[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 146 (Wednesday, October 14, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12583-S12586]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, we are now in the closing days of this 
congressional session. A lot is happening in these final hours. With 
the clock ticking we almost always knuckle down and get things done. 
But it has become clear that one thing that this Congress will not do 
before it adjourns is pass meaningful campaign finance reform.
  Today I want to serve notice that this fight is not over. If the 
people of Wisconsin in their wisdom send me back to this chamber next 
year, the Senate will hear about campaign finance reform again and vote 
on campaign finance reform again because our democracy has been made 
sick by the corrupting influence of big money, and the future of our 
country is at stake.
  And Mr. President, this fight will continue regardless of what I say. 
Because the fight for campaign finance reform is bigger than any one 
Senator or any one political party. It is as big as the idea of 
representative democracy itself, and just as resilient. This is a fight 
for the soul and the survival of our American democracy. This democracy 
cannot survive without the confidence of the people in the legislative 
and the electoral process. The prevalence--no--the dominance--of money 
in our system of elections and our legislature will in the end cause 
them to crumble. If we don't take steps to clean up this system it 
ultimately will consume us along with our finest American ideals.
  Mr. President, there has been alot of discussion on this floor in 
recent weeks about morality. Indeed, we are now engaged in a process, 
both constitutional and political, that may ultimately lead to an 
impeachment trial in this historic chamber. Questions of morality are 
at the center of that process, which has consumed much of the public's 
and the press's attention over the past several months.

[[Page S12584]]

  I submit that questions of morality should be central in this body's 
treatment of the campaign finance issue. Along with millions of other 
Americans, religious leaders from across a wide spectrum of 
denominations have urged us to enact reform. They see how this corrupt 
system is undermining the moral authority of our government. How can we 
pretend to be following the dictates of conscience, and not politics, 
as we prepare to judge the President, while simultaneously ignoring 
this moral crisis in the process by which the people elect their 
representatives?
  There has also been a lot of discussion about high crimes and 
misdemeanors.
  I haven't decided yet whether the President's misbehavior meets that 
high standard. Many of the American people seem skeptical.
  But they do think it's a crime that the tobacco companies can use 
money to block a bill to curtail teen smoking. They do think it's a 
crime that insurance companies can use money to block desperately 
needed health care reform. They do think it's a crime that 
telecommunication companies use money and can force a bill through 
Congress that's supposed to increase competition and decrease prices, 
but leads to cable rates that keep on rising and rising. And they do 
think it's a crime that corporations and unions are able to give 
unlimited soft money contributions to the political parties to advance 
their narrow special interests.
  They think it's a crime. And you know what, it should be a crime. But 
here in Washington it is business as usual--until we manage to pass 
meaningful campaign finance reform.
  Mr. President, it was very disappointing to me that 48 of our 
colleagues voted against the McCain-Feingold bill a few weeks ago, 
killing reform for this year. It was especially disappointing that we 
were unable to break through the filibuster here, after the enormous 
accomplishment of our colleagues in the other body who passed reform by 
a lopsided 252-179 margin.
  It was especially disappointing that all the votes to kill our bill 
in the Senate came from one party. Facing the determined opposition of 
the leadership, reformers in the House succeeded not only in bringing 
campaign finance reform to the floor but in passing it with a strong 
bipartisan majority. When we failed to invoke cloture on the McCain-
Feingold bill last month, we missed a golden opportunity to together do 
something positive for the American people on a bipartisan basis.
  I emphasized the strong bipartisan vote in the House, Mr. President, 
because this effort has been a bipartisan effort all along. The senior 
Senator from Arizona, Senator McCain, and the Senior Senator from 
Tennessee and Chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator 
Thompson, have been in the forefront of this effort from the beginning. 
Five other distinguished Republican Senators voted for the McCain-
Feingold bill. In the House, fully \1/4\ of the Republican Members 
voted for the bill. Senator McCain and I recognized a long time ago 
that a partisan campaign finance bill will never become law. A serious 
effort to actually do something about this problem, Mr. President, has 
to be bipartisan.
