[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 15 (Wednesday, February 25, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S972-S995]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PAYCHECK PROTECTION ACT

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the clerk will 
report the pending business.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1663) to protect individuals from having their 
     money involuntarily collected and used for politics by a 
     corporation or labor organization.

  The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.
  Pending:

       McCain amendment No. 1646, in the nature of a substitute.
       Snowe amendment No. 1647 (to amendment No. 1646), to amend 
     those provisions with respect to communications made during 
     elections, including communications made by independent 
     organizations.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks time? Who yields time?
  Mr. BURNS. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. SNOWE. Thank you, Mr. President. I think that the debate on the 
Snowe-Jeffords amendment has been very important in terms of 
underscoring the issues that need to be addressed in reforming our 
campaign finance system. I would like to review for the membership of 
this body exactly what the Snowe-Jeffords amendment would do, because 
we have heard so much about the impact of it and the misconceptions 
about the impact of the provisions included in this amendment.
  The fact is, this amendment will affect several categories with 
respect to advertising by groups across this country during the course 
of an election designed to influence the outcome of a Federal election. 
We are not saying they cannot advertise. We are not saying that they 
cannot engage in political activity. But what we are asking these 
groups to do is to disclose their major donors if they advertise on 
either medium, radio or television, 60 days before a general election, 
30 days before a primary, in which they identify or mention a candidate 
for Federal office.
  They then would be required to disclose their major donors who 
contribute more than $500. That is more than twice the threshold for 
disclosure for Federal candidates.
  So, unlike the suggestion of those who are opposed to the campaign 
finance proposal and the Snowe-Jeffords amendment that this is too 
invasive, too broad, it is not. In fact, it would meet the Buckley 
standards handed down in that Supreme Court decision of not being 
invasive. In that Court decision, they were considering the impact of 
requiring donors of more than $10 to be disclosed. Obviously, that is 
broad and invasive. But this would pass constitutional muster.
  We are talking about groups that spend money on television or radio 
broadcasts in which they identify a Federal candidate 60 days before a 
general election, because, obviously, when those ads are aired at that 
point in time, they are intending to influence the outcome of an 
election.
  The medium is radio and television. The timing is 60 days before a 
general election, 30 days before a primary. The ad must mention a 
candidate's name or identify the candidate clearly.
  Targeting: The ad must be targeted at voters in the candidate's 
State.
  And the threshold: The sponsor of the ad must spend more than $10,000 
on such ads in the calendar year.
  It is very narrow, it is very clearly targeted, very specific. And 
the Supreme Court has said that you can make a distinction of 
electioneering communications from other forms of speech. That is 
exactly what the Snowe-Jeffords amendment does. We are replacing the 
issue advocacy provisions of the McCain-Feingold legislation, section 
201, that could raise constitutional questions. The proposals that 
Senator Jeffords and I are offering today are ones that have been 
designed by legal and constitutional experts based on court decisions.
  What the Snowe-Jeffords amendment would not do, because, again, we 
have heard so much about what the impact would be and, in many cases, 
have been very erroneous in some of the circulations in Congress by 
various groups, it would not prohibit groups from communicating. If 
they want to advertise, they have every right to do that. They can 
communicate with their grassroots membership.
  It does not prohibit them from accepting funds, corporate or labor 
funds. It would not require groups to create a PAC. They can continue 
what they are doing. But they are required to disclose if they are 
going to identify a candidate 60 days before an election in a 
television advertisement or radio broadcast.
  It would not affect the ability of any organization to urge 
grassroots contacts with lawmakers in upcoming votes. They can say, 
``Call your Senator, call your Member of Congress, using the 1-800 
number,'' which is a popular means today. That is certainly allowed. 
There is nothing to discourage that. If they identify a candidate in a 
TV or radio broadcast 60 days before an election, then they have to 
disclose their donors of more than $500, and that is all we are 
requiring. So it is not invasive; it would not require them to give an 
advance of the specifics of their advertisement and the text.
  What we are requiring in all of this is disclosure so that everybody 
understands who is financing these advertisements when they are 
designed to influence the outcome of an election.
  It guards against sneak attacks. Doesn't everybody have the right to 
know? Absolutely. And that is why the Supreme Court made that 
distinction in Buckley and in other cases, to draw that bright line, 
which is what the Snowe-Jeffords amendment does.
  The Court has never said that there is one route towards what can be 
distinguished in terms of electioneering communications. The fact of 
the matter is, it said you can make that distinction, that the U.S. 
Congress has the prerogative to make that distinction in a very narrow, 
very targeted way.
  This amendment would pass constitutional muster. I think that is what 
causes some anxiety for some people, because they are opposed to this 
amendment because it will require disclosure of major donors.
  Since when has disclosure been antithetical to good government, to 
campaign financing? Because that is the thrust of this amendment. It is 
disclosure. I think we all can concur that secrecy does not invite the 
kind of campaign that we want to see in America. We are entitled to 
know who finances these campaigns when it comes to major donors, when 
they are running ads that influence the outcome of these campaigns.
  The fact is, these groups have spent at least, based on what we know 
because it is a guesstimate because they did not have to disclose, $150 
million--$150 million. The best we can guess, because, again, it does 
not require disclosure, is a third of all the money that was spent was 
spent on campaign advertising in the last election cycle, and we do not 
know where one dime comes from. We don't have the identity of donors, 
and yet they play a key role in influencing Federal elections.
  We had $150 million spent on issue ads in the 1996 election, and $400 
million was spent for all the candidates: for the President, the Senate 
and the House. And yet, of this $150 million--this is probably a 
conservative estimate; this is based on the Annenberg Public Policy 
Center study; probably the most definitive study on issue advertising 
and issue advocacy. In fact, what they did was they analyzed 
advertising that was done by 109 organizations--109 TV and radio 
advertisements from 29 organizations. So we would expect that that 
estimate is pretty conservative. So what we are saying here is that 
there should be a means for disclosure.
  The courts have never said that disclosure is not in the public 
interest.

[[Page S973]]

 The fact is that the Supreme Court has ruled time and again, and 
specifically in Buckley, that there is strong governmental interest 
that justifies disclosure, and that is why we have designed this 
amendment in the manner that we have.
  We also restrict campaign spending by unions and corporations with 
their nonvoluntary contributions in television and radio advertising in 
which they mention a candidate 60 days before a general election and 30 
days before a primary because, again, there has been a century-long 
decision by the Government as well as the Congress in which that 
distinction can be made.
  The courts have made that distinction that Congress has the right to 
restrict spending by those entities because of those benefits that have 
been conferred on unions and corporations by the Congress, so that we 
are entitled to draw that distinction. And we do in this amendment.
  The courts have ruled that the Congress has the right to enact a 
statute that defines electioneering as long as it isn't vague or 
overbroad, that we can develop a more nuanced approach, because I know 
the Senator from Kentucky has cited cases in which he said that the 
Court would not support this type of an amendment.
  To the contrary, the fact of the matter is, this amendment is not 
vague and it is not overbroad. Not only will it pass muster, I think 
the Court would have the advantage of seeing what has happened over the 
past 22 years since it ruled in Buckley that has made a mockery of the 
campaign laws in ways in which the system works today. If they had had 
the advantage of that back when they made the decision in Buckley, I 
think there is no question that they would have indicated the approach 
that we have here today.
  There is something wrong in a system where we have $150 million 
influencing Federal campaigns and we do not require disclosure, and 
that is what the Snowe-Jeffords amendment is all about.
  Mr. President, I hope that Members of the Senate will see fit to 
support this amendment because I think it is in the interest of our 
campaign system, it is in the interest of good government. We have 
heard so much about these issues ads and the content of these so-called 
``issue ads'' in the last election. Every group has the right to state 
their position. They have the right to communicate with their 
lawmakers. They have the right to even participate in the political 
process in advertisements and voting for or against. But I think they 
also should be required to identify their major donors when they are 
identifying a candidate 60 days before an election.
  Now, there are different kinds of issue ads. The one that I am 
mentioning here in the content of so-called ``issue ads'' isn't pure 
issue advocacy because there is a difference between issue advocacy and 
candidate advocacy.
  In this case, what we are seeing in what is so-called ``issue ads,'' 
87 percent of what is called ``issue ads'' actually referred to a 
candidate or an official--87 percent.
  So rather than just talking about an issue and informing the public 
or running an ad that says, ``Call your Senator or call your 
Congressman,'' it was one in which it was designed to influence the 
outcome of an election, because 87 percent of those ads referred to an 
official or a candidate.

  In fact, according to the Annenberg study, 41 percent of those ads 
were ``pure attack''--41 percent--and yet not one dime is required when 
it comes to disclosure. So $150 million of this money was spent on so-
called ``issue ads,'' and some of them were pure issue ads, but many of 
those ads, in fact 87 percent, referred to an official or to a 
candidate that, again, had the impact, or certainly had the intent, of 
affecting the outcome of an election, or otherwise they would not have 
mentioned the candidate's name.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, will the Senator from Maine yield for a 
set of factual questions about her amendment?
  Ms. SNOWE. I am glad to yield.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, would the Senator from Maine tell us, am I 
correct in reading the requirements relating to electioneering 
communications, that they apply to broadcast stations, television and 
radio broadcast stations, but not to newspapers or to direct mail?
  Ms. SNOWE. That is correct.
  Mr. GORTON. Do they apply to the Internet?
  Ms. SNOWE. Excuse me?
  Mr. GORTON. Do they apply to the Internet?
  Ms. SNOWE. No. Television and radio.
  Mr. GORTON. So none of these requirements apply to newspapers or 
direct mail or to----
  Ms. SNOWE. If I can answer the Senator's question, that is correct. I 
know the Senator from Kentucky has objected to any possibility of 
impacting the first amendment. We would all agree in that respect, that 
obviously we want to draw that bright and distinctive line. Because no 
one wants to chill the first amendment right of freedom of speech. So 
that is where you can invite the possibility of concerns when it comes 
to printed material and to direct mail and to newspapers. We also know 
that most of the money in campaigns is particularly in television, 
rather than radio, because it has the greatest impact. It can have the 
greatest effect. So as a result, we do narrowly target those two 
mediums.
  Mr. GORTON. I take it the Senator from Maine believes it is 
constitutional to target one medium of communication but not to target 
a separate, a different, medium of communication?
  Ms. SNOWE. That is correct.
  Mr. GORTON. Does the Senator from Maine believe, in connection with 
the exceptions for the broadcasting stations' own editorial comments, 
which is granted here, that in fact she is granting that exception 
simply because she feels it to be desirable, or does she--let me 
rephrase the question. Does the Senator from Maine believe that she 
could have constitutionally applied these rules and regulations to the 
television station's communication of its own ideas?
  Ms. SNOWE. Well, obviously, we are talking about political 
advertising that is sponsored by organizations. That is what we are 
identifying here because that is obviously playing the primary role.
  Mr. GORTON. I understand what it is being aimed at. My question is, 
is this exception a part of the amendment of the Senator from Maine 
because the Senator from Maine believes that it is mandatory that she 
could not constitutionally apply these electioneering communications to 
TV stations? Or is she doing it because she does not think it is a good 
idea to apply it to them?
  Ms. SNOWE. I think we are taking the approach in this amendment to 
draw it as narrowly as possible so that we do not affect the first 
amendment rights. So, we are taking the most prudent, most cautious 
approach in designing this amendment.
  Mr. GORTON. So the Senator feels that----
  Ms. SNOWE. If I might reclaim my time to answer the Senator's 
question. My concern--and I think shared by others, such as Senator 
Jeffords, who is a lead sponsor of this amendment as well--we are 
concerned about the political advertising that is in these campaigns, 
hundreds of millions of dollars, where there is no disclosure, that 
influences the campaigns. So we are creating a separate category of 
advertising called ``electioneering communication,'' in response to the 
question.
  Mr. GORTON. I think I do understand the Senator's feelings on that. I 
was simply asking whether she is exempting the television stations 
because she thinks she is required to by the first amendment.
  Ms. SNOWE. Yes.
  Mr. GORTON. Or she thinks it is a good idea.
  Ms. SNOWE. I think it is the most cautionary approach.
  Mr. GORTON. Thank you.
  Ms. SNOWE. The courts have allowed and made those distinctions in the 
past where we can draw a line in terms of methods of communicating and 
have allowed different rules for public airwaves. We are focusing on 
the most egregious abuses that have been identified in these campaigns 
in the past.
  If anything, I think the 1996 cycle highlighted the extent of the 
problem by the amounts of money that were placed in issue advertising 
that ordinarily would be, I think, a significant component in the 
campaign. But what has developed in the final analysis, as we all know, 
is sort of circumventing some of the restrictions that are currently in 
campaigns by what is masked

[[Page S974]]

as issue ads but really are candidate advocacy ads. That is what we are 
highlighting in this amendment by requiring disclosures by those groups 
that support these advertisements on behalf of candidates or in 
opposition to candidates shortly before the election.
  So we create a very narrow timeframe so that we do not engage in any 
possibilities of interfering with first amendment rights. We limit the 
medium to television and radio, again, so we do not invite any 
infringements on freedom of speech.
  Candidates-specific. They have to identify the candidate. Again, if 
that advertisement is targeted to a candidate's State, or in terms of 
House of Representatives elections, towards that candidate's district, 
again it is a threshold so that we don't affect small groups. If the 
sponsor of the ad spends less than $10,000 in a calendar year, they 
would not be required to disclose.
  Again, the Senator from Kentucky has mentioned Court cases like the 
NAACP v. Alabama in 1958, saying that the courts say you should not be 
required to supply your donor list because such disclosure could cause 
the fear of reprisal by its membership. Certainly there are exceptions 
to every rule, but you can have those exceptions without having the 
Court rule on its constitutionality. So, yes, there are exceptions, and 
the Court would require groups to obviously demonstrate that they had 
reasonable feeling that disclosing their donor base would be a 
reprisal. But there are exceptions, and there can be exceptions, but 
the law can be allowed to stand without suggesting that it will be 
ruled unconstitutional because there is an exception to that rule.
  We have drawn this amendment to be as narrow as possible in order to 
be as protective of the first amendment rights, constitutionally. If 
even possible we could have gone further but we chose to be narrow so 
that we don't create any problems with this legislation, because one of 
the concerns originally with the McCain-Feingold legislation is we 
would have the ban on soft money, but the issue advocacy provisions 
very possibly would have been struck down. So we designed this 
amendment in order to address those concerns.
  Mr. President, I yield such time as he may consume to Senator 
Jeffords, the other sponsor of this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I rise to urge my colleagues to support 
this fair and reasonable amendment. I think it is important for us to 
take a close look at what this does to make sure that we understand 
that it is really hard for anyone to be against it as near as I can 
tell. It is not the end-all of the situation that we face or the 
problems that need to be handled, by any means, but it does take into 
consideration doing something where nothing is done now to alert the 
public to who is behind the things that are being thrown on television.
  I can just imagine a candidate, and this happens now, I am sure, when 
they think they are running their campaign, they had it all organized 
and they are watching carefully the amount of money their opponent has, 
and then they wake up one morning thinking they are in fine shape and 
every channel they turn on on the television has this ad attacking them 
at the last moment, the last couple of weeks before the election, and 
they don't know who it is coming from or what to do about it; they were 
not aware of it.
  All we say is, OK, that can happen; but at least 45, 50, 60 days 
before it happens, you know it will happen. That is all we are saying. 
So that you don't get the surprise attacks by somebody who is running 
so-called issue ads that did not place them under the FEC regulations 
with respect to supporting that candidate.
  That is the real world we are faced with. It happened last time. It 
happened to the tune of $135 million. The least we could do, the very 
least, is to say at least you ought to know it is coming, first; and 
No. 2, where it is coming from so you have an idea when you get this 
last-minute flurry of advertising you are ready to do the best you can 
to protect yourself against it.
  Again, I want to commend the Senator for the continued leadership on 
this very important issue. Senator Snowe mentioned yesterday and today 
it is the duty of leaders to lead, and that means making some difficult 
choices in doing the right thing. On the issue, Senator Snowe has been 
a true leader. Crafting a compromise is often difficult. I thank the 
Senator from Maine for leading this body to a logical resolution, one 
which is sensible and one which is so commonsensical it is hard to 
understand why anybody would be against it,
  As was discussed yesterday, the basic tenets of the Snowe amendment 
are boosting disclosure requirements and tightening expenditures of 
certain funds in the weeks preceding a primary and general election. 
The amendment strengthens the McCain-Feingold bill in these areas in a 
reasonable manner. I could not support the McCain-Feingold bill until 
something was put into that area which is going to be the most used 
area. It is the first time it was used in the last election and we saw 
$135 million or more come in to the election. You have to remember that 
power is what those who are spending money seek. The money is going to 
follow that group which is most effective in gaining that power. Our 
job is to know where it comes from.
  The last Presidential election shows how terrible our means are to 
trace the money now. This is an opportunity to trace effectively, to 
know where it is coming from, you have a chance to understand where it 
came from. The last few election cycles have shown the spending has 
grown astronomically in two areas that cause me great concern: First, 
issue ads that have turned into blatant electioneering; second, the 
unfettered spending by corporations and unions to influence the 
outcomes of elections.
  As an example of how this spending has grown, a House Member from 
Michigan in 1996 faced nearly $2 million in advertisements alone before 
the fall campaigning season had begun. Campaigning really starts early 
and then there is a big boost at the end. Early on you want to knock 
the candidate out before he has a chance to get on the scene, and at 
the end it is because you know a large percentage of the people who 
vote really don't pay much attention until the last couple of weeks. 
The Snowe-Jeffords amendment addresses these areas in a reasonable, 
equitable, and, last but not least, constitutional way.
  Mr. President, citizens across this Nation have grown weary of the 
tenor of campaigns in recent years. This disappointment is reflected in 
low voter participation and the diminished role of individuals in 
electing their representatives. Increasing the information available to 
the electorate will help return the power of this democratic aspect to 
the people who should have it--the voters. Expanded disclosure will 
bring daylight to this process. Increased disclosure will rid 
corruption; more disclosure will protect the public and the candidates.
  How can we deny our electorate the ability to know the sponsors of 
electioneering communications? Give the people the information they 
need to better evaluate those Federal candidates that they will be 
voting on. Each of us should ask or be fully informed before we vote on 
a bill or amendment. How can we as Members of Congress stand here and 
say that the public should not have all the information they need 
before stepping into the voting booth?
  Additionally, the disclosure required in the Snowe-Jeffords amendment 
will help deter actual corruption and avoid the appearance of 
impropriety that many feel pervades our campaign finance system. Armed 
with this information, voters are guaranteed access to the truth. This 
change will restore the public's confidence in the election process and 
their elected representatives.
  As noted yesterday, the Annenberg Public Policy Center report figured 
there were somewhere between $135 to $150 million spent during the 1996 
elections on so-called issue ads. This is a conservative estimate 
prepared very specifically not to lead to any exaggeration. The 
Annenberg report found that nearly 87 percent of these ads mentioned a 
candidate of office by name, and over 41 percent were seen by the 
public as pure attack ads. You ought to know who paid for them so we 
can better judge whether or not to believe them. This is the highest 
percentage recorded among a group that also

[[Page S975]]

included Presidential ads, debates, free time segments, court 
candidates, and new programs. Clearly, these ads were overtly aimed at 
electing or defeating targeted candidates, but under current law these 
ads were not subject to disclosure requirements of any nature.
  The second part of our amendment considers an area Congress has long 
had a solid record on: imposing more strenuous spending restrictions on 
corporations and labor unions. Remember, under the law, these are not 
given the same freedom of speech rights that individuals are, and 
rightfully so. Corporations have been banned from electioneering since 
1907; unions, since 1947. As the Supreme Court pointed out in United 
States v. UAW, Congress banned corporate and union contributions in 
order to ``avoid the deleterious influences on Federal elections 
resulting from the use of money by those who exercise control over 
large aggregations of capital.''
  Our amendment would ban corporations and unions from using General 
Treasury funds to fund electioneering communications in the last 60 
days of the general election and the last 30 days before a primary. 
They still have the right to foster and to approve PACs, organizations 
for their employees or members of the union, to contribute to, in order 
that they individually, working together in the PACs, can influence the 
election process.
  The Snowe amendment takes a reasoned, incremental and constitutional 
step to address the concerns many of my colleagues have voiced on 
campaign finance reform proposals.
  Mr. President, some of our colleagues have expressed constitutional 
concerns with our amendment. Let me assure Members that we have taken 
great pains to craft a clear and narrow amendment on this issue in 
order to pass two critical first amendment doctrines that were at the 
heart of the Supreme Court's landmark Buckley decision, vagueness and 
overbreadth. Vagueness could chill free speech if someone who would 
otherwise speak chose not to because the rules aren't clear and they 
fear running afoul of the law. We agree that free speech should not be 
chilled and that is why our rules are very clear.
  Any sponsor will know with certainty if their ad is an electioneering 
ad. There would be no question the way we have delineated within the 
bill.
  Overbreadth could unintentionally sweep in a substantial amount of 
constitutionally protected speech. Our amendment is so narrow that it 
easily satisfies the Supreme Court's overbreadth concerns. We have 
asked the experts to check and give us advice on this. It is not just 
merely our opinion. We strictly limit our requirements to ads run near 
an election that identify a candidate--ads plainly intended to convince 
voters to vote for or against a particular candidate.
  As the Court declared in Buckley, the governmental interests that 
justified disclosure of election-related spending are considerably 
broader and more powerful than those justifying prohibitions or 
restrictions on election-related spending.
  Disclosure rules, the Court said, enhance the information available 
to the voting public. Who can be against that? Disclosure rules, 
according to the Court, are ``the least restrictive means of curbing 
evils of campaign ignorance and corruption.'' And our disclosure rules 
are immensely reasonable.
  As James Madison said:

       A popular government without popular information is but a 
     prologue to a tragedy or a farce or perhaps both.
       Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who 
     mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the 
     power which knowledge gives.

