[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 80 (Thursday, June 18, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H4807-H4824]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               BIPARTISAN CAMPAIGN INTEGRITY ACT OF 1997

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 442 and rule 
XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House 
on the State of the Union for the further consideration of the bill, 
H.R. 2183.

                              {time}  1950


                     In the Committee of the Whole

  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the State of the Union for the further consideration of 
the bill (H.R.

[[Page H4808]]

2183) to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to reform the 
financing of campaigns for elections for Federal office, and for other 
purposes, with Mr. Dickey (Chairman pro tempore) in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. When the Committee of the Whole rose 
earlier today, pending was the amendment by the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Thomas) to the amendment No. 13 by the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Shays).
  Is there further debate on the amendment?
  Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. 
Northup).
  Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me 
and giving me an opportunity to answer some of the previous statements.
  First of all, I was surprised at how many speakers have talked as 
though the whole system is corrupted. Maybe I am naive, but I believe 
that this is a mostly honest system. I believe that there are those 
people that cannot resist money in return for influence, but I have not 
seen many colleagues on this floor that are in that position, and I 
believe most of our Members work throughout the system in an honest 
way.
  And so I think it is important to tell the people, the American 
people around this country, that while, yes, individuals, corporations 
and labor unions contribute money because they care about elections, 
that most Members on this floor can cite many instances when they have 
turned to those people that are contributors and said, in this case, I 
cannot support you, I do not agree, even though they contributed, 
because they believed in most instances they shared a common 
perspective of public policy.
  Most all of us have, on plenty of occasions, looked almost every one 
of our contributors in the eye and said, not on this occasion, I cannot 
agree with you.
  I was asked why I believe nonseverability is so important, and this 
is why. I believe almost without a doubt that the courts are going to 
strike down the provisions related to independent expenditures. So, 
yes, we can make soft money illegal, and soft money, in my opinion, is 
the type of money that is used for party building, for general themes. 
I am not aware that any soft money has ever come into my campaign. It 
may have, but I am not aware that it ever has.
  But people that wish to influence campaigns, and we know they are 
there, if they wish to influence campaigns, they can begin giving their 
money to independent organizations, where most of us believe the 
constitutional problems with this system exists. And in that case the 
money is not traceable, it is not reportable, and the fact is that 
those independent organizations can then collaborate or whisper in the 
ear of anybody they want.
  I know that I am going to abide by every law in campaign finance. I 
know I believe in the system and that I believe in the voters, but I do 
not want to create a system where money goes so that it can then be 
sent to candidates, so that the candidate that is willing to break the 
law the most, who collaborates with an independent organization, who 
will be so desperate that they ask an independent organization to, in a 
sense, money launder, which is what would happen, that the person that 
is willing to break the law the most is the person that has the best 
advantage.
  Some people say that will never happen, but let me assure my friends 
that in Kentucky we passed campaign finance reform for our governor's 
races. And what happened? It did not take one session before we began 
to have parallel campaigns. For example, somebody left from one of the 
candidate's staffs, went to an organization, worked to raise money, 
worked to spend money, and none of it reportable, none of it available 
for the public to see. And what we had was parallel campaigns going on 
out of sight of the voters.
  That is the sort of thing that will begin to change the system for 
those of us who report every expenditure and who are happy to live 
within the system. It will put us at the most disadvantage, and the 
person that is willing to collaborate illegally will be at the greatest 
advantage.
  I am sorry that it is given to those of us that oppose this such evil 
intentions, because the truth is there are not many people in this 
House that set a better example than if we just have hard money. No 
independent money, no soft money. I have raised in my district from 
individuals, from the $5 contributors, the $10 contributors that give 
every month, and the large contributors, a whole group of people who 
have supported me, and I do not need the soft money or the independent 
expenditures. But there are people in districts who have not had that 
opportunity and they have been able to get their voice out, they have 
been able to have the support of the overall party building money that 
can turn out voters, that can say this is what the Democratic party 
stands for, that cannot be candidate specific, but they will be the 
people who suffer.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) 
has expired.
  Mr. POMBO. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 
minutes.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  Mr. FARR of California. I object, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Objection is heard from the gentleman from 
California.
  Mr. POMBO. Am I to understand the gentleman from California has 
objected to my asking for an additional 2 minutes?
  Mr. FARR of California. The gentleman had 5 minutes and he yielded it 
all.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Objection has been heard.
  Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite 
number of words.
  Mr. Chairman, I am one of the authors of one of the bills that are 
going to be considered, and I find this process incredibly demeaning, 
although we get up here and talk about how open it is because we have 
258 amendments on the floor. But, frankly, the bottom line of all this 
is that we have to vote on a bill, and the judgment will be whether we 
put a bill out and put out a good bill.
  Congress is able to do that, because we did it in the 101st session 
of Congress, the 102nd session of Congress and the 103rd session. And, 
in fact, the bill we put out is more comprehensive than any of the 
bills we are debating here tonight. So this body is capable. We never 
brought up 258 amendments to try to make those things. We did not talk 
about severability in those issues. So I think my colleagues see what 
is going on here. There is an effort here to try to really defeat the 
issue.
  I find it very ironic that we are debating right now on a 
nonseverability amendment to a nongermane amendment, because I think 
some of the people who sponsor these amendments really do not want 
campaign reform. They want nonreform.
  This debate sometimes becomes almost silly, because the public may 
not understand the legal implications of severability, but they do 
understand fair play. And what campaign reform is about in America in 
1998 is fair play. How do we take so much money out of the system? We 
have to pass a law to do that, and that law has to do a lot of things. 
But they are not all connected.
  Most people believe in fair play and they also understand that in 
fair play people can make mistakes. And this nonseverability debate is 
about we can never make a mistake. Congress cannot make one word of a 
mistake, because if the court throws it out, we have to throw out the 
whole thing. If we lived by that in our lives, then one poor grade 
would throw our child out of school; one overdrawn check would cancel 
our checking account. In fact, if one Member might get in legal 
trouble, we should throw out all Members because they all got elected 
at the same time.
  So let us get down to what it is all about. This is about a bill that 
is a bipartisan bill. We rarely see these on the floor. A lot of effort 
went in to try to bring a consensus about so that we could get enough 
votes to pass a bill out of this House in this session.
  This bill has a lot of parts to it, and for those who say that we 
cannot have severability, they have not read the bill. There is all 
kinds of little things

[[Page H4809]]

in here, like automatic penalties for late filing. What if the court 
threw that out? Do my colleagues think that has something to do with 
soft money? Absolutely not.

                              {time}  2000

  Should that kill the reforms on issue advocacy? Absolutely not. There 
are all kinds of parts in here that a court could say, for example, 
that we have not contributed enough money to enforce the law, some of 
the things that we have in here.
  We allow the FEC to refer suspected violations to the Attorney 
General at any time. Read the bill. If we read the bill we will say, 
well, if that one sentence were found unconstitutional, should all of 
this other substantive stuff be thrown out? Absolutely not.
  That is why people oppose this amendment, because they see this 
amendment as a way of destroying the whole effort here of trying to get 
a well-thought-out bill, a bill that has been compromised by the fact 
that it has gotten this far in this very controversial session of our 
Congress.
  We need to make sure that we pass a bill that is comprehensive. And 
frankly, I think my bill, and both the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. 
Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) and I have 
been working side by side, I think my bill at this point is much more 
comprehensive than theirs. But I am up here advocating the support of 
their bill because I think it is what we can politically do.
  Let us not try to destroy this with 258 nongermane amendments. That 
is silly.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FARR of California. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, the point I also was going to make on 
severability is, if this amendment were to pass, with all the 
amendments that can be offered, how easy it would be for the other side 
to simply offer and pass a clearly patently unconstitutional amendment 
and the whole bill is dead.
  So it could not be clearer, could not be clearer, that this amendment 
is a poison pill to kill this bill. Because even if everything in the 
bill is totally 100 percent constitutional, unlike the 
telecommunications bill, unlike the Brady bill, and unlike a lot of 
bills we pass, all they would have to do is come in with a nongermane 
amendment that sounds good but that they know is unconstitutional and 
it is over.
  Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, one of the previous speakers, and there has been a lot 
of discussion actually this evening about tobacco and what happened 
over in the Senate, and the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) I believe 
talked about how I have received a lot of tobacco money. And I wanted 
to confess tonight that I do represent 31,000 tobacco farmers and 
tobacco companies through their political action committee using hard 
money, which is legal, which Shays/Meehan does not try to address at 
all. So they are not talking about hard money, that I have received 
hard money from tobacco companies; and I do not apologize for that.
  But I would also like to point out that there is a gentleman named 
Ted Sioeng, who is from Indonesia, and he is the largest cigarette 
manufacturer in Red China today. I have a picture here of Mr. Sioeng 
and our President Bill Clinton. Mr. Sioeng gave Mr. Clinton and gave 
the DNC $400,000. And by the way, it was not hard money, it was soft 
money.
  Now, I do not object to soft money, except in this instance there is 
a Federal Election Commission rule 441(e) that says it is illegal for 
foreign nationals to contribute money to campaigns in the United 
States.
  And so, I would just remind the gentleman that his President, I guess 
he is all of our President, some of us like him more than others, but 
he accepted $400,000 from this gentleman.
  And do my colleagues know something else? They have been trying to 
investigate these illegal contributions, which led to a lot of this 
debate about campaign finance reform, and we cannot find Mr. Sioeng. 
They have been looking for him everywhere. We cannot find him or any of 
his family.
  But I just want to remind the gentleman that the contributions to me 
were legal hard money through the political action committee of which 
employees of those companies voluntarily gave the money and PACs came 
about as a reform measure themselves to encourage people to participate 
in the political system.
  Now people are saying that the only reason we are offering these 
amendments is that we want to kill this bill, and I would suggest to 
them that there are some sincere beliefs that this bill goes too far. I 
think that we should support nonseverability for the simple reason that 
I think this is a vitally important issue.
  I would like to read a quote from Buckley v. Valeo.

       Discussion of public issues and debate on the 
     qualifications of candidates are vital to the operation of 
     the system of government established by our Constitution.

  This is one of the most fundamental First Amendment activities. Now 
we seem to be summarily dismissing this First Amendment and the fact 
that Buckley v. Valeo has not been overturned and court after court 
after court after court continue to affirm it. And I think that the 
real reason that our opponents are opposed to this nonseverability 
amendment is that they know, without any question, that there are all 
sorts of provisions in this bill that are unconstitutional.
  Now, our friend from Pennsylvania a while ago said, no one has talked 
to me about how these are interconnected, the provisions of this bill. 
And I tell him what, when we start broadening the definition of 
``express advocacy'' that has a dramatic impact on issue advocacy and 
independent expenditures and what can and cannot be done. Those three 
are definitely related.
  I want to read an article here from the American Civil Liberties 
Union. I have never really been a fan of the American Civil Liberties 
Union, but I am sure that people who follow them know that their main 
purpose in existing is to be sure that the Constitution is upheld. And 
they are bringing all sorts of lawsuits around the country on many 
issues that people do not like because they feel it is so important to 
protect constitutional rights.
  I just want to read to my colleagues.

       What is wrong with the Shays/Meehan bill? Number one. 
     Shays/Meehan is patently unconstitutional. The American Civil 
     Liberties Union believes that key elements of Shays-Meehan 
     violate the First Amendment right to free speech because the 
     legislation contains provisions that would one, restrict the 
     right of the people to express their opinions about elected 
     officials and issues through unprecedented limitations on 
     text, accompanying issue group voting records, and restraints 
     on citizen commentary prior to election, restrict 
     contributions. Two, and uses of soft money.