  It is significant, Mr. President, that many of the leaders in this 
body on campaign finance reform were part of the Governmental Affairs 
Committee's year long investigation of campaign finance abuses in the 
1996 campaign. Not only the Chairman, Senator Thompson, but two other 
highly respected Republican members of the committee, Senator Collins 
and Senator Specter, supported the McCain-Feingold bill. And Democratic 
members such as the Senator Glenn, Senator Levin, and Senator Durbin, 
have also been very active and outspoken in pushing for reform. These 
Senators saw--up close and personal--how the excesses of the 1996 
campaign stem from problems with the law, particularly the enormous 
loophole known as soft money.
  I want to thank all of them for their hard work on the investigation 
and on this legislation, and promise them that their work shall not 
have been in vain. It is unfortunate that the investigation did not 
lead to legislative correction in this Congress, but the factual record 
they amassed remains the most powerful and detailed argument for 
reform, and it will undoubtedly shape our efforts in the future.
  There are plenty of scandals in this scandal-obsessed town--but when 
it comes to campaign finance, the greatest scandal of all is not about 
laws that were broken. The greatest campaign finance scandal is about 
the outrageous practices and compromising contributions that are 
perfectly legal. Yes, those who broke the current campaign finance laws 
should be punished, but that will hardly begin to solve the problems in 
this corrupt campaign finance system.
  We've heard the horror stories again and again. The parties have 
special clubs for big givers and offer exclusive meetings and weekend 
retreats with officeholders to the donors. And it's totally legal.
  The tobacco companies have funneled nearly $17 million in soft money 
to the national political parties in the last decade, $4.4 million in 
1997 alone when the whole issue of congressional action on the tobacco 
settlement was very much alive--and it's totally legal.
  In 1996, the gambling industry gave nearly $4 million in soft money 
to the two major political parties at the same time that Congress was 
creating a new national commission on gambling, but with limited 
subpoena powers--and it's totally legal.
  The National Republican Congressional Committee is engaged in a $37 
million dollar effort called Operation Breakout, funded largely by soft 
money, to attack Democratic candidates with advertisements that aren't 
considered election ads and don't even have to be reported to the FEC 
because they don't use certain ``magic words'' like Vote For or Vote 
Against--and it's totally legal.
  And we're even starting to extort money from our own colleagues. It 
was recently reported that Republican leaders actually threatened to 
deprive their own Members of appropriations subcommittee chairmanships 
if they didn't cough up up to $100,000 for the Operation Breakout plan. 
And it's totally legal.
  There are some in this body, of course, despite what the Thompson 
investigation uncovered and what news stories show on almost a daily 
basis, who don't see or won't acknowledge the corrupting influence of 
these unlimited soft money contributions, which are now totally legal. 
In our most recent debate, the junior Senator from Utah gave us a 
history lesson intended to convince us that we should not fear enormous 
campaign contributions. He recounted the frequently told story of how 
Sen. Eugene McCarthy's Presidential campaign in 1968 was jump-started 
by some very large contributions by some very wealthy individuals.
  He also noted that Steve Forbes was apparently prepared to make 
similarly enormous contributions to support Jack Kemp in a run for the 
Presidency in 1996, but was prohibited from doing so by the federal 
election laws and so decided to run his own campaign, a decision from 
which we might infer that the money is more important than the 
candidate. And he recounted as well the story of Mr. Arthur Hyatt, a 
wealthy businessman who gave large soft money contributions to the 
Democratic Party in 1996, but decided after that election not to give 
soft money to the parties anymore, and instead to fund an advocacy 
group that is promoting public financing of elections.
  The point of these examples was supposed to be that wealthy donors 
are motivated by ideology and the desire to benefit the public as they 
see it rather than by the desire to gain access and influence with 
policy makers through their contributions. And I suppose that is 
sometimes the case. Of course, there is also the well known story of 
Roger Tamraz, who testified under oath to our Governmental Affairs 
Committee that he never even votes, and the only reason that he gave 
soft money to the DNC was to gain access to officials he thought could 
help him with his business. I mean no disrespect to the Senator from 
Utah and the civic-minded millionaires he cites, but Mr. Tamraz, I 
suspect, is more typical in his motives, if not his methods, of big 
contributors.