  Mr. President, our amendment will arm the voters in order to sustain 
our popular Government. I fear that without our amendment, and campaign 
finance reform generally, the disillusionment of the voting public will 
grow, along with the scandals, and the participation of our voting 
public will continue to decline, to the extent that we will be 
embarrassed. It is close to that point now when, many times, only half 
of the people even bother to go to the polls.
  I ask that each Senator carefully consider the beneficial effects 
that our amendment will have and support us in moving this debate 
forward.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I yield such time off of Senator 
McConnell's time as I may use.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, it is with intense regret that it's my 
view that this amendment, representing a good-faith attempt by two of 
my friends and my Republican colleagues, it seems to me, is subject to 
even more widespread and deeper constitutional objections than the 
original McCain-Feingold bill--a bill that seems, to this Senator at 
least, to be unconstitutional on its face.
  The fundamental objection to all of these attempts to limit the 
freedom of speech, of course, is that they fly in the face of the 
unrestricted language of the first amendment, language that does not--
though the Senator from Maine might wish to permit it to do so--permit 
exceptions to every general rule.
  This amendment, however, seems to me to violate the 14th amendment in 
many respects, with respect to both equal protection and due process. 
This amendment imposes broad and what some may consider to be onerous 
disclosure requirements with respect to what it calls 
``electioneering''--on electioneering in certain ways through the mass 
media, but not at all in other ways, and even in the ways in which it 
covers electioneering by certain groups and organizations and not by 
other groups and organizations.
  The Senator from Maine said, during the course of her comments, that 
she does not think that she could constitutionally apply these 
requirements to electioneering by mail. She has not applied them to 
electioneering through newspapers, nor has she applied them to 
electronic electioneering through the Internet, but only to electronic 
electioneering by television or by radio. She does that, she says in 
all candor, because those seem to be the most effective methods of 
electioneering, the methods of choice by those who have engaged in what 
the law now calls ``express advocacy'' and what she calls 
``electioneering.''
  Well, Mr. President, it seems to me hardly to be subject to argument 
that you can say that the Government can regulate your speech in one 
medium, but cannot or will not regulate it through another medium. That 
is a fundamental denial of the most fundamental of all of our 
constitutional rights. It does, however, illustrate the flaw in this 
entire debate, and that is that effective electioneering should be 
banned, or severely controlled, and that certain kinds of speech are so 
unfair or so late in a political campaign that we ought not to allow 
them; and if we have to allow them, we ought to impose on them such 
heavy restrictions as to discourage them, even though we are going to 
permit exactly the same kind of communication, as long as it is done in 
a relatively ineffective fashion. To claim, Mr. President, that the 
Constitution of the United States, in the first and 14th amendments, 
permits those distinctions is to fly in the face of all rationale, all 
logic, and all constitutional law.
  But the amendment doesn't stop there. Even with respect to radio and 
television electioneering, it makes an exception. What is that 
exception? It is any news story, commentary, or editorial distributed 
through the facilities of a broadcasting station. So now we will have a 
law that clearly states that no matter how expensive, no matter how 
unfair, no matter how late in a campaign, a television station or a 
television network can do whatever it wishes without any of the 
restrictions of this statute; but no one else can without being subject 
to the restrictions of this amendment. Is there something that is so 
much superior in an editorial appearing on a television station over 
similar opinions expressed by a labor union, or by the Christian 
Coalition, or by any other political organization, that one should be 
discouraged and the other should be encouraged?
  Mr. President, that is a terrible policy in any political debate, and 
it is clearly a policy that is so discriminatory as to run afoul of the 
equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. And, Mr. President, this 
discrimination doesn't even stop there in distinguishing between a 
communication paid for by a labor union or the Christian Coalition with 
one paid for by the facilities of the television station and network. 
Oh, no. The prohibitions do apply to a

[[Page S976]]

television, or a radio station, or a network owned or controlled by a 
political party, a political committee, or a candidate.

  So, Mr. President, we have the spectacle of all of these requirements 
being applied to a radio station or a television station owned by a 
candidate, but not applied to the National Broadcasting Company and, 
say, Tom Brokaw, the company owned by General Electric. So a 
corporation can purchase a television station or a network and do 
whatever it wants in politics. But a candidate can't and a political 
party can't.
  Mr. President, how can that possibly, under any circumstances, be 
valid under the equal protection clause? How does that grant due 
process to candidates, political parties, or to any other organization, 
except for a corporate owner of a television station, a radio station, 
or a network?
  The Senator from Maine also deals with the NAACP case and says, well, 
yes, the Supreme Court has ruled rather expressly that you cannot 
require a group expressing its point of view on a political subject to 
list its membership. She says every rule has its exceptions and there 
are certain kinds of organizations where that should be the case, but 
there are other kinds where it should not.
  Last June, in testimony I think, on a bill like this, top officials 
of two organizations, Public Citizen and the Sierra Club Foundation, 
refused to expose the identities of their members.

       ``As I am sure you are aware, citizens have a first 
     amendment right to form organizations to advance their common 
     goals without fear of investigation or harassment,'' Public 
     Citizen President Joan Claybrook told GNS.
       We respect our members' rights to freely and privately 
     associate with others who share their beliefs, and we do not 
     reveal their identities. We will not violate their trust 
     simply to satisfy the curiosity of Congress or even the 
     press.

  Evidently, the sponsors of this amendment feel that they need pay no 
attention to that proposition. But I look through the NAACP case 
without finding the slightest hint that the Supreme Court will oblige 
the sponsors of this amendment. The Supreme Court in that case said:

       Effective advocacy of both public and private points of 
     view, particularly controversial ones, is undeniably enhanced 
     by group association, as this Court has more than once 
     recognized by remarking upon the close nexus between the 
     freedoms of speech and assembly. . . . It is beyond debate 
     that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of 
     beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the ``liberty'' 
     assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth 
     Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech. . . . It is 
     immaterial whether the beliefs sought to be advanced by 
     association pertain to political, economic, religious, or 
     cultural matters . . . . In the domain of these indispensable 
     liberties, whether of speech, press, or association, the 
     decisions of this Court recognize that abridgement of such 
     rights, even though unintended, may inevitably follow from 
     varied forms of governmental action.

  The Court has recognized the vital relationship between freedom to 
associate and privacy in one's associations. When referring to the 
varied forms of governmental action that might interfere with freedom 
of assembly, it said, ``A requirement that those in adherence of 
particular religious faiths or political parties wear identifying 
armbands is obviously of this nature. To compel the disclosure of 
membership in an organization engaged in the advocacy of particular 
beliefs is of the same order. Inviolability of privacy in group 
association may, in many circumstances, be indispensable to the 
preservation of freedom of association.''
  (Ms. COLLINS assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. GORTON. Now, Madam President, that is not a statement of the 
Supreme Court of the United States that is going to admit exceptions 
and say, oh, well, we really didn't mean it in a political race, we 
really didn't mean it in connection with an advocacy organization like 
the Christian Coalition or the labor unions; though, perhaps, we did 
mean it with respect to television networks. They will not do that.
  Madam President, with respect to this attempt to limit freedom of 
speech, the views of the American Civil Liberties Union are 
particularly eloquent, and I do want to share just a handful of them at 
this point on this specific amendment.

       We are writing today . . . to set forth our views on an 
     amendment to that bill dealing with controls on issue 
     advocacy which is being sponsored by Senators Snowe and 
     Jeffords. Although that proposal has been characterized as a 
     compromise measure which would replace certain of the more 
     egregious features of the comparable provisions of McCain-
     Feingold, the Snowe-Jeffords amendment still embodies the 
     kind of unprecedented restraint on issue advocacy that 
     violates bedrock First Amendment principles.

  They go on eloquently to discuss exactly this proposition.
  They say, ``The Court''--referring to the Supreme Court--``fashioned 
the express advocacy doctrine to safeguard issue advocacy from campaign 
finance controls, even though such advocacy might influence the outcome 
of an election. The doctrine provides a bright-line objective test that 
protects political speech and association by focusing solely on the 
content of the speaker's words, not on the motive in the speaker's mind 
or the impact on the speaker's audience, or the proximity to an 
election.''
  Madam President, this proposal is blatantly unconstitutional. It is 
overwhelmingly discriminatory among organizations engaged in identical 
activity. It is overwhelmingly discriminatory in treating the forum or 
the particular medium by which a group advocates its views differently 
depending solely on the sponsor's views on the effectiveness of that 
particular medium in influencing the outcome of an election. It 
discriminates between a commercial corporation ownership of a 
television or radio medium and a political ownership of the same 
medium.
  Madam President, it is exactly these prohibitions that the first 
amendment of the United States to the Constitution of the United States 
was designed to prohibit. And, of all forms of speech, the first 
amendment was aimed primarily at political speech. Here we have an 
attempt not only to ration political speech but to discriminate against 
certain forms of political speech and in favor of other forms of 
political speech, thus accomplishing the goal of violating not only the 
first amendment but the 14th amendment as well.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. SNOWE. Madam President, I will yield time to the Senator from 
Michigan. I just want to make a couple of points in response to the 
Senator from Washington and to Senator Jeffords.
  Mr. LEVIN. I wonder if I might ask unanimous consent that immediately 
after the Senator from Maine is finished with her remarks I be 
recognized for 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Ms. SNOWE. The time off I yield to the Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is that acceptable to the Senator from Maine?
  Ms. SNOWE. With one exception: We would like to respond to the 
Senator from Washington briefly and Senator Jeffords briefly. We both 
have made our remarks. I want to yield to the Senator from Michigan 20 
minutes.
  Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that after the 
Senators from Maine and Vermont are finished with their responses to 
the Senator from Washington, I be recognized for 20 minutes and that 
the time be taken from the time of the Senator from Maine.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. SNOWE. Thank you, Madam President.
  Madam President, in response to what the Senator from Washington 
mentioned in terms of our amendment and the constitutional questions, 
it is interesting to note that his arguments suggest that in fact he 
prefers a broader amendment, which I think is interesting.
  So I would certainly ask the Senator from Washington if he could tell 
us where in the Constitution it is impermissible to draw these 
distinctions and to draw these lines? The Constitution doesn't require 
us to address every problem. It certainly allows us to address some of 
the problems. And we know where some of the problems develop in 
campaigns today. The problems develop in the amount of money that is 
placed in television and radio advertising. That is what we are 
attempting to address.

[[Page S977]]

  So I think it is interesting that the Senator from Washington is 
talking about printed materials, newspapers, and direct mail. In fact, 
we are saying that isn't the source of the problem in these campaigns. 
The source of the problem is where you have $150 million being spent in 
television advertising by groups that do not have to disclose their 
donors That is all we are requiring--disclosure.

  That is the thrust of our amendment. We are entitled to draw those 
distinctions. It would not be unconstitutional. We don't need to find 
something in the Constitution to justify every policy decision that we 
make.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Will the Senator from Maine yield on that point?
  Ms. SNOWE. I am glad to yield to the Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. I have known my good friend from Washington for 30 
years, I guess. He is a master of the facts. Let us take a look at one 
of the glaring examples of that in his dissertation.
  He takes a case involving the NAACP during the 1950s, when we had 
huge racial unrest, and the Supreme Court, in examining the case to 
expose all of the members of the NAACP in the South, said, when you 
have a paramount interest here of protecting people from bodily harm, 
then there is no way that you can require them to expose their 
membership so that you can go beat them up. This is a paraphrase.
  In Buckley--someone raised that issue in this case--it said no. We 
are talking about different rights. We are talking about the rights of 
the public and the sacred right of casting a vote to know all of the 
information that can be available to them when they make decisions. 
That is a vital right, a sacred right. So that right overcomes any 
concern about releasing the names. You have to know. The voting public 
can't make decisions if they hear all of this coming out of the air at 
them and they do not know who said it.
  So I don't think there is any question. But that is just an example 
of the erudite on constitutional law running through all of this, 
because I think this is clearly a situation where it is not in 
violation of the Constitution.
  Ms. SNOWE. I thank Senator Jeffords for those comments. He is 
entirely correct on that issue. Obviously, there were legitimate fears 
of bodily harm and economic retribution in the 1950s in Alabama. That 
is what that case was all about. The court recognized that concern, and 
exceptions can be made, and have been made.
  In fact, in response to the issue that was raised by the Senator from 
Washington and the Senator from Kentucky, several legal experts--Burt 
Neuborne, from New York University School of Law; Mr. Ornstein, of the 
American Enterprise Institute; Dan Ortiz, University of Virginia School 
of Law; and Josh Rosenkranz, from the New York University School of Law 
and the Brennan Center--wrote a response to these concerns.
  These are legal and constitutional scholars in response to some of 
the groups suggesting that somehow they would fear the same reprisal. 
They said:

       These groups, like any other group, may be entitled to an 
     exemption from electioneering disclosure laws if they can 
     demonstrate a reasonable probability that compelling 
     disclosure will subject its members to threats, harassment, 
     or reprisal; but the need for these kinds of limited 
     exceptions certainly do not make general disclosure rules 
     contained in the Snowe-Jeffords amendment unconstitutional.

  So, yes, exceptions can be made without making a broad ruling with 
respect to the constitutionality of any legislation that we might pass 
here.
  To further buttress this point in terms of anonymity of donors, the 
courts have indicated in the past that there is no generalized right to 
anonymity. The Senator from Vermont mentioned the Buckley case upheld 
that.
  Another case that has been identified here is McIntyre v. Ohio 
Elections. Justice Scalia said:

       The question relevant to our decision is whether a right to 
     anonymity is such a prominent value in our constitutional 
     system that even protection of the electoral process cannot 
     be purchased at its expense.

  The answer is clearly no.
  He went on to say:

       Must a parade permit, for example, be issued to a group 
     that refuses to provide its identity, or that agrees to do so 
     only under assurance that the identity will not be made 
     public? Must a government periodical that has a ``letters to 
     the editor'' column disavow the policy that most newspapers 
     have against the publication of anonymous letters? . . .  
     Must a municipal ``public access'' cable channel permit 
     anonymous (and masked) performers? The silliness that follows 
     upon a generalized right to anonymous speech has no end.

  Scalia went on to say that not only is it not a right, disclosure can 
be helpful in curbing ``mudslinging'' and ``character assassination'' 
and improving our elections.
  So the point of it all is that disclosure is in our public interest. 
It is the public's right to know.
  That is essentially the thrust of the Snowe-Jeffords amendment--to 
require disclosure of major donors over $500. It is in all of our 
interest to have such a requirement.
  Now I yield to the Senator from Michigan 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, first, let me commend the Senators from 
Maine and Vermont for their leadership. This amendment will strengthen 
the chances of this bill passing and, indeed, in many ways strengthen 
the bill itself. I lost track of the number of times this body has 
debated a need for campaign finance reform and was presented with 
reasonable bipartisan efforts and, yet, failed to get the job done. 
This is an issue which will not go away, and it is an issue which 
should not go away.
  Soft money contributions of hundreds of thousands of dollars, indeed, 
of millions of dollars, have made the contribution limits in Federal 
election laws meaningless. Both the Republican and Democratic National 
Committees, national parties, solicited and spent soft money and used 
it to develop so-called ``issue ads'' which are clearly designed to 
support or defeat specific candidates. These soft money and issue ad 
loopholes are used to transfer millions of dollars to outside 
organizations to conduct allegedly independent election-related 
activities that are, in fact, benefiting parties and candidates. These 
soft money and issue ad loopholes are used by tax-exempt organizations 
to spend millions of dollars from unknown sources on candidate attack 
ads to influence election outcomes.
  The reality of our campaign finance system simply cannot be avoided. 
Soft money has blown the lid off contribution limits in our campaign 
finance system. Soft money is the 800-pound gorilla sitting right in 
the middle of this debate.
  Just look at Roger Tamraz, a contributor to both political parties. 
He is a bipartisan symbol of what is wrong with this system. He served 
as a Republican Eagle in the 1980s during the Republican 
administrations, and a Democratic Managing Trustee in the 1990s during 
Democratic administrations. Tamraz was unabashed in admitting that his 
political contributions were made for the purpose of buying access to 
candidates and officeholders, and he showed us in stark terms the all 
too common product of the current campaign finance system--using soft 
money to buy access.
  Despite condemnation by the committee and the media of Tamraz' 
activities, when he was asked at the hearing to reflect upon his 
$300,000 contribution in 1996, Tamraz said, ``I think next time I will 
give $600,000.''
  Now he was taunting us. He was flaunting the fact that he had given 
$300,000, indicating that it's perfectly legal and you folks like it 
that way or else you would change it. That's what Tamraz told us. And 
the truth of the matter is, he was right. It is a sad truth. We can 
change it if we want to change it. And the next time he will give 
$600,000 or $1 million to do the same thing, to buy access to 
candidates and to officeholders.
  Most of the 1996 excesses involved activities that were legal, and 
they all centered around that 800-pound gorilla, soft money. Virtually 
all the foreign contributions that concerned the committee that just 
held hearings involved soft money. Virtually every offer of access to 
the White House or the Capitol or the President or to Members of the 
Senate or the House involved contributions of soft money. Virtually 
every instance of questionable conduct in the committee's investigation 
involved the solicitation or use of soft money.
  The opponents want to pretend this monster doesn't exist, but it is 
sitting

[[Page S978]]

right in the middle of this debate. It is not going to be removed until 
we address it.
  The bipartisan McCain-Feingold bill would do an awful lot to repair 
this system. It is not a new bill. It has been before this body for 
years now and it has received sustained scrutiny from Members on both 
sides of the aisle.
  The truth is that the soft money loophole exists as long as we in 
Congress allow it to exist. The issue advocacy loophole exists because 
we in Congress allow it to exist. Tax-exempt organizations spend 
millions televising candidate attack ads days before an election 
without disclosing who they are or where they got their funds, because 
we in Congress allow it.
  It is time to stop pointing fingers at others and take responsibility 
for our share of the blame for this system. We alone write the laws. 
Congress alone can shut down the loopholes and reinvigorate the Federal 
election laws.
  When the Federal Election Campaign Act was first enacted 20 years ago 
in response to the Watergate scandal, Congress enacted a comprehensive 
system of laws including contribution limits and full disclosure of all 
campaign contributions. The requirements are still on the books, at 
least in form. Individuals are not supposed to give more than $1,000 to 
a candidate per election. Corporations and unions are barred from 
contributing to any candidate without going through a political action 
committee. Campaign contributions and expenditures have to be 
disclosed.
  At the time that these laws were enacted, many people fought against 
those laws, claiming that they were an unconstitutional restriction on 
first amendment rights to free speech and free association. And the 
law's opponents, including the ACLU, took their case to the Supreme 
Court.
  The ACLU is sometimes right and the ACLU is sometimes wrong, but they 
are always eloquent. And the reason they are always eloquent is that 
the first amendment is eloquent. But so are clean elections an eloquent 
idea. So are elections which are free and clean and democratic an 
eloquent idea.
  So the Supreme Court, in Buckley, had to weigh the ACLU opposition to 
the campaign contribution limits against the need for elections which 
were free and clean, both of corruption and the appearance of 
corruption--both. And the ACLU lost that issue in Buckley.
  It is frequently forgotten around here that there was an attack on 
the campaign contribution limits, which are now the law, that attack 
was led by the ACLU in the Buckley case, and the ACLU lost. The Supreme 
Court in Buckley upheld contribution limits and disclosure limits. It 
upheld them despite the eloquence of the ACLU in opposition to those 
limits in Buckley.
  Now, this is what the Supreme Court said in Buckley:

       It is unnecessary to look beyond the Act's primary 
     purpose--to limit the actuality and appearance of corruption 
     resulting from large individual financial contributions--in 
     order to find a constitutionally sufficient justification for 
     the $1,000 contribution limitation. Under a system of private 
     financing of elections, a candidate lacking immense 
     personal or family wealth must depend on financial 
     contributions from others to provide the resources 
     necessary to conduct a successful campaign. . . . To the 
     extent that large contributions are given to secure 
     political quid pro quo's from current potential office 
     holders, the integrity of our system of representative 
     democracy is undermined.

