[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 135 (Thursday, October 2, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1926-E1927]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  MICHAEL DUKAKIS SETS A GOOD EXAMPLE

                                 ______


                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, October 1, 1997

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, several very valuable 
commodities are unfortunately rare in politics these days--as they are 
in other aspects of our life. Among these prized entities are acts of 
graciousness, complete intellectual honesty, extremely lucid thinking, 
and, probably rarest of all, a willingness to go to the aid of a 
colleague being unfairly attacked, rather than to gloat secretly over 
his or her distress.
  This makes the article written by former Massachusetts Gov. Michael 
Dukakis in the New York Times for September 29 both extremely rare and 
extraordinarily valuable. In this article, Governor Dukakis, who was 
during his many years in elected office a model of integrity, rebuts 
the unfair accusations that have been made against Vice President Gore 
and President Clinton involving telephone requests for contributions. I 
do have one correction--Governor Dukakis refers to a comment I once 
made about his resistance to any effort unduly to influence him on 
behalf of contributors by saying that I had referred to him as the only 
``true ingrate'' in politics. In fact, my recollection is that I 
referred to him as the only example I could think of, of a ``perfect 
ingrate'', in that he better than anyone I knew in high office was able 
to withstand the pressures that result from elected officials having to 
raise large sums of money from private individuals on a regular basis. 
Then, and now, I cited his rarity in this regard as the best argument 
for replacing our current campaign contribution system with public 
financing--a point Governor Dukakis himself makes in the article. But, 
like Governor Dukakis, I am prepared to settle for less than perfect 
reform and the current version of the McCain-Feingold bill seems to me 
to meet that definition, so I join him in supporting that.
  But most important, I want to commend him for his willingness to use 
his own extremely well earned reputation for absolute integrity to come 
to the defense of Vice President Gore and President Clinton against 
some unfair accusations being leveled at them, and I therefore ask that 
his thoughtful, admirable article be printed here.

                   I Raised Money From My Office. So?

       I get an odd sort of flashback when I hear about the uproar 
     over the Vice President's fund-raising phone calls. I can see 
     him reaching for the phone, dialing the number, making his 
     pitch. I can see it all because I've done it myself, under 
     roughly similar circumstances.
       When I was running for re-election as Governor of 
     Massachusetts in 1986, I had two phones on my desk. One was 
     white--the state phone. The other was red--the campaign 
     phone, a separate line paid for entirely by my campaign 
     committee.
       Massachusetts had (and still has) a law much like the 
     Federal one that's now in the news, prohibiting fund-raising 
     inside a state building. Yet I made hundreds of campaign 
     calls on that red phone, and it never dawned on me or anyone 
     else that doing so violated the law.
       It's not that I was cavalier about fund-raising--that's why 
     I had the separate phone lines. I tried to set a very high 
     standard for my gubernatorial campaigns when it came to 
     raising money. (Barney Frank once said that I was the only 
     true ingrate in American politics because I was so 
     unresponsive to my contributors.) No PAC's. No corporations. 
     No registered lobbyists involved in the fundraising process.
       But the red phone never made my ``no'' list. That's because 
     the Massachusetts law was not intended to prohibit such 
     things, and neither are its Federal cousins.
       Both were part of the civil service reform movement of the 
     late 19th century that was intended to end wholesale 
     political patronage, create a merit system and protect civil 
     servants from being forced by their superiors or by party 
     bosses to contribute to political campaigns. Al Gore was 
     treading on none of that territory with his fund-raising 
     calls.
       What do his critics expect the Vice President (or the 
     President, who may also have made such calls) to do? Go 
     across the street to a pay phone? And what if the person is 
     not in and calls him back at the White House? Is it a 
     criminal offense for the Vice President or, for that matter, 
     a member of Congress while at his or her desk to accept a 
     call from a political supporter or contributor?
       What troubles me about this kind of foolishness is that it 
     is diverting our attention from the things that really need 
     fixing. It's not where you make the phone calls that is the 
     problem. It is the people and organizations that candidates 
     are going after and the virtually unlimited sums of money 
     that the soft-money loopholes permits them to raise.
       Millions of special-interest dollars continue to flow into 
     the coffers of both major

[[Page E1927]]

     parties and their candidates. The soft-money loophole that 
     the Federal Elections Commission carved into the post-
     Watergate campaign reform legislation--and anybody who has 
     run for the Presidency knows how pernicious it is--has made a 
     mockery of our efforts to broaden the base of our campaigns 
     and restore public confidence in the political process.
       Unfortunately, much of what is currently passing for a 
     Congressional investigation of the subject is blatant 
     hypocrisy--many of the lawmakers sounding so outraged about 
     fund-raising phone calls by Mr. Gore and President Clinton 
     are experts at taking special-interest money; some of their 
     own campaigns have been fined for taking too much.
       And all of it is a smoke screen for Congressional inaction. 
     Speaker Newt Gingrich is leading the way in this regard. Two 
     years ago, he and the President told a New Hampshire audience 
     that reforming our campaign finance laws deserved the highest 
     priority. Last week he pronounced a major bipartisan bill on 
     campaign finance reform, the McCain-Feingold bill, dead-
     before-arrival in the House.
       We know what the problems are: candidates prostituting 
     themselves for big special-interest contributions; the soft-
     money loophole, which either the Federal Election Commission 
     or the Congress should close immediately; campaigns waged 
     almost exclusively on radio and television; politicians 
     spending too much time with fat cats and not enough time in 
     backyards and living rooms recruiting supporters from the 
     people who ought to count in this country. And then there's 
     the most important problem of all; the profound effect all of 
     this is having on voter turnout and the wililngness of 
     ordinary citizens of get deeply and actively involved in 
     public life.
       The solution is painfully simple. Either we decide that 
     public financing is the way to go--something that is a long 
     way from commanding a Congressional majority--or we get 
     behind the McCain-Feingold bill and, to the maximum extent 
     possible, limit the ability of candidates to raise large 
     amounts of special-interest money.
       In short, we don't need any more educating about what the 
     problems are, or any distracting sideshows, or any pre-
     emptory blocking maneuvers from the Speaker's office. We need 
     Congressional action, and we need it now.

                          ____________________