[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 9 (Wednesday, January 24, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S550-S552]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mrs. HUTCHISON:

[[Page S550]]

  S. 175. A bill to establish a national uniform poll closing time and 
uniform treatment of absentee ballots in Presidential general 
elections; to the Committee on Rules and Administration.
  S. 176. A bill to reform the financing of Federal elections, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on Rules and Administration.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, today I rise to introduce legislation 
that will make much needed changes to our Presidential election system.
  If there was one message to come from the thirty-six day ordeal over 
counting the votes in this Presidential election--it was that reforms 
are needed in the manner of national elections.
  My bill would first establish a uniform poll closing time for the 
nation. I believe that 9 p.m. central standard time is the most 
appropriate time we can choose. The polls in California would close at 
seven. The polls in the east would close at ten. A uniform poll closing 
time is preferable to any kind of news blackout over election results. 
We live in a free society--we cannot withhold election results.
  But, in this time of instant communication, we cannot let news 
reporting affect our voting patterns. We all recall the 1980 election, 
when President Carter's early concession demoralized West Coast voters 
who thought their vote no longer counted. In this last election, we 
watched the state of Florida get called, when a significant part of the 
state had not even closed its polls. A uniform poll closing time, in my 
view, is the only way to avoid a repeat of this problem.
  A second difficulty that surfaced during this election cycle is the 
counting of absentee ballots and mail-in ballots. Some states have 
moved to vote by mail. But I don't believe that in a national election, 
we can wait on the outcome of an election through such means. A major 
industrial nation, in the twenty-first century, shouldn't have to wait 
days or weeks to determine who won an election. Literally, the fate of 
the Presidency and the Senate depended on the counting of absentee and 
mail-in ballots days after the election was held. My legislation would 
require that, for Presidential elections, all ballots would have to be 
processed and recorded by election day. States can reserve the right to 
have mail-in voting. But it must be done in a manner that is respectful 
of the nation's right to know who the next President will be.
  Finally, and most importantly, I want to improve the treatment that 
overseas military absentee ballots are granted. We ask a lot of our men 
and women serving overseas. They put their lives on the line to protect 
our democratic values. And I was stunned to see their ballots cast 
aside like rubbish, purely for political opportunism, and secondly, 
because of so called ``technicalities.'' It was an insult to our armed 
forces. Never again should this happen. I will make sure that the 107th 
Congress acts to make sure it never happens again.
  In the past Congress has worked on this problem, but apparently we 
did not go far enough. We created a uniform absentee ballot for our 
military, if they couldn't get a ballot from their home state in a 
timely manner. We directed the Secretary of Defense to serve as the 
primary executive branch official charged with enforcing this Federal 
law.
  My legislation would broaden the Secretary's authority--and give him 
the power to develop, in consultation with the states, a standard, 
uniform method of treating ballots in Federal elections that come from 
our military serving overseas. This way, no soldier or sailor or airman 
serving overseas will have his or her vote disenfranchised because of a 
patchwork of fifty state laws with respect to absentee ballots. They 
protect our democracy. We have to protect their right to participate in 
it.
  Election reform will be an important issue for this Congress. There 
will be many proposals. I know that Senator McConnell, Chairman of the 
Rules Committee, will have a proposal to modernize voting procedures 
and machinery across our nation. I am certain that some of the reforms 
I am offering today will become part of the debate.
  Today, I am also introducing the Campaign Finance and Disclosure Act 
of 2001, legislation that I believe addresses the most significant 
problems in our present system of Federal campaign finance laws.
  The bill will help level the playing field between challengers and 
incumbents and will target those areas of the law that have been 
subject to abuse and excess, without imposing a new, untested system of 
taxpayer funded campaign subsidies and regulations.
  I am today proposing a set of relatively simple and workable reforms 
that will curb the abuses undermining public confidence in the present 
system, that will make congressional races more competitive, and that 
will help return control of federal campaigns and elections to their 
rightful owners--the individual voters in our respective states.
  First, the bill requires that at least 60 percent of a Senate or 
House candidate's campaign funds come from individual residents of his 
or her state or congressional district. This will put the emphasis of 
fund-raising back home where it belongs, and will assist challengers, 
who rely more heavily on individual contributors.
  In addition, the bill will end the powerful incumbent advantage of 
the mass mail franking privilege for Senators during the year in which 
they are seeking re-election.
  Next, the bill increases the individual contribution limit from $1000 
to $3000, per candidate, per election, while addressing the precipitous 
rise in the role of PACs in our existing system.
  PAC contributions to congressional candidates grew from $12.5 million 
in 1974 to almost $200 million in 1996, a constant dollar increase of 
over 400 percent. Moreover, almost 70 percent of that $200 million went 
to incumbents, further serving to tilt the system against challengers. 
While PACs can and should continue to provide a vehicle for groups of 
like minded individuals to leverage their support of particular 
candidates, this should not be allowed to undermine the candidate/voter 
relationship. The bill will help control this growing PAC influence by 
also limiting PAC contributions to $3000, the same limit as individuals 
under my bill.
  To help encourage candidates of average means to run for office 
against their wealthier opponents, the bill limits to $250,000 the 
amount a Senate campaign may reimburse a candidate, including immediate 
family, for loans the candidate makes to the campaign.
  The Campaign Finance and Disclosure Act of 2001 will also prohibit, 
once and for all, several abuses of the law that now plague our system: 
campaign contributions by non-citizens will be banned; the use of 
campaign funds for purposes that are inherently personal in nature will 
be denied; political parties will be prohibited from accepting 
contributions earmarked for specific candidates; and union members will 
be entitled to be made aware of, and to decline to contribute to, the 
rapidly growing political activities of their unions.
  Finally, the bill will encourage, not restrict, the volunteer-staffed 
political party building, ``get-out-the-vote,'' and other candidate 
support activities of state and local political parties that constitute 
the core of grassroots politics in America. These critical activities 
will be given greater latitude under the law by excluding them from the 
definition of campaign contributions.
  I realize that campaign finance reform is a contentious issue. 
However, if we are to restore the American people's confidence in the 
political process and make it more responsive to voters and accessible 
to candidates, we must take a hard look at those rules and attempt to 
fix what is broken. The Campaign Finance Reform and Disclosure Act does 
just that, and in a way that I believe can garner the support of a 
decisive majority of Congress.
  Mr. President, both of these bills address issues that were raised 
during the campaign. I wanted to put these ideas forward today so that 
they can become part of the debate when we consider these issues.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. DORGAN (for himself, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Baucus, and Mr. 
        Durbin):
  S. 171. A bill to repeal certain travel provisions with respect to 
Cuba and certain trade sanctions with respect to Cuba, Iran, Libya, 
North Korea, and Sudan, and for other purposes, to the Committee on 
Foreign Relations.
  Mr. DORGAN. On behalf of myself, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Baucus, and Mr.