  And remember, soft money is everything the other groups spend that 
are not candidates.
  Mr. POSHARD. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I was unable to be in the House and on the floor for 
the general debate on the rule, and I believe the issue of severability 
has been well debated here. I rise now in support of the Shays/Meehan 
bill.
  Mr. Chairman, my colleagues, there is only one glue that holds this 
precious democracy together, trust, trust between the representatives 
and the represented.
  I speak to lots of young college students throughout the State of 
Illinois. They often rise and look me in the eye and say to me, 
``Congressman, we do not trust any of you anymore. You are all in it 
for yourself. You are all in it for the special interests. No one is in 
it for us anymore.''
  And when I inquire of them as to what it is that has brought them to 
the point of feeling so distrustful about their government, feeling 
that their government just does not care about them, they always look 
me in the eye and they follow up with this statement. ``Congressman, 
just follow the money. Just follow the money. You will know why we do 
not trust government anymore.''
  Well, I have followed it. And so have my colleagues. We know that 
huge amounts of money is buying access to our government. And access 
leads to influence, and influence leads to policies that are not always 
in the best interest of our people.
  If democracy means anything, it must mean that all of our people, all 
of our people, irrespective of their economic station in life, all of 
them, must

[[Page H4810]]

have equal access to their representative. We must do nothing to 
disturb the trust between the representative and the represented.
  Mr. Lincoln said it 130 years ago in front of a divided nation. He 
said, here is the bottom line. There is no other. This is the bottom 
line. Right makes might. Right makes might. Not money. Not power. Not 
position. Not even the Congress. Right makes might.
  Shays/Meehan is not perfect but it seeks to reestablish some measure 
of balance, some measure of equality between the competing voices that 
seek to be heard in this democracy.
  The constitutional question in that little room in Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania, 225 years ago was whether the common man, the common man, 
would have a voice alongside the monied aristocracy.
  Thomas Payne put it in these words. He said, ``Gentlemen, we have the 
opportunity to make the world over again, to give common people an 
equal voice in their government, something unheard of in the whole 
history of the world.''
  There are times when we in this body are charged with making America 
over again, when equality of voice is denied in our system. Do not do 
further injury to this glue, to this trust, which holds us together. 
Pass this bill and reject any amendments which seek to weaken it. It is 
the right thing for all of our people.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the 
requisite number of words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise today to support the Thomas amendment of the 
nonseverability clause. Because we need to do it right. We need to pass 
legislation that is constitutional. We should not do anything else. We 
know, with pretty clear record, that many provisions have already from 
previous legislation been termed unconstitutional. So why should we do 
it again?
  It was interesting a little bit ago, just a few moments ago, that we 
were told by a gentleman that this bill was not quite perfect but it is 
almost and we should have no amendments because it is what the Senate 
would accept. I hope some day I hear a senator saying, let us keep this 
bill as it is because it is what the House will accept. I know that is 
not going to happen.
  I served in state in both the Senate and the House and I know that is 
not going to happen in the Senate, whether it is in state or in 
Washington. Though I respect that gentleman very much, we should not be 
crafting a bill for the Senate.
  I think the vast majority here tonight know that that bill will have 
provisions struck down by the courts. And we do not need the poison 
pill that the gentleman spoke of a few moments ago. Because this bill, 
by most people's opinion, has unconstitutional provisions.
  The current law has been in place about a quarter of a century. Large 
sections were struck down in 1976 and left us a patchwork plan of 
campaign finance, a patchwork.

                              {time}  2015

  It has a lot of problems. But let us not build another system where 
the courts can give us another patchwork quilt that will not work. It 
will happen again.
  Now, think about this a moment. If the court strikes down money to 
the parties as being illegal but allows the private groups to be legal, 
and that part remains, we have taken the power away from the parties 
and we have given it to interest groups that we are talking so much 
about. That could happen.
  Is Shays-Meehan perfect? No, it is not. I think it misses the mark. 
Because I think we have the soft money problem because we have taken 
the power away from the people. In most State governments, individual 
contributions are not limited at all, and soft money does not play the 
role there that it does in Washington. That may not be true in every 
State, but it is true in many. The people are stuck with the same 
contribution limit that was here in 1974. If that were inflation fixed, 
it would be probably 3 or $4,000. Now, if $1,000 was right then, it is 
certainly not fair today. Why not empower the individual?
  We limit an individual to $25,000 in a whole congressional race. Let 
me tell Members why I think that is inappropriate. The Shays-Meehan 
approach will limit free speech. It will particularly limit free speech 
to those who want to protect the sanctity of life. I do not know a more 
noble issue than protecting life itself. It will also prohibit those 
who want to protect the right to bear arms, and I come from rural 
America and that is a pretty important issue out there, the right to 
bear arms, the right to defend yourself. I also come from an area where 
private property rights are pretty important, and those groups will be 
limited.
  Mr. Chairman, I am going to come back to the point of $25,000 for an 
individual. Why should an individual who happens to believe strongly 
about life not be able to support every congressional candidate with 
$1,000 that he wants to? Under the current law, he would not be allowed 
to do that, and none of that is changed under Shays-Meehan. Why should 
he not be able to support any candidate that is pro-life? Why should he 
or she not be able to support anybody who defends the right to bear 
arms? That is very important to some people, very important to the 
future of this country. Or private property rights. Why should a person 
not be allowed individually to give to any person who believes private 
property rights is vital to the future? Because Congresses have 
historically walked all over people's private rights. The previous 
Congresses in my view have infringed on personal rights in many ways. 
So why should we not? We need to have a bill that makes sense, one that 
will not be partially struck down by the courts, and we need a 
severability clause, because if we do not do it right, we need to come 
back and do it again.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Dickey). The time of the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) has expired.
  (On request of Mr. Whitfield, and by unanimous consent, Mr. Peterson 
of Pennsylvania was allowed to proceed for 1 additional minute.)
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman 
from Kentucky.
  Mr. WHITFIELD. The question I had, the gentleman had referred to that 
individuals can give up to $25,000. I just want to make sure that 
everyone understands on this issue that the most that an individual can 
give to a candidate is $1,000 in the primary, and so he cannot give 
them $25,000.
  Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. That is correct. The point I was making is 
any individual can only give under current law, and Shays-Meehan does 
not touch that. And we also have a limit that any individual can only 
give $25,000 to 435 people. He can only give to $25,000, if he gives 
them the limit.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, it is very clear that some figures my staff worked up 
today are accurate. In fact, it might be worse than what they worked 
up. With the rule that we passed today, 258 nongermane amendments to 
stop any real sense of taking campaign finance reform forward and 
actually passing it, with this rule brought to the floor by the 
opponents of campaign finance reform we can keep talking for 24 hours a 
day, 7 days a week for more than 385 days, and we will not be voting 
still on campaign finance reform. That is what we allowed today. That 
means in mid-July 1999, we could be voting on campaign finance reform.
  Tonight proves, if we keep this up, this is exactly what is going to 
happen. We are going to kill this thing with all of these amendments. 
We can talk day in and day out about nonseverability. We can pull it 
apart, we can look at it under the microscope. What it is all about is 
stalling real campaign finance reform votes.
  The real vote is for the Shays-Meehan bill. If you care about your 
constituents, you will get to it and vote on it, and then we can get on 
with the rest of the needs that we have for our government.
  How did I get to this place? It was really kind of an awakening. A 
couple of years ago, I had a meeting in my offices in the district I 
represent, the two counties north of San Francisco across the Golden 
Gate Bridge. The League of Women Voters came to my office along with 
some Common Cause folks and members of the Democratic Central Committee 
to talk to me about campaign finance reform.

[[Page H4811]]

  I was not where they were. I was more like where you are over there, 
I was whining and whimpering and arguing that, ``Well, if we can't have 
caps on what an individual can spend of their own money, people like me 
will never get reelected, or elected in the first place, because I 
don't have any money of my own.''
  The people that came, they are wonderful people, they always support 
me, but they argued with me. They argued about the need to have 
regular, everyday people feel like they were part of the election 
campaign system, like they belonged to the political process. They 
argued with me about soft money, which of course I agreed with. The 
thing I did not agree was that what are we going to do if millionaires 
like Huffington, multi-multimillionaires, can spend their own money?
  They laughed and they said, ``Woolsey, you know, we agree with you on 
everything, so we're going to forgive you this,'' and they left, and I 
won my election well in 1996. But as they left and as I started 
remembering the things they said, I realized that we do not have to do 
this perfect. We do not have to have all of it. We have to start. And 
we have to prove to people that we care that they are part of the 
process, that it is just not big money, that we are not paying soft 
money so that the money is not accountable, and that we ban soft money. 
Shays-Meehan does that.
  Also, and they pounded this home, and they were so right, that we 
have to stop having advertisements and mailers without accountability, 
third parties sending out information without anybody knowing who it is 
that is sending that information.
  So because of these wonderful people that came to my office several 
years ago, and because they liked me enough that they thought they 
could give me a good kick in the fanny, I came from the slow class to 
the fast class. I am here now. I get it. We need to take a step 
forward. Shays-Meehan does that for us.
  Yes, we want to have a commission. We should add that amendment to 
the Shays-Meehan bill so that we can have the commission watching and 
going forward and making it even better. But we have to stop 
disenfranchising the people in our districts that we work for.
  I do not understand who these people that are opposed to campaign 
finance reform work for, the people that are your constituents, the 
people that elect you, the people that are your employers, do they 
listen to you when you say you want more money in campaigning instead 
of less?
  Mr. Chairman, if we respect the people in our districts and the 
people we work for, we will get on with passing campaign finance 
reform.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, let me just respond to the gentlewoman from California 
who complained that we have now passed a rule that is going to take a 
lot of time here.
  First of all, the leadership has given its commitment that we will 
vote on this issue in August, and I believe they will honor that 
commitment.
  Now, beyond that, when a proposal such as this, which I believe 
fervently strikes at the heart of free expression and the first 
amendment, comes forward, then I do not apologize for wanting to take 
the time to fully explore all the issues and to explore the 
ramifications and to look at alternatives. I do not apologize for that. 
I think it is going to take some time, but it is worth it if we can get 
the point across to the American people that this is going to the heart 
of freedom of speech.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WICKER. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to remind the gentleman that 
the Speaker is the same Speaker that shook hands with the President of 
the United States 3 years ago, and we still do not have campaign 
finance reform.
  Mr. WICKER. The handshake was about the type of proposal that we 
voted on yesterday, the commission, which the majority of folks on the 
other side of the aisle somehow lost interest in when it was finally 
presented to the floor.
  But if I could reclaim my time now, I just would simply say, I do not 
apologize for taking this issue to the American people and pointing out 
that this goes to the heart of the first amendment. If Members are for 
Shays-Meehan, and they think every bit of it is constitutional, then 
they have nothing to fear voting for this nonseverability amendment. 
If, however, as I do, if they believe that there are unconstitutional 
provisions to this amendment, then they also ought to vote for the 
nonseverability, so everybody, regardless of what side of the issue 
they are on, ought to vote for the nonseverability.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WICKER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. MEEHAN. What do we do about the fact that somebody could offer an 
amendment that is clearly unconstitutional? If we were to pass this 
amendment and somebody down the road offers an amendment that is 
clearly unconstitutional, our bill is dead then.
  Mr. WICKER. Reclaiming my time, I am glad the gentleman brought that 
up because he made that point earlier. Amendments are not that easy to 
pass. Amendments do not just get slipped in. We vote on them. We have 
17-minute votes. I do not think amendments are going to be quite that 
easy. But if an amendment passes, it will be passed by a majority of 
the elected representatives of the people of the United States. I do 
not see his concern as being valid, that somehow late at night an 
unconstitutional amendment to this already unconstitutional proposal is 
going to slip in.
  Mr. MEEHAN. If the gentleman will yield further, there have been a 
number of amendments that have passed in the telecommunications bill, 
the Brady bill, bills that we have passed that the court has said are 
unconstitutional, and they have stricken that part of the bill. But 
what the gentleman is asking us to do is pass an amendment where if a 
comma is unconstitutional, a word, a phrase, the whole bill is gone. It 
is a poison pill to campaign finance reform.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, it will only be a 
poison pill if somehow the gentleman from Massachusetts or the 
gentleman from Connecticut go to sleep and allow that poison pill to go 
through.
  In the brief time that I have remaining, let me tell Members why I 
think this proposal is unconstitutional. First of all, because the 
minority leader of the United States House of Representatives really 
admits that it is unconstitutional.
  Let me show my colleagues this poster which the Members have seen 
several times before, but this is the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Gephardt), House Democratic Leader, February 3, 1997, Time magazine:

       What we have is two important values in direct conflict: 
     freedom of speech and our desire for healthy campaigns in a 
     healthy democracy. You can't have both;

an admission by the minority leader that what he wants to do and what 
his political allies want to do is unconstitutional. You have got to 
amend the Constitution in order to accomplish their goals. That is one 
reason that I think this Shays-Meehan proposal is unconstitutional.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WICKER. I decline to yield further.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. Chairman, further I think this proposal is unconstitutional 
because of the unprecedented limitations that it places on political 
advertising and political issue expression, and let me explain.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from Mississippi 
(Mr. Wicker) has expired.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for an 
additional 3 minutes.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Mississippi?
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Reserving the right to object, Mr. 
Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts is 
recognized under his reservation of objection.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Being recognized on my reservation of 
objection, Mr. Chairman, does the gentleman plan to yield during that 
additional 3 minutes?