  I'm not cynical, Mr. President. There is a reason that I hold that 
suspicion. And the reason is that the vast majority of soft money 
contributions to our political parties are coming from corporate 
interests. And it simply cannot

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be argued that these interests are acting out of public spiritedness or 
ideological conviction. Corporations do not have an ideology, they have 
business interests. They have a bottom line to defend, and they have 
learned over the years that making contributions to the major political 
parties in this country is a very good investment in their bottom line. 
Campaign money buys access, and access pays off at the bottom line.
  Corporate interests are special interests. Special interests have 
self-interested motives. They are concerned with profits, not what is 
best for other citizens or consumers or the country as a whole. They 
like to cast their arguments in terms of the public interest, and they 
certainly will argue that if the Congress follows their advice on 
legislation the public will be better off, but in the end it is their 
own businesses that they care about, not the public good. Indeed, the 
boards of directors and management of corporations have a legal duty to 
act in the best interests of their shareholders, not the public at 
large.
  And I have no problem with that, and no illusions about it either. 
It's OK with me that the corporate special interests are looking out 
for number one in the public debate, but I object when their deep 
pockets give them deep influence that ordinary Americans don't have.
  Take the tobacco companies. They oppose increasing the taxes paid by 
consumers of their products, they promote putting caps on the damages 
that smokers and their families can be awarded in personal injury or 
wrongful death actions, but they oppose ending government subsidies for 
tobacco farmers. In each case, they say they are supporting the public 
interest, but in the end they are protecting their own bottom line. And 
they have invested heavily in this Congress, and in our political 
parties, millions upon millions of dollars to protect their bottom 
line.
  These are the folks who raised their right hands and swore that 
tobacco was not addictive. These are the companies that concealed 
crucial studies on the dangers of their product for years. These are 
the people who spent millions on a misleading advertising campaign to 
kill the most important public health initiative that the Congress 
considered this year because it threatened their economic health. I'm 
not willing to rely on them to look out for the public interest, 
particularly when the voices of opposing views can hardly be heard 
because they don't have a lot of money.
  Most soft money donors are using their contributions like Roger 
Tamraz and the tobacco companies do. That is borne out by a recent 
study by Common Cause of the major soft money donors so far in this 
election cycle. The political parties have already raised over $116 
million in soft money in this cycle, the most ever in a non-
presidential cycle and more than twice the amount given in a similar 18 
month period in the 1993-94 cycle.
  As is always the case, corporations with business before the 
Congress, not disinterested, public-spirited millionaires, and 
certainly not ordinary citizens, are leading the way in soft money 
giving in this cycle. Securities and investment companies and their 
executives have given $8.5 million, the insurance industry has given 
$7.3 million, the telecommunications industry $6.1 million, the real 
estate industry $5.9 million, the pharmaceutical industry $4 million, 
and the tobacco industry $3.9 million. All of these amounts are at 
least double and in some cases triple the amount given in 1993-94.
  And one very interesting set of contributors shows that access, not 
ideology, is the main reason for soft money donations. Fifty-seven 
donors in the first 18 months of this cycle gave more than $75,000 to 
both parties. 15 companies, including Philip Morris, AT&T, Walt Disney 
Co., MCI, Bell South Corporation, Atlantic Richfield and Archer Daniels 
Midland gave more than $150,000 to both parties.
  Now I suppose there might be some in those companies, or even in this 
body, who will argue that all of these ``double-givers'' just really 
want to help the political process. That they are motivated not by 
their bottom line but by a deep desire to assist the parties in serving 
the public. But if that is the case, why is that in every Congress 
since I have been here the industries most seriously affected by our 
work pony up to give huge contributions to us and to the political 
parties?
  In 1993-94 it was the health care debate. Hospitals, insurance 
companies, drug companies, and doctors all opened their wallets in an 
unprecedented way. Then in 1995 and 1996, the Telecommunications Act 
was under consideration and lo and behold the local and long distance 
companies and the cable companies stepped up their giving. Now in this 
Congress, we've been working on bankruptcy reform and financial 
services modernization, and the biggest givers of all in this cycle 
according to Common Cause's research report are securities and 
investment companies, insurance companies, and banks and lenders, eager 
to have their business interests protected or expanded. What's going on 
here? I submit that it's not a spontaneous burst of civic virtue. And 
if we don't finish work on these bills this year, you can bet that the 
money will be there for us in the Congress as well--it has been 
suggested that sometimes the very members of Congress who most want a 
big bill to pass will slow its progress to keep the checks coming in 
and the money flowing that much longer.
