 
got a lot of other good ideas, too.
  The gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Price] Democrat, myself, 
Republican from California, have a bill called stand by your ad. That 
is to get at one of the uglier aspects of American politics, which is 
the negative campaign that is dumped on a lot of candidates in both 
parties by some in the other party, and that is saying usually twisted 
information, most of which is not true. I have had that happen to me. I 
had somebody dump $200,000 worth of mail in the last 3 days of my 
campaign last year.
  Some of my colleagues have had million dollar campaigns against them 
that have run for 6 months, and there is no disclosure. And we are 
determined that everybody that gets into American politics and is going 
to have ads and try to do someone in, let us get disclosure. Who pays 
your bills? How much did they give? We have to do that when we receive 
campaign money up to $1,000 in the primary and $1,000 in the general. 
The people have a right to know.
  Well, with Mr. Price's bill that I am a cosponsor with him, and the 
idea came from the North Carolina legislature, on negative campaigns a 
candidate would have to spend 10 percent of that mailer or that TV ad 
with their mug looking at the voter and saying, ``I am so-and-so, this 
is the film or videotape that I am going to tell you my opponent's 
record.'' Now if they had to say that, I do not use negative active 
campaigns, so I do not worry about it, but if they had to say it, maybe 
they would clean up their act that political consultants talk them 
into.
  Now the American people say, ``Oh, I hate negative campaigns,'' but 
the consultant goes around in both parties and says, ``Oh, but you have 
to do it if you want to be elected.'' You do not have to do it. You 
need to educate your constituency that you want civil discourse, not 
this false charge. Like every Democrat I know seems to run against a 
Republican and say we cut Social Security. That is nonsense; we never 
cut Social Security. The Vice President one day got on Meet The Press, 
some very distinguished commentators were on it, and they did not call 
him on it. Well, I knew the minute he said it he was dead wrong, and 
the question was, was he lying or what? He said no Republican voted for 
Social Security in the 1930's. It is nonsense. House voted 75 percent, 
Republicans voted for social security; another one, 80 percent.
  So I sent a letter to the hundred top journalists in town, that if 
the Vice President ever says that again, here are the facts, and they 
come from the Congressional Research Service, our bipartisan research 
arm.
  So there are things we need to clean up without question, negative 
campaigns, soft money, disclosure. We also need to clean up who is an 
American citizen eligible to vote and who is not. And we have a bill in 
on that which is, if the registrar wants to check their rolls, they 
could have access to the Social Security information. Since 1982 Social 
Security has kept the citizenship status of individuals. And if they 
cannot get the proof there, they can access the Immigration and 
Naturalization Service roles and they can find out if the person has 
been legally naturalized. Obviously there are other ways to prove 
citizenship, affidavits from people who have known you in the community 
for 30 years, knew when you were born, family bible, all that. But we 
need help in this situation where some of the laws have been passed so 
they cannot purge people from the election rolls when they do not vote 
in four elections.
  And that leads to real mischief when they do not clean up those 
rolls. If you are not going to be a citizen, a good citizen and go to 
the polls for four elections; in California it used to be if you just 
did it for 2, you would have to re-register, and that means you ought 
to be going doing your duty and the civic responsibility as an American 
citizen.
  So there are a lot of proposals a lot of good people have dealing 
with television time to be made available so people can see the debate.
  Now the television stations get very upset; that is tough. The fact 
is they are using the air waves licensed by the Federal Government and 
they can certainly contribute some time, as the chairman of our 
Committee on Commerce has advocated this for years. The gentleman from 
Virginia [Mr. Bliley] put a bill in in 1993, and he still believes in 
it, and perhaps that discussion will come to the floor.
  So we need to do some things just in general in campaign finance, and 
that is the things that are changing existing laws. But with these 
investigations what we are dealing with are violations of existing 
laws, not changes. We are dealing with the fact that the laws of the 
United States have been shredded in the 1996 campaign and the attitude 
was something of the Wild West, and since I am a westerner I recall 
that. What did we do west of the Pecos? There was no law. Maybe one 
tough judge here and their, and that is what we need in this case, and 
we need to get the evidence out and we need to get a few of these 
people to start talking, and when we do that American politics will be 
better off and American government will be better off.

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