[[Page H4812]]

  Mr. WICKER. Really, Mr. Chairman, I do not think I have time to 
yield.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Then I would be constrained to object.
  I object, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle).
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield to me first?
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. DeLAY. This is just incredible, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The Chair would like to clarify that the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) is recognized for 5 minutes 
and yields to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay).
  Mr. DeLAY. Now we have not only does the other side, Mr. Chairman, 
not allow us to extend time----
  Ms. RIVERS. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Does the gentleman from California yield 
for parliamentary inquiry?
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. No, I do not yield.
  Ms. RIVERS. I have to be recognized for a parliamentary inquiry, Mr. 
Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman from California does not 
yield for a parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. DeLAY. I appreciate it. Then they come, and this is amazing, Mr. 
Chairman: If we are going to have an open and honest debate, we need to 
extend time particularly when the gentleman just yielded time to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts to get into the debate, and then the other 
gentleman from Massachusetts walks on the floor and objects to an 
extension of time after the gentleman has been very courteous to yield 
time back and forth.
  This is really strange. It is such a lack of courtesy. And then for 
the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Rivers) to stand up and demand time, 
it is just they have got to be kidding.
  I think it is really strange, Mr. Chairman, that now after the 
gentleman from Massachusetts has objected to the gentleman from 
Mississippi getting extra time, now he wants us to yield to him. This 
is unbelievable, and I hope the American people are seeing what is 
happening on this floor. They want to cut down debate; we want to open 
debate, and we want an honest debate in exchange.
  Mr. Chairman, I will be glad to exchange with the other side of this 
issue, and with that I will yield back to the gentleman from California 
so the gentleman from Mississippi can finish his thought.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from 
Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. Chairman, let me talk about the unprecedented 
limitations on freedom of expression in this proposal before us 
tonight.
  It costs $62,000 a page in the New York Times to buy a full-page ad, 
$62,000. I want to show my colleagues today $82,000. What I want to 
show them today is $164,000 worth of expression, the editorial page of 
the New York Times. The New York Times Corporation can purchase, can 
put out this much expression every single day of the year.
  It costs $75,000 a page to buy an advertisement in USA Today. What I 
have here before us today is 2 pages, USA Today. The Gannett 
Corporation puts out $150,000 worth of expression each day, and there 
is no government agency coming in with a microscope saying what kind of 
speech is this? Is this issue advocacy? Is this express advocacy? If 
they print a voting record, the FEC does not come in and say, ``Well, 
now did they write the right kind of comments down at the bottom of 
that voting record?'' And that is as it should be. I applaud that. That 
is freedom of speech, that is freedom of expression, and that is 
America.
  But under the proposals that we are going to be debating tonight and 
the rest of this process X Y Z Corporation wants to take out an $82,000 
ad in the New York Times or a $75,000, or Right to Life wants to spend 
$75,000 of its contribution money to take out an ad in the Gannett 
newspaper. Then the strong arm of the Federal Government comes along 
with a magnifying glass and says, ``Did you say it right? Is it during 
the right period of time? Is it during the 60 day period right before 
the election?'' And there is a huge government agency coming in with 
even more bureaucracy then we have now.
  This is an unconstitutional invasion of the right of individuals, of 
corporations, of public interest groups to purchase time, to purchase 
space in a newspaper and freely advocate as American citizens. It is 
unconstitutional. I think that is the very reason we need the 
nonseverability clause.
  Mr. Chairman, I urge the adoption of the amendment and the defeat of 
the Shays-Meehan substitute.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I urge the defeat of the Shays-Meehan 
substitute and support the Thomas amendment.
  Ms. RIVERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. RIVERS. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. For the edification of the majority whip:
  The reason the gentlewoman from Michigan got up before was she and we 
were under the assumption that the normal procedure would be followed 
of alternating between the parties. I think a good-faith error was 
made, but the gentlewoman was not trying to usurp anything. The normal 
procedure is to alternate between the parties. Through a slip-up that 
had not happened. The gentlewoman had the reasonable expectation that a 
Republican, having completed, it would next have gone to her. That is 
why the gentlewoman did raise that question.
  Ms. RIVERS. Mr. Chairman, I wish to speak today on 2 issues: the 
severability that has been discussed here and also the free speech 
issue. I want to speak especially though to the idea that the 
unwillingness of the sponsors to include a severability provision in 
this bill is somehow an indictment of the bill.
  As I said earlier, research shows us that only four bills in this 
entire Congress have progressed without a severability clause, four 
bills out of 4,965 bills. Virtually every Member in this House who has 
sponsored a bill, including everyone sitting on both sides of the aisle 
has routinely included that in their bill.
  Now are we arguing that this is the only constitutionally 
controversial bill that this body has ever considered? Absolutely not. 
The argument seems to be that an unwillingness to accept a severability 
clause indicates a weakness, that somehow people who are supporting 
this believe that there is a problem constitutionally. I will point out 
if, in fact, the numbers I am given are correct and we see a lack of 
severability clauses in only a handful of bills, that means the 
chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution routinely does not 
have a severability clause in his bills, that the chairman of the whole 
Committee on the Judiciary routinely does not have a nonseverability 
clause in his bill.
  There seems to be a standard for this bill unlike any other, and I 
think that that is a problem. Virtually every issue that comes before 
this body has this sort of clause. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Greenwood) made a very good argument, that these items do not hinge on 
one another, that if they lose one, it does not cause the fabric of the 
bill to fall apart. They have value independently. No case has been 
made why this is different than any of the other bills that we have had 
considered.
  I want to speak now to the infringement on free speech. The argument 
that is being made very subtly is that somehow Shays-Meehan creates 
regulation where none has ever existed before, that there are new 
regulations on activities that have previously been unrestricted in our 
political activities. This is not true. Independent expenditures have 
existing rules that any organization who wishes to take part in that 
kind of activity must follow. Those groups that wish to do issue 
advocacy must operate within the existing rules. Laws exist right now 
to govern how they must behave in these activities. Those who wish to 
participate in giving soft money still have rules under which they must 
operate, and the expenditure of soft money is regulated by laws in 
existence. They are not working very well, but they exist.

[[Page H4813]]

  It is important for people who are listening to this debate to 
understand that there are existing regulations. It is impossible to 
argue that these activities cannot be regulated when they already are. 
The system provides for government oversight of these activities. We 
are arguing about what that oversight should look like, not whether or 
not it should be there.
  The whole question that was raised earlier about soft money and that 
somehow it is a benign issue because candidates really do not know 
where the money comes from:
  Well, I would be interested to know if there is anybody in this room 
who has never been to a national fund-raiser or a State fund-raiser 
where they have sat at tables from people who routinely give money to 
their party. I suspect there is not. But even if there is someone who 
has somehow missed that activity, all they need to do is read the 
paper. The Hill, Rollcall routinely lists who was at each event and how 
much money they gave. Nowadays you can even pick up a local paper in 
Michigan. We can read about how much money Amway gave. We can read 
about this person, that person. We know where the money goes, which 
means if I can read it, my constituents can read it. Everybody knows. 
One would have to be beyond naive to think that the public does not 
care or, even more unlikely, is not affected by the money in politics 
and the way it is handled.
  Thomas Jefferson said when a man assumes a public trust he should 
consider himself as public property, which means we must have higher 
integrity, less selfish, more reasonable, more thoughtful, more 
forthright and committed to doing what is right for the entire Nation.
  Mr. ENGLISH of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the 
requisite number of words.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ENGLISH of Pennsylvania. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I want to clear the record.
  The gentleman from Massachusetts totally misrepresented what was 
going on here. I know the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Rivers) was 
overseen by the Chair, and I apologize for that. But the point was the 
gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker) had yielded to the gentleman 
from Massachusetts for a discussion and then ran out of time and was 
asking for an extension of time, and the other gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) ran down and objected to the time, cutting 
off debate from the gentleman from Mississippi.
  Mr. Chairman, that is what happened on this floor. It is really 
unfortunate.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ENGLISH of Pennsylvania. I yield to the gentleman from 
California.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to remind people that 
in that disastrous 1974 law which, thanks to its nonseverability clause 
we are still saddled with its oppressive regulations of this day which 
have given birth to PACs, soft money, hard money, issue advocacy, 
independent expenditures, all of the symptoms of the disease that our 
liberal friends here are trying to focus on rather than the cause of 
the disease, which is the government regulation itself, that one of the 
parts of that disastrous law that was struck down, because it was a 
comprehensive law, just like Shays-Meehan is trying to be. And part of 
that was a ban on soft money. It was struck down, one of the first 
things to go. It has been gone since 1976. That was banned. Been tried 
before.
  Mr. Chairman, they are doing the same unconstitutional thing again. 
It will be struck down.
  I listened to the arguments from the other side: Well, no, we cannot 
go for the nonseverability clause of the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Thomas) because the evil majority might sneak through some amendment 
they know is unconstitutional. We do not have to sneak anything 
through. This bill is unconstitutional, open and shut. It will be so 
declared when it goes through the courts. All we want then is a 
nonseverability clause in so the whole thing falls and certain vestiges 
do not remain that further clutter up the system and make matters only 
worse from what they are today.
  Since this whole scheme of regulation was invented some 25 years ago, 
political participation in elections has declined, public cynicism has 
shot up. We hear people are spending more and more time fund-raising 
because these hard dollars have been unadjusted. The limits, since 
1974, remain in place. That means we have to work a lot longer to raise 
the same amount of money. It becomes that much harder for challengers, 
because it is always easier as incumbents once they are there, and that 
is why we say this is an incumbent protection bill.
  If we were acting in our own self-interest tonight, every one of us 
would vote for Shays-Meehan. It would lock in our seats in Congress 
because it makes it so much harder for a challenger to raise money and 
to be able to take on the system.
  Eugene McCarthy even, the great liberal, admits he never would have 
been able to make his campaign if he could not have gotten a few large 
contributions from wealthy people across the country. He was clearly 
not in the mainstream in terms of appealing to what most people wanted, 
but he had a political and important statement to make.

                              {time}  2045

  He was able to raise the money because he was not fettered by the 
very campaign law that we have in force which would be made worse by 
Shays-Meehan.
  This is an important point to think about. Do we want just 
homogenized pabulum for the future of our political campaigns, 
something that will appeal to everyone, so in effect it appeals to no 
one; or do we want the sort of vigorous debate that was contemplated by 
the founders that the Supreme Court recognized in Buckley v. Valeo that 
is the essence of the American Republic, the American democratic 
experience?
  That is why the Supreme Court gave us Buckley v. Valeo, wiping out 
much of the disastrous law, unfortunately, because it did not contain 
the gentleman from California, Mr. Thomas', nonseverability clause, 
leaving much of it in place. That is why we have this myriad of 
problems that we are trying to address, and I say focus on the problem, 
not on the symptoms.
  Soft money is a symptom. If we do somehow succeed in banning soft 
money, we will increase independent expenditures, because we still have 
a Constitution, and the court still says it is the right of people to 
speak independently, and it is their right. But when we skew the 
campaign law in such a way that responsible speech is discouraged, 
i.e., from the candidate who wants people's votes, who therefore has 
incentive to be responsible in the use of his speech, we disfavor that 
in favor of the independent expenditure.
  We do not even know who they are. They can spend unlimited amounts of 
money, raise unlimited amounts of money in contrast to the candidate, 
and they are the ones who have more incentive to make the less 
responsible statements.
  Why do we not empower the candidate? Why do we not do as the Nation's 
largest State, California, and a very large State in the East, 
Virginia, already do it? And it works well. They do not have the limits 
and they allow people the freedom.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Dickey). The time of the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. English) has again expired.
  (On request of Mr. Meehan, and by unanimous consent, Mr. English of 
Pennsylvania was allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.)
  Mr. ENGLISH of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman 
from California.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I am grateful to have the time.
  Did the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) want to address a 
question?
  Mr. MEEHAN. No. I wanted to give the gentleman the time.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Chairman, we believe as Republicans that we ought to leave the 
First Amendment alone.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ENGLISH of Pennsylvania. I yield to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, is the gentleman aware that there are no 
spending limits in this bill?

