[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 143 (Wednesday, October 20, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12927-S12928]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, we have now set aside--until the next 
time!--the McCain-Feingold legislation on campaign finance reform. I 
did not speak during this most recent debate. The third in three years, 
and for certain not the last as Senator Feingold made clear last 
evening on the ``NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.'' I supported the reform 
with only a faint sense of familiarity. Here we are, reforming the 
results of the last reform. A not infrequent task of Congress. But now 
it might be useful to offer a few related observations.
  The first is to state that raising money for political campaigns has 
never been a great burden for this Senator, and for the simple reason 
that I

[[Page S12928]]

hardly do any. One dinner a term, perhaps two. Some receptions. Lots of 
mail. Not surprisingly the results are not exactly spectacular. In 
1994, my last campaign, and which will be my last campaign, the Federal 
Elections Commission records our having raised $6,100,147. This is for 
the State of New York, the third most populous in the nation. But it 
sufficed. For practical purposes, all the money went to television, 
with the incomparable Doug Schoen keeping an eye on the numbers lest 
trouble appear unexpectedly. Our campaign staff never had ten persons, 
which may sound small to some, but I believe was our largest ever. Even 
so, we have done well. In 1988, I received some 4,000,000 votes and won 
by more than 2,000,000 votes, the largest numerical margin of victory 
in any legislative election in history. I say all this simply to note 
that just possibly money isn't everything. But if we think it is, it 
might as well be. And so we must persevere.
  This July, in his celebrated Wall Street Journal column, Paul Gigot 
referred to me as an ``old pol'' and an ``ever loyal Democrat.'' I 
wrote to thank him, for this is pretty close to the truth. If I have 
spent time in universities it was usually seeking sanctuary after a 
failed election, my own or others. I go back before polling, and before 
television. (Although in 1953 I did write a 15-minute television speech 
for the Democratic candidate for Mayor of New York City, Robert F. 
Wagner, Jr. It might have been seen by 10,000 people.) But of course 
polling caught on, as the mathematics got better, and television has 
never stopped. And these, of course, are the technologies that 
seemingly confound us today. But this subject has been with us the 
longest while.
  Congress first placed restrictions on political spending with the 
Naval Appropriations Bill of 1867 which prohibited Navy officers and 
Federal employees from soliciting campaign funds from navy yard 
workers.
  Faced with allegations that corporations had bought influence with 
contributions to his campaign, President Theodore Roosevelt called for 
campaign finance reform in his 1905 and 1906 State of the Union 
addresses. In response, Congress passed the Tillman Act of 1907, 
banning corporate gifts to Federal candidates. And during World War II, 
the War Labor Disputes Act of 1943, known as the Smith-Connally Act, 
temporarily prohibited unions from making contributions in Federal 
elections. In 1947, the Taft-Hartley Act made this wartime measure 
permanent. As my colleagues well know, these bans have been made 
virtually irrelevant with the advent of so-called ``soft money.''
  Requirements for the disclosure of donors originated in the so-called 
Publicity Act of 1910 which required the treasurer of political 
committees to reveal the names of all contributors of $100 or more. 
Congress expanded the disclosure rules with the 1925 Federal Corrupt 
Practices Act, requiring political committees to report total 
contributions and expenditures. The Court upheld this Act in Burroughs 
v. United States, declaring that Congress has the prerogative to ``pass 
appropriate legislation to safeguard (a Presidential) election from 
the improper use of money to influence the result.'' We continue to 
debate how to exercise that prerogative today.

  But may I focus on one particular aspect of campaign funding, which 
is relatively new? Money for television. Ease this by providing free 
television time--those are public airways--and as much about the 
problem goes away as will ever be managed in this vale of toil and sin.
  Max Frankel, the long-time and venerable editor of the New York Times 
and a wise and seasoned observer of American politics, addressed this 
issue in the October 26, 1997 New York Times Magazine:

       The movement to clean up campaign financing is going 
     nowhere for the simple reason that the reformers are aiming 
     at the wrong target. They are laboring to limit the flow of 
     money into politics when they should be looking to limit the 
     candidates' need for money to pay for television time. It is 
     the staggering price of addressing the voters that drives the 
     unseemly money chase.

  To run effectively for major office nowadays one needs to spend 
millions for television commercials that spread your fame, shout your 
slogans, denounce your opponents, and counteract television attacks. A 
campaign costing $10 million for a governorship or seat in the Senate 
is a bargain in many states. The President, even with all the 
advantages of the White House at his command, appears to have spent 
more than $250 million on television ads promoting his reelection in 
1996. $250 million!
  The problem of so-called ``issue advocacy'' is only fueling the 
amount of money going into television ads and further distorting our 
electoral system. On February 10, 1998, Tim Russert delivered the fifth 
annual Marver H. Bernstein Symposium on Governmental Reform at 
Georgetown University. In his address, he asserted that ``television 
ads paid for by the candidates themselves are (not) going to be the 
problem in future election cycles. That distinction will be earned by 
so-called `issue advocacy' advertising by ideological and single issue 
groups.'' He made the point that, unlike candidates, these groups are 
not subject to campaign contribution limits or disclosure requirements.
  In Buckley v. Valeo the Supreme court held that these ads are 
protected speech under the First Amendment. We are told that requiring 
such groups to disclose their list of contributors might be a violation 
of the First Amendment under NAACP v. Alabama. Mr. Russert contends 
that ``unless the Fourth Estate is able to identify these groups and 
ferret out their funding, and explain their agenda, many elections 
could very well be taken hostage by a select band of anonymous donors 
and political hit men.'' There must be a better way.
  Might I suggest that the way to reduce the influence of these 
``select band of anonymous donors and political hit men'' and to reduce 
the ungodly amount of money being used in campaigns is free television 
time for candidates. Frankel writes:

       It would be cheaper by far if Federal and State treasuries 
     paid directly for the television time that candidates need to 
     define themselves to the public--provided they purchased no 
     commercial time of their own. Democracy would be further 
     enhanced if television stations that sold time to special 
     interest groups in election years were required, in return 
     for the use of the public spectrum, to give equal time to 
     opposing views. But so long as expensive television 
     commercials are our society's main campaign weapons, 
     politicians will not abandon the demeaning and often corrupt 
     quest for ever more money from ever more suspect sources.

  The version of the McCain-Feingold bill we have been considering 
restricts so-called ``soft money''--contributions that national, state, 
county, and local party organizations may collect and spend freely 
provided only that the television messages they produce with the funds 
are disguised to appear ``uncoordinated'' with any candidate's 
campaign. This is a good first step. But it is not enough. Even if soft 
money and slimy variants were prohibited, political money would 
reappear in liquid or vaporous form. If we want to make significant 
changes with regard to how we conduct campaigns, we must--to repeat 
Frankel--look beyond limiting the flow of money into politics and 
rather look to limiting the candidates' need for money to pay for 
television time. Frankel concludes his piece on campaign finance reform 
by stating that ``there is no point dreaming of a law that says `you 
may not' so long as the political system daily teaches the participants 
`you must.' Until candidates for office in America are relieved of the 
costly burden of buying television time, the scandals will grow.'' He 
could not be more right.

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