[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 51 (Wednesday, April 14, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H1977]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    TIME FOR MEANINGFUL AND TIMELY DEBATE ON CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  (Mr. DAVIS of Florida asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DAVIS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, during the last Congress the 
Republican leadership attempted to block the passage of meaningful 
campaign finance reform. But the freshman class of 1996, Democrats and 
Republicans, worked together on a bipartisan basis with the Shays-
Meehan bill to force the issue. We ultimately succeeded in bringing an 
open debate on this issue to the Floor of the House.
  We thought we had demonstrated the importance to the American people 
of taking up campaign finance reform, but once again the Republican 
leadership does not fully appreciate the magnitude of this issue.
  I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the Shays-Meehan bill. We 
must ban soft money and find a way to regulate sham issue ads. Soft 
money contributions are exploding. The amount of money contributed to 
both political parties has grown at an enormous and unacceptable rate. 
In 1992 soft money accounted for $86 million. By 1996 it had increased 
to $260 million. In 1998, a nonpresidential election year, it increased 
to $193 million, twice the increase the previous year.
  We need to address this cancer. We need to sign the discharge 
petition, and have meaningful and timely debate on campaign finance 
reform.

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