[[Page H4814]]

  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I am perfectly aware that there are no spending limits 
in the bill.
  Mr. MEEHAN. So the gentleman is aware that there are not 
constitutional problems in this bill?
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Oh, there are terrible constitutional problems with 
this bill. How can the gentleman say that? This bill is filled with 
problems.
  Does the gentleman really believe for a minute that this bill is 
constitutional?
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield further?
  Mr. ENGLISH of Pennsylvania. I yield to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts.
  Mr. MEEHAN. So the gentleman did not favor the reforms after 
Watergate either?
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I certainly did not. It is a disaster. 
It gave birth to the cancer we face today that you cite as the reason 
for your reform; your side gave us all of this monstrosity.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, so the gentleman is not in favor of any 
limits at all?
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. I thank the gentleman. That is correct. No limits.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman from Pennsylvania yield?
  Mr. ENGLISH of Pennsylvania. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. DeLAY. I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
  The gentleman from Massachusetts asked if we supported the 1974 law 
that was passed after the Watergate hearings. You bet we did not. 
Because there were things in there like limiting the expenditure of 
campaigns to $70,000. I mean, a whole campaign spending $70,000, trying 
to reach the voters. In the Senate they limited it to 8 cents per 
voter, 8 cents per voter. Do you know why they did all that? I say to 
the gentleman from Massachusetts, it is so they could stifle 
challengers and give advantages to incumbents.
  That is exactly why we oppose the 1974 law that, most of it was 
struck down by the Supreme Court over time, and that is why we are very 
concerned about the severability of this one. We do not want another 
law like the 1974 Watergate incumbent protection plan, because it is 
all interrelated, it is all put together, and the gentleman from 
Massachusetts says, if we put one unconstitutional amendment here, it 
is a poison pill. Well, one more poison pill in a bottle half full of 
poison pills will not make a difference.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of both the Shays-Meehan bill, 
as well as the bipartisan freshman campaign finance reform bill. I 
think these bills take a large step in the direction we need to go in 
this country, the ability to take the big money out of the political 
system.
  I find it amazing though, Mr. Chairman, that opponents to these bills 
claim that if there is a ban on soft money that our constitutional 
freedoms and liberties and free speech are in jeopardy, yet when I go 
home back to Wisconsin and listen to the people, they know, just 
commonsensically, they know there is too much money in the political 
system, too much big money being contributed, too much influence of 
money out here in Washington, D.C.
  Why is this so important? Why do we need to have this debate and pass 
this legislation as soon as possible? As this chart demonstrates, Mr. 
Chairman, we are seeing an explosion in the arms race for big money in 
the political system. Back in 1987-1988, roughly $45 million in soft 
money contributions were contributed to both political parties. That 
jumped up to $86 million in the 1991-1992 campaign season, and then 
suddenly in 1995-1996, the last campaign season, it exploded to $262 
million in soft money contributions to both parties. This is just the 
tip of the iceberg.
  This is only going to escalate unless this body, the only body that 
can do something about it, takes some action as soon as possible. That 
is what this debate should be about. That is why these campaign finance 
reform measures are so important, because the people know there is too 
much money going into this, and it is only going to get worse.
  I just have a couple more points to make. That is why we need to take 
action.
  I am proud to have a Senator in my home State of Wisconsin, Senator 
Russ Feingold, leading the charge in this effort in the U.S. Senate, 
teaming up with Senator John McCain from Arizona in sponsoring the 
McCain-Feingold bill, one that suffered a fate that was unbecoming of 
this United States Congress. I commend the gentleman from Connecticut 
(Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) for the 
work that they have put in for many years of getting finance reform 
passed.
  But perhaps it was a group of freshmen, and it behooves us as 
freshmen to sit up and take notice and keep our eyes and ears open to 
see how this place operates. Maybe it was a group of freshmen who had 
to come together and take a look at this from a fresh perspective, with 
new insight, and decide to work in a bipartisan fashion to try to 
eliminate the poison pills for both parties and draft something that 
would have a chance of passing; and I am very proud to have been a part 
of that process and the product that we produced. I want to encourage 
my colleagues that if Shays-Meehan goes down, we support the freshman 
bill.

  But the severability clause is important, the amendment is important 
to discuss, because I do not believe the soft money ban is 
unconstitutional. I think we have solid constitutional case law that 
supports us with Buckley v. Valeo, which says that we can limit money, 
that is, soft money contributions, in order to prevent the corruption 
or the appearance of corruption in the political system. Anyone who 
takes notice of how decisions are made out here would see the 
appearance of corruption every day, with the amount of contributions 
being contributed.
  I have a lot of respect for my friend and colleague, the gentlewoman 
from Kentucky (Mrs. Northup) who was here a little bit earlier talking 
on the floor; but I was flabbergasted by some of the statements coming 
out of her mouth that she did not know where the soft money 
contributions were coming from to the parties and that she did not see 
any influence of big money in this political system. Well, I do not 
know where she has been for the past year and a half in watching this 
democratic process of ours work. I do not know where she has been for 
the last couple of weeks in watching the tobacco legislation and the 
fate that it suffered unfold in the U.S. Senate.
  There is a direct link to big money in the political system. We are 
seeing the results of this day in and day out. But perhaps the most 
egregious example of what big money is doing in corrupting this 
political system of ours happened last year.
  I came as a fiscally conservative Democrat, believing in fiscal 
responsibility, but also the need to invest in priorities in this 
country. I was very proud to be a part of the negotiations in trying to 
reach a bipartisan, balanced budget agreement that would put our fiscal 
house in order; and after the days and the weeks and the months of 
negotiating that balanced budget agreement last year, it finally came 
to a vote on this floor.
  I cosponsored an amendment that would have given us 10 hours to look 
at that budget agreement, page through it, to see what all was in it 
before we were forced to vote on it. And it was voted down, that 
amendment, along party lines, and I could not understand. This 
amendment was not that unreasonable. The least we can do is step back, 
pause and look at the agreement before we vote on it, and I did not 
understand why it went down to such defeat as it did.
  But I did 3 days later when it was discovered that the tobacco 
companies received a $50 billion tax cut that was never, we never had 
any hearings on it, it was never part of any of the discussion or the 
debate on the House floor. We certainly did not have any separate vote 
on this tax credit, and yet it was in there. The only reason it was in 
there was because of $11,293,000 worth of contributions from big 
tobacco.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) has 
expired.
  (On request of Mrs. Northup, and by unanimous consent, Mr. Kind was 
allowed to proceed for 3 additional minutes.)
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, just to close, and I will just be a brief 
second

[[Page H4815]]

before I yield to the gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. Northup), all we 
have to do is just take a look at where the contributions are coming 
from, and we start seeing a track, we start seeing the appearance of 
corruption, if not corruption outright, of what is taking place right 
now.
  How did this $50 billion tax cut get inserted in this budget 
agreement without any knowledge on the House floor? Well, it was 
because the chief lobbyist of the tobacco industry went to the 
Republican leadership in this Congress, literally the night before 
final passage of this bill, and said, hey, because a pack of cigarettes 
is going to be taxed an additional 15 cents, we need a break in all of 
this. So there was a corresponding tax credit for the next 25 years for 
that tax increase on a pack of cigarettes, and it was done behind 
closed doors without anyone else's knowledge.
  Again, we just have to follow the money. There are 11,293,853 dollar 
reasons for why something like that would take place in this democratic 
process of ours.
  Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to yield to the gentlewoman from 
Kentucky.
  Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Chairman, I think it is important, considering what 
the gentleman says, that somebody respond to the cynicism of what he 
said, and particularly, about the tobacco bill.
  I do not take, and never have, a penny of tobacco money, and yet the 
tobacco bill over on the Senate side is simply too big. There are 
reasons that people oppose it. I think that that is the sort of 
discussion that ruins political discussion on its value, and every time 
somebody disagrees with you, to say, see, they took money; or see, it 
is all the influence of evil.
  The fact is, I do not take money, and I thought the bill got way out 
of hand; and it is a perfect example of why that kind of a bill that is 
that complicated can never pass unless we get some leadership from the 
White House that is involved in it and calls for it every single week.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, I think I got the gist of the gentlewoman's 
point there. The gentlewoman may not take the money, the parties take 
the money, and to be fair, the Democratic Party is also dipping into 
the tobacco till, perhaps not to the extent that the Republican Party 
is. No one has clean hands on this floor.
  But the only body, the only people who are capable of cleaning it up 
are the ones right here, right now, and we have that ability to do it.
  There is cynicism across the country, and perhaps there is some even 
in the gentlewoman's district, because I know there is in mine, those 
who feel that this democratic process is being taken away from the 
average citizen on the Main Streets of rural western Wisconsin, and it 
is going to large money, special interests that are dominating the 
political agenda out here in Washington; and that is what this debate 
is all about.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KIND. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman has received a lot of money, 
big money, $10,000 from a lot of unions, different unions, and I could 
go through them, but we do not have time because the gentleman does not 
have the time. My only point is, is the gentleman influenced by this 
big money that he received in his election?
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, every Member in this 
House is raising some money. The money that I was receiving was from 
hard-working men and women.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) has 
expired.
  (On request of Mr. DeLay, and by unanimous consent, Mr. Kind was 
allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.)
  Mr. KIND. The point, Mr. Chairman, is that understanding 
constitutional case law right now in the court's eyes, in the court's 
holding, is a quid pro quo relationship constitutes corruption, and a 
quid pro quo relationship is defined as a relationship where money is 
exchanged for preferential treatment. Perhaps there are coincidences 
that are beyond belief out there to take a look at legislation that is 
being passed out here that would certainly fit under any constitutional 
definition and would give us legal standing to ban soft money, as these 
bills do.

                              {time}  2100

  Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KIND. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.
  Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman, is soft money 
given to candidates directly?
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, no, it is contributed to 
the party. But we all know standing in this body, too, we all know 
standing in this body as well the soft money which was originally set 
up for getting out the vote, and that is now being diverted for 
independent expenditures and issue advocacy ads.
  Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would again yield, soft 
money cannot be used for independent expenditures. Soft money is used 
for issue advocacy. There is a big difference. Independent expenditures 
is expressly advocating the defeat or election of a candidate and soft 
money is not used for that.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, if the gentleman is 
claiming that soft money is not filtering back into the States and 
being used in issue advocacy ads, he has not taken a close look at our 
campaign system in our country today.
  I can cite countless examples of how that is happening. The original 
intent of soft money contributions has been perverted beyond 
recognition today. That is a strong argument of why these finance 
reform bills are necessary today.
  Mr. WHITFIELD. Why? What is wrong with issue advocacy?
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, part of the issue advocacy component of these 
finance reform bills is merely asking these groups who are behind the 
ads to identify who they are so the American people know who is 
financing this and perhaps will have a better understanding of what the 
political motivation might be. Neither one of these bills would 
prohibit issue advocacy ads.
  Mr. GILLMOR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GILLMOR. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) a question, if he would consent to answer it. The 
gentleman indicated in his debate that we spend too much money on 
campaigns. I just wondered, I want to ask him what does he mean? What 
is too much money? Too much money compared to what? What amount of 
money is appropriate?
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GILLMOR. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, let me show the trend. This gives a better 
idea of what too much money means to the average American throughout 
the countryside: When we start with soft money contributions of $45 
million and $86 million and suddenly it explodes to $262 million.
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Can I get a simple answer to the question? How much is 
too much money?


                Announcement by the Chairman Pro Tempore

  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Dickey). The Chair would ask each 
Member to yield and reclaim time so that only one person is speaking at 
a time.
  Mr. GILLMOR. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Doolittle).
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, how much is too much money? I keep 
hearing this assertion made out here, we spend too much money on 
campaigns. How much should we spend?
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GILLMOR. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Chairman, where I come from, and perhaps this may not 
be true in my colleagues' congressional districts, but the average 
person in western Wisconsin believes that under the current finance 
system, even though it is legal for a wealthy individual or group to 
contribute a million dollars to either political party, that is

[[Page H4816]]

too much money. That is ridiculous. It is unbelievable that this 
democracy of our size allows that to happen. That is too much money.
  Mr. GILLMOR. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
DeLay).
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman refuses to answer the 
question. I just wonder, since if we add up all the money that was 
spent on congressional House races in the last campaign, it amounted to 
about $218 million. That breaks down to about $3.80 per voter who voted 
in the election. $3.80. That is less money than we spent on bubble gum 
in this country.
  The gentleman from Wisconsin, every time he talks about corruption 
and money corrupts keeps talking about the fact, and every time he says 
that he denigrates every Member of this House.
  Mr. Chairman, he raised money just like we all do, and he is claiming 
that somebody in this House is affected by the money being raised. He 
will not answer the question, will not answer the question if he is 
affected by the tons of money he raised.
  I am not affected by the money I raise. The gentleman talks about 
tobacco money. When the tobacco interests and the companies came to me 
to talk about the settlement that they made and the agreement they made 
with the President of the United States, I told them not only no, but 
hell no. I was not about to do what the tobacco companies wanted me to 
do.
  So this whole notion that money corrupts. Then the gentleman has got 
to look at himself and look at himself in the mirror. Look in the 
mirror. Look how much money he raised. Has it corrupted him? No, it has 
not. He is a fine gentleman. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is a fine 
gentleman and he is very much involved in this process.
  So the point I am trying to make is that the Shays-Meehan bill and 
others are trying to restrict people's involvement, restrict their 
involvement in the political process as much as they can. For what 
reason? Frankly, they have good intentions, but the result of their 
intentions is incumbency protection.
  Mr. GILLMOR. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I yield to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle).
  Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, it is quite obvious that there is not 
too much money in the system just by the facts. The amount of campaign 
spending as a percentage of GDP is relatively constant at 4 to 6 
percent. We keep hearing these exaggerated claims that they cannot back 
up with any specifics.
  Then, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) pointed out the charges 
that the system is corrupt, somehow we are all corrupt but nobody ever 
names anybody who is corrupt. We are supposed to create that pervasive 
feeling.
  Mr. Chairman, this is destructive of our institutions and I for one 
have determined, that is why I introduced the bill to take off all the 
limits, I am not going to put up with this left-wing morality play. I 
am going to answer the charges every time they are made that we are 
spending too much money.
  Mr. GILLMOR. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky 
(Mr. Whitfield).
  Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, there is not anything more important 
than the discussion of public issues.
  The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gillmor) has 
expired.
  (On request of Mr. Whitfield, and by unanimous consent, Mr. Gillmor 
was allowed to proceed for 30 additional seconds.)
  Mr. GILLMOR. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky 
(Mr. Whitfield).
  Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, there is nothing more important in the 
discussion of public issues than for the public to be informed. In 
1996, Procter & Gamble spent more money promoting its products, $5 
billion, than we spend in campaigning for all elections in the U.S., 
Federal, State and local, $2.2 billion.


