[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 67 (Friday, May 22, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H3939-H3940]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        LET THE HOUSE ENACT SOME TYPE OF CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hefner) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. HEFNER. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of debate in the last 
couple of hours about campaign finance. I do not come here to try to 
influence anyone about any particular proposal. However, the gentleman 
from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) has been someone who has labored in this 
vineyard for many, many years. He has taken a lot of ridicule for his 
proposals on campaign finance. I think that this House owes a great 
deal to his efforts that he has had in the past.
  The late Sam Ervin, who was the Senator for a lot of years from North 
Carolina, when talking about campaign financing, talking about how much 
it costs to run, he said, spending a half a million dollars or $1 
million running for a job, at that particular time, that paid $44,000 
was kind of like putting a $100 saddle on a $40 mule. It just did not 
make a lot of sense.
  Someone in the debate earlier said that the average citizen cannot 
afford to run for Congress. Actually, the average citizen cannot even 
afford to run for county commissioner, because it has gotten to where 
campaigning is so expensive the average person cannot get involved in 
the political process.
  There are some folks here who do not think we need to do anything on 
campaign financing, some who think we need to put a lot more money in 
campaigns. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Delay) did a marvelous job 
last night, he should get an academy award, for his opposition to any 
kind of campaign finance reform.
  Let me just remind the Members of a couple of things. If we go back 
to the old days when it was only the companies, a lot of these towns 
would get together and they would pick their candidate and they would 
fund him. He would be the man that was going to win in a State House 
seat or a congressional seat. That way, the average guy never got to 
run for political office.
  When I first ran for political office, I spent $44,000. I thought 
that that was a tremendous amount of money, and it was. We wasted a lot 
of that. Now it is not uncommon to spend $1 million to get a 
congressional seat that pays $135,000. It does not make a lot of sense, 
does it?
  If Members think that money does not make a difference in both 
parties, the Democrats and Republicans, they have their sources. And I 
will be a little partisan on this. We heard in our newspapers and in 
Roll Call, in the magazines, that the business community was served 
notice, and the Republicans said, you have been giving too much money 
to the Democrats. If you are going to have any access to this Congress, 
you are going to have to come up with more money for Members that are 
running on the Republican ticket. That is soft money and hard money.
  Mr. Speaker, what someone has referred to as third-party, and 
everybody has had it, in my district we had at the churches all these 
flyers that were put under the windshield wipers of the cars: If you 
want to vote for somebody who wants to kill babies, vote for Bill 
Hefner and Mike Dukakis. I do not think that was real fair, but we did 
know who put them under there, or what have you.
  Television commercials, they do not have to tell us who is paying for 
these television commercials. This money comes in and it makes a 
tremendous hardship on people who are trying to go out and raise hard 
money from constituents. I challenge anybody in this

[[Page H3940]]

House in a regular district. I doubt if they can raise, from the 
constituents in hard money, in small denominations, even $200,000. So 
the big money plays a part in campaigns, make no mistake about that. It 
may not buy a direct commitment, but it buys access to this process.
  I do not know what is going to pass on campaign finance reform. I am 
going to be leaving here after this year. Thank God I do not have to 
raise any more money. But if something is not done to get a handle on 
campaign financing and the money that influences it, it is going to get 
to where even the middle-income folks cannot afford to run for office.
  It will only be the people that have the contacts, the people that 
are millionaires, that will be able to run for Congress, either that or 
they will be able to go out and get a pretty charismatic candidate that 
could never make $100,000 in the private sector and fix him up for 
television, get a smooth consultant, and he will get elected. But it 
will still be the money trail that puts people in this House. Let us 
put together some kind of campaign finance reform.

                          ____________________