  Mr. President, not surprisingly, there's also a powerful new player 
in the soft money game in this Congress--the computer and electronics 
industry. According to Common Cause, these companies have given the 
parties nearly $2.7 million so far, more than twice as much as they 
gave four years ago. And why is that, Mr. President? Could it have 
anything to do with the ongoing antitrust investigations and the 
possibility of congressional action in connection with those 
investigations? Or is it that the industry suddenly became more public 
spirited than it was in the past?
  Mr. President, the American people are not gullible or naive. They 
know that these companies contribute these enormous sums to the parties 
because their bottom line is affected by what the Congress does and 
they want to make sure the Congress will listen to them when they want 
to make their case. And they know that the big contributors get 
results.
  And frankly, Mr. President, it's a two way street. The parties are 
hitting up these donors because they know that most companies, unlike 
Monsanto and General Motors who announced early in 1997 that they would 
no longer make soft money donations--most companies don't have the 
courage to say no. Most companies are worried that if they don't ante 
up, their lobbyists won't get in the door. Our current campaign finance 
laws encourage old fashioned shakedowns, as long as they are done 
discreetly.
  Faced with this kind of evidence, it is beyond me how any Senator 
could support this soft money system. We simply must pass comprehensive 
reform, including a ban on soft money at the beginning of the next 
Congress, and we must make that ban effective immediately to prevent 
the presidential election in the Year 2000 from being contaminated with 
this corrosive and corruptive force. The consequences of failing to 
make these reforms will be devastating to the confidence of average 
citizens in the fairness and impartiality of the legislative process 
and the actions of a future Chief Executive.
  Let me be clear Mr. President, I'm not suggesting that any individual 
Member of Congress is corrupt. I don't know that any Member of this 
body has ever traded a vote for a contribution. But while Members are 
not corrupt, the system is riddled with corruption. It is only human to 
help those who have helped you get elected or reelected, to agree to 
the meeting, to take the phone call, to allow the opportunity to be 
persuaded by those who have given money. It is true of the parties, and 
it is true of the Members, even those who seek always to cast their 
votes on the merits. The result is that people who don't have money 
don't get heard.
  So we don't need to point fingers at one another, we just have to 
rise above politics and do the right thing by the American people. We 
must clean up our own house, Mr. President. We cannot continue to 
ignore the corruption in our midst, the cancer that is eating the heart 
out of the great American compact of trust and faith between the people 
and their elected representatives.
  We know that unlimited soft money contributions make a mockery of our 
election laws and threatens the fairness of the legislative process. We

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know that phony issue ads paid for with unlimited corporate and union 
funds undermine the ability of citizens to understand who is 
bankrolling the candidates and why. We can find bipartisan solutions to 
these problems that protect legitimate First Amendment rights if we are 
willing to put partisan political advantage aside and sit down and work 
it out.
  Senator McCain and I are ready--we have been ready ever since we 
introduced our bill--to make changes to our bill that will bring new 
supporters on board and get us past the 60 vote threshold that the 
Senate rules have placed in our way, so long as we stay true to the 
goal of a cleaner, fairer, system in which money will no longer 
dominate.
  I look forward to continuing this work next year Mr. President. And I 
am confident that we will succeed. Again, I want to thank Senator 
McCain and all the Republicans who joined our bill this year. And of 
course, Senator Daschle and all the Democratic Senators who have so 
steadfastly supported bipartisan reform in this Congress.
  Mr. President, most important legislative accomplishments take more 
than one Congress to enact. Rome was not built in a day, and campaign 
finance reform obviously could not be enacted in a year. But I believe 
that early in the next Congress there will be a real chance to deal 
with the campaign finance issue in a bipartisan fashion to make the 
election in the Year 2000 cleaner and fairer than the one we just had 
or the one we are about to have. The American people deserve that as we 
enter a new century, and here is a promise: I will never, ever, give up 
this fight until we give it to them.

                          ____________________