                Announcement by the Chairman Pro Tempore

  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Before we proceed, the Chair reminds 
Members to refrain from profanity.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I just want to make one note before I yield to the 
gentleman from Maine. We are hearing a lot of comment, people wanting 
to know how much is too much and talking about whose interests are 
being concerned. The perception of the American public is clear. They 
are upset about what is going on in politics and they have the clear 
perception, whether or not it is reality with respect to each and every 
Member here.
  The perception is that money is a corrupting influence and that money 
is having an impact, so much so that when Bill Moyers spoke recently to 
a group, he did an interesting exercise. He had an entire group stand 
up and asked a third to sit down and identified that that third of the 
group represented those people who do not bother to register anymore.
  Then he had a second third sit down and identified that that was the 
group of people in this country that while they may bother to register, 
they do not bother to go out and vote. So the remaining one-third of 
people represented just that small portion of people in this country 
that actually are voting now and, in effect, are electing their 
representatives.
  Whatever the reasons are that the other two-thirds are not voting, 
one clear reason that people express as one reason is that they have 
the definite perception that money is adversely impacting this system.
  Mr. Chairman, one of the speakers earlier talked about Mr. McCarthy 
running for President. Senator McCarthy, as a liberal, talked about the 
fact he did not have a campaign unless he had large contributions. Let 
me turn that around for a second and speak of what a well-known 
conservative, the Senator from Arizona, Barry Goldwater had to say.

       The fact that liberty depended on honest elections was of 
     the utmost importance to the patriots who founded our Nation 
     and wrote the Constitution. They knew that corruption 
     destroyed the prime requisite of constitutional liberty: An 
     independent legislature free from any influence other than 
     that of the people. Applying these principles to modern 
     times, we can make the following conclusions: To be 
     successful, representative government assumes that the 
     elections will be controlled by the citizenry at large, not 
     by those that give the most money. Electors must believe that 
     their vote counts. Elected officials must owe their 
     allegiance to the people, not to their own wealth or to the 
     wealth of interest groups that speak only for the selfish 
     fringes of the whole community.

  The American people no longer believe that that is the case, and that 
is one of the problems that we have, and the perception one of the 
reasons that we have to address campaign finance reform.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), who 
has asked for some time on this.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Tierney) for yielding. I want to get back away from some of this 
rhetoric about free speech back to what the Court itself has said. I 
want to get back to what the Court itself said in Buckley v. Valeo.
  We know this debate is degenerating when we start talking about 
individual Members and what individual Members raise and whether there 
is actual corruption with respect to decisions made by any individual 
Member.
  What the Supreme Court has said very clearly in Buckley v. Valeo, 
that the Congress has the constitutional right to regulate elections in 
order to minimize corruption or the appearance of corruption. And the 
Court said it is unnecessary to look beyond the act's primary purpose, 
to limit the actuality and appearance of corruption resulting from 
large individual financial contributions, in order to find a 
constitutionally sufficient justification for contribution limitations.
  The question was raised earlier, I believe by the gentleman from 
Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield), what is wrong with soft money? I will tell my 
colleagues what is wrong with soft money. Right now we have a system, 
what is left of it after Buckley v. Valeo, that imposes individual 
contribution limits for individuals and for PACs in the amount of money 
that can be given to Federal candidates.
  Since 1907 in the case of corporations, and 1940s in the case of 
labor unions, neither corporations nor labor unions can give to 
individual candidates. Soft money is no longer a loophole, it is a 
highway. It is the means by which very

[[Page H4817]]

large contributions, hundreds of thousands of dollars from some 
corporations, millions or up to millions of dollars in some cases, are 
funneled to the national parties. Then they are used for television 
ads.
  Those ads may be issue advocacy, as the gentleman from Kentucky said. 
But what do those ads say? Watch them in the last cycle. They say: 
Congressman So-and-so is voting against the environment. Congressman 
So-and-so is doing this or such. Call him and tell him to stop.
  Those are ads intended, they are absolutely intended to have an 
effect on an election and they are the reason why we need to ban soft 
money.
  Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I would like to just touch on a couple of points that I 
have heard during this debate. The first has been there is too much 
money spent in politics, or there is too little money spent in 
politics. I think neither one is actually the case.
  Mr. Chairman, I think rather what we have is a structural problem in 
politics that the Shays-Meehan bill begins to address. That structural 
problem that we have is that we have got diffused cost and concentrated 
benefit.
  Our Federal Government, as we all know, is a very big thing. It is 
$1.7 trillion worth of spending every year. And if we look at that 
issue of diffused cost and concentrated benefit, as a conservative we 
can see it in troubling spots. Again, people do not buy votes. I would 
agree with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), I would agree with the 
gentleman from Arizona, I would agree with a whole host of folks on 
that very point. But it does buy influence. It helps in access.
  The guy that is giving a Member $10,000 is a guy they are ever going 
to pick up the phone for or open the door to. Again, they cannot give 
$10,000; that is a rhetorical statement.
  Take for instance the sugar subsidy vote. That is a classic example. 
I mean, here is a program that costs the American consumer another $1.2 
billion a year in the form of higher sugar prices. It is hardly the 
kind of thing that I could sell back home in a town meeting. There are 
always a handful of domestic sugar producers and consequently districts 
that are affected in our country. Yet all those benefits go down to 
truly the hands of the few.
  In the case of the sugar subsidy, we are looking at $60 million a 
year that goes in personal benefit for instance to the Fanjul family. 
The Fanjul family, they are not American citizens. They hold Spanish 
passports, but they are on the Forbes 400 list and they have yachts and 
helicopters and a whole host of things.

                              {time}  2115

  All this bill is about is trying to limit their level of access 
versus the level of access of a person in my district who lives in a 
very simple trailer in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. I think that that 
is part of the issue that we are dealing with, not too much money, not 
too little money, but an issue of diffused cost and concentrated 
benefit in a very big government.
  Two, one of my colleagues was earlier holding up both the New York 
Times and I think it was U.S.A. Today, pointing out how the editorial 
page in the New York Times was, I think, $85,000; and U.S.A. Today, I 
think it was $75,000. The point was, hey, they are not controlled in 
the way they get to advocate a point, but Shays-Meehan would control 
others.
  That is a good thing as a conservative. They are not in the business 
of arguing for ethanol subsidies. They are not in the business of 
arguing for grain contracts or for weapons treaties. They are not in 
the issue of government contracts, for that matter.
  But what you have here is a case when you do want their interests 
limited, because you do not want somebody trying to sell missiles to 
China to have unlimited access on that front.
  The third point that I would make just in the debate that I have been 
hearing is there has been much discussion, I think I even heard the 
words verbatim ``we believe you ought to leave the First Amendment 
alone.'' But the bulk of the people that are suggesting that, and I 
would say that with all due respect to my colleague from California, 
would be people that may have voted for, for instance, the religious 
freedom constitutional amendment last week.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SANFORD. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is talking about me. The whole 
religious liberties constitutional amendment was to protect the First 
Amendment of freedom of religion. It had nothing to do, as the 
gentleman suggests, in shutting down freedom of religion. It is too 
big, two different things.
  Mr. SANFORD. I think that is the jump in logic. In other words, to 
suggest that limiting of soft money is eliminating of speech is not the 
same thing.
  Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman will yield, the courts have held so.
  Mr. SANFORD. But in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision, they have also held 
in a different version a separation of church and States than the one 
that you voted for.
  Mr. DeLAY. No, no. The Supreme Court said that we could not practice 
openly and freely religion in the schools. You are right. We have as a 
body the opportunity to say, no, you are wrong. We are going to pass 
the constitutional amendment protecting the freedom of religion. It had 
nothing to do with shutting down the freedom of speech or religion.
  Mr. SANFORD. Which is a great thing. In other words, that is what we 
are charged to do by the Founding Fathers. I think in the same way, it 
is a very legitimate point, a very legitimate point to say that, in 
this debate, we ought to look at limits on the degree to which people 
can influence a giant $1.7 trillion yearly machine.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I listened with great interest to the debate this 
evening. I rise to support the Thomas amendment. I also rise to discuss 
some very interesting comments made by my friend from Massachusetts, 
followed up by my friend from Maine.
  I appreciate my friend from Massachusetts quoting the late great 
Senator from my State, Barry Goldwater. I think it is important also to 
remember the context of Senator Goldwater's quote, because, ladies and 
gentlemen of the House and ladies and gentlemen of America who join us 
beyond these walls via C-SPAN, a check of the complete Goldwater record 
indicates that our late great senior Senator was talking about liberty 
and freedom of expression within the context of those who had that 
right denied by the coercive actions of organized labor bosses who 
reached into their pockets against their will to advocate causes with 
which the rank and file disagreed.
  Indeed, I note with interest, this dispatch from U.S.A. Today, May 
30, 1996, Dateline, Portland, Maine, the campaign in which my friend 
from Maine was involved, ``By air, the AFL-CIO has spent more than 
$500,000 on a series of television ads criticizing Jim Longley's votes 
on Medicare, student loans, and private pensions. The ads have helped 
make Portland the political advertising capital of the Nation. From 
April 1 through September 15, 6,968 ads aired or 41 per day.''
  My friend from Maine also offered elucidation of what he called the 
soft money process. I believe he should know firsthand, as chairman of 
Clinton-Gore 1992, which was the vast recipient of vast amounts of soft 
money, firsthand, the Clinton-Gore ticket and the minions of the 
Washington labor bosses got help that was never really documented.
  Again, let me give credit to the left, because in employing so-called 
campaign finance reform, they ensured in 1974 and years before that 
there would be no legitimate documentation of the amounts of money 
spent by the Washington union bosses to the extent that a study from 
Rutgers University shows us that, instead of $35 million spent by Ball 
Sweeney and his ilk, they instead spent between $300 million and $500 
million to try and influence elections in the Congress of the United 
States.
  Yet, the self-same recipients of that ultimate special interest money 
would come here to this floor and act as the paragons of virtue and 
tell us that we need to change our system.
  Barry Goldwater was right about something else. When he discussed 
Bill

[[Page H4818]]