  And then the Supreme Court said the following in Buckley:

       Of almost equal concern is . . . the impact of the 
     appearance of corruption, stemming from public awareness of 
     the opportunities for abuse inherent in a regime of large 
     individual financial contributions.

  And the Court went on:

       Congress could legitimately conclude that the avoidance of 
     the appearance of improper influence is also critical . . . 
     if confidence in the system of representative government is 
     not to be eroded to a disastrous extent.

  So the Supreme Court weighed the free speech arguments of the 
opponents of campaign contribution limits and weighed that against the 
argument about the need to have elections which are free and clean, and 
to avoid the appearance of corruption. And they decided in Buckley that 
we, Congress, ``could legitimately conclude that the avoidance of the 
appearance of improper influence is critical if confidence in the 
system of representative government is not to be eroded to a disastrous 
extent.''
  The same Court upheld tough disclosure requirements, effectively 
prohibiting anonymous or secret contributions to candidates and 
parties, despite arguments in Buckley that disclosure collides with 
first amendment rights of free speech and free association. The Court 
in Buckley said the following:

       Compelled disclosure has the potential for substantially 
     infringing on the exercise of first amendment rights. But we 
     have acknowledged that there are governmental interests 
     sufficiently important to outweigh the possibility of 
     infringement, particularly when the free functioning of our 
     national institutions is involved. The governmental interests 
     sought to be vindicated by the disclosure requirements are of 
     this magnitude.

  So, despite the arguments of opponents of contribution limits and 
opponents of disclosure who base their arguments on first amendment 
concerns, the Supreme Court in Buckley said you can limit contributions 
and you can require disclosure because the governmental interests 
sought to be vindicated, the free functioning of our national 
institutions, is involved. And Congress can consider that. They used a 
balancing test, and that is the test that they would use when we pass 
McCain-Feingold.
  Now, relative to the question of the so-called magic words test on 
issue ads, it is true that two circuits have said that the Supreme 
Court has ruled that only if certain magic words are present can you 
then limit those ads to being paid for by regulated contributions. But 
another circuit, the ninth circuit, in the Furgatch case, has held that 
this list of magic words referred to so frequently here ``does not 
exhaust the capacity of the English language to expressly advocate the 
election or defeat of a candidate.''
  And of equal importance to the fact that the circuits are divided on 
the question of what constitutes issue advocacy and what constitutes 
candidate advocacy is the fact that the Federal Election Commission 
just recently, on a bipartisan basis, reaffirmed its commitment to a 
broader test that goes beyond the magic words test to unmask ads that 
use the guise of issue ads to advocate the election or defeat of a 
Federal candidate.
  The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on whether the FEC regulation is 
constitutional. But when you have at least one circuit and the FEC 
saying that you can have a broader test than the ones that have been 
adopted in the other circuits, there is a division of authority here 
which means that at least there is a reasonable chance that the Supreme 
Court will affirm the FEC regulation.
  I wonder how much time I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 7 minutes and 27 seconds.
  Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair.
  Relative to the Snowe-Jeffords amendment, this amendment strikes an 
acceptable balance between the need to protect the integrity of our 
electoral process and the need to protect the rights to free speech. It 
would address issue ad abuse by creating a new category of 
electioneering ads, defined as ads that refer to a clearly identified 
candidate up for election and which are broadcast on the regulated 
media of television or radio close in time before an election.
  Now, why radio and television? The answer is that the Supreme Court 
itself has held that, due to the fact that these media, radio and 
television, are regulated, are licensed, and that the spectrum is 
limited, you can regulate these media in ways in which you cannot 
regulate newspapers or the printed word. The Supreme Court has ruled 
that there is a difference between Government regulating licensed media 
and unlicensed media, and where Government issues a license--gives out 
a license of great value for public media--it can indeed regulate the 
media in a reasonable way, ways it can't possibly even think of 
regulating newspapers or other print media, which are not regulated 
media.
  Indeed, the FCC has regulations on what can be said on radio and 
television. There are rules against obscenity on radio and television. 
There are rules about the numbers of commercials and the types of 
commercials on children's television. There are all kinds of rules for 
the regulated media of television and radio which do not exist relative 
to newspapers. So, it is not an uncommon distinction. It is a

[[Page S979]]

distinction which has been affirmed by the Supreme Court and it is not 
the effectiveness which is so much the issue, it is the fact that they 
are regulated, licensed media which, in my judgment at least, 
represents a significant difference.
  The Snowe-Jeffords amendment would impose a limited set of 
contribution limits and disclosure requirements on commercials on these 
licensed media. No corporate or union funds could be used to pay for 
them. Donors who provide more than $500 would have to be disclosed. 
These limits are well within the bounds of the contribution limits and 
disclosure requirements which have been upheld in Buckley as a 
constitutional means for protecting the integrity of our electoral 
process.
  Madam President, this is not the first time that loopholes have 
eroded the effectiveness of a set of laws. This happens all the time. 
The election laws are just the latest example. We saw that true with 
lobbying disclosure. We saw that true with gift bans. You adopt a set 
of rules and then people who want to try to evade those rules or push 
the envelope find loopholes. And then Congress has a responsibility to 
come along to try to close these loopholes in order to carry out the 
original intent of the statute.
  The question is whether or not we are going to do this now with the 
campaign contribution laws. We passed a law saying there is a $1,000 
contribution limit to a campaign and now there is really no limit on 
how much you can contribute. All you have to do is give your millions 
to a party and have the party, then, spend the money on ads which are 
indistinguishable from ads attacking or supporting candidates. These 
ads are indistinguishable. You can put up two ads next to each other, 
ask any reasonable person, ``Do you see the difference between this 
candidate support ad and this issue ad?'' and people will look at those 
ads and say, ``There is no difference at all.''
  We saw that in committee hearings, which the Presiding Officer and I 
and others participated in, in the Thompson committee, where we put up 
side by side a so-called candidate ad and an issue ad, with three words 
difference, one of which had to be paid for with limited funds and the 
other one which could be paid for with soft money or unregulated funds, 
and we had expert witnesses, including two former Members of this body, 
Senator Kassebaum and Vice President Mondale, who could see no 
distinction in those ads. And there is none.
  So we now have a farce. We have a sham. The campaign contribution 
limits, for all intents and purposes, do not exist. There is no $1,000 
limit on giving money to a candidate. Just give $1 million to the 
candidate's party, have that party put a so-called issue ad on in that 
candidate's election, and it is indistinguishable from the so-called 
candidate support ad which has to be paid for with regulated funds.
  The question is whether we are going to do anything about it. The 
time for shedding crocodile tears about the 1996 campaign funding 
raising is over. We ought to wipe away these tears from our eyes and 
see clearly what the American people see.
  Over 80 percent of them, according to a recent Los Angeles Times 
poll, believe the campaign fundraising system needs to be reformed; 78 
percent of the American people think we ought to limit the role of soft 
money. A majority of this body wants to limit it. We saw that in the 
vote yesterday.
  The question now is whether or not the majority will of this body and 
the majority will of the American people are going to be carried out, 
and that is where we are.
  I hope that the chief sponsors--I am one of them, but I hope that the 
key named sponsors of this amendment will stick to their position and 
will insist that we finally be able to have an up-or-down vote on the 
enactment of McCain-Feingold.
  Last year, the Senate took up the issue of campaign finance reform, 
but never got past superficial gamesmanship.
  The misnamed Paycheck Protection Act, as their version of campaign 
finance reform, was offered last year to the McCain-Feingold as a 
killer amendment that singled out unions in an effort to punish them 
for their participation in the 1996 elections, perhaps even for the 
last victory won on the minimum wage. The amendment was not even 
limited to campaigns--it sought to defund unions and stop them from 
spending money on any political activity, including for example 
lobbying the Senate to enact another minimum wage increase. The purpose 
of the amendment wasn't to change the law, but to kill the bill--and 
that's what it did.
  This year, the same legislation was offered by the Republican 
leadership as their version of campaign finance reform. It is a killer 
bill--not intended for enactment but to kill campaign finance reform.
  A way around that killer legislation has been found by Senator Snowe, 
Senator Jeffords, Senator Feingold, Senator McCain, myself and others 
working on a bipartisan basis. Hopefully, the Snowe-Jeffords amendment 
will prevent campaign finance reform from being derailed again.
  Campaign finance reform is an issue that could convert a dedicated 
optimist into a doomsayer. But it is not doomsday yet. We have a 
bipartisan bill that provides the key reforms. We have a bipartisan 
coalition willing to defeat last year's killer amendment. We have an 
election around the corner in which our constituents can let opponents 
of reform know what they think of their opposition.
  So let's turn off the crocodile tears about the 1996 elections. Let's 
stop complaining about weak enforcement of the election laws, when the 
wording of those laws makes them virtually unenforceable. Let's stop 
feigning shock at the law's loopholes, while allowing them to continue. 
It is time to enact campaign finance reform. That is our legislative 
responsibility and our civic responsibility.
  Madam President, I would like to ask my friend from Maine about one 
of the changes that her amendment would make to the McCain-Feingold 
campaign finance reform legislation, to make it clear for the record 
the reason for that change.
  Ms. SNOWE. I would be happy to respond to my friend from Michigan for 
that purpose.
  Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Senator. The Snowe-Jeffords amendment, of 
which I am a cosponsor, proposes removing from the McCain-Feingold 
legislation all of Section 201, a section which would have codified 
several legal tests for determining when an expenditure expressly 
advocates the election or defeat of a candidate. The reason for 
striking those provisions is not because you or any of the other 
cosponsors of the Snowe-Jeffords amendment do not want to stop 
candidate attack ads that pretend to be issue ads, but because you are 
willing to leave that battle for the courts, is that right?
  Ms. SNOWE. My friend from Michigan is correct. Stopping issue ad 
abuse is critical to meaningful campaign finance reform. But 
distinguishing candidate ads from issue ads based on ad content is the 
Supreme Court's approach in Buckley versus Valeo; it is an approach 
that the courts are now examining; and I am willing to defer to the 
courts at this point.
  Mr. LEVIN. The courts have divided on whether the Buckley test, which 
includes providing so-called ``magic words'' which make an ad subject 
to the federal election laws, is the only way to determine when an ad 
is covered, or whether, as the Ninth Circuit decided in the Furgatch 
case, the Buckley magic words do not ``exhaust the capacity of the 
English language to expressly advocate the election or defeat of a 
candidate.'' Just a week or so ago, the Federal Election Commission 
reaffirmed its commitment to a broader test--one that goes beyond the 
magic words. I urged FEC to take that position, and I think it's the 
right one to take. Am I correct that it is not the Senator's intention 
or the intention of any of the cosponsors of the Snowe-Jeffords 
amendment to send a message critical of the FEC's position?
  Ms. SNOWE. That is correct--our amendment is not intended to convey 
any criticism of the FEC. The Buckley magic words test is a very narrow 
one, and has proven completely ineffective in stopping phony issue ads 
that attack candidates. My amendment offers a new approach to this 
problem, by creating a new category of ``electronic ads'' that name 
candidates in broadcasts close in time to an election. But my amendment 
does not foreclose or

[[Page S980]]

criticize other approaches to the problem. The FEC and the courts must 
continue to wrestle with clarifying when ads advocate the election or 
defeat of a candidate, and I fully support that effort. In fact, it is 
because the courts are still wrestling with the constitutional issues 
that makes me comfortable with waiting awhile longer before we 
legislate.
  Mr. LEVIN. The Snowe-Jeffords amendment does not, then, imply any 
disagreement with the FEC, the Ninth Circuit or any of the rest of us 
who believe that the magic words test is not enough to stop candidate 
attack ads masquerading as issue ads, and that such a narrow test is 
not constitutionally required.
  Ms. SNOWE. That is correct. The Snowe-Jeffords amendment is fully 
consistent with the view that the Furgatch decision and the FEC 
regulation may be a constitutional approach for detecting ads that 
pretend to discuss issues, but are really attacks on candidates. If 
that's where the Supreme Court ends up, I will be glad to see it, but 
it will be a separate approach from the Snowe-Jeffords amendment's 
treatment of broadcast ads that name candidates just before an 
election.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. I join in the remarks of my friend from Maine.
  Mr. LEVIN. I thank both Senators for that clarification.
  I thank, again, the leaders of this effort to reform a system that is 
long overdue for reform. I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, Senator Levin and I had a discussion 
about the Furgatch case back in October. I am going to talk a good deal 
about the Furgatch case a little later.
  My good friend and colleague Senator Enzi from Wyoming is here and 
would like to speak. I yield him whatever time he may need.
  Mr. ENZI addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
  Mr. ENZI. Thank you, Madam President.
  Madam President, I rise in opposition to the amendment that is on the 
floor and to the McCain-Feingold substitute on campaign finance. Rather 
than ``reform'' the way that campaigns are financed, this substitute 
would infringe on the first amendment rights of millions of American 
citizens and place enormous burdens on candidates running for office.
  While the McCain-Feingold substitute claims to ``clean up'' the 
elections, it does so by placing unconstitutional restrictions on 
citizens' ability to participate in the political process. For the past 
few days, we have heard Members of the Senate bemoan the fact that 
various citizens groups and individuals have taken out ads criticizing 
them during their elections. I have to admit that I can sympathize with 
my colleagues who have been the object of often pointed and critical 
campaign ads. In fact, during my last campaign, some ads were aired 
against me that were downright false. That is why I support truth in 
advertising, but this isn't truth in advertising. At the same time, I 
believe that in a free society it is essential that citizens have the 
right to articulate their positions on issues and candidates in the 
public forum.
  The first amendment to our Constitution was drafted to ensure that 
future generations would have the right to engage in public political 
discourse that is vigorous and unfettered. Throughout even the darkest 
chapters of our Nation's history, our first amendment has provided an 
essential protection against inclinations to tyranny.
  Just a moment ago, the Senator from Michigan mentioned loopholes that 
we are plugging up. One of the things that always disturbs me about 
legislation, while legislation is being designed, loopholes are being 
thought out, loopholes nobody intends to disclose until after they have 
an opportunity to use them.
  I suggest to you that this piece of legislation and the amendment 
before us is subject to loopholes. There are people who have already 
decided how they can get around it. These are not the ethical people. 
These are the unethical ones. That is unenforced responsibility, that 
is what unethical activity is. It is also what ethical responsibility 
is, unenforced responsibility. You can't make somebody who intends to 
be bad be good, not if they intend to be.
  What we do by placing some of these restrictions on people is say to 
those who are willing to conform to the rules that they have 
limitations and those who don't have, don't have limitations. ``Oh, 
well, we will build in penalties, we will make this tough, we will take 
away the right of those people who intend to follow rules the 
opportunity to address an issue while it is timely, an issue that 
really concerns them,'' and an issue in this day and age may cost more 
than they can give to that candidate. We will take that right away from 
them. But the person who isn't worried about being punished after the 
fact will go ahead and do exactly what they have been doing all the 
time. So we are going to put in place a rule that takes away a 
constitutional right, adds additional burden, builds bureaucracy and 
takes away the freedom of speech. We are doing it in the name of making 
contests fairer. But, again, there are people out there thinking of the 
loopholes as we speak, and there are a lot of them in this.
  The Supreme Court has consistently interpreted the first amendment to 
protect the right of individual citizens and organizations to express 
their views through issue advocacy. The Court has maintained for over 
two decades that individuals and organizations do not fall within the 
restrictions of the Federal election code simply by engaging in this 
advocacy. No time limits, no disclosures, they just do not fall within 
the restrictions of the Federal election code simply by engaging in 
advocacy.

  Issue advocacy includes the right to promote any candidate for office 
and his views as long as the communication does not ``in express terms 
advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate.'' As 
long as independent communication does not cross the bright line of 
expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate, individuals 
and groups are free to spend as much as they want promoting or 
criticizing a candidate and his or her views. While these holdings may 
not always be welcome to those of us running in campaigns, they 
represent a logical outgrowth of the first amendment's historic 
protection of core political speech.
  Madam President, this amendment, which parades under the guise of 
reform, would violate these clear first amendment protections. The 
amendment impermissibly expands the definition of express advocacy to 
cover a whole host of communications by independent organizations. The 
McCain-Feingold amendment attempts to expand bright-line tests for 
issue advocacy to include communications which, in context, advocate 
election or defeat of a given candidate. Are we comfortable with giving 
a Federal regulatory agency the power to determine what constitutes 
acceptable political speech?
  The substitute gives expansive new powers to the Federal Election 
Commission. This is one Federal agency which has abused the power it 
already has to regulate Federal elections. Just last year, the Fourth 
Circuit Court of Appeals strongly criticized the Federal Election 
Commission for its unsupportable action against the Christian Action 
Network. The network's only crime was engaging in protected political 
speech.
  The Court of Appeals required the FEC to pay the network's attorney's 
fees and court costs since the FEC's prosecution had been unjustified. 
Congress should not condone flagrant administrative abuses by giving 
the FEC expanded new powers and responsibilities.
  What we have talked about for a year and a half while I have been 
here is the inability to really look into situations that appear to be 
pretty flagrant. Now we want to expand their right, after they have not 
been able to do the job and have enforced their actions in court 
actions that have been decidedly abusive, we want to give them more 
power.
  The McCain-Feingold substitute also includes within its new 
definition of express advocacy any communication that refers to one or 
more clearly identified candidates within 60 calendar days preceding an 
election. These provisions would allow the speech police

[[Page S981]]

to regulate core political speech during the most crucial part of the 
election cycle. The amendment that is on the floor right now also talks 
about that most crucial part of the election cycle.
  They would also place an economic burden on thousands of small radio 
and television stations which carry these ads. I don't think we in 
Washington should be placing any more restrictions on America's small 
businesses. Our Founding Fathers drafted the first amendment to protect 
against attempts such as these to prohibit free citizens from entering 
into public discourse on issues that greatly affect them.
  I cannot support legislation that stifles free speech of American 
citizens and gives expanded new powers to the Federal bureaucracy. For 
these reasons, I must oppose the McCain-Feingold substitute and the 
current amendment. I ask my colleagues to join me in paying tribute to 
the first amendment and opposing the McCain-Feingold substitute and 
this amendment and any other amendment that unconstitutionally 
restricts the rights of citizens to participate in the democratic 
process. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I thank my good friend from Wyoming 
for his important contribution to this debate. He obviously understands 
the issue well, and I don't say that because he clearly shares my own 
biases on this subject. I thank my good friend from Wyoming.
  Madam President, how much time do I have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has approximately 1 hour and 28 
minutes remaining.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, there has been a lot of discussion 
about what some have called sham issue advocacy. Among the most 
appalling spectacles we have witnessed on the Senate floor in recent 
years is that of Senators standing around casting judgment on whether 
particular ads by citizens groups transgress some notions of what is 
appropriate.
  Sham issue advocacy is the reformer's favorite pejorative term of art 
for first amendment protected speech which those pushing the regulatory 
scheme in McCain-Feingold and the Snowe substitute do not regard as 
legitimate. They say it is sham speech because--brace yourself--it 
might actually affect an election. Well, by all means.
  We are admonished that any communication by a private citizen or 
group that might have any impact on a Federal election should be 
regulated by the Federal Government, should be reported to the Federal 
Election Commission. The citizens who gather together to pay for it to 
exercise their constitutional right of association ought to be 
disclosed to the Federal Government, so the argument goes, so that they 
may be judged.
  Many in the media beat the drums for Government regulation of this 
so-called sham issue advocacy. Roll Call last month actually had the 
audacity to besiege the Congress to get this speech--now listen to 
this--to get this speech under control. Of course, if you really want 
to have influence, if you really want to affect the course of an 
election to favor certain candidates over others, repeal certain 
legislation or certain issues and you are wealthy, you can always buy a 
newspaper or become a newspaper editor, write editorials, headlines, 
stories.
  A lot of people would like to get those sham editorials under 
control. I thought about that from time to time over the years, but the 
first amendment would not allow it, and I don't know of anyone 
advocating it, certainly not Roll Call.
  Fortunately for the media, they benefit from a provision in the 
Federal Elections Campaign Act, I might call it a loophole, that 
exempts their issue advocacy, their express advocacy, and only theirs, 
from the definition of expenditure.
  The presumption underlying the notion that issue advocacy needs to be 
gotten under control is a remarkably arrogant one, or perhaps, in some 
instances, an ignorant one. The premise is that the politicians, all of 
us, own these elections and, therefore, politicians must control them, 
and politicians must not be drowned out by all this other independent 
speech issue advocacy by private citizens and groups.
  Good heavens, the politicians may wish to keep the race on a 
particular issue or two or perhaps they rather not talk about 
legislative issues at all. Perhaps they prefer to keep the emphasis on 
personality, resume or some other nonissue qualities.

