[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 132 (Monday, September 29, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H8119-H8120]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               DEMOCRAT RECORD ON CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Farr] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FARR of California. Madam Speaker, I rise to continue the 
discussion on campaign finance reform. As you have heard earlier, there 
is a big effort here in the House to come up with a meaningful package.
  I would like to remind everyone that this is not the first time that 
we have debated this issue. In fact, in the last Congress, in the 
104th, which is the Congress that was elected in 1994, a bill came to 
the floor, a bill that I authored so I am very familiar with it, that 
was a repetition of the bills that had been here before that had been 
passed out of this House when Democrats were in control. And I think 
that the approach that we need to be reminded of, in this era when 
everybody wants some campaign reform, they will take the cream off the 
top and try to do something immediately, trying to do an easy fix. We 
do not even seem to be able to do the easy fix.
  We were shown the now historical handshake where the President and 
the Speaker of this House agreed that it would be campaign finance 
reform done in the last session. It has not been done. It was supposed 
to be done in this session. We have not even had a committee hearing or 
a scheduled vote.

  I want to remind people that the bill that has always gotten the most 
votes in this House, and that in the 103d and the 102d and the 101st 
sessions of Congress got off of the floor of this House only to be 
filibustered by Republicans in the Senate or vetoed by President Bush, 
was a campaign finance reform bill that was comprehensive that did set 
campaign spending limits.
  My colleagues, we are not going to have a meaningful campaign reform 
bill until we can limit how much candidates can do. We know from case 
law and the Supreme Court decision that we cannot, as a Congress, limit 
free speech, but we also know that we can set up a process where one 
can volunteer to set the limits for themselves in

[[Page H8120]]

a campaign, and, with that volunteering, you trigger in such things as 
spending limits, as new PAC limits, as new individual contribution 
limits, as public benefits that have never been given before for those 
who voluntarily limit their campaign spending.
  It eliminates things like bundling provisions, it eliminates the soft 
money provisions, and it requires for independent expenditures for 
those organizations outside of this system, outside of a candidate's 
campaign, who are going to come in and comment on the campaign, who are 
going to run literature that says this candidate is a good or bad 
candidate, it requires them to disclose who they are and where their 
sources of funding are coming from. This is comprehensive campaign 
reform.
  What you have heard so far are bits and pieces of that. The 
bipartisan freshman bill, it is a good bill. It is a step in the right 
direction that deals with independent expenditure; other bills that 
deal with elimination of soft money; other bills that deal with public 
benefits. But none of the bills are comprehensive, that go all the way 
throughout the spectrum from campaign spending limits to overhaul of 
the benefits that candidates should get.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FARR of California. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
making this point.
  Many have tried to say that somehow those of us who are asking that 
the House debate and pass campaign finance reform are somehow doing it 
to change the subject because the President and the administration have 
their own problems with how the money was raised and given to them in 
the last election.
  As the gentleman points out, when the Democrats were in control of 
this House, in three successive efforts they made to pass and did, in 
fact, pass campaign finance reform, it was vetoed by the President, it 
was filibustered in the Senate.
  The fact of the matter is, knowing even then that this was a system 
that was headed into a meltdown, we tried to take some efforts to get 
comprehensive finance reforms and they were thwarted by the other 
party. But now it is even worse.
  We just heard Members from the other side say that they want to make 
this effort, and we had a press conference, a bipartisan press 
conference, supporting bipartisan legislation. We cannot even debate 
that legislation on the floor of the House, the so-called people's 
House, because the Republican leadership will not let us. Yet we have 
numerous Members from the other side of the aisle who have worked many 
years on this problem. They cannot even be heard.
  Mr. FARR of California. Madam Speaker, I think the point is so well 
taken, the fact that there is no effort in this legislative body, the 
only body that can change the law. We are having hearings here where 
people want to hear and smear or just listen and say, we will finish 
with that and come up with something. This House has been doing 
campaign finance reform when the Democrats were in control year after 
year after year. Why can we not do it now?
  Mr. MILLER of California. Because the Speaker is determined that it 
will not be on the schedule, that it will not be on the agenda of this 
House. That is what we are trying to change with many of these 
procedural votes, to call the attention to the public that we are being 
gagged in the House of Representatives from talking about this problem.
  Mr. FARR of California. Continue the effort.

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