[[Page S551]]

Durbin, I introduce a piece of legislation today that deals with the 
repeal of certain travel provisions or restrictions and certain trade 
sanctions with respect to Cuba.
  Last year, in the Senate Appropriations Committee, I offered 
legislation dealing with removing the embargo that exists on the 
shipment of agriculture commodities around the world.
  The fact is, we have some people around the world we don't like. We 
say: We are going to punish you.
  We don't like Saddam Hussein. We say: The way to punish you is, we 
are going to slap an embargo on your country, and in that embargo we 
are going to include food and medicine. We say the same to the leaders 
of Libya, Cuba and North Korea.
  It has been my strong feeling that we ought never have an embargo on 
the shipment of food and medicine to anywhere in the world. With those 
embargoes, we shoot ourselves in the foot. When we don't sell food to 
those countries, other countries will sell food to them. Why on Earth 
would we ever want to use food as a weapon? I thought we put that 
behind us 20 years ago. Yet we continue to do it with respect to 
certain undesirable countries.
  I offered legislation in the appropriations bill last year. It came 
to the floor of the Senate, and we moved through the Senate into 
conference. We had a lot of discussion about it. The fact is, we made 
some progress, essentially lifting sanctions and embargoes on the 
shipment of food and medicine to Iran, Libya, Sudan and North Korea. 
But there is more yet to do. In conference we got stiffed by some 
interests who decided at they wanted to even take a step backward with 
respect to the ban on travel to Cuba. They took the legislation we 
enacted and added to it a further restriction by codifying all the 
restrictions that now exist on travel to Cuba and preventing a 
President from loosening the travel restrictions. They have written 
these restrictions into law, which makes them tighter. That made no 
sense. They also added provisions that ban all American financing, even 
private financing, for agricultural sales to Cuba. That is a step 
backward, not forward.
  Let me read what two Members of the House who represent south Florida 
said when this was passed:

       The prohibition will make it as difficult as is possible to 
     make agricultural sales to Cuba.
       Closing off Clinton's tourism option for Castro is our most 
     important achievement in years. We are extremely pleased.

