[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 134 (Wednesday, October 1, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10271-S10272]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, few if any issues before the Senate this 
year are more important than campaign finance reform.
  Americans from all walks of life are fed up with the current campaign 
financing system and its excessive reliance on unlimited contributions 
that make conflict of interest a way of life. They are fed up with a 
campaign process driven by the high cost of television commercials. 
They are fed up with candidates who spend more time raising money from 
special interests instead of serving the public interest.
  And who can blame them?
  In recent years, the amount of money spent in Presidential campaigns 
has doubled every 4 years. Senate and House races now cost millions of 
dollars. Election campaigns have become more and more negative, with 
misleading TV spots that traffic in half-truths or outright falsehoods. 
And corrupting and corroding it all are the massive abusers of the 
current loophole-ridden campaign financing laws.
  The constant hunt for campaign dollars demeans our electoral process 
and undermines the very foundation of our country. We have the best 
political system that money can buy, and it's a disgrace to everything 
our democracy stands for.
  The time for change is now. We must take elections off the auction 
block. We must limit campaign spending. We must return the election 
process to the people, in which every voter is equal, no matter what 
their income, or what job they hold, or where they live.
  Democrats understand this. Democrats in the Senate are unanimously 
committed to campaign finance reform that limits campaign spending. All 
45 Democrats in the U.S. Senate have pledged their support for the 
bipartisan McCain-Feingold bill. President Clinton, too, has clearly 
stated his unequivocal support for this important legislation. He has 
taken the extraordinary step of announcing his intention to use his 
authority under the U.S. Constitution to require Congress to meet in 
special session if it fails to take up this urgently needed reform.
  But where are the Republicans?
  Have they united behind a proposal--any proposal?
  Are they willing to join with Democrats to clean up the cesspool, and 
limit the amount of money and the power of money in American elections?
  Sadly, the answer is ``no.''
  The Republican prescription for these flagrant abuses is more money 
in politics, not less. They prescribe an even larger overdose of money 
for elections, in which their friends in big businesses and their 
lobbyists and special interests can write more checks and fatter checks 
to the Republican Party.
  Their recipe for campaign finance reform is to tilt the balance even 
more unfairly against American workers. They want to increase the power 
of large corporations, and squash even the limited power that American 
workers have today. Republicans want to handcuff labor unions in the 
battle for a living wage, for decent health care for working families, 
and a secure retirement for the elderly. They want to silence union 
support for candidates who stand up and speak out on those basic 
issues.
  In short, Republicans want to impose a gag rule on American workers.
  The Republican antiworker scheme is a poison pill for campaign 
finance reform, and the Republicans admit it. The majority leader, 
Senator Lott, told the Washington Times that his amendment would kill 
the bill because Democrats would mount a filibuster. He said, ``I've 
set it up where they're going to be doing the filibustering.''
  Columnist Robert Novak agrees. Writing about the Republican amendment 
to impose a gag rule on workers, he says its ``primary purpose in 
Congress is not to win Republican supporters for campaign reform but to 
lose Democratic supporters . . . . Republicans are divided between the 
many who bash labor to kill reform and the few who appease labor to 
save reform.''
  The Lott amendment is a killer amendment, because it unfairly 
punishes working Americans and their unions for participating in the 
elections. The Lott amendment bars unions from collecting dues from any 
workers--even members who voluntarily join the union and participate in 
setting its goals--unless those workers sign an authorization form to 
allow part of their union dues to be spent for political purposes.
  This isn't reform--it's revenge. It's a blatant attempt to punish 
working Americans for their role in the 1996 elections--and an equally 
blatant attempt to silence working Americans in future elections.
  Republicans intend this procedure to cripple any union's ability to 
participate in elections. They know that imposing such a requirement on 
any organization would have the same result. Yet, they don't propose it 
for the National Rifle Association or the big tobacco companies or the 
American Farm Bureau or the Chamber of Commerce. They don't ask 
corporations to get permission slips from their shareholders before the 
corporation can spend funds for political purposes. The Lott amendment 
should be called The Rampant Republican Hypocrisy Act of 1997. How 
hypocritical can they get?
  The real measure of whether Republicans are serious about campaign 
finance reform is whether they will support honest limits on campaign 
spending.
  The McCain-Feingold bill that all 45 Senate Democrats support will 
ban so-called soft money--the millions of dollars in campaign funds 
that today are virtually unregulated. This immense loophole in our 
current campaign laws allows contributions worth hundreds of thousands 
of dollars to be made to political parties. The parties then spend the 
money to help elect candidates for Federal office. While the amount of 
money that an individual voter can give to a candidate is limited to 
$1,000 per campaign, candidates for Federal office can receive millions 
through the back door using this soft money loophole.
  Clearly, any legislation worth the name reform must ban this shameful 
practice.
  In addition, the McCain-Feingold bill limits the ability of outside 
groups to run ads supporting specific candidates. This practice has 
become another source of soft money for Federal candidates. If you 
don't have enough money in your own campaign to pay for your ads, then 
get a friendly outside group to support them.
  The McCain-Feingold bill says that organizations are free to run ads 
on genuine issues. That's free speech, and it's protected under the 
Constitution. But if an outside group runs an ad supporting a specific 
candidate, then the cost of that ad should be counted as part of the 
candidate's campaign, and should be subject to the Federal election 
laws.