  And there could be some citizen group with all their ``sham" issue 
advocacy spoiling the election, messing the election up, fussing the 
election up with issues, for goodness sake--with issues. A group of 
citizens may feel strongly that character is an issue, one that should 
be injected into a particular race, and so they broadcast, through paid 
ads, some misdeed of a candidate because it is relevant to character. 
Reformers write such communications off as ``negative'' and somehow 
unbecoming in a democracy.
  They do this without the candidate's permission. The temerity of 
these folks presuming they have a constitutional right to participate 
in elections, to weigh in on issues, to influence public opinion. 
Private citizens and groups interjecting themselves into American 
elections? How dare they do that. What do they think this is? A 
democracy?
  A so-called compromise is being shopped around--actually it is the 
one we are considering--it is a compromise insofar as it seeks to pick 
up some additional Republicans, enough to invoke cloture at some point 
down the road. Its proponents claim it addresses the constitutional 
shortcomings of McCain-Feingold. Its authors have created a new label, 
a sort of new category of speech that exists nowhere save for the 
talking points here on the floor. They rephrase ``sham'' issue 
advocacy, calling it instead ``electioneering.''
  Electioneering. What sinister overtones this term must evidently hold 
to reformers. This is positively subversive stuff, this 
``electioneering.'' It warrants, in the reformer view, Federal 
regulation. Those who contribute to it should, we are told, be 
disclosed to the Federal Government.
  We are advised by proponents of McCain-Feingold and the Snowe-
Jeffords substitute or addition, that this ``sham'' issue advocacy, 
this ``electioneering'' is a new phenomenon, a new scourge which must 
be routed out, regulated, and disclosed to a Federal agency, the FEC.
  Here is a news flash: Issue advocacy--``sham'' or otherwise--is 
neither novel nor ripe for Federal regulation. The legal minds at the 
Brennan Center who are building the case for McCain-Feingold and the 
Snowe-Jeffords proposal do not like the Buckley case. They do not 
respect the Buckley case. And their mission is to overturn the Buckley 
case.
  Their theory--really a desperate hope, actually--is that the Court 
will look at 20 years of election activities since the Buckley decision 
and decide things differently, even obliterate the ``bright-line'' 
standard, the ``express advocacy'' tripwire.
  More likely is that the Court will go the other way toward my view 
and that of those who think the first amendment that passed back before 
1800 is America's premier political reform--not the Federal Election 
Campaign Act of 1974.
  The Court is not going to look at the proliferation of issue advocacy 
and say, ``Whoa, we need to get that under control.'' No. I think the 
Court is going to say, ``We told you so.''
  The Court, in Buckley two decades ago, anticipated that which the 
reformers now identify as a horrible ``loophole,'' which has recently 
opened up somehow and must be closed.
  In Buckley, the Court anticipated exactly what we are discussing this 
afternoon. It said in that case:

       It would naively underestimate the integrity and 
     resourcefulness of persons and groups desiring to buy 
     influence to believe that they would have much difficulty 
     devising expenditures that skirted the restriction on express 
     advocacy of election or defeat but nevertheless benefited the 
     candidate's campaign.

  The Court was emphatic in Buckley that issue advocacy--``sham'' or 
otherwise--was at the core, the very core, of the first amendment. To 
regulate it in any way is unconstitutional, even a ``reform'' so 
seemingly innocuous as ``disclosure'' of donors.
  In NAACP v. Button, in 1963, which was quoted in Buckley, the Court 
said:


[[Page S982]]


       Because First Amendment freedoms need breathing space to 
     survive, government may regulate in the area only with narrow 
     specificity.

  The Court went on to say in Buckley:

       . . . the distinction between discussion of issues and 
     candidates and advocacy of election or defeat of candidates 
     may often dissolve in practical application.

  So the Court anticipated exactly what has happened.

       Candidates, especially incumbents, are intimately tied to 
     public issues involving legislative proposals and 
     governmental actions.

  The Court said in Buckley:

       Not only do candidates campaign on the basis of their 
     positions on various public issues, but campaigns themselves 
     generate issues of public interest.

  The Court went on the say:

       [W]hether words intended and designed to fall short of 
     invitation would miss that mark is a question both of intent 
     and effect. No speaker, in such circumstances, safely could 
     assume that anything he might say upon the general subject 
     would not be understood by some as an invitation. In 
     short, the supposedly clear-cut distinction between 
     discussion, laudation, general advocacy, and solicitation 
     puts the speaker in these circumstances wholly at the 
     mercy of the varied understanding of his hearers and 
     consequently of whatever inference may be drawn as to his 
     intent and meaning.

       Such a distinction offers no security for free discussion. 
     In these conditions it blankets with uncertainty whatever may 
     be said. It compels the speaker to hedge and trim.

  The Court went on:

       The constitutional deficiencies described in Thomas v. 
     Collins can be avoided only by reading [the 1974 independent 
     expenditure provision regarding advocacy of election or 
     defeat] as limited [very limited] to communications that 
     include explicit words of advocacy of election or defeat of a 
     candidate. . .
       . . . in order to preserve the provision against 
     invalidation or vagueness grounds, [it] must be construed to 
     apply only to expenditures for communications that in express 
     terms advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified 
     candidate for federal office.

  So, Madam President, the Court understood that an issue advocacy was 
very much to be, to some viewers or listeners, indistinguishable from 
express advocacy that they said the first amendment requires its 
protection.

       So long as persons and groups eschew expenditures that in 
     express terms advocate the election or defeat of a clearly 
     identified candidate, [the Court said] they are free [I 
     repeat, free] to spend as much as they want to promote the 
     candidate and his views. The exacting interpretation of the 
     statutory language necessary to avoid unconstitutional 
     vagueness thus undermines the limitations's effectiveness as 
     a loophole-closing provision . . .
       . . . yet no societal interest would be served by a 
     loophole-closing provision . . .

  So summing up Buckley's observations about issue advocacy, they 
anticipated this. They wanted people to have wide latitude to discuss 
the issues or the pros and cons of candidates for office, up to and 
including proximity to an election. And they wanted them to be able to 
do that without having to file with the Federal Election Commission or 
to conduct their speech with hard-money dollars.
  The Supreme Court reiterated the explicit words requirement for a 
determination of express advocacy in the 1986 Massachusetts Citizens 
for Life case--citing, again, footnote 52 as a guide. And here is what 
they said:

       Buckley adopted the ``express advocacy'' requirement to 
     distinguish discussion of issues and candidates from more 
     pointed exhortations to vote for particular persons. We 
     therefore concluded in that case that a finding of ``express 
     advocacy'' depended upon the use of language such as ``vote 
     for,'' ``elect,'' ``support,'' etc.

  Now, those who advocate McCain-Feingold and the Snowe-Jeffords 
proposal, which involve regulatory regimes, have precious few court 
cases upon which to base their arguments. Most prominent among these is 
the ninth circuit's Furgatch decision, dating back to 1987, which my 
colleague from Michigan, Senator Levin, made reference to a few moments 
ago. Frankly, it is a mighty slim reference. The Furgatch limb upon 
which their issue advocacy regulation case rests is a pretty weak limb.
  While Furgatch is not my favorite decision, it is certainly not the 
blank check for reformers who seek to shut down issue advocacy either. 
Furgatch was an express advocacy case. It hinged on the content of the 
communication at issue--words, explicit terms--just as the Supreme 
Court required in Buckley and reiterated in Massachusetts Citizens for 
Life.
  The words in Furgatch were not those contained in Buckley's footnote 
52. Indeed, no one--least of all the Supreme Court--ever intended that 
the list, typically referred to as ``footnote 52'' was exhaustive. That 
would defy common sense.
  Desperate for even the thinnest constitutional gruel upon which to 
base their regulatory zeal to extend their reach to everyone who dares 
to utter a political word in this country, the FEC leapt at Furgatch 
and will not let it go. FEC lawyers misread it, misrepresent it, and 
are rewarded with loss after loss after loss in the courts.
  In last year's fourth circuit decision, which Senator Enzi referred 
to, ordering the FEC to pay one of its victims, the Christian Action 
Network's attorney's fees, the ``Furgatch-as-a-blank-check-for-issue-
advocacy-regulation'' fantasy, was thoroughly dissected, debunked and 
dispensed with.
  The court in the Christian Action Network case puts Furgatch in the 
proper perspective.
  And let me read some portions of the Christian Action Network case.

       On the authority of Buckley v. Valeo and FEC v. 
     Massachusetts Citizens for Life, the district court dismissed 
     the FEC's action against the Network for failure to state 
     a claim upon which relief could be granted, holding that, 
     as ``issue advocacy intended to inform the public about 
     political issues germane to the 1992 presidential 
     election,'' the advertisements were ``fully protected as 
     `political speech' under the First Amendment.''

  Further on in the case, Madam President, the Court said:

       Because the position taken by the FEC in this litigation 
     was foreclosed by clear, well-established Supreme Court 
     caselaw, and it is apparent from the Commission's selective 
     quotation from and citation to those authorities that the 
     agency was so aware, we conclude that the Commission's 
     position, if not assumed in bad faith, was at least not 
     ``substantially justified''. . .
       Seven years later, and less than a month following the 
     Court's decision in MCFL, the Ninth Circuit in FEC v. 
     Furgatch, could not have been clearer that it, too, shared 
     this understanding of the Court's decision in Buckley. 
     Although the court declined to ``strictly limit'' express 
     advocacy to the ``magic words'' of Buckley's footnote 52 
     because that footnote's list does ``not exhaust the capacity 
     of the English language to expressly advocate election or 
     defeat of a candidate,'' curiously, the Ninth Circuit never 
     cited or discussed the Supreme Court's opinion in MCFL, 
     notwithstanding that MCFL was argued in the Supreme Court 
     three months prior to the decision in Furgatch and decided by 
     the Court almost a month prior to the Court of Appeals 
     decision. The Ninth Circuit does discuss the First Circuit's 
     opinion in MCFL, but without noting that certiorari had been 
     granted to review the case. Thus, the Furgatch court relied 
     upon Buckley alone, without the reaffirmation provided by the 
     Court in MCFL, for its conclusion that explicit ``words'' or 
     ``language'' of advocacy are required if the Federal Election 
     Campaign Act is to be constitutionally enforced.
       The entire premise of the court's analysis was that words 
     of advocacy such as those recited in footnote 52 were 
     required to support Commission jurisdiction over a given 
     corporate expenditure.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       The Court explained that individual words or sentences of 
     the message cannot be considered in isolation, but, rather, 
     must be considered together with the other words and 
     sentences that appear in the communication, in determining 
     whether the message is one of election advocacy:

                           *   *   *   *   *

       Then, although noting how ``[w]ords derive their meaning 
     from what the speaker intends and what the reader 
     understands,'' the court declined to place too much 
     importance on intent because ``to fathom [the speaker's] 
     mental state would distract [the court] unnecessarily from 
     the speech itself.'' And, finally, although the Court refused 
     to foreclose resort to contextual considerations external to 
     the words themselves, it explained that external context must 
     necessarily be an ``ancillary'' consideration because it is 
     ``peripheral to the words themselves,'' and it pointedly 
     noted that such ``context cannot supply a meaning that is 
     incompatible with, or simply unrelated to, the clear import 
     of the words.''
       Having established that the emphasis must always be on the 
     literal words of the communication, with little if any weight 
     accorded external contextual factors, the court proceeded to 
     outline what it considered to be ``a more comprehensive 
     approach to the delimitation of `express advocacy.' '' In so 
     doing, the court repeatedly emphasized that the message of 
     candidacy advocacy must appear in the speech, in the words, 
     of the communication if the expenditure of corporate funds 
     for that communication is to be prohibited:
       The court's almost exclusive focus on ``speech,'' and 
     specifically ``speech'' defined as the literal words or text 
     of the communication, could not have been clearer. . . .

[[Page S983]]

       This standard can be broken into three main components. 
     First, even if it is not presented in the clearest, most 
     explicit language, speech is ``express'' for present purposes 
     if its message is unmistakable and unambiguous, suggestive of 
     only one plausible meaning. Second, speech may only be termed 
     ``advocacy'' if it presents a clear plea for action, and thus 
     speech that is merely informative is not covered by the Act. 
     Finally, it must be clear what action is advocated. Speech 
     cannot be ``express advocacy of the election or defeat of a 
     clearly identified candidate'' when reasonable minds could 
     differ as to whether it encourages a vote for or against a 
     candidate or encourages the reader to take some other [kind 
     of] action.
       We emphasize that if any reasonable alternative reading of 
     speech can be suggested, it cannot be express advocacy 
     subject to the Act's disclosure requirements.

  It is plain that the FEC has simply selected certain words and 
phrases from Furgatch that give the FEC the broadest possible authority 
to regulate political speech and ignored those portions of Furgatch 
quoted above, focusing on the words and text of the message. The ninth 
circuit did not use other soft language when describing the framework 
within which the express advocacy determination is to be made. Madam 
President, let me just say the case is replete with refutation of the 
Furgatch decision. Clearly, the Furgatch decision is not controlling 
when it comes to reaching a decision about the appropriateness of the 
language in the Snowe-Jeffords proposal.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the excerpts of this case 
that I was going to cite be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                Excerpts

       434(c) so as to prevent speech that is clearly intended to 
     affect the outcome of a federal election from escaping, 
     either fortuitously or by design, the coverage of the Act,'' 
     id. at 862. Under the facts of the case, these broader 
     observations were obviously dicta.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       . . . to the extent that they do represent an intentional 
     departure by the Ninth Circuit from the standard set forth by 
     the Supreme Court in Buckley and MCFL, they were just that.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       Against this overwhelming weight of (and, in the case of 
     the Supreme Court decisions, dispositive) authority, the FEC 
     argued before the district court and before us the concededly 
     ``novel'' position, . . . that, even though the Christian 
     Action Network's advertisements did not include any explicit 
     words or language advocating Governor Clinton's defeat, the 
     expenditure of corporate funds for these advertisements 
     nonetheless violated section 441b because, considered as a 
     whole with the imagery, music, film footage, and voice 
     intonations, the advertisements' nonprescriptive language 
     unmistakably conveyed a message expressly advocating the 
     defeat of Governor Clinton. That is, the FEC argued the 
     position that ``no words of advocacy are necessary to 
     expressly advocate the election of a candidate,'' . . .

                           *   *   *   *   *

       Stripped of its circumlocution, the FEC's argument was (and 
     is) that the determination of whether a given communication 
     constitutes ``express advocacy'' depends upon all of the 
     circumstances, internal and external to the communication, 
     and could reasonably be considered to bear upon the 
     recipient's interpretation of the message. The right to 
     engage in political speech would turn on an interpretation of 
     the ``imagery'' employed by the speaker. . . . It would 
     depend upon the perceived ``charge'' of the ``rhetoric'' used 
     . . . and upon the timing of the communication . . . The 
     right would be contingent upon one's mere identity or 
     association, as the following exchange between the court and 
     FEC counsel reveals.
       ``The Court: And [the advertisement is] only bad if you 
     believe that the voters disagree with the message about 
     homosexuality there. For those voters who agree with the 
     message, why is it a negative ad?
       ``Mr. Kolker: Well, I think, I think it's clear to a 
     reasonable person that the Christian Action Network thinks 
     these things are bad . . . I think that the ardent gay rights 
     activist would view this ad as a message from the Christian 
     Action Network to vote against Clinton. That they believe his 
     views on homosexuals are wrong. . . .
       ``The Court: That's only if you bring to the table an 
     understanding of what the Christian Action Network is:

                           *   *   *   *   *

       ``Mr. Kolker: It's a self-defined group using the label 
     Christian Action.''
       The FEC thus argues that ``[w]hen included as part of the 
     message, the speaker's identity becomes part of the 
     communication itself, and what matters is not what the viewer 
     or the courts will infer about the speaker's intent, but what 
     a reasonable person, informed about the speaker's identity 
     (and thus potential biases and passions), understands the 
     communication to mean.''
       . . . Under certain circumstances, as the following 
     exchange shows, the right could even be withdrawn merely 
     because the speaker expresses disagreement with a candidate 
     over a particular issue:
       ``Mr. Kolker: . . . If all you're doing is mentioning an 
     issue to say that their candidate's position on it is wrong, 
     it is not a real discussion of the issue, the focus of the ad 
     is the candidate----
       ``The Court: --So you can't link the candidate with the 
     issue, that's what----
       ``Mr. Kolker: No, I think you can but not if all you're 
     doing is saying the candidate believes X and X is the wrong 
     position. . . .

                           *   *   *   *   *

       ``Mr. Kolker: [I]t's clear from the ad that the way that 
     final [rhetorical] question [in the television ad] forcefully 
     is spoken, that from the speaker's perspective, it's the 
     wrong vision. And what I'm saying is the candidate has a 
     position, he's wrong on the position. There's no real issue 
     discussion. It's just an attack on the candidate.'' Oral Arg. 
     Trans. at 15-16.
       To quote the following passage, in which the FEC 
     articulates some of the multitude of factors that would be 
     considered under its interpretation in determining whether a 
     given communication was prohibited, is to appreciate the 
     breadth of power that the FEC would appropriate to itself 
     under its definition of ``express advocacy'':
       ``[E]xpress electoral advocacy [can] consist[ ] not of 
     words alone, but of the combined message of words and 
     dramatic moving images, sounds, and other non-verbal cues 
     such as film editing, photographic techniques, and music, 
     involving highly charged rhetoric and provocative images 
     which, taken as a whole, sen[d] an unmistakable message to 
     oppose [a specific candidate].''
       Opp. Mem. at 8. This is little more than an argument that 
     the FEC will know ``express advocacy'' when it sees it.
       C.
       The FEC's enforcement action against the Christian Action 
     Network in this case brings into relief the extent to which, 
     under the FEC's interpretation of ``express advocacy,'' 
     political speech would become hostage to the vicissitudes of 
     the Commission, because, although a viewer could interpret 
     the Network's video as election advocacy of the defeat of 
     Governor Clinton, another viewer could just as readily 
     interpret the video as issue advocacy on the question of 
     homosexual rights. Indeed, the commercial and advertisements 
     that the FEC here contend fall squarely within its regulatory 
     purview are precisely the kinds of issue advocacy that the 
     Supreme Court sought to protect in Buckley and MCFL; and the 
     FEC's interpretation of these advertisements is exactly that 
     contemplated by the Court when it warned of the 
     constitutional pitfalls in subjecting a speaker's message to 
     the unpredictability of audience interpretation, . . .

