[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 79 (Wednesday, June 17, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H4696]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Speaker, we have had quite a loud and lively 
debate here today about campaign finance. I for one think that that 
debate is healthy. Anyone watching this debate would see that there are 
very deep feelings about this issue. I think that all sides are 
speaking from the sincerity of their beliefs.
  There are a lot of confusing issues on this issue of campaign 
finance. I for one do not think simply calling something reform means 
that that is going to make it better. In fact, some people would say 
that instead of campaign finance reform, this should be called campaign 
finance regulation.
  In the definitions of campaign finance, we talk about hard money, we 
talk about soft money, we talk about independent expenditures, we talk 
about issue advocacy, we talk about a lot of magic words that a lot of 
people really do not focus on, do not understand.
  I noticed that, during the debate today, that the minority leader 
referred to independent expenditures as being a real problem as someone 
else referred to independent expenditures as being a real problem. I do 
not really think independent expenditures are a real problem, because 
independent expenditures is express advocacy and already comes under 
FEC jurisdiction except in a few minute exceptions.
  But if a person donates money to a candidate, and the candidate 
decides to give that money, let us say, to a not-for-profit group, 
there are some provisions in here, the Shays-Meehan bill, that would 
prevent, for example, political parties giving money to 501(c)(3) 
organizations or nonprofit organizations.
  I for one think that political parties have a right to give money to 
nonprofit groups and allow them to get their message out on issues that 
are important to them. Issue advocacy was the real issue that brought 
us this whole debate to the House floor, because during the 1996 
Presidential election, the Clinton/Gore campaign and the Dole campaign 
went farther than anyone had ever gone in raising soft money for issue 
advocacy by the political parties.
  The only reason that there was difficulty with that is because a lot 
of foreigners made contributions to some of these political campaigns, 
and that is illegal under existing law. Section 441(e) of the Federal 
election law already makes it illegal for a foreigner to contribute to 
a political campaign.
  Not only that, but also we know for a fact that, at the Buddhist 
Temple fund-raiser, many individuals were listed as contributing hard 
money supposedly to a campaign, and then we subsequently found out that 
they did not actually contribute, but money came from foreign sources. 
So I would simply submit that we already have legislation on the books 
that can deal with the foreign money issue.
  Now, another issue that is disturbing to many of us is the fact that 
some of these bills expand the definition of express advocacy. What 
that means is that, if you use express advocacy, you are expressly 
advocating the election or the defeat of a particular candidate. If you 
do that, then you have to file all the reports with the FEC. You have 
to meet the contribution limits and so forth.
  I for one think that we have an opportunity in this debate that is I 
suppose to begin tomorrow to address some very serious issues, very 
serious constitutional issues regarding these pieces of legislation.
  I know that tomorrow it will probably be another heated debate, but, 
as I said in the beginning of this statement, I know that both sides 
are approaching it with sincerity in their beliefs.
  I see my time is about to expire, but I do look forward to the debate 
tomorrow.

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