[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 83 (Tuesday, June 23, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H5041-H5042]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, in recent months there has been a lot of 
discussion on the House floor dealing with campaign finance reform.
  I have spoken out on this issue, and once again I want to make some 
comments about how I see this problem and what we might do about it. 
Also I want to mention an amendment that I will be bringing up.
  I suspect we will be talking about campaign finance reform for a 
couple more months. I see this somewhat differently than others. Others 
see that all we have to do is regulate the money and we are going to 
solve all our problems. But all governments are prone to be influenced 
by special interests. That is the nature of government.
  So the smaller government that you have, the less influence you have 
and the less effort there is made to influence the government. But when 
you have a big government, there will be a lot of people and a lot of 
groups that will want to influence government, and that is where I see 
the problem.
  Twenty-five years ago in the 1970s, after Watergate, the Congress 
wrote a lot of rules and regulations. Hundreds of candidates have 
filled out forms and have done all kinds of things that have been very 
complicated but have achieved very little. The problem is every bit as 
bad as it was before, and most people admit that.
  I think there is a good reason for that. They were addressing the 
symptoms rather than the cause. And the cause is, of course, that big 
government is involved in every aspect of our lives, our personal 
lives, our economic lives, and also around the world, influencing 
almost every government in the world. So not only is there an incentive 
for business people to come here to influence our government, but there 
are labor groups that come to influence our government. We have 
international groups and other governments coming to influence us. And 
until that is settled, we can rest assured that we will continue to 
have these problems.
  But there is another problem that I want to address, and that is the 
decreased interest in campaigns and elections. Thirty years ago we 
would have 30 some percent of the people would turn out in the primary 
elections. Today it is less than 20 percent. It is a steady decline. 
There is good reason for this because as government gets bigger and as 
money becomes more influential, and money talks, the little people who 
have their desires and their voices unheard and want to be heard, they 
feel very frustrated. So it is understandable and expected that there 
will be lower and lower turnout in our elections. That is exactly what 
is happening.
  Now, why is this the case? Is it just because they are apathetic? I 
do not think so. I think a lot of people make wise choices and say it 
does not make a lot of difference; my vote does not really count 
because so much money is influencing what happens in Washington with 
legislation. And yet we have rules and laws throughout the country that 
make it just about impossible for anybody outside the ordinary two-
party system to be represented.
  Twenty percent of the people do not bother registering because of the 
frustration, 20 percent of the people who do register, register as 
Independents. So that leaves about 60 percent of the vote split between 
Republicans and Democrats, each getting 30 percent. They are a 
minority. The people who are really shortchanged are the majority, that 
40 percent who feel unrepresented and very frustrated about the 
situation.
  How does this come about? It just happens that Republicans and 
Democrats tend to control every legislative body in the country, every 
State legislative body. And, therefore, they write rules and 
regulations and have high fees for people getting on ballots, and you 
do not have any competition. And there is lack of interest, and there 
is a lot of frustration.
  Take, for instance, some of the groups that have tried in the past to 
get on and become known but are frustrated by all these rules. There 
are Independents, Socialists, Greens, Taxpayers Party, Populists, 
Libertarians, Constitutionalists, Reform Party, Natural Party, American 
Party, Liberal Party, Conservative Party, Right to Life, Citizens 
Party, New Alliance Party, Prohibition Party, States Rights Party. All 
these people have been totally frustrated because they have so many 
obstacles put in their way by the requirement of huge numbers of 
signatures on ballots.
  I would like to quote from Richard Winger, who writes a letter called 
the Ballot Access News. He cites one of the worst examples. He says 
Florida now requires 242,000 valid signatures to get a minor party or 
Independent candidate on the ballot of any State-wide office other than 
President. Only one signature is permitted on each petition sheet. He 
goes on. And the payment that is required is $8,250.

[[Page H5042]]

  This is what needs to be changed. I have an amendment to the bill 
that will change this. I hope all my colleagues will pay attention to 
it.

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