[[Page S10272]]

  The McCain-Feingold bill also increases disclosure requirements for 
campaigns, so that the public will be able to see much more clearly the 
sources and the amounts of all contributions that any candidates 
accept.
  It is time for Congress to stop talking about reform and start acting 
to make it happen. This bill is not a perfect bill. All Senators can 
find some provision in it that they do not like. But the McCain-
Feingold bill is an honest reform and the best hope to end the most 
flagrant abuses under the current system. I urge Democrats and 
Republicans alike to support this bill and send it on to President 
Clinton, so that we can clean up the current mess and restore the 
voters' shattered confidence in our democracy.
  It is time to take our campaigns away from the special interests and 
give them back to the people. It is time to make our democracy worthy 
of its name.
  Mr. President, I am not sure whether these have been printed in the 
Record so I will ask unanimous consent to print in the Record two 
editorials, one from the Washington Post and one from the New York 
Times, that comment on our Republican leader's amendments and 
parliamentary maneuvering so as to require the first and only vote that 
will be available to the Members of the Senate to occur on his 
particular gag rule on American workers.
  The Washington Post says in the first sentence:

       Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, having magnanimously 
     allowed campaign finance reform legislation to come to the 
     floor, now proposes to kill it with an amendment affecting 
     the use of labor union dues for political purposes. . . .
       Everyone understands what kind of vote this is--a vote not 
     on labor law but on campaign finance at one remove.

  They have it right.
  And the New York Times points out in its editorial:

       Trent Lott, as expected, has come up with a perverse 
     stratagem to kill campaign finance reform this year. . . . 
     Mr. Lott's purpose today is to scuttle the bill by making it 
     unacceptable to Democrats. . . .
       [Members] should realize that if they let Mr. Lott kill the 
     bill by subterfuge, their criticism of Democratic excesses 
     will be mere opportunism and hollow rhetoric.

  I ask unanimous consent that both of these editorials be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the editorials were ordered to be printed 
in the Record, as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, Oct. 1, 1997]

                        Leader Lott's Amendment

       Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, having magnanimously 
     allowed campaign finance reform legislation to come to the 
     floor, now proposes to kill it with an amendment affecting 
     the use of labor union dues for political purposes. He thinks 
     he can summon the votes for the amendment, after which the 
     theory is that the Democrats, who are the principal 
     beneficiaries of labor support, will do the rest of his work 
     for him by halting the underlying bill. The transparency 
     offers him the best of both worlds: The bill will be 
     defeated, but he won't have been the one to have done it.
       The amendment would require unions to get the written 
     permission of individual members before spending any of their 
     dues for political purposes. The Paycheck Protection Act, its 
     sponsors call it with mock solicitude. ``Our political system 
     depends upon one's freedom to participate without even the 
     slightest degree of compulsion,'' assistant majority leader 
     Don Nickles says. But in fact under labor law such freedom 
     already exists; there is no such compulsion. No worker in 
     this country can be forced to join a union. In some states, 
     workers covered by union contracts who decline to join can be 
     required to pay the equivalent of union dues, but they 
     already have the right, under a 1988 Supreme Court decision, 
     to have the political portion of those dues refunded. The 
     reform bill would codify that decision; the amendment would 
     go beyond it, not necessarily incapacitating the unions but 
     creating an extra hill for them to climb.
       Question One is whether Mr. Lott is right in thinking he 
     has the votes. Everyone understands what kind of vote this 
     is--a vote not on labor law but on campaign finance at one 
     remove. A number of Republicans have indicated support for 
     the reform legislation--perhaps enough, assuming all 45 
     Democrats also vote no, to set the Lott amendment aside. Do 
     they vote with their leader or do they vote for reform?
       Question Two is what happens if Mr. Lott prevails. Once 
     again it is a question of senatorial will Proponents of 
     reform said before the August recess that they were willing 
     to tie up the Senate--prevent it from taking any or most 
     other action--until they got a clear shot at a clean version 
     of the reform bill. You presume they meant not just a chance 
     to talk for a few days, take a test vote on a deflective 
     amendment and quit, rather that they intend to press for a 
     straight up-or-down majority vote on the bill itself. Do they 
     do it at the risk of violating the accommodative code by 
     which the Senate normally lives, or do they cave? What 
     finally matters most to them? That's what the vote on Leader 
     Lott's amendment will begin to tell.
                                                                    ____