Moyers, and I thought it was interesting to see the jump from Bill 
Moyers to Senator Goldwater, when he said, when he said how 
hypocritical.
  The fact is that we have seen the corruptive influence of people 
reaching into the pockets of other people against their will, 
subverting those First Amendment rights, free from documentation, free 
from the spotlight of the Washington media, except in rare cases. We 
see all too often through the clear glasses that Senator Goldwater 
wore, which I wear in representation on my lapel, the real story here 
and the real culprits.
  Two things should happen if we want real campaign reform. Number one, 
I would suggest to my friends on the left and those well-intentioned 
friends here on the right, if you want real campaign reform, obey 
existing laws.
  I would note with interest the comments of my dear friend from 
Wisconsin who seem to imply that the reason the White House strayed 
into suspect ground and may have violated these rules was because of 
the current system. No, I would suggest otherwise.
  I would suggest that there was a clear, sadly mistaken desperation 
for cash and a win-at-all-costs mentality that cannot be excused by any 
type of misdirection play, by any type of masquerading in the public 
interest to claim that somehow let us clamp limits on those who seek 
donations of free will from free American citizens.
  Let us, instead, maintain the current system, allowing the union 
bosses to reach into the pockets of every working American who happens 
to be a member of a union, subverting their rights, and taking their 
money to go to causes with which they may disagree.
  I would suggest, again, to this body, that we should adopt the Thomas 
amendment. And I would suggest further to this body that let us have a 
clear examination of what, in fact, has transpired in the past 
election, in elections before, and let us tell the entire story. 
Senator Goldwater was talking about the freedom to use contributions, 
not to have money cynically taken away.
  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite 
number of words.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me. 
Before the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) leaves the hall, I 
would just like to raise a question.
  The gentleman stated that one of the things we should do is to obey 
existing law. I agree. I agree with that. The gentleman was not in any 
way suggesting that money spent in any individual campaign of any 
Member was not consistent with existing law, was he?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman from Oregon yield?
  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is making my point for me. 
What I am suggesting that, through previous design of so-called 
campaign finance reform, a large segment of this society, through 
coercive tactics, have their contributions undocumented. To that 
extent, the law is silent.
  Mr. ALLEN. The law is silent.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Under a lawyer's definition, that would be existing 
law. It makes the point that there are those following the human 
impulse of gaining the system for their own selfish needs.
  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I yield to 
the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, the point the gentleman makes is actually 
the right point, because nothing that happened in that election broke 
existing law. The fact is that the gentleman would like to change the 
law as with respect to labor dues. So he would seek to change existing 
law.
  But the fact is, what we are here about today is to try to deal with 
the influence of money in politics. That does not mean that there is 
some level that is so big that we have to deal with it. What happens 
with bubble gum, what happens with yogurt is irrelevant.
  What we are talking about and what the reformers are saying is this, 
we need to break the link between Federal candidates, Federal office 
holders, national parties, agents of the national parties, and giant 
contributions.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield so that I 
might ask my friend, the gentleman from Maine, a question?
  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. No.
  Mr. ALLEN. The gentleman has had his time.
  We are trying to break the link, because as the Supreme Court has 
said on several occasions, we can, this Congress can enact reform in 
order to prevent appearance of corruption or corruption.
  What the Court has also said in another case is that it is because of 
the risk that corporations that accumulate wealth in the course of 
their business activities, because of the risk, that those 
corporations, big money in this society, could unduly influence 
elections. The Court has said it is appropriate to regulate or to bar 
contributions from corporations.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Mr. ALLEN. Most recently, in the Colorado Republicans case, which was 
the case dealing with hard money limits, the Court said, if it appears 
to Congress, if it appears to Congress that the existing hard money 
limitations could be circumvented because of contributions to the 
political parties, i.e., soft money, then the Congress could rethink 
whether or not it wanted to change limits or create limits on 
contributions to the national parties.
  That is why we are here. Because what used to be a loophole is now a 
highway because there is too much money in this system, soft money. It 
is being used to influence Federal elections. We need to shut down this 
system.
  It is, in fact, soft money, these unlimited contributions from 
corporations, from unions, from wealthy individuals to the national 
parties in the last cycle that is subverting our political process. 
That does not mean that you go to any one individual and say this 
result was influenced by big money.
  What we have got in this system, in this country right now is a 
political system gone awry. We need to change it.
  What we have got with the Thomas amendment is an attempt to subvert 
the Shays-Meehan bill. That is what is going on here. The folks who are 
trying to improve the Shays-Meehan bill with this amendment, with this 
proposed amendment, are not supporters of reform generally. They are 
trying to undermine reform. There is no question about it. It may be an 
argument about free speech, may be an argument about other forms of 
money. But the fact is that we have got to have campaign reform. We 
have got to have it in this session. It means a ban on soft money. It 
means voting down the time.
  Ms. HOOLEY of Oregon. Mr. Chairman, let me just briefly end by 
talking about this is really something the American public wants. It is 
something that we have with the Shays-Meehan bill. We have a bipartisan 
bill. All you have to do when you talk about influences, all you have 
to do is look at what has happened to the tobacco bill.
  Somehow or another, we have to restore the faith in the American 
public so that everyone has a voice in our system. We need campaign 
finance reform, and we need it now. The Shays-Meehan is our best 
chance.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number 
of words.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to make a couple of comments as I listen to this 
debate tonight. First of all, I am reminded of the words of the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon) last night, after an extended 
debate, that we should remind ourselves that we need to, under the 5-
minute rule, move forward at some point and conclude debate and 
continue on to the next amendment.
  The present amendment is the Thomas amendment. I know that we are 
engaged in a vigorous debate on the underlying amendment, the Shays-
Meehan provision, but I think that we need to keep our eye on the ball 
and to move on so that we can get to other amendments in this process.
  I also wanted to make the point that I appreciate my fellow freshmen 
are here. The gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), I believe it was, 
made mention that freshmen are still warm to reform. I see my friend 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) and

[[Page H4819]]

the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen). Both of those gentlemen have been 
very active participants in the freshman task force.

                              {time}  2130

  And the freshman bill that will come up later on addresses some of 
the serious problems that have been raised.
  My friend, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), makes mention 
of the last campaign and the problems in it. And I do not believe that 
a lack of enforcement, and I say this as a former Federal prosecutor, 
the lack of enforcement of laws has never been a reason for us not to 
improve the law.
  Certainly we ought to enforce the law, but it is a separate issue 
when it comes to improving the law. And there were problems in the last 
campaign that chased after soft money, and for that reason, we should 
remedy it.
  A question was raised, whether we could cite any instances of 
corruption. Well, that is what some of these committees are 
investigating, the instances of corruption that deal with soft money 
and contributions from corporations. But I do not think the issue is 
necessarily corruption.
  I believe the issue is confidence of the American public in our 
system. And I will point to instances on both sides of soft money.
  On the Democrat side, the $600,000 contribution from the Loral 
Corporation to the Democratic National Committee at a time when that 
organization was under investigation when they were asking for approval 
of a technology transfer to China. That hurts the confidence of the 
American public, and it should not have been done. We should ban that 
kind of contribution; whether it affects the system or not, there is 
the perception of it.
  On the Republican side, I will cite the instance of Microsoft. When 
they are under investigation by the Department of Justice, they should 
not be able to give $200,000 in contributions to a national political 
party. Whether it affects the debate or not, the perception of the 
American public is that it does. And that is what I am concerned about, 
is the confidence.
  So I believe soft money is an issue. I think it is an important issue 
that we must address. And even though I oppose the Shays-Meehan bill 
for other reasons, I compliment my fellow freshmen for being concerned 
about this issue and wanting to improve the system.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Chairman, I just want to ask a question of my good 
friend from Arkansas. In his days as a prosecutor, did he petition for 
the legislature to change laws in lieu of prosecuting those who had 
broken existing laws?
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, certainly we should 
never do anything to substitute for law enforcement. The gentleman is 
absolutely correct. And I am fully supportive of strengthening our 
ability to enforce the laws. Our committees should be investigating any 
wrongdoing.
  But the problem is clear, and that is soft money. That was the 
problem, the chase for, in the last campaign. And we should not neglect 
addressing that problem because of enforcement problems.
  I want to come back, and I love this debate, but I think the 
gentleman from Connecticut is entitled to a few moments here, so I will 
be glad to yield to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) if he 
has some areas that he wants to wrap up. And, hopefully, we will 
conclude this debate.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. I have not asked for 
my 5 minutes, but I will just say that we have strayed a bit from the 
amendment, and I am concerned that we have the potential for hundreds 
of amendments, so we maybe should try to come to a debate on certain 
amendments and then go on to the next amendment. We can still make some 
of the same points, because they are related.
  But what the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) proposes is to 
strike the severability clause, which basically says that if any 
provision in this act or amendment made by this act, or the application 
or the provision or amendment to any person or circumstances is held to 
be unconstitutional, the remainder of this act and amendments made by 
this act, and so on, are still constitutional and remain in effect.
  That is a clause that is in most bills. It was in the congressional 
accountability bill, under the Contract With America, voted for by the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and other Republicans, all other 
Republicans. It was in H.R. 65, the Victim Restitution Act. The 
gentleman from Texas voted for that as well. It was in the Regulatory 
Transition Act of 1995 as well as in our Contract With America. This 
was introduced by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Tom DeLay). It is the 
same severability clause, and it passed as well.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  First, Mr. Chairman, I want to say that this is the first night of 
extended debate, and I would say we are all learning from this process. 
We are all learning as to how much time we should be asking for. We 
have Members who come and others who are waiting. I kind of hoped that 
the way the process would work was that we would ask for 5 minutes, and 
if we asked for an additional 2 minutes, it would be granted without 
objection, and if there is a reason to extend even further, that it 
will be the same for both sides. But I think there were some moments 
where we probably erred in that process.
  Also, there were times in this debate where I heard some strong 
attacks and concerns with other Members, and we just started to go to 
it and forget what we are debating. We have lots to debate here, and I 
truly believe we will cover all the territory by the time we do all of 
the amendments. But right now, what we are debating is the severability 
clause and whether we should take it out of the Shays-Meehan amendment.
  In some cases we pass bills with the severability clause and in other 
cases we are silent. And when we are silent, the court basically 
follows the process of considering a severability clause included. But 
this is a case where the amendment is actually saying that if any part 
is unconstitutional, the whole bill should be eliminated. There are 
only a handful of times in a number of years that this provision has 
been offered. That is my understanding.
  And so I say, first, I believe the severability clause should be 
included, like it was in with most of our Contract With America, like 
it was with the bill that the gentleman from Texas introduced in the 
Contract With America, the Regulatory Transition Act of 1995. He 
introduced it, we voted on it, it passed.
  It was in the telecommunications bill, thank goodness, because one 
small part was declared unconstitutional and the rest remained intact. 
It was in the Brady bill, thank goodness, because one part of the Brady 
bill was declared unconstitutional, but not the rest of it.
  I believe that some want this amendment because they think that this 
whole bill that we have--which deals with soft money, which deals with 
recognition of sham issue ads, which codifies Beck, which has 
improvement of FEC disclosure and enforcement and deals with franking 
and foreign money and fund-raising on government property not being 
allowed--some think they are all intertwined. I do not. I think some 
parts can stand on their own.
  Obviously, everybody will make up their mind. We are going to vote on 
this tomorrow. But I believe that the other danger is that other 
amendments will be attached. We will oppose some amendments, but some 
will be attached because nobody will have the courage to vote against 
certain amendments because they will be difficult politically. And I 
would not want to risk the chance that those amendments in particular 
would then disqualify the rest of the bill.
  So I would conclude by saying that we need to oppose this amendment. 
It is a provision that is in most bills and it certainly should be in 
this one. And when I see parts of the legislation in 1976 that were 
declared unconstitutional and other parts that were not, I thank 
goodness the other parts still stayed there. We can always come back 
and make changes where we think there is an unconstitutional element 
that has been taken out, and just come back and address that issue.
  So I strongly oppose taking out the severability clause and, in 
particular,

[[Page H4820]]

