[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 38 (Monday, March 30, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H1769-H1770]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             THIS IS NOT THE END OF CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Farr) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I notice the gentleman from 
Nevada, who is just leaving the room, arrived here almost 12 hours ago 
and began the session today. It is now ended, we are in special orders, 
and it has been quite a day.
  This was the day we were supposed to deal with substantive debate on 
campaign finance reform. It is now 11 p.m. in the Nation's Capital. As 
I speak, here in the East they are watching the last minute of the 
national collegiate basketball championships. We have Members, as you 
heard earlier, that came back from Africa today; we had Members that 
spent the day in New Mexico. It has been quite a day.
  But I think what is so shocking to me and to many other people who 
spoke today is that today, with all of these other activities, was the 
day we were going to try to adopt in this House a comprehensive 
campaign finance reform bill, and we had votes on bills. There were 
four bills up today. They were under extraordinarily difficult 
procedures. No amendments were allowed, no Democratic bills, there were 
not bipartisan bills on the floor. A vote was taken on the Republican 
bill, H.R. 3581, and that vote, I think after you heard the comments, 
people were not surprised that that bill because what it did was, it 
did not do campaign reform.

  It tripled the total Federal limit from $25,000 to $75,000 that can 
be given to a campaign, it tripled the party contributions from $20,000 
to $60,000, and it doubled the individual, which under present law is 
$1,000, and would increase it to $2,000. I think what this body saw was 
by putting more money into campaigns you cannot call that campaign 
finance reform.
  And so this House in an overwhelming bipartisan effort rejected that 
bill brought here by the leadership of the House, brought here with the 
idea that this was going to be the most substantive bill on campaign 
reform, and as the vote was tallied tonight you saw that it got 74 
votes in favor of it and 337 votes against it and one abstention.
  I think that the tragedy is that, perhaps for a lot of people leaving 
tonight in frustration, was that now that we have been there and done 
that, that campaign finance reform is over. I hope not. The issue 
started in this House. It started when the President of the United 
States came and, Mr. Speaker, spoke right in front of the podium you 
are now at and asked this House to give him a complete, comprehensive 
campaign finance reform bill in a timely fashion. We missed the 
deadlines, we missed any action last year on the bill, and now we have 
a vote that has rejected a bad bill.
  Let us hope that that is not the end. Let us hope that we can do 
several

[[Page H1770]]

things. One is regroup, because I think the public is going to be 
outraged by this action tonight and bring to the floor a true 
bipartisan bill or all the bills, and allow all of them that were not 
discussed here today to be voted on. We can do that by signing the 
discharge petition, and I hope my colleagues have; I know I have and 
many others have.
  But let us bring a bill that does some reform. This bill tonight had 
no cap or no limit on what you could spend; it had no ban on soft 
money. What was passed in the House were noncontroversial issues, 
essentially saying that you have to be a United States citizen to 
contribute to a campaign. I am very curious that a House that has been 
so concerned about unfunded mandates would pass such a comprehensive 
law, requiring the FEC to monitor the nationality and the citizenship 
of everybody who contributes to a campaign either in kind or by money, 
because that is going to be very difficult to do, very difficult to 
enforce.
  And so I think what we have passed here tonight is another huge 
unfunded mandate which may cripple the FEC, the Federal Elections 
Commission.
  The other thing we did was to pass a bill that says let us file 
reports in a timely fashion electronically, and obviously that had 
overwhelming support. But this, my colleagues, is not campaign finance 
reform. Campaign finance reform has not been voted on by the House of 
Representatives, we have not dealt with the issue in a substantive way, 
we have not had a bipartisan bill on the floor, and, Mr. Speaker, as I 
close I hope that you will convey to your leader that we may have had a 
day discussing some bad bills, but we have not yet dealt with campaign 
finance reform.

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