[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 37 (Friday, March 27, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H1688]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  McCAIN-FEINGOLD CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM BILL A DISASTER FOR AMERICA

  (Mr. DOOLITTLE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to praise the House 
leadership unabashedly for making the decision they did and allowing 
this to go before the House on a suspension calendar. I wholeheartedly 
endorse that decision. All of this folderol about the McCain-Feingold 
bill, it is a disastrous concept. It would hurt America. It would 
destroy our constitutional right to free speech.
  I hear such moral indignation from the other side, but when we see 
the myriad of campaign abuses written about, engaged in by one branch 
of government in particular, everything is so muted.
  I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that we have not properly diagnosed what 
the problem is in our campaign system. It is severely flawed, and we 
need to correct it, but rushing out here with a bill that everybody is 
afraid not to support, although I am happy not to support it, and many 
others, more than some might think, would be happy not to support it, I 
think we would be premature in bringing it up in that fashion.
  This needs to be thoroughly discussed. The procedure of the 
leadership, as adopted by the supermajority, is entirely appropriate 
because the subject of this bill would hurt our constitutional rights.

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