                           *   *   *   *   *

       Yet, the FEC would have us confer power upon it to regulate 
     these advertisements because, in its assessment, ``[t]o the 
     ordinary viewer in 1992, the CAN video unmistakably 
     encourages voters to defeat Bill Clinton. The video 
     communicates the following: A group explicitly aligning 
     itself with Christian, heterosexual, and traditional family 
     values graphically depicts a specific presidential candidate 
     supporting homosexual men vividly asserting their sexual 
     preferences; the message attacks Clinton's moral judgment and 
     alleged policy agenda; those positions involve steps that 
     only a federal elected official could take; the message is 
     delivered to viewers who live in states where Governor 
     Clinton has no contemporaneous authority to set policy; the 
     message is televised shortly before the presidential 
     election; and the message employs powerful symbolism and 
     persuasive devices unique to the medium of video. . . . The 
     video admittedly contains no literal phrase such as ``Defeat 
     Bill Clinton.'' But it contains a special kind of charged 
     rhetoric and symbolism that exhorts more forcefully and 
     unambiguously than mere words.''
       Appellant's Br. at 37-38. Or, because, in the words of the 
     ``expert'' whom the FEC retained to assist it in its action 
     against the Christian Action Network.
       ``[T]his 30 second television spot expressly advocated the 
     defeat of candidates Clinton and Gore in the upcoming 
     presidential general election. It did so by employing the 
     techniques of audio voice-overs, music, visual text, visual 
     images, color, codewords, and editing. In their totality, 
     these techniques said voters should defeat Clinton and Gore 
     because these candidates favor extremist homosexuals and 
     extremist homosexuals are bad for America.''

                           *   *   *   *   *

       . . . the FEC's position was based not only ``on a 
     misreading of the Ninth Circuit's decision in Furgatah,'' but 
     also on a ``profound misreading'' of the Supreme Court's 
     decision in both Buckley and MCFL.
       From the foregoing discussion of Buckley and MCFL, it is 
     indisputable that the Supreme Court limited the FEC's 
     regulatory authority to expenditures which, through explicit 
     words, advocate the election or defeat of a specifically 
     identified candidate. In the portion of Buckley in which the 
     Court addresses the overbreadth of the Federal Election 
     Campaign Act and adopts its limiting construction of section 
     608(e)(1)'s term ``relative to,'' the Court does not even use 
     the phrase ``express advocacy,'' upon the purported 
     ``ambiguity'' of which the FEC builds its diffuse definition. 
     In this most important portion of the opinion, cf. DNC Br. at 
     5, the

[[Page S984]]

     Court only refers to ``explicit words of advocacy,'' 
     ``express terms'' and ``express words of advocacy.'' See 
     Buckley, 424 U.S. at 43-44. It is not until the Court 
     interprets the statutory term ``expenditure'' in section 
     434(e) to include the same limitation as in section 
     608(e)(1), forty pages later in the opinion, that the Court 
     even uses the phrase ``express advocacy,'' see id. at 80. But 
     even there, the Court confirms through footnote 108's cross-
     reference to footnote 52, in which the Court lists the kinds 
     of words that would warrant exercise of the FEC's regulatory 
     authority, that it meant by the phrase ``express advocacy'' 
     nothing more or less than ``express words of advocacy.'' In 
     other words, the Court itself in Buckley confirmed that it 
     intended the phrase ``express advocacy'' simply as a 
     shorthand for the ``explicit words of advocacy of election or 
     defeat'' ``of a clearly identified candidate for federal 
     office,'' which it had held earlier in the opinion were 
     required in order to save the Act from constitutional 
     infirmity.
       Were this alone not sufficient to establish that the Court 
     meant by ``express advocacy'' ``express words of advocacy,'' 
     then the Court's subsequent discussion in MCFL removes all 
     doubt. There, because it was interpreting the statutory term 
     ``expenditure,'' the Court cited to Buckley's discussion of 
     section 434(e), rather than to that case's discussion of 
     section 608(e)(1), and used the shorthand phrase ``express 
     advocacy.'' See MCFL, 479 U.S. at 248-49. The Court then went 
     on to define ``express advocacy,'' again through citation to 
     its footnote 52 in Buckley, to mean ``express words of 
     advocacy.'' See id. at 249 (citing Buckley, 424 U.S. at 44 
     n.52). It even stated that in Buckley it had concluded ``that 
     a finding of `express advocacy' depend[s] upon the use of 
     language such as `vote for,' `elect,' `support,' etc.'' MCFL, 
     479 U.S. at 249 (citing Buckley, 424 U.S. at 44 n.52) 
     (emphasis added).
       The FEC is fully aware that the Supreme Court has required 
     explicit words of advocacy as a condition to the Commission's 
     exercise of power, as evidenced by its own dissembling before 
     this court.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       The FEC argues throughout its submissions that the Supreme 
     Court ``never suggested that communications can constitute 
     express advocacy only if they include specific words from a 
     special list.'' Appellant's Br. at 23. This is true, but it 
     is a red-herring. Most certainly, the Court never said this. 
     But, just as certainly, the Court never suggested that 
     communications with no words of advocacy at all can 
     nonetheless be considered ``express advocacy.'' In fact, as 
     we show, it actually held precisely the opposite.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       The agency even goes so far as to quote the very sentence 
     from page 80 of Buckley in which the Court uses the phrase 
     ``express advocacy'' and defines that phrase in the 
     sentence's footnote 108 to mean ``express words of 
     advocacy,''

                           *   *   *   *   *

       The FEC resorts to the same slight-of-hand in its 
     discussion of the Ninth Circuit's decision in Furgatch. 
     According to the FEC, the court of appeals in that case said 
     that ``courts must take care to avoid an unnecessarily narrow 
     application of express advocacy to prevent `eviscerating the 
     Federal Election Campaign Act.''' Appellant's Br. at 18. In 
     fact, what the Ninth Circuit said was that ``[a] test 
     requiring the magic words `elect,' `support,' etc., or their 
     nearly perfect synonyms for a finding of express advocacy 
     would preserve the First Amendment right of unfettered 
     expression only at the expense of eviscerating the Federal 
     Election Campaign Act.'' 807 F.2d at 863. In light of our 
     discussion herein, the difference is of enormous 
     significance.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       That the Commission knows well the Court's holdings in 
     Buckley and MCFL is further confirmed by the agency's 
     subsequent action in Furgatch, which we referenced supra at 
     8-11. Because Furgatch, despite its narrow holding, does 
     include broad dicta which can be read (or misread) to support 
     the FEC's expansive view of its authority, the agency 
     vigorously opposed certiorari in the case. Wishing to have 
     the opinion preserved intact, the Commission in its 
     submissions there, in contrast to its submissions before this 
     court, quoted Buckley as ``requir[ing] `explicit words of 
     advocacy of election or defeat of a candidate.''' . . . The 
     Commission even took the position that Furgatch did, as we 
     noted above, interpret the Federal Election Campaign Act's 
     corporate disclosure statutes as ``narrowly limited to 
     communications containing language `susceptible to no other 
     reasonable interpretation but as an exhortation to vote,'''
       . . . Moreover, the FEC argued to the Supreme Court that 
     Furgatch was fully consistent with Buckley and MCFL precisely 
     because the opinion focused on the specific language of 
     Furgatch's advertisement and concluded that express advocacy 
     existed only because the advertisement ``explicitly 
     exhorted'' voters to defeat then-President Carter. Thus, 
     there is no doubt the Commission understands that its 
     position that no words of advocacy are required in order to 
     support its jurisdiction runs directly counter to Supreme 
     Court precedent.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       . . . the Supreme Court has unambiguously held that the 
     First Amendment forbids the regulation of our political 
     speech under such indeterminate standards. ``Explicit words 
     of advocacy of election or defeat of a candidate,'' ``express 
     words of advocacy,'' the Court has held, are the 
     constitutional minima. To allow the government's power to be 
     brought to bear on less, would effectively be to dispossess 
     corporate citizens of their fundamental right to engage in 
     the very kind of political issue advocacy the First Amendment 
     was intended to protect--as this case well confirms.

  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield the floor.
  Ms. SNOWE. Madam President, I am delighted to yield 20 minutes to my 
colleague from Wisconsin, Senator Feingold. I want to commend him for 
his perseverance and tenacity to ensuring that campaign finance reform 
reached the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Faircloth). The Senator from Wisconsin is 
recognized.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank the Senator from 
Maine.
  Let me first say that it was an interesting comment by the Senator 
from Kentucky that those of us trying to pass campaign finance reform 
don't like Buckley v. Valeo. I don't have strong feelings on liking or 
not liking Supreme Court cases. I just consider them the law of the 
land.
  In this case, instead of taking the route that some people would like 
me and others to take of supporting a constitutional amendment to 
achieve campaign finance reform, something I vigorously opposed, I have 
instead, working with Senator McCain and others, chosen to find a way 
to pass a bill that is within the Court's rulings and holdings in 
Buckley v. Valeo.
  So I happen to think that is the controlling law. And the suggestion 
that somehow we don't consider that to be a valid case is simply wrong. 
Our efforts for 3 years have consistently been to craft a bill that the 
United States Supreme Court would say is constitutional in every 
respect. In fact, the Senator from Kentucky, after years of trying to 
suggest that the voluntary spending limits and the soft money ban are 
unconstitutional, now is only focusing on suggesting that a 
redefinition of phony issue ads is somehow unconstitutional. I think 
that is not at all an established proposition. I might add, I think our 
efforts here on this bill, with the help of the Snowe-Jeffords 
amendment, are getting stronger. Every day we are getting a little 
stronger on this bill, and it is a good feeling.
  So it is my pleasure to rise today to speak in support of the 
amendment that the distinguished Senators from Maine and Vermont have 
offered. It reminds me of the tremendous help that the Presiding 
Officer, the other Senator from Maine, gave us when she had some ideas 
about how we could improve our bill. This is how you get a good bill. 
People with good ideas come together and gradually it gets improved, 
you gain support, until the point where it becomes obvious not only 
that a majority of the body supports the bill, which we have already 
achieved, but obviously it is in the interests of the people of this 
country that we simply get on with the business of the country and pass 
it. So I am a cosponsor of that amendment that has been offered, along 
with Senators Levin and Lieberman on our side of the aisle and Senators 
McCain, Thompson, Collins and Chafee on the Republican side.
  When the debate on campaign finance reform reached a stalemate last 
fall, Senators Snowe and Jeffords indicated they did intend to continue 
through the winter months looking for a solution to the deadlock. Those 
were not idle words. They were true to their word.
  The Snowe-Jeffords amendment that has taken shape over the past 2 
weeks is a sincere effort to address the two primary sticking points 
that have caused our efforts to be delayed: alleged first amendment 
concerns with the provisions of our bill dealing with issue advocacy 
and express advocacy, and the use of corporate and union treasury money 
for what amount to campaign attack advertisements in the closing days 
of the campaign.
  Let me talk for a moment how the Snowe-Jeffords amendment navigates 
the difficult political and constitutional shoals that face us in this 
debate.
  The first thing the amendment does is more clearly define a category 
of communications in the law. We call them electioneering 
communications.

[[Page S985]]

 These electioneering communications are communications that meet three 
tests: First, they are made through the broadcast media, radio and 
television, including satellite and cable. Second, they refer to a 
clearly identified official candidate--in other words, they show the 
face or speak the name of the candidate. And third, they appear within 
60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary in which that 
candidate is running.

  The Snowe-Jeffords amendment provides that for-profit corporations 
and labor unions cannot make electioneering communications using their 
treasury funds. If they want to run TV ads mentioning candidates close 
to the election, they must use voluntary contributions to their 
political action committees. We firmly believe that this approach will 
withstand constitutional scrutiny because corporations and unions have 
for a very long time been barred from spending money directly on 
Federal elections.
  The Senator from Kentucky suggested we lack case law for these 
propositions, but the Supreme Court upheld the ban on corporate 
spending in the Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce case. Mr. 
President, it is noted that a Michigan regulation that prohibited 
corporations from making independent expenditures from treasury funds 
prevented ``corruption in the public arena: the corrosive and 
distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are 
accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or 
no correlation to the public's support for the corporation's political 
ideas.'' According to the Court, the Michigan regulation ``ensured that 
the expenditures reflect actual public support for the political ideas 
espoused by the corporations.''
  We are merely saying through this amendment that actual public 
support, shown by voluntary contributions to a PAC, must be present 
when corporations and unions want to run ads mentioning candidates near 
in time to an election.
  The Snowe-Jeffords amendment goes on to permit spending on these 
kinds of ads by nonprofit corporations, if they are registered as 
501(c)(4) advocacy groups, and other unincorporated groups and 
individuals. The rules about corporations and unions do not apply in 
the same way to these groups, but the amendment, but it makes one 
requirement. It requires disclosure of the groups' large donors whose 
funds are used to place the ads once the total spending of the group on 
the electioneering communications reaches $10,000. It only applies if 
the total spending over a total amount of $10,000.
  A few things should be noted about the disclosure requirement that 
entities other than unions and for-profit corporations are subject to 
if they engage in these kinds of electioneering communications. The 
disclosure required here is not burdensome; it simply requires a group 
placing an ad to report the spending to the FEC within 24 hours, and to 
provide the name of the group, or of any other group that exercises 
control over its activities, and of the custodian of records of the 
group, and finally of the amount of each disbursement and the person to 
whom the money was paid.
  Second, this disclosure requirement is triggered by the spending of 
$10,000 or more on these kinds of ads. If a small group that spends 
only a few thousand on radio spots wants to do that, and they stay 
under $10,000, they will never have to report a thing. There is no new 
requirement there.
  Third, the disclosure of contributors required is really quite 
limited. It does not require all contributors of all amounts to be 
disclosed. Only large donors who contribute more than $500 must be 
identified, and they have to be identified only by name and address. 
And a group that received donations from a wide variety of purposes, 
including some corporate or labor or treasury money, can set up a 
separate bank account to which only individuals can contribute, pay for 
the ads out of that account, and then they only have to disclose only 
the large donors whose money is put in that account. So any individual 
who doesn't want to be disclosed can easily ask that the group not 
spend his or her money on that kind of activity.
  The net result will be that the public will learn through this 
amendment who the people are who are giving large contributions 
to groups to try to influence elections. If a group is merely a shell 
for a few wealthy donors, as we suspect that many of the groups who ran 
the nastiest ads in 1996 were, then we will know who these big money 
supporters are and we will be in a lot better position to assess their 
real agenda. On the other hand, if an established group with a large 
membership of small contributors under $500 wishes to engage in this 
kind of activity, it doesn't have to disclose any of its contributors 
under this amendment because it can pay for the ads freely from small 
donor money routed to the special bank account for individual donors.

  Mr. President, I believe these disclosure provisions will pass 
constitutional muster. But the Senator from Kentucky and also the 
Senator from Washington earlier in the debate today have argued that 
even these reasonable disclosure requirements somehow violate the 
Constitution, and they cite the case of NAACP v. Alabama from 1958. 
That is a very important case in the history of our country and the 
history of the first amendment, and one with which I fully agree, but 
the conclusion that the Senator from Kentucky draws from it with 
respect to the Snowe-Jeffords amendment is simply wrong.
  At the height of the civil rights struggle, the State of Alabama 
obtained a judicial order for the NAACP to produce its membership 
lists, and fined it $100,000 for failing to comply. The NAACP 
challenged that order and argued that the first amendment rights of its 
members to freely associate to advance their common beliefs would be 
violated by the forced disclosure of their membership lists. They 
pointed out many instances where the revealing of the identities of its 
members exposed them to economic reprisals, loss of unemployment, and 
even threats of physical coercion. The Court held that the State had 
not demonstrated a sufficient interest in obtaining these lists that 
would justify the deterrent effect on the members of the NAACP 
exercising their rights of association.
  Now, Mr. President, everyone in this body should know that the Snowe 
amendment is totally different from what the State of Alabama tried to 
do in the NAACP case. The Snowe amendment doesn't ask for any 
membership lists. The Senator from Washington stood up and read quotes 
about how the NAACP case doesn't allow a requirement that a group 
disclose its membership list, but the Snowe amendment doesn't do 
anything of the kind. It is a simple red herring with regard to what we 
are asking in the Snowe amendment. All the Snowe amendment does is ask 
for is the very limited disclosure of the names and addresses of large 
contributors to a specific bank account used for the single purpose of 
paying for certain kinds of electioneering communications.
  So, Mr. President, contrary to the claim that this is somehow like 
the NAACP case, most membership groups won't have to disclose anything 
if they receive sufficient small donations to cover their expenditures 
on these types of communications. And even if contributors want to give 
more, they don't have to be identified, as long as their money is not 
used for the kinds of ads that would be subject to this kind of 
disclosure.
  Finally, the disclosure requirement can be avoided altogether by 
crafting an ad that does not specifically refer to a candidate during 
the short window of time right before an election. This is nothing like 
asking the NAACP or the NRA or anyone else to divulge their complete 
membership lists. This is a false analogy.
  Mr. President, the Supreme Court has shown much more willingness to 
uphold disclosure requirements in connection with election spending 
than the Senator from Kentucky has been willing to recognize so far in 
this debate. In Citizens Against Rent Control v. the City of Berkeley, 
a 1981 case, for example, the Court struck down a limit on 
contributions to committees formed to support or oppose ballot a 
measure. But the court, Mr. President, noted specifically:

       The integrity of the political system will be adequately 
     protected if contributors are identified in a public filing 
     revealing the amounts contributed; if it is thought wise, 
     legislation can outlaw anonymous contributions.

  Mr. President, it is worth noting that the opinion in that case was 
by Chief

[[Page S986]]

Justice Warren Burger and the vote was 8-1. The only dissenter, Justice 
White, thought the limits themselves on contributions should be upheld. 
So with regard to this issue, it was essentially unanimous.
  In U.S. v. Harriss, the Court upheld disclosure requirements for 
lobbyists, despite the alleged chilling effect that those requirements 
might have on the right to petition the Government. Of course, the 
Buckley Court itself, which the Senator from Kentucky frequently refers 
to, upheld disclosure requirements for groups who make independent 
expenditures.
  Now, of course, the Court will have to analyze the Snowe amendment 
when it gets there and the type of communications that trigger it and 
determine if they pass constitutional muster. I will not proclaim that 
there is no argument to be made at all that this provision is 
unconstitutional. Of course there is, and I am sure groups like the 
National Right to Life Committee will make it. But to say that there is 
no chance that this provision will be upheld, as the Senator from 
Kentucky has said, is just not right. There is ample and substantial 
constitutional justification and precedent for this provision.
  As the Brennan Center for Justice wrote in its letter analyzing the 
Snowe-Jeffords amendment:

       Disclosure rules do not restrict speech significantly. 
     Disclosure rules do not limit the information that is 
     conveyed to the electorate. To the contrary, they increase 
     the flow of information. For that reason, the Supreme Court 
     has made clear that rules requiring disclosure are subject to 
     less exacting constitutional strictures than direct 
     prohibitions on spending . . .. There is no constitutional 
     bar to expanding the disclosure rules to provide accurate 
     information to voters about the sponsors of ads indisputably 
     designed to influence their votes.

  Mr. President, it is also important to note that the Snowe-Jeffords 
amendment contains provisions designed to prevent the laundering of 
corporate and union money through nonprofits. Groups that wish to 
engage in this particular kind of advocacy must ensure that only the 
contributions of individual donors are used for the expenditures.
  Because the prohibition in the Snowe-Jeffords amendment is limited to 
unions and corporations spending money from their treasuries on these 
kinds of ads, many of the concerns that opponents of McCain-Feingold 
voiced about the effect of the bill on speech by citizens groups are 
eliminated. Keep that in mind. One of the things people claimed was the 
real problem of McCain-Feingold--there has been sort of a shifting 
bottom line of what the real problem is--but that portion has been 
modified in Snowe-Jeffords.
  Senators who oppose this amendment must be willing to stand on two 
positions now that I think are both unsupportable. First, Mr. 
President, those who still oppose McCain-Feingold, if it is amended by 
Snowe-Jeffords, must defend the rights of unions and corporations using 
treasury money--not citizens groups like the National Right to Life 
Committee or the Christian Coalition or the Sierra Club--to run 
essentially campaign advertisements that dodge the Federal election 
laws by not using the magic words ``vote for'' or ``vote against'' or 
to finance those ads through other groups. So that is the conclusion: 
Corporations and unions, apparently, should just be allowed to do this 
freely, despite the almost unanimous complaints by Members of the 
Senate with regard to this question.
  Secondly, those who are still holding out, even though they represent 
a minority of the Senate, in terms of supporting McCain-Feingold as it 
will be amended, argue that the public is not entitled to know, in the 
case of advocacy groups that run these ads close to an election, what 
the identities of these people are. They say that they should not be 
known to those who are about to vote. Many opponents of McCain-Feingold 
have trumpeted the virtues of full disclosure and say that is what we 
need--disclosure; not McCain-Feingold. I have, at times, doubted how 
serious they were about disclosure because they would never acknowledge 
the important advances our bill provides with regard to disclosure.

