[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 143 (Wednesday, October 22, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H8932]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                TIME IS NOW FOR CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  (Mr. HUTCHINSON asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Speaker, with the failure of the Senate to 
address the problem of campaign finance reform, the spotlight has 
returned to the House to create momentum for this effort.
  As a conservative editor, Bill Kristol, recently suggested, there is 
a conservative grassroots hostility to the massive soft money donations 
and the apparent influence such donations buy for big businesses and 
unions.
  Mr. Speaker, we must not let the American people down and shuffle 
aside reform. Do not forget that unlike the Senate, we must face the 
voters next year. To oppose this reform effort is not only bad policy, 
but it is bad politics.
  In 1992, the voters abandoned the Republican and Democratic Parties 
in significant numbers, attracted by the reform platform of Ross Perot, 
who understood that the people are tired of the Washington status quo.
  Mr. Speaker, we cannot surrender control of Congress to the 
multinational corporations and unions, which pump millions of dollars 
of soft money into the system. We must return power and influence to 
the grassroots, to the people who sent us here.
  Mr. Speaker, as a conservative, I came to Washington with just such 
an agenda; to return authority to the people back home. To abandon that 
reform would be to abandon that effort. I cannot do so.

                          ____________________