[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 25 (Wednesday, March 11, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1722-S1723]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM
Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, 2 weeks ago, all of our hopes for
campaign finance reform in this session of the Congress were once again
frustrated. A year of investigations, legislative proposals, and public
debate were met with a filibuster led by the Republican leadership.
Perhaps it really should not have come as much of a surprise to any of
us. In the last decade, this Senate has considered 321 different pieces
of legislation for campaign finance reform, which filled 6,742 pages of
the Congressional Record--and all of this with no change.
So now, for the 117th time in 10 years, the Senate has voted on an
element of campaign finance reform to absolutely no avail. It is a
problem of near-crisis proportions, not simply because of the burden it
places on candidates for public office, not simply because of the
compromises it seems to make in public policy. There is a problem far
more fundamental. As evidenced in the confidence of our own people in
their system of Government, the United States remains perhaps the only
developed democracy in the world where its leadership is chosen by a
minority of its citizens. Americans are expressing themselves in our
system of Government not with their voices but with their feet, because
they choose not to walk into a voting booth.
If it was bad enough that this Congress would not act, now this
frustration with reform is in an entirely different form. President
Clinton has challenged the FCC to institute at least one element of
reform--in my judgment, perhaps the most important element of reform--
by mandating a reduction in the cost of television advertising, on the
simple theory that if the cost of advertising is less, candidates will
be raising less. If the cost of advertising is less, candidates without
great financial resources will still seek public office and not find a
barrier to expression. It is not a perfect answer, but it is at least a
contribution. This was the President's challenge. The FCC has before it
that question.
But it was not enough to have a filibuster to defeat the McCain-
Feingold reform legislation. Now an effort is being made to include in
the President's supplemental funding request in the appropriations
process a prohibition on the FCC actually ordering a reduction in
rates. The scale of the problem the FCC would deal with is enormous.
Since 1977, the cost of congressional campaigns has risen over 700
percent. The central element of this rising spiral of costs is
television advertising. In 1996, candidates spent over $400 million to
purchase television advertising on federally licensed, public airwaves.
Hundreds of candidates were traveling to virtually every State,
thousands of communities, to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to
buy time on federally licensed airwaves that belong to the American
people. It is almost incredible to believe.
There has been, since 1988, a 76 percent increase in this financial
burden on public candidates for television advertising. Political
advertising on the public airwaves dominates all other forms of
campaign spending. President Clinton and Senator Dole spent nearly two-
thirds of all their financial resources to buy television time. One
half of all the money raised by U.S. Senate candidates was similarly
spent on television advertising. In the larger industrial States for
the principal media markets, the numbers are far greater--in Los
Angeles, Chicago, New York, Miami, or Boston. In my own State of New
Jersey, in the Senate race in 1996, fully 80 percent of all financial
resources went to buy television advertising. Some 30 seconds of access
to the voting population on television could cost in excess of $50,000.
Can it be any wonder that candidates are spending all of their time
raising money rather than discussing issues? Can there be any question
why candidates without great financial resources, simply possessing a
desire to serve and a creativity for dealing with public policy, do not
feel they can enter the electoral process? The principal barrier is the
public airwaves themselves--something the people of the United States
already own. Yet, it's being denied to our own people to discuss issues
about our country's own future.
Congress has had a chance to deal with this problem, and it has not.
The original version of the McCain-Feingold reform legislation
contained reductions in television advertising. It was removed. A
challengers' amendment was offered to the McCain-Feingold reform bill
that would have provided for a reduction. It was not adopted. I
introduced an amendment that would have allowed for a 75 percent
reduction. My amendment could not be offered. These are the reasons why
I believe President Clinton challenged the FCC to act. To this
Congress, our responsibility should be clear. Since the Congress failed
to enact campaign finance reform, at least get out of the way so that
the FCC can act responsibly and institute at least one element of
reform. The Congress has had a decade, hundreds of opportunities, and
did nothing. At least now remain silent so that others who will act
responsibly can do something to deal with this mounting national
problem.
It is not as if we do not have in the FCC the legal ability to
require the television networks to reduce the cost of advertising. And
it is not as though this request is without precedence. In 1952, the
FCC set aside 12 percent of all television channeling time for
education purposes, for noncommercial use. In 1967, President Johnson
set aside part of the spectrum for public broadcasting. For the FCC now
to require a reduction in rates has not only precedence but
overwhelming precedence. Candidates for public office now pay a reduced
rate, albeit insufficiently reduced. Perhaps even greater, however, is
that the FCC is providing up to $20 billion worth of free licenses to
broadcasters for digital television, a part of the spectrum on a
digital basis, requiring the broadcasters to pay nothing, and probably
the greatest grant to private industry since the opening of Federal
lands to the railroads. The broadcasters were provided this license on
a single basis, on a single request that they fulfill a public
obligation to the people of this country.
I can think of no greater opportunity to fulfill that public
obligation in meeting a more serious national problem than the FCC
now--after the granting of these digital television licenses to
broadcasters, asking them to provide reduced rates or free television
time. The scale of the burden is so minimal.
Last year, television networks billed, for commercial and other
advertising, $42 billion. Of this total advertising expenditure, 1.2
percent was for political advertising. The cost of reducing the rates
for political advertising, that 1.2 percent, would still allow for a
growth in the overall advertising revenue of the networks next year. So
if the FCC acted on any reasonable basis, it would not result in less
broadcaster revenues next year and, in year-to-year terms, it would be
simply a small reduction in the rate of growth. This we would hesitate
to ask after providing $20 billion worth of free new licenses to the
networks that are already operating on publicly owned airwaves of the
people of the United States?
Perhaps it isn't that the burden isn't too great; perhaps it isn't a
legal problem at all; perhaps it is that there are Members of this
institution of the Congress that like the idea that there is a
threshold price for entry to public office in the United States. The
price of entering public office in the United States is not an academic
degree; it is not a command of the issues; it is not a given level of
commitment to public service; it is the ability to buy television time
to communicate views. Increasingly, that means people of great personal
wealth use their own resources. If it is not their own resources, it is
the ability to use those resources of great financial interests in the
United States that command all of the candidate's time and attention.
Perhaps it is that people like this threshold price of entry and what
it means for certain interests in the Senate, partisan or otherwise.
Well, it leaves us with this simple situation: The Congress had its
chance
[[Page S1723]]
for campaign finance reform and, after a decade of effort, it has
failed. President Clinton has made a request for the FCC to consider
reductions in television advertising rates. That issue is now before
Chairman Kennard. The Commissioners of the FCC and its new chairman,
Mr. Kennard, have a historic opportunity--an opportunity that goes to
the very issue of confidence in this Government, the ability for people
to feel they identify with these institutions, with their futures and
the welfare of their families. They have an extraordinary opportunity
to institute reform.
I hope the FCC will act, and I hope this Congress, having failed to
be responsible in dealing with this problem, at least has the good
grace to remain silent, to not amend the supplemental appropriations
legislation so that others can meet a responsibility that was not met
on the floor of this Senate.
Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
THE PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). Without objection, it is
so ordered.
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