replacing it with a statement that says if any part is 
unconstitutional, the whole bill goes. That, to me, is just an attempt 
to kill meaningful campaign finance reform.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SHAYS. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman keeps referring to the fact 
that I introduced bills and voted for bills that had severability 
clauses. I do not know what that has to do with this case where we are 
making the case that when we are talking about an overall campaign 
structure, one affects the other.
  That is the case we are trying to make here; one affects the other.
  Mr. SHAYS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, the gentleman did make 
that case, but in addition, acted like this was a very extraordinary 
event and that somehow, by our putting the severability clause in the 
bill, we feared that another part was unconstitutional.
  What is fair is fair. I do not believe that when my colleague 
introduced and voted for the Contract With America, those various 
bills, that he feared that various parts were unconstitutional. I just 
want to say that this is a very usual clause to be in a bill. It should 
stay there. And I hope tomorrow, when we all come to this Chamber, we 
vote to defeat this amendment.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the 
requisite number of words.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to begin by commending the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. 
Shays) for all of their work on this legislation. They have spent many, 
many, many months crafting this legislation to address many of the 
underlying problems that we have in our current campaign financing 
system in this country; problems that threaten this institution, that 
threaten many of our democratic institutions; problems that are 
corroding the way we make decisions in the House of Representatives, in 
the United States Senate, and within the administration.
  They are problems that the American people demand that we address and 
that we rectify and that we once again bring them back in to our 
democratic decision-making process and not bring them in based upon the 
size of their wallet, the size of their contributions and who they 
know, but rather, on the merit of their arguments. That is what this, 
the People's House, is supposed to be doing.
  This discussion about the severability amendment is simply a ruse to 
attack this legislation and to certainly set it up for later attack if 
it looks like, in fact, it is going to pass. We draw, very often, very 
complicated legislation in this House. And we know, very often, that we 
are treading to the end, because people, in fact, are trying to affect 
court decisions when they draft legislation, when they draft 
amendments. And to protect the underlying legislation, very often we 
put severability clauses in those pieces of legislation.
  We do it in the State legislatures, we do it in city councils, and 
they do it in the United States Congress, and we have for many, many, 
many years.
  In this particular legislation, the gentleman from Connecticut and 
the gentleman from Massachusetts have addressed a number of the 
problems that we confront in our campaign finance system. Each and 
every one of those remedies could stand by themselves, and they are 
very, very important to improving our system. They are very, very 
important to improving the participation of the American public in that 
legislation. That is why we want the severability clause, because of 
those provisions by themselves.
  So if a constitutional challenge is brought on one of these single 
provisions, we will retain the best of this legislation, and that will 
become part of our campaign financing system, and we will, in fact, 
have a better campaign financing system than we have today. We will 
have a less corrupt campaign financing system than we have today. We 
will have a campaign finance system that encourages people to 
participate, which our system does not do today. That is why we need 
this severability.
  To throw this up and suggest that somehow this is a trick and this is 
to allow us to do a lot of unconstitutional things is just simply not 
the case. The authors of this legislation are far more careful about 
their legislative duties than that. The people that they have consulted 
have guided us and are relying on past court decisions.
  Yes, we may not do it perfectly, but we should not be in a position 
where one challenge against a very small part of this legislation can 
throw out so many other parts of the legislation that are very, very, 
very important to us.
  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MILLER of California. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.
  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague from California for 
yielding to me, and I want to commend all of the sponsors of the 
Meehan-Shays legislation for the work that they have done, the source 
of encouragement that each one, especially the original sponsors of the 
bill, has been to all of us that have yearned for and hoped to make the 
kinds of changes that we are seeking to make in the campaign financing 
system that we have today.
  We hopefully all remember the day that we came to this floor and we 
raised our hands and took our oath of office, and we had families 
sitting in the gallery. I do not think that there is a moment in my 
life that quite matches that one: my hopes and aspirations for the 
future, the good wishes of my constituents, whether they voted for me 
or not.
  We start out, really, I think, with 100 percent goodwill. I think the 
only thing that could match that day was the day that my two children 
came into this world.
  I have to tell my colleagues that if there is one thing that is 
constantly rubbing down or taking the polish or the gleam off of that 
magnificent day, that very first day when I became a Member of 
Congress, is the system by which we are elected, that is, the money in 
the system. We know it is broken, we know it cannot be defended, but 
right here on the floor tonight we are debating an amendment that is 
being offered to this very good piece of legislation.
  In my view, it seeks to throw some dust in the wheel, to clog up the 
wheel, throw sand into the wheel, to jam it up.
  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  If we are going to talk about constitutional issues and freedom of 
speech, it seems to me that none of us have very much freedom of speech 
if we are drowned out by millions of dollars. And so we have to, in the 
House of Representatives, in the Congress, really speak to the hopes 
and aspirations of the American people and say to them, yes, we are 
capable of addressing this; we can rebuild the confidence that the 
American people should have in this institution.
  They know it is broken. They know much of what goes on here is not on 
the level.

                              {time}  2145

  They know that money speaks to this process and that it warps it and 
that it is corrosive.
  We have and should have to corral the political will in this place to 
reform the system. No bill is perfect. Why? Because human beings are 
not, so no piece of legislation is perfect. But this is sound. It 
addresses the things that are really broken down.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, would the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Chairman, I would love to yield, but I do not have the 
time. I would like to complete my train of thought. I have been on the 
floor since a quarter of 7 this evening to do this.
  We can do this, but we have to be very careful to distinguish 
excuses, throwing sand in the wheels and jamming them up and those 
issues that really mean something. We are all pros here. We are all 
pros here. We know what can be done with parliamentary maneuvers. Try 
to explain that to your constituents. They know it is not for real, 
they know that there are excuses coming out of this place.
  Why do we not reach for the brass ring and say to the American 
people, ``You know what? We can do it.'' It says, ``In God we trust.'' 
In the people we trust. 68 percent in the poll in the

[[Page H4821]]

Wall Street Journal of the American people said they wanted this system 
reformed. We can do it, Republicans and Democrats.
  Yield and do not succumb, my colleagues, to these things that are 
being thrown in as excuses, because that is what they are. Let us come 
through the 105th Congress the last few days that we have, legislative 
days, and show the American people that we are worthy of their trust, 
that we can move legislation through this place where it is not 
encumbered by any money except the interests of the people that we have 
come here to represent.
  Remember that first day our excitement. If we can come to this floor 
having passed this legislation, having it signed into law, I predict 
that every day we come to this floor we are going to have that same 
exhilarating feeling that we did the very first day when we raised our 
hands, took our oath, and saw all of the endless opportunities without 
anything getting in the way.
  Again, I thank my colleagues. They have given me a great deal of 
courage and inspiration by what they have fought for and kept the 
faith. And we are going to keep the faith, and I have trust that we can 
do this.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. ESHOO. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague for yielding.
  I rise to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) and the 
gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) for their leadership and their 
courage for bringing us to this moment of truth. Are we for campaign 
finance reform, are we for cleaning up the system, or not?
  My colleague mentioned the first day when we were all here and raised 
our hands and pledged to take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the 
United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The greatest 
enemy to our Constitution, foreign or domestic, is the money in the 
political system that undermines and mutes the voices of the American 
people.
  Mr. Chairman, when Washington was first established as the capital of 
our country, it was a swamp. In 200 years, it has returned to being a 
putrid swamp contaminated by the impact of campaign money into the 
system. Again, against the wishes of the American people.
  I rise against this amendment because I see it as an attempt to 
unravel and undermine the courage of the Meehan-Shays, Shays-Meehan 
bill. This is a good bill. It strikes a balance.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, would the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. PELOSI. I am sorry, I do not have the time. The gentleman knows I 
would if I could.
  It strikes a balance. That is why we have to keep it intact. We have 
come to the moment of truth. I ask my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on 
Shays-Meehan, ``no'' against the Thomas amendment. Let us face this 
moment of truth. The American people are watching. Let us drain the 
swamp.
  Mr. COLLINS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Thomas amendment.
  I think when we look at what happened with the campaign finance 
reform after Watergate and the provisions that were struck down by the 
Supreme Court, we see a patchwork of legislation that is left that has 
led to a lot of the problems that we have here today.
  Mr. Chairman, I want to refer to a news article that was in the 
Clayton County, Georgia News Daily back on May 23 of this year. The 
longest reigning speaker of the house of any state legislators in 
Georgia, his name is Tom Murphy. And the quote in the headline was by 
Mr. Murphy. ``I worry about the future.''
  It goes on to say that:

       If Tom Murphy could do it all over again today, he would 
     steer clear of politics. Murphy, the longest tenured serving 
     speaker in the country, told the Clayton College and State 
     University Alumni Association that politics has deteriorated 
     into an arena of viciousness and untruths. The candidates are 
     getting so careless with the truth that I worry about the 
     future of this state and the nation. What truly worries me in 
     the next few years, unless something happens, is you will not 
     get a decent person to run for office.

  Mr. Murphy never mentioned finances. He never mentioned money. He 
mentioned untruths and viciousness. That is what we need to focus on. 
The gentleman sent me an article the other day of a quote, and the 
quote reads as this. It is titled ``Honesty'':

       We can afford to differ on the currency, the tariff, and 
     foreign policy; but we cannot afford to differ on the 
     question of honesty if we expect our republic permanently to 
     endure. Honesty is an absolute prerequisite to efficient 
     service to the public. Unless a man is honest, we have no 
     right to keep him in public life. It matters not how 
     brilliant his capacity. Without honesty, the brave and able 
     man is merely a civic wild beast who should be hunted down by 
     every lover of righteousness. No man who is corrupt, no man 
     who condones corruption in others, can possibly do his duty 
     to the community. If a man lies under oath or procures the 
     lie of another under oath, if he perjures himself or suborns 
     perjury, he is guilty under the statute law. Under the higher 
     law, under the great law of morality and righteousness, he is 
     precisely as guilty if, instead of lying in a court, he lies 
     in a newspaper or on a stump; and in all probability the evil 
     effects of his conduct are infinitely more widespread and 
     more pernicious. We need absolute honesty in public life; and 
     we shall not get it until we remember that truth-telling must 
     go hand-in-hand with it, and that it is quite as important 
     not to tell an untruth about a decent man as it is to tell 
     the truth about one who is not decent.
  That was by Theodore Roosevelt in 1900.
  Mr. Chairman, yes, we can change campaign laws. And there are 
probably some that need to be changed. We have not investigated 
thoroughly enough yet to determine just which ones. But that is not the 
problem. The main problem is compliance and untruths. The change in 
statutes will not change either compliance or untruths.
  It has been mentioned about unions and dues from union members and 
how in the 1996 campaigns some of them were erroneously used. I have 
with me a flyer that was published in Georgia. On the back of it it 
says the ``Georgia State AFL-CIO Not Profit Organization.'' On the 
inside the cover says their rules and it walks through several things, 
Medicare, pensions; and it goes on to say, and this is entirely against 
the law, the current law, this is where compliance has not been adhered 
to, it says, ``Vote no on Collins. Vote no on Milner and Collins.''

  That is where your noncompliance comes in. The untruths are in the 
breeding of this. We can change the law. We can change every law in the 
campaign finance arena. But if we do not change the hearts and the 
souls of those who are involved in the government, we are not doing 
anything.
  That is the problem. It is not written words down. It is inside the 
individual. It is not how we get here as much as what we do to get here 
and what we do after we get here.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, this has been a long evening. But then again, this has 
been a long wait. I have been in the Congress now for 6 years trying to 
find some way to get campaign finance reform passed. And I remember 
when I first got here, sort of a brash young freshman legislator and I 
got together with another member from Oklahoma. He is a great Member, 
had a lot of experience, Mike Synar.
  Mike had a lot of courage and he was smart. And he sat down with me 
and he said, ``If you want to work on campaign finance reform, boy, let 
me give you some tips. The first thing you have to do is you have to 
work with Republicans. Because if we, as Democrats,'' and we were the 
majority party then, ``if we, as Democrats, propose our bill, it is not 
going to have credibility. We have got to get Republicans on board. So 
the first thing you need to do is find a group of Republicans who are 
interested in truly passing campaign finance reform.''
  And that is what we did. Every year that I have fought for campaign 
finance reform, I have worked with Republicans so that we could level 
the playing field equally among Democrats and Republicans.
  The other thing that Mike Synar said was, ``You know what? My 
experience is that independent expenditures are the thing that are 
going to kill American politics because congressional elections are not 
going to be about the people who live back home anymore.''
  Mike Synar knew something about independent expenditures, because the

[[Page H4822]]

National Rifle Association and other groups spent millions over the 
years trying to defeat him. So he said, ``Whenever you come up with a 
bipartisan bill, you got to make sure that you deal with independent 
expenditures.''
  And here we are, 5 years later, finally on the verge of having a vote 
before this House. And it gets emotional at times because I know how it 
feels having worked so long and so hard on a bill to have it 
misrepresented on the floor. It gets frustrating.
  Members say the bill is unconstitutional. We have been working with 
constitutional scholars on this for the last 5 years to make sure it 
does pass constitutional muster. And other Members bring up the 
campaign reports of whatever Member stands up. It is irrelevant.
  The bill that is before us does not deal with each individual 
Member's campaign report. It deals with soft money and independent 
expenditures. It deals with giving the FEC the teeth it needs to 
enforce the laws.
  Why would we want to go after soft money, my colleagues ask? We have 
spent millions of dollars investigating and having public hearings on 
the soft money abuses in the system. Everyone in America, whether they 
be Democrat or Republican, agrees the soft money system is totally out 
of control.
  This is relatively new by the way. In 1976, there was not any soft 
money spent in the presidential election. In 1980, only $19 million was 
spent. In 1984 there was $22 million spent. In 1988, there was $45 
million. 1992 it goes up. In 1994, it goes up. And now it is $263 
million. This is a recent phenomenon in American politics, soft money 
or the expenditures over and above the legal limits that are in force 
that are in law and that are constitutional. That is what this debate 
is really all about. That is why we are here.
  I want to tell my colleagues that I believe we are on the verge of a 
majority of Members, Democrats and Republicans, who are ready to vote 
for Shays-Meehan but it is going to be tougher than that. As if it was 
not tough enough to form a consensus among Democrats and Republicans, a 
lot who have had great ideas about campaign finance reform. No, it is 
getting even tougher.