  Now, when we vote on the Snowe-Jeffords amendment, we will see how 
sincere the opponents of this bill are about the importance of 
disclosure, because the Snowe-Jeffords amendment requires nothing more 
of advocacy groups than full disclosure. In fact, it requires a lot 
less because the groups only have to make these disclosures if they run 
these ads close to an election and if they spend more than $10,000 on 
those electioneering communications.
  Mr. President, our agreement on the Snowe-Jeffords amendment means 
that a clear majority of this Senate supports bipartisan campaign 
finance reform. Further, we will vote as a block to defeat any ``poison 
pill'' offered by opponents. This agreement puts the onus of killing 
reform, if that is what happens, back where it belongs--on those who 
would put a partisan attack on unions over the greater good of 
abolishing soft money.
  I urge my other colleagues on the Republican side to join this effort 
and recognize, as Senators Snowe and Jeffords have done, along with 
Senators Thompson, Collins, Specter, and the original author, Senator 
McCain, before them, and that a strong majority of the American people 
understands, that the McCain-Feingold bill is a balanced, reasonable, 
and fair step toward reform and that we can achieve that reform if we 
put our heads together and work out our differences.
  Once again, Senator McCain and I are more than willing to talk to 
anyone who sincerely wants reform or to talk about changes to our bill 
that will bring us closer to the 60 votes we need to get past the 
filibuster that opponents have promised. The fruitful negotiations that 
have produced the Snowe-Jeffords amendment have shown that we are 
serious about passing McCain-Feingold this year.
  Mr. President, with that renewed invitation, I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I yield such time as he may need to 
Senator Grams from Minnesota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, throughout Minnesota's history, its 
residents have been considered among America's most civic-minded 
citizens, who are interested in public affairs and concerned about how 
government decision-making affects their daily lives. I have been well-
served by the counsel of thousands of Minnesotans who have expressed 
concerns about high taxes, balancing the budget, and, most recently, 
U.S. military involvement in Iraq.
  During the 105th Congress, I have also heard from many Minnesotans 
who are concerned over the reports of alleged illegal or improper 
campaign contributions to the Democratic National Committee and White 
House during the 1996 campaign cycle. These reports have raised the 
perception among some Americans that access and votes can be bought in 
Washington and that the system for financing our federal campaigns is 
corrupt and ``broken.''
  As the Senate considers campaign finance reform legislation, I am not 
surprised that many constituents have contacted me about this issue--
but out of great concern for its potential impact upon their First 
Amendment right of free speech guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. 
Regrettably, the consideration of the McCain-Feingold amendment is not 
the first time that Congress appears to have misinterpreted the will of 
the people.
  Mr. President, I recently received a letter from President Clinton 
concerning the McCain-Feingold legislation. In his letter, the 
President urged my support for this measure because it would ``make our 
democracy work better for all Americans.'' Many of my colleagues 
received a similar letter last fall from the President in which he 
encouraged Congress to work with him and ``restore the public trust'' 
by supporting the modified McCain-Feingold bill.
  As someone who has heard first-hand of the public's growing mistrust 
of their government, I strongly agree with the President's belief that 
the people's trust in their government should be restored and their 
participation in our democracy encouraged. However, I respectfully 
disagree with the President's recommended method for achieving these 
goals--through passage of new campaign finance laws.
  I believe the people's faith in our democracy can be restored through 
greater enforcement of our existing laws, rather than passage of new 
laws. Congress should also require frequent and

[[Page S987]]

fair disclosure of every contribution, and allow all Americans to 
participate in the political process. These measures, not new limits or 
government controls, will restore the public trust and allow Americans 
to participate in our democracy.
  Most importantly, Congress should ensure that one of our country's 
most fundamental freedoms, the right to speak freely and openly in our 
society, is preserved for future generations of Americans. I believe 
Congress should focus its attention on preserving the First Amendment, 
which has always been the basis for active citizen participation in our 
political process.
  The First Amendment ensures that, among other things, average 
Americans can participate in the democratic process through publicly 
disclosed contributions to campaigns of their choice. It also allows 
Americans to freely draft letters to the editor, distribute campaign 
literature, and participate in rallies and get-out-the-vote drives. 
Minnesota has a long history of its citizens becoming engaged in many 
of these activities during each election cycle.
  Mr. President, we had a lengthy and spirited debate last fall over 
the McCain-Feingold legislation, in which many of our colleagues on 
both sides of the issue participated. The Senate wisely voted to reject 
this attempt to direct attention away from the reports of alleged 
illegal or improper campaign contributions during the 1996 campaign 
cycle. In taking this action, the Senate sent a message to the 
electorate that it will work to preserve the rights of Americans to 
participate in the democratic process and restore the public's trust in 
their government.
  Despite this clear message sent by the Senate, and although many 
Americans continue to express opposition to ``reform'' efforts such as 
the McCain-Feingold bill, the President and some of my colleagues 
forced Congress, through various delaying tactics, to spend valuable 
legislative time revisiting this issue again this year.
  Mr. President, as I noted last year, proponents of the modified 
McCain-Feingold bill should be commended for excluding provisions 
intended to limit candidates spending, requirements for reduced 
broadcasting time, and the ban on political action committees. However, 
this measure continues to suppress the rights of Americans to 
communicate their ideas and express their views. Ultimately, it will 
control, rather than encourage, greater participation in the democratic 
process.
  And as a couple from Hastings, Minnesota recently wrote to me about 
the pending McCain-Feingold bill, ``It would be used as a tool to 
silence all criticism and disagreement by opponents of whatever 
government regime is in power in Washington at a particular time.''
  First, the McCain-Feingold proposal continues to be premised upon the 
belief that there is too much money spent on American elections. If we 
accept this assumption, then Congress has decided to assert 
questionable authority to suppress the rights of Americans to become 
involved in the political process and make their voices heard. In fact, 
the belief that there is government justification for regulating the 
costs of political campaigns was rejected by the Supreme Court in the 
landmark case of Buckley versus Valeo.
  Second, the McCain-Feingold proposal again includes a new and 
expanded statutory definition for ``express advocacy'' that would place 
additional restrictions on advocacy groups' political communications.
  As my colleagues know, the Supreme Court established in Buckley a 
``bright line'' test for protected speech which stated that a political 
communication must expressly advocate the election or defeat of a 
clearly identified candidate using such key words as ``vote for'' 
``elect'' or ``vote against'' before it would be subject to federal 
regulation.
  Third, the McCain-Feingold amendment places new restrictions upon the 
ability of national parties to support state and local party 
activities. Rather than pursue a suspect expansion of government 
control of national parties, we should recognize that political parties 
enjoy the same rights as individuals to participate in the democratic 
process.
  For nearly two decades, political parties have been allowed to raise 
money for party-building and similar activities without limits on the 
size of contributions.
  Additionally, the Supreme Court decision in Colorado Republican 
Federal Campaign Committee v. FEC, in which the Court found that 
Congress may not limit independent expenditures by political parties, 
makes it questionable whether these restrictions would be 
constitutional.
  Finally, the McCain-Feingold amendment does not adequately protect 
the right of Americans to participate in the democratic process without 
fear of coercion.
  Despite the Supreme Court decision in Communications Workers of 
America v. Beck almost ten years ago, millions of Americans still have 
portions of their paychecks taken and used for political purposes for 
which they may disagree, without their knowledge or consent.
  I believe forcing an individual to make compulsory campaign 
contributions is contrary to our constitutional form of government and 
the First Amendment freedoms we enjoy as citizens.
  For these reasons, I support the Majority Leader's decision to offer 
S. 1663, the ``Paycheck Protection Act,'' as the underlying bill.
  This will allow individuals to regain control of their paychecks, 
avoid coercion, and exercise their political freedoms.
  And unlike the Beck provision contained within the McCain-Feingold 
legislation, it would apply to all dues-paying employees. It would also 
reduce unnecessary burdens placed upon employees by requiring an 
employer to receive an individual's written permission before using his 
or her dues for political purposes.
  Mr. President, there has been some discussion that amendments may be 
offered to reach a compromise between those who support the McCain-
Feingold legislation and others who support greater enforcement of our 
existing laws.
  While I believe compromise is an important part of legislating, I do 
not believe the Constitution should be compromised simply to give the 
public the impression that we are reacting to their concerns over 
allegations of campaign finance irregularities and illegal fundraising.
  I believe the American people deserve a full accounting and will 
receive a full accounting of allegations of campaign finance law 
violations in the 1996 campaign cycle. However, we should not forget 
that the public's mistrust of their elected officials has not grown 
from a lack of laws, but from the activities of those who may have 
broken our existing laws.
  Congress must not use violations of existing law to restrict 
political speech and participation by those who abide by current law. 
It is our responsibility to help safeguard the free speech rights of 
Americans and their ability to participate in the democracy which they 
have helped to create.
  Thank you very much.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from 
Minnesota. I listened carefully to his comments, and they were right on 
the mark. I appreciate his support and contribution to this debate.
  Mr. President, I see the distinguished Senator from Kansas on the 
floor.
  How much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 57 minutes and 47 seconds.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I will not yield a specific amount of time. I will 
just yield time to the distinguished Senator from Kansas.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I have spoken to this issue before. 
Before I made very clear my respect and admiration for the 
distinguished Senator from Kentucky as a stalwart defender of something 
we call free speech. I want to thank him again for his stalwart 
efforts. It seems to me that we have been focusing on this debate over 
and over and over again on perception as opposed to what really is at 
stake.
  I can't imagine what I can add to this today under the circumstances, 
and go on and on and on ad nauseam, to a certain extent, and I don't 
mean to purger

[[Page S988]]

anybody's intent or their feelings about this, or even intimate that 
this is not an important issue.
  I would like to repeat a couple of things that I said before. At that 
time I quoted Thomas Paine in Common Sense. It wasn't Common Cause. It 
was Common Sense. Thomas Paine said, ``Tyranny, like Hell, is not 
easily conquered.'' And I was speaking to a resolution that would have 
defined free speech. We considered it certainly earlier in the session.
  I then went on and gave quite a few quotes from American history and 
people that everybody respects about the value of free speech. I talked 
a little bit about the infamous Alien and Sedition acts. That was 
mentioned by Senator Gorton, the distinguished Senator from Washington. 
I think it has application in this legislation. I said at the time that 
those acts were passed by a young country that had adopted but didn't 
fully appreciate the first amendment rights of free speech. They were 
passed because the Government did not like what some of its citizens 
were saying about politics, politicians, and Government.
  And, goodness knows, we have heard awful sorts of comments in regard 
to this debate on both sides about the fact that people really do not 
appreciate some of the criticism that we get in this business. The 
Government was worried, of course, about national security. But it is 
instructive to note that the Government's attempt to limit free speech 
is like walking in a swamp, and we are, in fact, walking toward a swamp 
in regard to the bill that we are considering. Your good intentions are 
tugged and pulled from all sides. Abigail Adams, for example, urged the 
passage of the acts to deal with Benjamin Franklin Bache, an editor who 
had referred to her husband as ``old, querulous, bald''--well, she had 
something there--``blind, crippled, toothless Adams.'' I don't think 
anybody would appreciate that. Bache was arrested, but died before he 
could be prosecuted, according to historians Jean Folkerts and Dwight 
Teeter.
  Twenty-five persons were charged under the sedition laws. Included 
was one unlucky customer in a Newark tavern who staggered into the 
sunlight to make a negative comment about John Adams' anatomy as the 
President's carriage passed. My goodness, that might have some modern-
day application.
  Only after the rights of American citizens to speak freely were 
trampled by their Government did our young country come to appreciate 
the real meaning of the first amendment.
  James Madison and Thomas Jefferson objected to the attack on free 
speech with their Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. Madison presented 
the importance of free speech to democratic government. His argument 
has great relevance to our discussion today, it seems to me, in regard 
to this discussion as he drew the connection between free speech and 
elections.
  Listen to Madison:

       Let it be recollected, lastly, that the right of electing 
     members of the government, constitutes more particularly the 
     essence of a free and responsible government. The value and 
     the efficacy of this right, depends on the knowledge of the 
     comparative merits and the demerits of the candidates for 
     public trust; and on the equal freedom, consequently of 
     examining and discussing these merits and demerits of the 
     candidates respectively.

  That is the essence of free and also political speech. That is the 
essence of the philosophy advanced by great philosophers like John 
Milton, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill. If they were here to take 
part in this debate, they probably couldn't or wouldn't believe it. The 
concept of a marketplace of ideas is based on unfettered speech and 
thought.
  One of America's greatest jurists, Louis Brandeis, warned us to be 
``most on guard to protect liberty when government's purposes are 
beneficial . . . the greatest dangers to liberty lurk''--lurk, lurk--
``in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without 
understanding.''
  Advocates of this resolution want us to believe the need for Congress 
to limit campaign spending is so great that first amendment rights are 
secondary. Further, they argue that limits on campaign spending are 
really not limits on speech at all. We have gone over and over and over 
again, back and forth, on the Buckley decision and the Supreme Court.

       A restriction on the amount of money a person or group can 
     spend on a political communication during a campaign 
     necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting 
     the number of issues discussed, the depth of their 
     exploration, and the size of the audience reached.
       This is because virtually every means of communicating 
     ideas in our mass society requires the expenditure of money. 
     The distribution of the humblest handbill or leaflet entails 
     printing, paper, and circulation costs. Speeches and rallies 
     generally necessitate hiring a hall and publicizing the 
     event. The electorate's increasing dependence on television, 
     radio, and other mass media for news and information have 
     made these expensive modes of communication indispensable 
     instruments of effective political speech.

  In Kansas, I tell my esteemed colleague from Kentucky, a full-page 
advertisement in the Topeka Daily Capital cost $4,400. One 30-second TV 
ad to reach across the State costs more than $33,000. I know. I was in 
a Senate race, obviously. Even speech via the Internet, or the Postal 
Service, requires the expenditure of resources.
  If we adopt this kind of legislation, and it is ratified--or, that 
was the earlier resolution. Obviously, this wouldn't have to be 
ratified by the States. What will you tell the business owner who 
wishes to petition his government for redress of grievances, to 
criticize a campaign of Pat Roberts, Sam Brownback, or Mitch McConnell, 
or to urge election of another candidate? Will we see that free 
political speech is only a half-page advertisement? Because I think the 
limit is $10,000. We wouldn't spend $10,050. Maybe $9,000 is OK. But we 
say free speech only applies to 15 seconds at the TV station. Who is 
going to administer all of this? The FEC? Really. We can't even get 
decisions on a timely basis.
  The thought occurs to me, come to think of it, that the distinguished 
Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman, a good friend and colleague of 
mine--was it 4 or 6 years ago? I think it was 6 years ago, or maybe 8 
years ago. He had an opponent who was very ``brain noisy.'' That is 
probably not the right way to put it--very ``vigorous'' in his 
campaign. And a local cable distributor, a local cable TV company, 
didn't like the way Dan voted on an issue directly affecting his 
future. It was a telecom issue in the House. Every hour on the hour he 
just gave him unmitigated grief about it, including a lot of other 
things that had nothing to do with the legislation. I don't know 
whether Dan filed the inquiry, or the charge, or the complaint with the 
FEC after that election, or whatever, but, clearly, this was out of 
bounds. The FEC in its usual, expeditious manner, I think about 2 or 3 
months ago, finally got around to a 6- or 8-year-old case, and made no 
decision.
  So this leads me to question the distinguished Senator. Who is the 
first amendment for? To be more accurate, if Congress were to act on 
the principle of the first amendment uniformity, which the proponents 
of this legislation would do, it would not discriminate against the 
political speech of some speakers in favor of others. First amendment 
uniformity would mean that John Q. Public gets the same treatment as 
the highly paid, vastly influential Joe Anchorman, or the cable 
operator, or the TV anchorman or the editorialist, or the radio 
editorialist, or the publisher, or the editor of a newspaper? It might 
guide campaign ``reform'' legislation if the following resolution were 
adopted:

       Whereas the First Amendment to the Constitution of the 
     United States says in pertinent part that ``Congress shall 
     make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the 
     press,'' and
       Whereas the First Amendment makes no distinction between 
     the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press,
       Now Therefore Be It Resolved that no campaign reform 
     proposal shall be enacted that treats Joe Anchorman's 
     political speech more favorably than John Q. Public's.
  This obviously is not a draft resolution that I think the supporters 
of the legislation would adopt. But, is the first amendment for 
everyone equally, or some persons or institutions entitled to special 
treatment for their political speech? Is John Q. Public entitled to the 
same first amendment treatment as Joe Anchorman, or is Mr. Anchorman 
entitled to special treatment because he delivers the news?
  Here is the question I have for the distinguished Senator: What 
happens if John Q. Public wants to express issue advocacy and then says 
he is John Q. Anchorman? Say somebody solicits a

[[Page S989]]

group of people from a list of migrant workers, the American Farm 
Bureau, Kansas Wheat Growers, the wheat growers of, say, North Dakota, 
or of Common Cause, or the tobacco growers of Kentucky. I know that is, 
I guess, politically incorrect. Obviously, they couldn't start a 
newspaper. It might go up in smoke. It might be regulated by the FDA.
  But, having said that, say that they sell the stock at $100 a crack, 
$1,000, and they start a newspaper. My dad was an old newspaperman. I 
am an old newspaperman. I am a journalist. That is what it says in the 
bio when you read about Roberts; that he is an unemployed newspaperman. 
So, to start a newspaper, all you needed was a hat rack and a hat. A 
newspaper? No. Not a newspaper. You could print--and a typewriter. 
Those are the old days--and a subscription list. You don't even need, 
if you have the money, an advertisement. Well, you don't need a hat 
rack anymore. You don't need a hat. You don't need a typewriter. You do 
need a subscription list. If you know some nice ladies that work in an 
offset shop, you can have your own newspaper. Say you have a bunch of 
thousand-dollar contributors and you want to start your own newspaper. 
The Common Cause Daily News is published every week in Kansas. That is 
a newspaper. They are not affected by this legislation. I want to know, 
what is a newspaper anyway? What is the definition of a newspaper? 
Volume, 1, 2, 3, 4, and they started it for 6 months. What about an 
editorial announcer on a TV station? What about the situation with Dan 
Glickman who had no redress? I am not saying whether Dan was right or 
wrong. By the way, that race did not affect the current incumbent who 
didn't defeat Mr. Glickman. I think not everybody in the world gets the 
chance to be a Secretary as a consequence. But Dan is enjoying that and 
doing an outstanding job.
  What is a newspaper? Where are the loopholes? Where does John Q. 
Public become John Q. Anchorman? How do we distinguish?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my friend from Kansas that the example he 
cited, a cable owner expressing himself without limit about the 
relevant merits of former Congressman Glickman, would be entirely 
exempt from anything we are considering here today and entirely current 
law.
  Let me read a short provision. This is from the Federal Election 
Campaign Act of 1974.

       The term ``expenditure'' does not include a news story, 
     commentary, or editorial--which is what was happening on that 
     cable station--or editorial distributed for the facilities of 
     any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other 
     periodical, or publication unless such facilities are owned 
     or controlled by political party, or political committee, or 
     candidate.

