[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 146 (Monday, October 27, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11241-S11242]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, Max Frankel, sometime head of the 
Washington Bureau of the New York Times and a wise and seasoned 
observer of American politics, wrote about campaign finance reform in 
his column in yesterday's New York Times magazine. I commend it to all 
Senators. We all know the one issue in campaign finance is money for 
television. Ease that by providing free television time--those are 
public airways--and as much about the problem goes away as will ever be 
managed in this vale of toil and sin.
  I ask that the article be printed in the Record.
  The article follows:

                      Money: Hard, Soft and Dirty


a sure-fire solution to the campaign finance mess would be to wipe out 
                    the big bucks of tv advertising

       The movement to clean up campaign financing is going 
     nowhere for the simple reason that the reformers are aiming 
     at the wrong target. They are laboring to limit the flow of 
     money into politics when they should be looking to limit the 
     candidates' need for money to pay for television time. It is 
     the staggering price of addressing the voters that drives the 
     unseemly money chase.
       You cannot run for major office nowadays without spending 
     millions for television commercials that spread your fame, 
     shout your slogans, denounce your opponents and counteract 
     television attacks. A campaign costing $10 million for a 
     governorship or seat in the Senate is a bargain in many 
     states. Even with the priceless advantages of the White House 
     at his command, President Clinton seems to have spent more 
     than $250 million on television ads promoting his re-election 
     last year. And he and his opponents invented breathtaking 
     strategies to evade the post-Watergate laws against 
     collecting and spending that kind of money.
       Not even the most determined investigators have uncovered 
     the cost to taxpayers of the favors done for the donors of 
     these vast sums. Surely no honest business, union or interest 
     group would sanction large contributions if the investment 
     did not pay off. Senators gathering $6 million for a re-
     election campaign must solicit $3,000 every day of their six 
     years in office; just imagine how grateful they become when a 
     single donor offers to cover a whole week of such beggary.
       It would be cheaper by far if Federal and state treasuries 
     paid directly for the television time that candidates need to 
     define themselves to the public--provided they purchased no 
     commercial time of their own. Democracy would be further 
     enhanced if television stations that sold time to special 
     interest groups in election years were required, in return 
     for the use of the public spectrum, to give equal time to 
     opposing views. But so long as expensive television 
     commercials are our society's main campaign weapons, 
     politicians will not abandon the demeaning and often corrupt 
     quest for ever more money from ever more suspect sources.
       That is why President Clinton gave only lip service to 
     campaign finance reform during his first term. And though 
     he claims to favor it now, he has dropped the essential 
     element of free television time. Does anyone really 
     believe that Al Gore wants to be held to the spending 
     limits envisioned by the Watergate reforms of 20 years 
     ago--a TV budget of a mere $100 million when he runs for 
     President in two years? Would any rational Republican want 
     such a limit for a campaign against an already widely 
     known Vice President? Money flows toward power like water 
     downhill, and so long as they need money, politicians will 
     contrive to get it. All efforts to restrict the flow will 
     only force it deeper underground.
       In the parlance of campaign finance, candidates are 
     supposed to traffic only in ``hard'' money--money gathered 
     and spent in amounts that are strictly limited and monitored. 
     Responding to the high cost of television, however, both 
     parties have conspired to greatly exceed the limits with 
     ``soft'' money--contributions that national, state, county 
     and local party organizations may collect and spend freely 
     provided only that the television messages they produce are 
     disguised to appear ``uncoordinated'' with any candidate's 
     campaign.
       Reforms, led by Senators John McCain and Russell Feingold, 
     thought they could restore restraint by simply outlawing soft 
     money. But they soon realized that banning soft money would 
     put a premium on ``slimy'' money--the money that candidates 
     steer to like-minded interest groups, which then produce 
     ``independent'' commercials and use them in support of 
     favored candidates. So the reformers decided that the 
     Government would have to police commercials to prevent the 
     subterfuge, and they have convinced themselves that the 
     Supreme Court would countenance such censorship. Fat chance.
       Yet even if the soft and slimy variants were prohibited, 
     political money would reappear in liquid or vaporous form. 
     The Annenberg Public Policy Center has compiled a catalogue 
     of two dozen ``issue groups''--from the Americans for Limited 
     Terms to Women for Tax Reform--that spent about $150 million 
     for political ads in 1995-95, most of them targeted for or 
     against specific candidates. These groups call themselves 
     ``educational'' rather than political and are effectively 
     beyond Government regulation. Most are also able to reward 
     their donors with tax exemptions. Thus the ads for shrewdly 
     positioned candidates who ``support the police'' or 
     ``counteract global warming'' could tap into taxpayer 
     subsidies of up to 40 percent. Similarly subsidized are the 
     ``foundations'' that both parties have learned to create in 
     election seasons to ``teach'' a certain kind of history or to 
     ``register'' voters of a certain persuasion.
       Senators McCain and Feingold were once well aware of the 
     folly of trying to dam up this flow of money without 
     simultaneously reducing the politicians' need for it. Their 
     original proposal called for television stations to 
     compensate the public for the use of the airways by giving 
     candidates a generous supply of free air time. But they were 
     forced to drop that idea to get their bill to the Senate 
     floor, a compromise that left them sponsoring a measure bound 
     to make a bad situation even worse.
       When campaigning for a seat in Congress costs 10 or more 
     times the amount earned by

[[Page S11242]]

     its occupant and when it takes half a billion to run for 
     President, who can compete? Mainly the wealthy or those 
     beholden to the wealthy. There is no point dreaming of a law 
     that says ``you may not'' so long as the political system 
     daily teaches the participants ``you must.'' Until the 
     candidates for office in America are relieved of the costly 
     burden of buying television time, the scandals will 
     grow.

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