                              {time}  2200

  We have the potential of 260 to 270 amendments. Tonight we have been 
debating since 5:30 and we are not through the first one yet. That is 
what we are up against. It is a challenge. Tempers are going to get 
short at times, short fuses, when representations are made that are not 
accurate. But I believe we are on the verge of a historic vote, a vote 
that will have Democrats and Republicans joining together, not only in 
a bipartisan way but a bicameral way, because the other body has 
already voted, a majority, for this bill.
  We can pass this bill. We can pass this bill. I urge Members of both 
sides of the aisle to defeat this amendment tomorrow morning, because 
it is a poison pill. It kills the bill. And after we are finished with 
that, I urge Members to get rid of these poison pill amendments and 
pass this bill and have the courage to move forward.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the 
requisite number of words.
  Mr. Chairman, this week the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights 
celebrates and commemorates its 35 years of fighting for justice in 
America. Its theme is Answering the Call for Equal Justice.
  As I listened to my colleagues, I want to agree with the gentleman 
from Georgia. It is a question of compliance. But it also is a question 
of laws. The call for justice is, one, to have the right law, but, as 
well, to be able to comply.
  The Shays-Meehan legislation dealing with real campaign finance 
reform brings both of those to the table. It calls for justice for 
America. It emphasizes democracy. It puts the control of politics in 
the hands of the people. And it provides us with the law which we 
should obey.
  We can spend a lot of time tonight talking about money in the 
Buddhist temples, or maybe we should talk about the alleged loan 
schemes to funnel $1.6 million of foreign cash into U.S. elections 
through the National Policy Forum which then-RNC head Haley Barbour 
solicited these funds on board Hong Kong businessman Ambrous Young's 
yacht in the Hong Kong harbor. We can stand up and call the roll of the 
many times that we have not complied with our own laws. But maybe those 
laws are faulty, and maybe men and women have frailties and character 
flaws. Now we have the time to deal with real campaign reform.
  We have already heard that 81 percent of the moneys that fund 
campaigns come from men, only 19 percent from women. What it simply 
says is we have got to even the playing field. We have got to enhance, 
if you will, the pennies, the nickels and the dimes that women give, 
the dollars, the five-dollar bills, so that the moneys lift everyone 
equally. But obviously some of our gentlemen control these large 
pockets of soft money. They control PACs. And so there is an 
unequalness there.
  I want to see everyone have an access to this political process and 
to be heard. My good friends on the other side of the aisle realize 
that this amendment on severability is a poison pill, so that if you 
find one sentence in the Shays-Meehan legislation as being 
unconstitutional, all the work that we have done throws out, throws out 
a very valid piece of legislation.
  What the American people would like to see is the real words of the 
candidates, one on one. They would like to see some of our media 
provide the free time so that we can be heard one on one. This 
legislation goes to the question of all the signs of outside dollars 
that may come in and influence negatively the process of the American 
people. I believe the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights is right, 
calling for and answering the call for equal justice. The Shays-Meehan 
legislation frankly tells you how to do it. Take all of the excess 
money out of this process. Let democracy be run truly by those who go 
to the polls every single time there is an election, by those who read 
and analyze, by those who believe in philosophies and make their 
decisions at the voting booth based upon the decision that has been 
given to them by this Constitution and by this flag, the right to make 
a democratic choice.
  I would hope my friends in the 258 amendments that we have, we do not 
even have 258 more days in this year, much less in this session, would 
realize that we need to get down to the business that the American 
people have asked for. We need to lift all boats at the same time. We 
need to equalize and make sure that the least of those who have nothing 
more than their vote can be heard in the halls of Congress.
  Lastly, Mr. Chairman, let me say something. There was a lot of 
disagreement over this legislation, and I am not here to point any 
fingers. But we voted on bankruptcy legislation just a couple of weeks 
or so ago. In this article by the Wall Street Journal, it said that the 
lawyers and bankruptcy judges and law professors and even the National 
Bankruptcy Commission said the bill was not the right bill. But in the 
same article, it said that the American Financial Services Association 
paid a lot of money in campaign contributions, and we have a bill that 
may hurt working men and women. I hope we can fix it. But what we 
really need to do is to fix it permanently and ensure that the loudest 
voice in this House is that of the average working man and woman. That 
is why we need to get rid of this amendment and support the Shays-
Meehan legislation.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  Mr. Chairman, there is a movie that I enjoyed, it was called 
Groundhog Day. Some of my colleagues may have seen Groundhog Day. Maybe 
the Chairman saw it. I know they have theaters in Arkansas, Mr. 
Chairman.
  I am a member of the Committee on House Oversight. We have heard all 
of these arguments. The House of Representatives was set up, and 
fortunately we have the Committee of the Whole and here we are tonight 
as the Committee of the Whole and we are repeating all of those 
arguments. We had 40 Members and these Members are very well intended. 
I heard the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle), I heard the 
gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), I heard the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan), I heard every one of the sponsors almost, 
or I read their testimony for their proposals. The problem is we have 
435 experts. The gentleman from

[[Page H4823]]

Georgia (Mr. Collins) was just here and showed his brochure of how he 
was offended and beaten up by soft money or union money.
  The problem we have here is this soft money, and we would love to ban 
it, I would love to ban it, we looked at this, the problem we have is 
we have $263 million here, but we heard the gentleman from Arizona who 
said that there was a half a billion dollars of union money that you 
could not even put on this chart in addition to that. And, Mr. 
Chairman, we are all going to be here again because we are not going to 
be able to solve this unless we can solve all of these problems. We do 
have an impediment. The impediment to soft money, and we have heard it, 
is the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the first amendment, the 
free speech clause.

  We have been through this debate in committee, we are going to be 
through this debate again. Our committee tried and we did our best. We 
brought out four bills, one on disclosure, one banning soft money, one 
banning union money, and one banning very clearly foreign 
contributions. And unfortunately we are here again.
  So we will repeat on campaign finance reform Groundhog Day. We are 
going to hear all the arguments again. We are going to have the same 
votes again. It is just a prediction. It is going to be another 
Groundhog Day.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay).
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think 
this has been a pretty good debate, although Members do not want to 
seem to yield to questions. I think that is unfortunate, so I am going 
to try to put this in perspective and bring us back to Earth.
  There are two different kinds of campaign money. One is hard money, 
one is soft money. The hard money that we are talking about is money 
that goes directly to candidates to elect or defeat candidates. That is 
heavily regulated and supported by the Supreme Court to do so. What the 
Shays-Meehan bill wants to do is stop the soft money.
  Now, the gentlewoman from Texas talks about the Lawyers for Civil 
Liberty.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.
  Mr. DeLAY. The Lawyers for Civil Rights under Shays-Meehan could not 
raise the money to advocate the kinds of issues the gentlewoman 
advocates under Shays-Meehan. They would be regulated. I do not 
understand why she would support Shays-Meehan.
  She talks about leveling the playing field. The Supreme Court said 
that the concept that government may restrict speech of some elements 
of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is 
wholly foreign to the first amendment. We are not trying to level the 
playing field here. What they want to do in the Shays-Meehan bill, they 
want to ban soft money. Ban it altogether. And, therefore, bring moneys 
under the hard money type of regulations. They want to recognize people 
like Lawyers for Civil Liberty; if they want to run ads against Tom 
DeLay because he does not support their advocacy, they want to call 
those sham type ads and they want to regulate those, too. I do not want 
to regulate your group. I want them to be able to come at Tom DeLay and 
let us have a discussion of the issues. They want to codify Beck. But 
the problem is that you have to remove yourself from the union in order 
to take advantage, you have to resign from the union to take advantage 
of their Beck codification. This is all tied together. This is all part 
of what we are talking about here.
  The gentleman from Georgia is absolutely right. Honesty does not come 
from a bureaucrat. Honesty does not come from the Shays-Meehan bill. 
You cannot bring honesty to this Chamber, and I might say, this Chamber 
is not corrupt. This Chamber is not corrupt.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Dickey). The time of the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Mica) has expired.
  (By unanimous consent, Mr. Mica was allowed to proceed for 3 
additional minutes.)
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I continue to yield to the gentleman from 
Texas.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, the point here is that honesty does not come 
from a bureaucrat or from a law. I have said it before and I will say 
it again, I do not know one Member of this body that is corrupted by 
money. As the gentlewoman said, we ought to lift all boats. Under 
Shays-Meehan and other kinds of restrictions, she would not be elected. 
She would not be able to get 58 percent of her money from PACs, because 
they would eliminate PACs. They would eliminate soft money. They would 
not be able to elect a woman and let her get in a boat and be lifted. 
That is what we are trying to say here.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DeLAY. I cannot yield. I do not have the time, and I am trying to 
finish so the other gentlemen can use the time. You would not yield to 
me, so I just have to keep moving.
  Mr. Chairman, the point I am trying to make here is, real reform is 
opening up the process, not shutting it down in favor of incumbents. 
That is what they are trying to do. This is all interconnected. The 
Thomas amendment is saying that if one part of this is struck down, 
then it all should be struck down, because the Shays-Meehan bill is 
connected and interconnected.
  Therefore, I beg Members to vote for Thomas. Because if you are for 
real reform and not shutting down the process, if you are for real 
reform and opening up the process and inviting more people in, then you 
would not only pass the Thomas amendment but defeat the Shays-Meehan 
bill.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I yield to the gentleman 
from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield).
  Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, the cosponsor of the bill from 
Massachusetts mentioned that they had 127 legal scholars working on 
this project. They issued a report called Buckley Stops Here, the 20th 
Century Fund, not-for-profit group.
  This is paid for by what we would call soft money, contributions. And 
we want them to use soft money to speak about an issue and try to 
overturn the Buckley case if they want to do that. But if Shays-Meehan 
is adopted, they are going to curtail the speech of not-for-profit 
groups because in essence they do not like what these groups are 
saying.
  You are curtailing the amount of money that can be given to 501(c)(3) 
organizations and you are expanding the definition of express advocacy.
  Mr. SHAYS. Express advocacy involves----
  Mr. MICA. Regular order, Mr. Chairman.
  Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend.
  The Chair would like for each Member to yield and to reclaim his or 
her time so that one person will speak at a time.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman has 30 seconds.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, in conclusion, and I am sorry I do not have 
too much time, but I tried to point out and I serve on the committee, 
we looked at this, we have been there, we have done it. We see $263 
million in soft money, another half a billion not even on that chart. 
We are not going to resolve this because you do not have the votes on 
either side, and 218 votes in this House beats the best argument.

                              {time}  2230

  So people want the laws enforced, people want disclosure, and people 
want a ban on foreign money. Those are the things we can agree on. 
Those are the things that we brought out as a committee.
  The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) has done his best. I urge 
his amendment.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of Meehan-Shays.
  Americans want fundamental change, a complete overhaul of the 
campaign finance system. They want meaningful limits on frenzied 
political spending, and they want them now.
  Finally, today, we have an opportunity to give the Americans what 
they want. We have an opportunity to end the abuses of the electoral 
process.
  We must ban soft money, rein in the exploitation of issue ads, limit 
individual contributions, and restore the faith of the American people 
in our political process. We must pass Meehan-Shays.
  The Republicans have tried to kill reform time and time again by 
breaking promises, strong-arming reformers off of the discharge

[[Page H4824]]

petition, and by introducing a hodgepodge of bills that the House 
already rejected and a constitutional amendment that they didn't even 
believe in. Now, they are attaching hundreds of poisonous amendments to 
a bill that would genuinely reform this system.
  Why? Because the Republican leadership is trying to protect a broken 
system that works for them. The Republican leadership wants to keep the 
flow of big money coming from special interests and silence the voices 
of working men and women and their families. The Republican leadership 
wants to kill reform.
  Representative Ray LaHood even admitted last week that the 
Republicans were ``trying to talk it to death.''
  But talk is cheap. Today, I challenge my Republican colleagues to 
act. Prove that you are not in the pockets of the special interests. 
Restore America's faith in its elections. Support genuine campaign 
finance reform and bring a true victory home to the American people. 
Vote for Meehan-Shays.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Dickey). Does any other Member seek 
recognition?
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I wonder what the process is to encourage 
the Chair to ask for a vote on this issue, and then I think we will 
have a rollcall vote tomorrow.
  What is that process?
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Are there any other Members who would like 
to speak on the amendment?
  If not, the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Thomas) to the amendment in the nature of a 
substitute offered by the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).
  The question was taken; and the Chairman pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 442, further 
proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from California 
(Mr. Thomas) to the amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by 
the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) will be postponed.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Am I correct to understand that once the Thomas 
amendment has been considered and now that we have to roll that vote 
that we could not consider another amendment tonight?
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. It is the Chair's understanding that there 
will be a motion to rise.
  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Am I correct that there was an understanding that we 
would cease debate at 10 o'clock tonight or when we completed debate on 
the Thomas amendment? If that is correct, it would appear to me that we 
are slowing down the process of amendments that need to be considered. 
I think we could do another amendment tonight within 30 minutes, as 
tired as everybody is.
  The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. A motion to rise, if made, is preferential.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.
  The motion was agreed to.
  Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. 
Hayworth) having assumed the chair, Mr. Dickey, Chairman pro tempore of 
the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union, reported 
that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 
2183) to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to reform the 
financing of campaigns for elections for Federal office, and for other 
purposes, had come to no resolution thereon.

                          ____________________