  So, I say to my friend from Kansas, to the extent that proposals like 
Snowe-Jeffords put groups in a position where they would have to 
disclose significant numbers of their membership and/or donors as a 
precondition for criticizing or expressing themselves in proximity to 
an election, the perfect outlet would be to go into the newspaper 
business.
  I am not suggesting that we put restrictions on newspapers. I don't 
want to put restrictions on citizens, which is what this debate is all 
about today. But the first amendment applies to everybody, not just to 
the press. We get the impression reading the editorials on this issue 
across the country that the first amendment is the sole province of the 
press. In fact, the courts have been quite clear about this; it applies 
to all of us.
  So I would say my friend has put his finger right here on a good way 
around this growing regulatory environment that is being proposed. Just 
go into the newspaper business and you are free of it all. You can go 
out and trash whomever you want. You are not going to have to be 
regulated by the FEC or anyone else. Have at it.
  And my guess is there would be a proliferation of so-called 
newspapers under this.
  Mr. ROBERTS. We are going to have a lot of newspapers. We are going 
to have a lot of commentators. We are going to have a lot, under the 
Snowe-Jeffords amendment, of ``news stories, commentaries and stories 
distributed under the facilities of any broadcasting station [that] are 
exempt from its reporting requirements.''
  What about the Internet? What about the Internet? Does the 
distinguished Senator have a view in that regard?
  The reason I ask is, just today, like every Senator, you know, you 
check the Internet and you check your e-mail and all of that. On the 
Internet, on somebody's web page, there was sort of a semi-newspaper 
making commentary about one of our colleagues. It indicated down the 
road anybody but that individual should be supported in the next 
election. That is pretty express advocacy, it seems to me. They had 
some issue tied to it. It was interesting.
  I am just wondering. As a matter of fact, a lot of people who started 
newspapers--I don't know if they call them newspapers but they call 
them, certainly, free and protected speech under the first amendment on 
the Internet. Who is going to--how are we going to police that? Would 
the distinguished Senator have a view on that?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I don't have a clue and I think the courts will be 
wrestling with that.
  I say to my friend from Kansas, you know that GE owns NBC, 
Westinghouse owns CBS, and Disney owns ABC.
  Mr. ROBERTS. Oh, my goodness.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Talk about corporate involvement in the political 
process. Those three corporations presumably have a good deal more 
speech than all the rest of us.
  Mr. ROBERTS. That could conceivably cause some of the supporters of 
this legislation to change their minds. Because just yesterday the 
coauthor of the major spending bill indicated if you just took a look 
at the legislative agenda of those who are dealing with express 
advocacy or soft money, you would see that the people who vote for that 
agenda are bought and paid for in regards to that specific agenda.
  Obviously, if a person has a different agenda from those who support 
this bill and it's a little different--whether it be big labor or labor 
or, say, many of the nonprofits as opposed to, say, the Chamber of 
Commerce or whatever--why, that is certainly different.
  I am wondering if they now understand that since the major broadcast 
networks are owned by corporations, that this should not apply to them. 
I mean, that's dreadful, to really figure out that the major 
broadcasters are corporate entities. Why, we can't give them free 
speech. My goodness, it has to be pure as wind-driven snow, as 
described by these other groups you see, because the legislative agenda 
would be different.

  That was amazing to me, absolutely amazing, that if you support the 
top five issues of Common Cause on one hand, why, that's fine and we 
want to certainly encourage that free flow of information. But if you 
supported the Chamber of Commerce, which may or may not agree with 
Common Cause, that's different and your vote was bought and paid for, 
even to the point that if you support this legislation, it will result 
in lower food costs, lower gas prices, better farm income--I don't 
know--better health care, protecting the environment.
  What do we have here? I'll tell you what we have. We have censorship 
by agenda of the particular group that either favors or does not favor 
this legislation. I maintain there is not any Senator here who is 
bought or paid for by that kind of contribution. I don't know anybody 
here who would do that. That is a very specious commentary; self-
serving, condescending, elitist.
  I worry about free speech. I am an old newspaper man. My family 
started a newspaper, the second oldest in the State of Kansas, the 
Oskaloosa Independent, based on abolition. My great grandfather, John 
W. Roberts, came to Kansas to make it a free State. I firmly believe in 
the first amendment and free speech.
  This legislation, well-intended, strikes at free speech. It doesn't 
define what is and is not a newspaper. We are dealing with the same 
issue that the Founding Fathers spoke to with the Alien and Sedition 
Act. Senator Gorton is right; it is not a stretch.
  As you can see, I get a little worked up about this. But I think it 
is a point that every editorialist in every newspaper who thinks they 
are on cloud nine and protected should stop and consider.
  I thank the distinguished Senator from Kentucky for being a protector 
of free speech.

[[Page S990]]

  I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I thank the distinguished Senator from Kansas for his 
important contribution. What he is talking about here is precisely 
this, that the first amendment applies to everybody, not just to the 
press, and any misguided effort to make it more difficult for citizens 
to band together and express themselves without limitation, even though 
it may be in the neighborhood or proximity of an election, is not going 
to be upheld by the courts of the United States. So I thank the Senator 
very much for his contribution.
  Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 37 minutes and 10 seconds.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I reserve the remainder of my time.
  Ms. SNOWE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the distinguished Senator 
from Maine.
  Ms. SNOWE. I would now like to yield to my friend from North Dakota, 
Senator Dorgan, 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the distinguished Senator 
from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I gather that the previous discussion was 
about the Snowe-Jeffords amendment, but it was very difficult to 
connect. I gathered from the discussion that at least one Member came 
out in favor of free speech and the first amendment of the 
Constitution. Perhaps two Members did. I expect we could sign up the 
other 98. But that has as much relationship to the Snowe-Jeffords 
amendment as discussing how to make an apple pie. It doesn't have any 
relationship at all.
  This is not about free speech. This is not about free speech at all. 
This is about disclosure, and the question propounded by the Senator 
from Maine with her amendment is, why are we afraid of disclosure? Why 
not ask people who want to interfere with and invest in Federal 
elections that they disclose who they are and how much money they are 
investing in Federal elections? That is what the question is.

  So then I ask those of you who are opposed to this, what are you 
afraid of? Why not disclose it? What is wrong with disclosure? This 
amendment doesn't say you can't contribute, you can't raise soft money, 
you can't do issue advocacy. It doesn't say that at all. It says you 
must disclose who you are and what you are spending. What is wrong with 
that?
  Yesterday I mentioned that Mark Twain was once asked to join in a 
debate. He said, ``Fine, as long as I can take the opposing side.'' 
They said, ``We didn't tell you what the subject was.'' He said, ``It 
doesn't matter. The negative side doesn't require any preparation.''
  We are on the floor of the Senate, proposing to reform the campaign 
finance system in this country because it is broken and needs fixing. 
Those who think it is not broken, look at the record. Look at the 
statistics. Look at the data.
  Let me show a chart that describes an interesting comparison, the 
number of voters versus the number of dollars in American politics. The 
number of dollars goes up and the voting participation goes down in 
this country. You think there is not something wrong with this system? 
I mentioned yesterday that soft money, a problem that is dealt with in 
the McCain-Feingold bill and also in the amendment that is before us 
today--soft money is the political equivalent of a Swiss bank. Soft 
money is the mechanism by which you create secrecy for contributions, 
unlimited quantity, that come into campaigns to interfere with Federal 
elections. It has become the legal form of cheating in American 
politics.
  The amendment before us says let us require disclosure, let us 
require disclosure in certain circumstances. The underlying bill says 
let us ban soft money in other circumstances, but it has nothing to do 
with free speech. Nothing.
  Let me read a couple of things, if I might. Here is a so-called issue 
ad from a group that was formed very close to an election. This ad ran 
2 weeks before a general election. It was paid for from a $1.7 million 
pot of money, almost all of it raised 3 weeks before the election. It 
came from eight deposits. Eight deposits created a $1.7 million pot of 
money spent in the last couple of weeks before the election. Here is 
what they said: ``Can we trust candidate X?'' They used the name. Let 
me say Thompson, just hypothetically. ``Can we trust candidate 
Thompson? The ad says Thompson ``has been criticized as inefficient and 
disorganized by the county auditor,'' and that he was ``accused of 
Medicare fraud by a home health care worker from his family business. 
Call Thompson and tell him to support ethics in government.''
  That is an issue ad? It's not an issue ad. This is an ad designed 
specifically to defeat candidate Thompson, paid for by a $1.7 million 
pot of money collected in eight deposits from secret donors. I ask 
those who stand up and say things are just fine on campaign finance 
reform, do you support this? Is this a legal form of cheating you think 
is fine in campaign finance reform? Does anybody here stand up and 
support this? Anybody? I guess not.
  So, another one: $700,000 from a wealthy individual who calls up a 
501(c)(4) organization and says, ``I want to spend $700,000.'' But he 
doesn't want any fingerprints on it, so he calls up the political 
equivalent of the Swiss bank and says, ``I want secrecy.'' And $700,000 
magically disappears into in a political Swiss bank and then the ads go 
out. The ads run just weeks before an election, targeted to defeat 
candidates, called ``issue ads.'' Not issue ads, cheating; $700,000 
from one person designed to try to defeat candidates and get around 
Federal election rules.
  Mr. President, $1.8 million was formed by a group that was formed on 
paper in October 1996. One wealthy donor gave $100,000 to buy negative 
ads attacking one specific Congressman in the closing weeks of the 
campaign; 12 deposits put together $1.8 million to be used for these 
so-called issue ads that represent the form of political cheating that 
is going on in this country.
  Again, it is the political equivalent of the Swiss bank: Put together 
soft money in large quantities, go out and target and try to defeat 
people, call them issue ads, and essentially get around the Federal 
election laws.

  Do you think this is the way the system ought to work? Do you think 
this is just fine? If you think this is fine, then I guess you ought to 
try to defeat campaign finance reform. And some are trying to do that. 
I don't question their motives or honesty. They, I think, honestly 
believe the system is fine, that this is about money being speech. If 
you have more money, you have freer speech, apparently. And some people 
have more money than others, so, I guess they apparently are better 
able to speak in this country.
  But that is not what the Constitution is about. At least in this 
system we have said that there ought to be reasonable restrictions and 
regulations on the financing of Federal elections. And if you believe 
that these examples are examples that just fit well within the frame of 
what we think a reasonable campaign finance system is, then you are 
about a century behind where we ought to be.
  We have already made a decision in this country. We don't want people 
with $2 million to hide behind a veil of secrecy and say, ``By the way, 
with my $2 million I want to go out and find these two candidates and I 
want to undercut them with $2 million worth of advertisements and I 
don't want my fingerprints on it. I don't want anybody ever to know 
that I did it, but I want to defeat these two candidates.'' Until these 
smart campaign lawyers came up with these loopholes, Federal law said 
you can't do that. But the soft money loophole says there is a new way 
around these laws, and that is what is creating, I think, the 
disrespect for the current campaign finance system that requires us to 
take action here in the Congress. No, not to abridge free speech, but 
to require, as this amendment does, full disclosure.
  Let one Member of the Senate stand up and tell me an answer to this 
question. Why are we afraid of full disclosure? Do we want to protect 
the person who took $700,000 and wrote a check and says, ``I want to 
defeat this person and that person and I don't want my fingerprints on 
it''? Is that why we oppose full disclosure?
  What on Earth would be wrong with requiring full disclosure in the 
circumstances described by Senator Snowe and Senator Jeffords? Who can 
stand up on the floor of the Senate and say that is a step in the wrong 
direction?

[[Page S991]]

  It seems to me it is a giant step in the right direction. For this 
Congress to do nothing, as some on this Senate floor want us to do, I 
think would be a travesty. Anyone who looks at this system understands 
the system is broken. Soft money is growing by leaps and bounds. The 
first 6 months of this year tripled the first 6 months of 2 cycles ago.
  Soft money is growing by leaps and bounds, and everyone knows that it 
is the way around the current campaign finance system. Some say, 
incidentally, there is not enough money in politics. They have a right 
to say that. I understand that. They are so dead wrong. There is too 
much money in politics, and what this amendment and what the underlying 
bill does is to say, let us decide that there needs to be some rational 
approach to putting back together again a set of rules on financing 
Federal elections that give people some confidence that these are 
elections and not auctions.
  Again, the political equivalent of the Swiss bank in American 
politics is exactly what Senator Snowe and Senator Jeffords are 
attempting to deal with in this amendment.
  Would I have written this amendment differently? Yes, I would have. I 
think they left out a couple of things, and I would have written it 
differently. I support this amendment, because I want this Congress to 
pass campaign finance reform, and this is a step to allow us to get to 
a vote to do that.
  I come here today happy to support the effort that Senator Snowe and 
Senator Jeffords have made on the floor of the Senate. I have listened 
to their debate. They have been forceful and persuasive.
  Frankly, I am surprised to come and listen to a discussion about the 
first amendment, free speech. It has nothing to do with free speech. 
Come and trade recipes, come and ruminate about baseball. It has as 
much to do about this amendment as the discussion of free speech a 
moment ago. Nothing Senator Snowe is proposing and nothing in the 
underlying bill, in my judgment, impinges free speech.
  I think those who have proposed the McCain-Feingold bill and those 
who propose this amendment do this country a service by saying the 
current system is broken and we can do a better job in creating rules 
of campaign finance that will give people in this country more 
confidence in this system.
  I thank very much the Senator from Maine for providing me this time. 
I hope very much the Senate will not only support her amendment, but we 
will go on from that point and pass the underlying bill. Mr. President, 
I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). Who yields time?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield the Senator from Pennsylvania 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, first, I commend the job that the Senator from 
Kentucky, Senator McConnell, has done this year on this debate, today 
on this debate, and for his stalwart defense of the first amendment.
  Let me make a couple of comments about the Snowe-Jeffords amendment 
and then move on to more general debate.
  First, let me say about my colleague Senator Snowe, she is constantly 
here in the U.S. Senate trying to find areas to bring people together 
to try to solve problems and issues that she has concerns about. She 
has worked tirelessly, I know, on this and on a variety of other issues 
to try to find common ground and make things work. I commend her in her 
effort. I don't agree with the approach she has taken, but I think it 
is a sincere and honest attempt to meet what she perceives is a great 
problem in this country. We just happen to disagree on what the problem 
is, and, thereby, the solution she perceives doesn't meet up with what 
I see as the problem. We see a different problem.
  The Senator from North Dakota, maybe unwittingly, said something 
which I think is exactly the way those who want to restrict the first 
amendment--to restrict speech--see speech, as other than speech of the 
candidate. He said, and I am fairly sure I wrote it down at the time, 
he said, ``Those who want to interfere with Federal elections.'' I just 
found that remarkable. ``Those who want to interfere with Federal 
elections,'' as if the election between me and the guy or lady I am 
running against is really just the two of us and anybody else who wants 
to speak is interfering with our election: How dare you interfere with 
my election. Really, that is what this is all about.

  If I was just concerned about me and my election, I would vote for 
the Snowe-Jeffords amendment. It is a great thing for me, because what 
it says is the labor unions, who are going to be salivating to run 
nasty ads against me in my election, can't do so. That would be a 
wonderful break for me. And the other groups that want to get together 
and run nasty, horrible things about me--and I am sure they can find 
nasty, horrible things to say about everybody in this Chamber--can't do 
so. That is a wonderful thing for me.
  I would like this to apply to the newspapers and everybody else so 
nobody can criticize me and I can get up and say what I want and the 
other guy can say what he or she wants. That is fine; it is just the 
two of us. But that is not the way democracy works, nor should it work 
that way.
  I think the problem this amendment tries to address is a nonexistent 
problem. The problem is, as the Senator from North Dakota eloquently 
said, that they believe there are too many people interfering with our 
elections. I don't believe there are too many people. I think that is 
part of the public discourse. It is something I don't like. When my 
kids see a nasty thing about their daddy on television, I don't like 
them to see it. Their mom doesn't like to see it. My parents don't like 
to see it. But I am going to defend on the floor of the U.S. Senate to 
my dying day the right to say it, because that is how democracy works 
best.
  When plenty of people interfere with the election, the more people we 
can get to interfere the better, because the public is then heard. It 
is not always pleasant, not always to my advantage, certainly, but it 
is important to be heard.
  So I stand up today and say, yes, labor unions should be able to run 
ads, they should be able to run ads right up until the day of the 
election and voice for their members who voluntarily contribute to 
their PAC their concerns about issues and their concerns about the 
candidates for election. It is their right to do so. In fact, I believe 
it is their obligation to do so.
  On the broader issue of the McCain-Feingold bill or the Snowe-
Jeffords amendment and others, what they try to do is put up 
roadblocks. What this reminds me of is a tax bill. You say, ``How does 
this remind you of a tax bill?'' Do you know what it does when Congress 
passes a tax bill? What it does is employ a lot of lawyers and 
accountants to figure out ways to try to beat the bill, because this is 
what it is about. We put up little roadblocks here and there to catch 
money to fill in the cracks to fill our coffers. That is how the tax 
bills work, to try to plug these loopholes or get rid of this subsidy, 
or whatever, that was ``unintended.''
  That is pretty much what they are saying. These were ``unintended 
things.'' We didn't want all this speech out there, so we just need to 
plug the loopholes. By plugging the loopholes, all you do is put a lot 
of smart people to work figuring out how to beat it. That is how soft 
money was created. Soft money was created because we have a limit on 
how much money you can give directly to a candidate.
  In Pennsylvania, we have Governor races and attorneys general races, 
statewide races. There is no soft money in Pennsylvania. You don't need 
soft money in Pennsylvania. If you want to contribute to a candidate, 
you can give any amount you want. It is reported, everybody knows about 
it, but there is no need to give money to XYZ organization to 
indirectly spend the money on something to benefit the candidate. You 
can give it directly to the candidate.
  The reason soft money has grown in importance is because we have a 
limit of $1,000 per person in each election cycle set 25 years ago. I 
can tell you some have suggested inflation has tripled during that 
timeframe. I can tell you campaigns have probably gone up tenfold or 
more in expense during that

[[Page S992]]

timeframe, and we have kept the contribution limit the same, thus the 
need for some way around the system. The original campaign finance 
reform put barriers in place, and so smart people figured out how to 
get around the barriers.

  We can stand up here and say, ``Oh, well, we need to plug this 
loophole and we need to stop here.'' All we are going to do is create 
some other legal fiction out there to walk their way around it, in so 
doing, hiding from the public people's participation in the process.
  The greatest campaign finance reform we can do is dramatically 
increase the limits on contributions. Do you want to solve in great 
measure soft money? Do you want to solve independent expenditures and 
all those other things? Dramatically increase at least three or 
fourfold the amount an individual can give directly to the candidate, 
increase the disclosure of that amount so it has to be much more prompt 
than it is today, and I will tell you what you are going to do. Soft 
money will be a thing of the past. Oh, there will still be some around 
here and there, but it will not be the big factor that everybody thinks 
it is now, because the money will go directly to the candidate. I 
guarantee it. That is where they want it to go now, but it can't go 
there, so they find the loophole. I guarantee you, if you plug one 
loophole, another one will come along, if, in fact, the Court allows 
you to plug the loophole in the first place, which I don't believe it 
will.
  So we have well-intentioned people here who see this as a problem of 
money, too much money. I hear this when I go back home: ``Don't Members 
of Congress spend all this time raising money?'' I might be wrong, 
maybe Senator McConnell has a number on this, maybe we have taken a 
survey within the Senate, but I would bet that roughly half the Members 
of the U.S. Senate don't pick up the phone and raise money as a rule. 
Maybe Members won't pick up the phone and raise money. They hire people 
to do that.
  I occasionally pick up the phone and raise money. I probably do so 
more than most. Usually, I am not raising it for me; I am trying to 
raise it for other folks back home who need help or other Senators 
running in other places, and I try to help them out. But I will tell 
you, if it takes at most a half hour out of the week--at most a half an 
hour out of the week--that is a busy week on average for me raising 
money. If you find that to be too much time on the phone raising money, 
I would beg to differ with you. I can think of lots of things I can do 
for a half hour a week that is a greater waste of time than raising 
money on a telephone, that I could use my time more productively.
  Again, we sort of prop up these straw figures and say, ``Here is the 
problem, here is the problem; there is too much money.''
  I think democracy is important, I think what we do here is important, 
and I think people should have a right to express their opinion. Yes, 
people can go out on the street corner and talk all they want, but if 
nobody hears them, that really isn't very effective speech.
  I don't think we should put any limits on people being able to take 
out a newspaper ad or to sign onto an Internet provider and post 
something up on a bulletin board somewhere saying, ``Rick Santorum 
voted the wrong way on this, and you folks who are concerned about 
[whatever issue] should know this.'' I think that is fine. I don't like 
it, but I think it is fine.
  It is essential--it is essential--for us to be accountable to the 
people. What we are trying to do with all these restrictions and all 
these limits is isolate the people. I hear this talk that this is not 
about speech; this is about power. I agree. There is no comment--I 
heard it yesterday--there is no comment I agree with more. You are 
right; this is about power. It is where the power is going to rest, in 
the citizens of the United States, or the power is going to rest right 
here or in the boardrooms of NBC, ABC and all the other affiliates and 
newspapers and media outlets around the country, because that is where 
the power is going to go if things like McCain-Feingold and other 
measures pass.
  They are going to go out--this great sucking sound; that is a common 
thing we hear now--it is going to come out of your ability to speak and 
right into the corporate boardrooms that own media outlets.
  Senator Roberts was absolutely right, the reason the media is 
foursquare behind this is because when they shut you up, their voice 
becomes more important. It is as simple as that. If you can't speak, 
what they write in their newspapers becomes much more important, 
because it is one of fewer things out there. It is not overstating the 
fact, the case, that this debate is central to democracy in this 
country, and that those who, well-intentioned as they are, want to 
solve the money problem, it is not by muzzling people in the process. 
Give people the right to speak and democracy will be just fine.

  Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. McCONNELL.  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 5 minutes 
be added to Senator Snowe's time and 5 minutes to my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Ms. SNOWE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I now am very pleased to be able to yield 4 
minutes to the Senator from Arizona, who has been a leader on this 
issue, and because of his leadership and commitment to campaign finance 
reform, we are here today debating this issue and hopefully advancing 
it.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking the senior 
Senator from Maine for all her tireless work to craft and garner 
support for this amendment and one that deserves the Senate's support 
and one that improves the underlying language in the McCain-Feingold 
amendment. On that basis alone, the fact that this amendment improves 
the underlying language, I hope that all my colleagues will support it.
  The amendment has been summarized many times. I will summarize it 
very simply. It expands current law that bans direct participation by 
corporations and unions in elections. Specifically, it prohibits 
corporate and union funds from being used in broadcast electioneering 
that mentions a candidate's name or uses his or her likeness within 60 
days of an election.
  And the second aspect of it, of course, as we know, is disclosure. 
The Snowe-Jeffords amendment places no--I repeat--no restrictions on 
independent groups spending money to advocate their cause. It does 
however mandate that they disclose their contributors.
  Mr. President, it is beyond my ability to reason why anyone would 
oppose disclosure. As mandated by law, I, and each and every one of my 
colleagues, discloses to the FEC the names and amounts of our 
contributors. Why should others who engage in electioneering not engage 
in such similar actions?
  I have no desire to hide who gives to my campaign. In fact, I am 
proud to make public such information. And I am equally proud to stand 
up and support, through my actions and in some cases contributions, the 
causes that I believe in.
  For example, Mr. President, I have a hundred percent pro-life voting 
record. Some of my colleagues feel strongly on the other side of this 
subject. But I am willing to stand here and defend my position because 
I believe it is the right thing to do. And I am happy to have pro-life 
groups identify me as a supporter of this cause. There is no reason to 
hide and to not disclose such support. Therefore, I cannot fathom why 
some interest groups would fight the disclosure amendment. What are 
they afraid of?
  Again, Mr. President, I strongly support the efforts of Senator Snowe 
and Senator Jeffords. I hope that later today this amendment will not 
be tabled and we can move forward to adopt both this amendment and the 
majority leader's amendment on restricting the FCC from overstepping 
its authority by mandating free broadcast time and move forward on this 
bill. Both amendments are good and worthy of support.
  Yesterday, I asked if it would be possible to move both amendments 
independently. I have been engaged in talks on this matter and hope we 
can soon resolve the problem. I will continue to fight to see this bill 
move forward. As daunting as that battle may be, we will continue to 
fight to pass needed necessary campaign finance reform.

[[Page S993]]

  Again, Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Snowe, who has worked 
tirelessly to try to craft a proposal that will bridge some of the 
differences that we have. I am grateful for all of her efforts.

  Mr. President, I yield back to Senator Snowe the balance of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Ms. SNOWE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. SNOWE. I am now very pleased to yield to Senator Lieberman, who 
has been very helpful in drafting the Snowe-Jeffords amendment as well. 
I yield him 3 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Chair and thank my friend from Maine, and 
thank her particularly along with Senator Jeffords for their 
extraordinary progressive action in trying to find common ground and 
for constituting what is now clearly a bipartisan majority of the 
Senate in favor of campaign finance reform.
  It may be blocked by the filibuster rules, but there is a majority 
here that recognizes the gravity of the challenge to America's 
democracy posed by the current absence of any real regulation of 
campaign spending in our country and campaign contributions and wants 
to do something about it. I support the Snowe-Jeffords proposal. I want 
to approach it from this point of view.
  Mr. President, we all know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 
I would say here, having listened to this debate, that the beauty of 
the first amendment is also clearly in the eye of the beholder because 
the first amendment has been used in this debate to oppose measures 
that are being designed to avoid evasion of laws that have been upheld 
as constitutional. Let me be very specific and brief.
  The law says that an individual cannot give more than $2,000 to a 
campaign. Some might say that is an abridgement of free speech, but it 
has been upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court in Buckley.
  The law says that corporations and unions cannot contribute from 
their treasuries for political purposes to affect elections. Some might 
say that was an abridgement, a violation of their free speech, but that 
has been upheld as constitutional.
  But what has happened? Soft money, issue ads, which are clearly ads 
for or against candidates have been used to evade those clearly 
constitutional restrictions on contributions to political campaigns. 
And so we have to do something about it. It will not be a violation of 
the first amendment. The current ability of parties and outside groups 
to disguise candidate-focused electioneering ads as issue ads 
undermines these longstanding and important Federal elections policies.
  A study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that in 1996, 29 
groups spent as much as $150 million on what the groups called issue 
ads, but which the Annenberg study leaves little doubt were mostly 
aimed at electing or defeating particular candidates. Mr. President, 
$150 million, that is approximately one-third of the total spent for 
all ads by all candidates. That study found that over 85 percent of 
those so-called issue ads mentioned a candidate by name, almost 60 
percent used a candidate's picture and, worst of all, more than 40 
percent of those were pure attack ads.
  Let us pass Snowe-Jeffords which is clearly constitutional and will 
stop these evasions of laws limiting contributions to campaigns that 
have been upheld as constitutional.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Ms. SNOWE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I now yield 4 minutes to the Senator from 
Rhode Island.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I support the Snowe-Jeffords amendment.
  Under the Snowe-Jeffords amendment, labor unions and corporations 
would be prohibited from spending soft money--what is soft money? That 
is the unregulated and unreported money that falls outside of current 
law--on advertising that mentions the name of a candidate in the 60-day 
period before an election.

  Now, labor unions and corporations would be permitted--some say, 
``Oh, you are muzzling the labor unions and corporations;'' well, that 
is just not so--they can use their PAC dollars, so-called hard money, 
on electioneering ads or express advocacy.
  So there is no muzzling of any of these organizations. No 
restrictions are placed on the first amendment rights of organizations 
either. That is another point that has been raised here on the floor. 
Organizations still will be permitted to run ads that directly advocate 
for the election or defeat of a candidate. Electioneering ads discuss a 
candidate's record in relation to issues and they still will be able to 
run pure issue ads.
  Under Snowe-Jeffords, the only change is these organizations will be 
required to file disclosure statements. I do not see how anybody around 
here can be against disclosure. Disclosure statements will let the 
electorate know who is paying for what ads. I think that is what the 
public ought to know. How can that be objectionable? It is 
disheartening for me to hear other Senators object to disclosure. In my 
view, disclosure is at the very heart of reform.
  Last year, I filed an amendment that would have required even broader 
disclosure requirements. My amendment would have required all entities 
who mention the name of a candidate during the calendar year of the 
election to file a disclosure statement with the FEC.
  The Snowe-Jeffords amendment is a more modest approach. It simply 
requires entities to disclose their large donors and their spending 
during the 60 days before the election.
  Again, let me say, Mr. President, I find it very difficult to 
understand why anybody would object to the disclosure. If these 
organizations engage in issue advocacy rather than electioneering, that 
is, the ad discusses an issue without mentioning a candidate, they now 
have to disclose either their members or their spending.
  Now, the paramount goals of any true effort to reform the system of 
financing elections for Federal office must be to reduce the influence 
of special money on elected officials and to level the playing field 
between incumbents and challengers.
  Although the proposals before us may not be the final resolution of 
these problems, they provide a better starting point than we have had 
in previous years.
  As far as I am concerned, Mr. President, the most important problem 
to be addressed by campaign finance reform is one that barely existed a 
few years ago. Not too many years ago many of us were here debating 
election process and election reforms. What were we talking about? We 
were talking about PACs, about political action committees. How much 
should they be able to contribute? Was $5,000 right or wrong per 
election?
  Those are things we debated. We worried that these PAC contributions 
might appear to give special interests too much influence. But the soft 
money explosion made those amounts seem like pocket change. I believe 
that if all else fails we must deal with the soft money problem.
  As I said, Mr. President, once again the Senate is debating the 
question of how to reform the manner in which elections for federal 
office are financed. This year, progress has been made on the issue, 
and the Snowe-Jeffords amendment is an illustration of that progress.
  Senators Snowe and Jeffords have worked closely with experts in 
constitutional law to develop an amendment that would greatly improve 
the underlying McCain-Feingold bill. This amendment, which I am pleased 
to cosponsor, eliminates the vagueness and overstretching of the 
McCain-Feingold bill with regard to the treatment of bogus issue ads.
  The Snowe-Jeffords amendment creates a new category under the Federal 
Election Campaign Act called ``electioneering.'' This is a carefully 
defined category that pertains to the abundance of soft money spending 
by unions, corporations, and non-profits that was so proliferous in the 
1996 elections. The Snowe-Jeffords amendment would not prevent these 
groups from letting their voices be heard. It simply

[[Page S994]]

would require them to adhere to the spirit of the law.
  There certainly is little effort to adhere to the spirit of the law. 
That's what the hearings before the Senate Governmental Affairs 
Committee were all about. Week after week witnesses appeared and 
defended blatantly inappropriate behavior by pointing out that the law 
didn't quite cover their particular activity. The standard operating 
procedure in elections these days is circumventing the letter of the 
law. We are here to try to tighten up current law to make it harder for 
unions, corporations, and others to circumvent the law.
  Under Snowe-Jeffords, labor unions and corporations would be 
prohibited from spending soft money--that is the unregulated and 
unreported money that falls outside of current law--on advertising that 
mentions the name of a candidate in the 60 day period before an 
election. Labor unions and corporations would be permitted to use their 
PAC dollars, or hard money, on electioneering ads or on express 
advocacy. There is no muzzling of those organizations.
  No restrictions are placed on the First Amendment rights of 
organizations either. Organizations still will be permitted to run ads 
that directly advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate; 
electioneering ads that discuss a candidate's record in relation to 
issues; and they will still be able to run pure issue ads. Under Snowe-
Jeffords the only change is that these organizations will be required 
to file disclosure statements. Disclosure statements will let the 
electorate know who is paying for what ads. How can that be 
objectionable? I have been quite disheartened to hear other Senators 
object to disclosure.

  In my view, disclosure is at the very heart of reform. Last year, I 
filed an amendment that would have required even broader disclosure 
requirements. My amendment would have required all entities, who 
mention the name of a candidate during the calendar year of the 
election, to file disclosure statements with the Federal Election 
Commission. The Snowe-Jeffords amendment is a more modest approach to 
disclosure. It simply requires entities to disclose their large donors 
and their spending during the sixty days prior to the election.
  If these organizations engage in issue advocacy, rather than 
electioneering--that is, the ad discusses an issue without mentioning a 
candidate--they need not disclose either their spending or their 
members.
  The paramount goals of any true effort to reform the system of 
financing elections for federal office must be to reduce the influence 
of special interest money on elected officials and to level the playing 
field between incumbents and challengers. Although the proposals before 
us may not be the final resolution to the problems that afflict the 
current system of campaign fundraising, they provide a better starting 
point than we have had in previous years.
  As far as I am concerned, the most important problem to be addressed 
by campaign finance reform is one that barely existed a few years ago, 
the explosion of soft money in the process. Not too many years ago, 
many of us were here debating whether PACs, political action 
committees, should be able to contribute $5,000 per candidate, per 
election. We worried that these PAC contributions might appear to give 
special interests too much influence. But the soft money explosion has 
made those amounts seem like pocket change. I believe that if all else 
fails, we must deal with the soft money problem. Just to make clear 
what soft money is: it is funds spent to influence an election that 
fall outside of current law. Spending on bogus issue ads--ads that are 
defined under Snowe-Jeffords as electioneering--is soft money. The 
Senate has the opportunity to make these important changes in the 
current fundraising system by approving the Snowe-Jeffords amendment.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. How much time is remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky has 29 minutes.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield to the distinguished Senator from New Mexico 6 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I wonder if you would remind me when I 
have used 3 minutes.
  Mr. President, I do not recall the exact day but sometime in the not 
too distant past the Senate was asked to vote on an amendment by the 
distinguished Senator, Fritz Hollings. Now I am referring to an 
amendment that would have amended the Constitution of the United States 
and permitted Congress to control campaign expenditures. Obviously the 
Constitution of the United States does not give us the latitude to 
control expenditures in campaigns that we are involved in, or that 
House Members, the President and the Vice President are involved in.
  I ask the distinguished manager of the bill, how many votes did the 
Hollings amendment get?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my friend from New Mexico, he got 38 votes. 
It would have taken 67, but at least it was honest. It indicated that 
you had to amend the first amendment to do the job.
  Mr. DOMENICI. So 38 Senators--excuse my voice. I have a bad cold of 
some type. And to those listening, it is Pete Domenici even though it 
does not sound like me. So 38 Senators had the guts to vote on the real 
issue, and the real issue is that the Constitution of the United States 
has a great big amendment that guarantees freedom of speech.
  I did not use to understand how the right of freedom of speech was 
related to campaign expenditures until I read a few of the United 
States Supreme Court decisions. And I am very pleased that they got the 
message. The Court understood when it first ruled that you could not 
limit an individual who wanted to spend his own money on a campaign. 
You could not limit the amount of money he spent because that money was 
his freedom of speech. That is what he used it for.
  And I equate it here on the floor, and ask the question, what do we 
apply, in the largest and greatest sense, freedom of speech to in 
America? We apply it to the media of America. We have freedom of 
speech, but really when you look at it, it is the freedom of the 
newspapers, the radios, the televisions, the editorial writers, the 
column writers, all of whom have this absolute freedom to get involved 
in our campaigns.
  That is why the Supreme Court said that spending money on your own 
campaign is exercising your freedom of speech. If four newspapers in a 
candidate's State are writing editorials against him, he ought to be 
able to spend his money even if he bought a piece of the paper and said 
this is my editorial, and paid for it with his own money.
  Now, what is wrong with the bill before us today--not necessarily the 
amendment of the distinguished Senator from Maine, who has worked very 
hard on this, she called me, we talked about it. It is a good idea, but 
essentially the bill itself is so flawed in terms of the analogy I am 
using with reference to the right and freedom of speech and the right 
and freedom to spend money to get your message across, that it is at 
odds with the decisions of the Supreme Court.
  I don't think there is a chance that the underlying bill comes even 
close to establishing some balance that would in some way change the 
Supreme Court's mind about the exercise of this freedom and this right. 
They have essentially said it is not vested in only a newspaper or a TV 
station or an anchorman or an editorial writer or letters to the 
editor. They have also said that right is vested in many, many entities 
who may want to spend money to get their message across--be it 
criticism or something that is positive about a candidate.
  I want to thank the distinguished Senator from Kentucky for his 
stalwart presentations on the floor which have gone to the heart of the 
issue, the issue being before we jump into abridging freedom of speech 
we better very much know what we are doing and not speculate and guess 
about it. And, yes, the Supreme Court has done an excellent job of 
saying they will be the gatekeeper on this. I think without that we

[[Page S995]]

would be trying to tell everybody how to run campaigns and the American 
people would end up saying, isn't that something? They are telling all 
of us they know how to run their campaigns and they are ordering us 
around in their own campaigns. So I think that is the flip side of 
this.
  Ms. SNOWE. How much time remains on both sides?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine has 5 minutes remaining 
on her side; the Senator from Kentucky has 21 minutes and 16 seconds.
  Ms. SNOWE. I reserve the balance of the time.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from 
Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I spoke yesterday on campaign finance 
reform and I stand today certainly in opposition to the Snowe-Jeffords 
amendment. It does not address the problem. I don't think the problem 
exists. The courts have said we don't have jurisdiction over it. We 
ought to leave it at that.
  Mr. McCONNELL. How much time remains on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky has 19 minutes and 
20 seconds.
  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I rise in favor of the Snowe amendment. 
First, I wish to commend the Senator from Maine for her efforts to 
craft a compromise on this issue. If everyone entered this debate with 
her spirit of negotiation and patience, I think we would surely be able 
to come to a final resolution of this matter.
  I favor the Snowe amendment at this time because I feel it is the 
best compromise available to possibly pass the McCain-Feingold campaign 
finance reform bill. As an original cosponsor of that legislation, I 
favor S.25 as presented yesterday by Senator McCain. I believe the 
section related to independent expenditures is well-crafted, would go a 
long way in improving our electoral system, and meets the difficult 
constitutional standards for this issue.
  However, it is clear that the McCain-Feingold bill does not have the 
necessary votes to end the filibuster. By altering the section of the 
bill dealing with independent expenditures, we would have a compromise 
which has the potential of passing the Senate. I would prefer the 
language as crafted by Senators McCain and Feingold, but it is clear we 
cannot pass the bill in that form. Therefore, adding the Snowe 
amendment at least offers hope that campaign finance reform can be 
passed in this session.
  I also wish to add that my support for this amendment is conditional 
on its inclusion in a broader package of campaign finance reform. Any 
reform proposal must be designed to be fair and balanced. Taken 
separately, or added to other legislation that does not address other 
important campaign finance issues, the Snowe amendment would not have 
the desired impact on the electoral process.
  If we pass the Snowe amendment, and the underlying McCain-Feingold 
bill, we will have made a great stride toward reforming our campaign 
finance laws, and offer the American public some hope that Congress is 
taking their concerns on this matter very seriously.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I suggest the absence of a quorum and I will have the 
time charged to my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I was graciously letting my time run 
during that quorum call. I think we may have inadvertently taken away 
the 10 minutes prior to the military construction bill. I would like to 
reconstruct that time. The chairman of the Appropriations Committee is 
here.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee be recognized for 5 minutes prior to the 
military construction vote and that Senator Byrd, or his designee, be 
entitled to 5 minutes prior to the military construction vote as well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator wish that the time for the 
vote on military construction veto override also be postponed by 10 
minutes, accordingly?
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, the time is set at 6 p.m., is it not?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct. In the absence of a change in 
the time for the vote, the vote would take precedence over any 
additional amount of time.
  Mr. STEVENS. We are talking about the 10 minutes before 6 p.m.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Does the military construction vote come first, before 
the Snowe-Jeffords?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Maybe this would solve the problem. I ask unanimous 
consent that there be 10 minutes prior to the Snowe-Jeffords vote, 
equally divided between Senator Snowe and myself.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator intend to insert that time 
between the two votes?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Yes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I understand that the Senator from 
Maine would rather speak now than between votes. Therefore, Mr. 
President, let me try one more time.
  I ask unanimous consent that the distinguished chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee have----
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, we seek to preserve the time as it is 
currently allocated for the next 10 minutes before the vote on the 
MilCon bill.
  Mr. McCONNELL. How much time does the chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee wish?
  Mr. STEVENS. Ten minutes.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I don't think there is a solution to 
the concern of the Senator from Maine. It appears that if the chairman 
of the Appropriations Committee would like the time remaining before 
the 6 o'clock vote--well, I'm open to any suggestion.


                      Unanimous Consent Agreement

  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to move the vote on 
MilCon to 6:10 p.m. so that we can complete the debate before the votes 
begin.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

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