  I understand why they are pleased. I am not. What was done by this 
Congress and just by a few people was wrong. We ought not make it 
difficult to sell food or move food or medicine to Cuba or anywhere 
else in the world for that matter. It is not in our interest, and it is 
not in the interest of others around the world for us to behave in that 
manner.
  Does anyone think, as I have asked repeatedly, that Fidel Castro or 
Saddam Hussein or others miss a meal because we have decided that we 
will not ship agricultural products or food to Iraq, Cuba? Does anybody 
think they have missed a meal? All these policies do is punish poor 
people and hungry people and sick people. This country is better than 
that. We ought to start acting like it. This Congress ought to provide 
policies that say when 40 years of embargo to Cuba do not work, it is 
time to change the policy.
  I happen to support lifting the embargo completely. But now we are 
just talking about the first piece: allowing the shipment of food and 
medicine to Cuba.
  Then there is the issue of travel to Cuba. How on Earth can one make 
the claim that travel and exchange and movement between the United 
States and Cuba somehow undermines our interests? It does not. In my 
judgment, the more contact, the more travel, the more movement there is 
between the United States and Cuba, the more we will undermine the 
interest of the Communist Government of Cuba. That, after all, ought to 
be our objective.
  Our objective ought to be to find ways to see if we can't create a 
new circumstance by which we persuade the Cuban Government to be open, 
democratic, and give the people of Cuba an opportunity for the freedoms 
they deserve. We have had an embargo for Cuba for 40 years. It has not 
worked.
  There comes a time when you say something that hasn't worked for 40 
years ought to be changed. This is a baby step in making the change 
that is needed. Even at that, we faced significant problems last year.
  There are a number of people in the Senate who have worked on these 
issues for a long while. Senator Roberts, Senator Dodd, former Senator 
Ashcroft, myself, and others have worked on these issues dealing with 
agriculture and travel and other issues for a long while. Senator 
Roberts is on the floor. I know he visited Cuba some months ago. I also 
have visited Cuba. I found it unthinkable, standing in a hospital in an 
intensive care room one day with a little boy who was in a coma, he had 
been in an accident, hit his head, was in a coma. He was in an 
intensive care room. There were no machines. I have been in intensive 
care rooms and have heard the rhythm of machinery pumping life into 
patients. Not in that room because they don't have the equipment. This 
little boy had his mother by his bedside holding his hand. They told me 
at that hospital they were out of 240 different kinds of medicines--240 
different medicines they didn't have. They were out of it.

  I am sitting there thinking, how could it serve any interest, any 
public policy purpose, to believe that our withholding the shipment of 
prescription drugs to Cuba is somehow advancing anybody's interest? It 
is simply unthinkable. The same holds true with food. Our farmers toil 
in the fields of this country and they produce a product that is needed 
around the world. We are told that half of the world goes to bed with 
an ache in their belly because it hurts to be hungry. A quarter of the 
world is on a diet. Then we have farmers here in America struggling to 
find gas to put in a tractor to plow the ground, to plant a seed, to 
raise a crop, only to go to the elevator in the fall and be told the 
crop has no value because there is an oversupply of crops.
  The farmer hears the debate over the embargoes and sanctions we have 
against countries because we don't like their leaders. We won't ship 
food and the farmer get hurt. You talk about a policy that is grounded 
in foolishness--this is it. More than foolishness, it is cruel. It is 
not what represents the best of this country. This country is a world 
leader. This country produces food in prodigious quantity. It is 
something the rest of the world desperately needs. To withhold it 
anywhere in the world is unbecoming of this country.
  On a moral basis, this country has a responsibility to always, always 
decide that the shipment of food and medicine is going to be available 
anywhere in the world and that we are not going to have embargoes that 
include the withholding of medicines anywhere in the world. Dictators 
will always get something to eat and medicines to treat their diseases. 
Our policy punishes the sick, hungry, and poor people. It ought to 
stop.
  The bill I introduce today for myself, Senators Roberts, Baucus, and 
Durbin simply rescinds those provisions of the FY 2001 Agriculture 
Appropriations Act that tightened sanctions on Cuba.
  I know I have been on the floor a lot talking about these issues, but 
I feel strongly about them. We have the opportunity in this Congress to 
undo what we did last year--undo the bad parts. We did make some 
progress last year. Yes, we made some progress, but not enough. I want 
our policy to be unequivocal and plain, that nowhere in this world, 
anywhere, in our relationships in the world, will we use food or 
prescription drugs, or medicine, as a weapon. That would represent the 
best of this country's instincts.
  In my judgment, it will be accomplished when we have the opportunity 
to vote on it. The fact is, there are 70 or 80 votes in the Senate by 
people who believe in that position. We have just a few hard-core folks 
that are still living in the fifties. They drive up here in new cars, 
wear new suits, but they are living in the fifties, serving in the 
Congress in 2001, still pushing policies that don't work. A few people, 
a small cabal of people in this Congress, have prevented us from doing 
what we all know we should do, eliminate these kinds of sanctions and 
embargoes anywhere in the world.
  Mr. President, I am happy to have introduced this today. I hope 
colleagues will carefully consider it.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be 
printed in the Record.