                [From the New York Times, Oct. 1, 1997]

                        Trent Lott's Poison Pill

       Trent Lott, as expected, has come up with a perverse 
     strateagem to kill campaign finance reform this year. The 
     Senate majority leader would add a provision to the McCain-
     Feingold bill requiring unions to get approval from workers 
     before using their dues or fees for political purposes. The 
     idea might deserve consideration another day, but Mr. Lott's 
     purpose today is to scuttle the bill by making it 
     unacceptable to Democrats.
       After months of disclosures about excesses in both parties, 
     all 45 Senate Democrats have joined 4 Republicans to support 
     the McCain-Feingold legislation, which would prohibit 
     unlimited donations to the parties by wealthy individuals, 
     labor unions and corporations. These contributions were at 
     the heart of the access-buying scandals of the Clinton 
     campaign, and they figure in the influence of money from 
     tobacco and other industries on Capitol Hill. Mr. Lott knows 
     there are nearly enough senators to approve the bill, so he 
     wants a poison pill to repel Democrats and shatter its 
     bipartisan support.
       Only one additional Republican would be needed to join 
     other Republican backers of reform to block Mr. Lott's plan. 
     But it will not be easy for Republicans to resist his 
     seductive amendment. Even two reformers, Senators John McCain 
     of Arizona and Susan Collins of Maine, support the principle 
     behind the amendment, though they have said they oppose the 
     amendment itself as a threat to reform at this crucial point. 
     Many other Republicans would like to vote for something that 
     would punish labor for its recent campaign spending, 
     particularly the $35 million that paid for attack ads 
     directed at Republican candidates in 30 Congressional races 
     last year.
       The McCain-Feingold bill would codify a nine-year-old 
     ruling of the Supreme Court holding that non-union members 
     who pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment are 
     entitled to demand that the fees not be used for political 
     purposes. If Republicans want to vote on a broader provision 
     giving that right to all union members, they should accept 
     the Democratic offer to consider it on another day without 
     the threat of a filibuster. It would only be fair to consider 
     a similar curb requiring corporations, which outspent unions 
     nearly 9 to 1 on politics last year, to get approval from 
     shareholders when making political expenditures.
       If the four Republican supporters of McCain-Feingold stand 
     firm, only one other Republican will be needed to defeat Mr. 
     Lott's disingenuous amendment. Senator Alfonse D'Amato of New 
     York, no particular champion of campaign reform in the past, 
     is in for a tough re-election fight next year and has always 
     had the backing of at least some labor unions. Senator Jim 
     Jeffords of Vermont, a long-time champion of campaign reform, 
     should see the wisdom of standing up now. Senator Olympia 
     Snowe of Maine, where campaign finance reform has been 
     approved locally, can join with Senator Collins to save the 
     reform legislation.
       Other senators who have shown independence on this issue in 
     the past, like John Chafee of Rhode Island, should also come 
     to the rescue. Down the road, still more Republicans will be 
     needed to save the bill, because it will take 60 votes to 
     thwart a promised filibuster. For now, they should realize 
     that if they let Mr. Lott kill the bill by subterfuge, their 
     criticism of Democratic excesses will be mere opportunism and 
     hollow rhetoric.

                          ____________________