[[Page S552]]

  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                 S. 171

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. REPEAL OF CERTAIN TRADE SANCTIONS AND TRAVEL 
                   PROVISIONS.

       (a) Repeals.--Sections 908 and 910 of the Trade Sanctions 
     Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (as enacted by 
     section 1(a) of Public Law 106-387) are hereby repealed.
       (b) Conforming Amendment.--Section 906(a)(1) of the Trade 
     Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (as 
     enacted by section 1(a) of Public Law 106-387) is amended by 
     striking ``to Cuba or''.

  Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague from North 
Dakota to introduce legislation to remove several trade limiting 
provisions from the FY 2001 Agriculture Appropriations Bill. Although 
the intent may have been otherwise, the overall effect was to tighten 
existing prohibitions on trade with and tourist travel to Cuba.
  Specifically, the purpose of the Dorgan-Roberts bill is to make 
changes to Title 9 of the FY 2001 Agriculture Appropriations Bill, 
repealing sections 908 & 910 and making a small change to section 906.
  Title 9, as you recall, is also known as the Trade Sanctions Reform & 
Export Enhancement Act. It made a number of important strides toward 
ending the misguided policy of using unilateral food and medicine 
sanctions as a foreign policy tool. Title 9, for example, terminates 
current unilateral agricultural and medical sanctions and requires 
congressional approval for any new unilateral sanctions that Presidents 
may consider in the future. That is the good news about last year's 
effort.
  The bad news is that sections 908 effectively cancels U.S. 
agricultural trade with Cuba as it prohibits any U.S.-based private 
financing or the application of any U.S. Government agricultural export 
promotion program. The de facto effect of this provision is to keep the 
Cuban market cut-off from America's farmers. This is unacceptable to 
me.
  Also, section 906 permits the issuance of only one-year licenses for 
contracts to sell agricultural commodities and medicine to Cuba but 
places no such restriction on Syria and North Korea. What's the policy? 
What kind of confused message is this? We are either going to permit 
the sale of food and medicine to all nations despite the presence of 
some on the State Department terrorist list or we are not going to 
encourage the sale of food and medicine to all Nations. Let us be 
consistent in these matters.
  Finally, we seek to rescind section 910 which codified prohibitions 
against tourist travel or tourist visits to Cuba. This travel ban 
stifles the most powerful influence on Cuban society: American culture 
and perspective, both economic and political.
  When Americans travel, they transmit our nation's ideas and values. 
That is one reason why travel was permitted to the Soviet Union and is 
permitted to the People's Republic of China. A tourist travel ban is 
simply counterproductive.
  Trade with Cuba is a very sensitive issue with reasonable, well-
intentioned people on both sides. But it is an issue which must be 
addressed as globalization and the aggressive posture of America's 
trade competitors increases. We can no longer sacrifice the American 
farmer on the altar of the cold war paradigm.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I am pleased to be an original co-sponsor 
of Senator Dorgan's bill that repeals the restrictions on food and 
medicine exports to Cuba and removes the legal stranglehold that has 
been put on liberalizing travel to Cuba.
  In July of last year, I led a Senate delegation to Havana. It was a 
brief trip, but we had the opportunity to meet with a wide range of 
people and to assess the situation first-hand. We met with Fidel 
Castro. We spent three hours with a group of heroic dissidents who 
spent years in prison, yet have chosen to remain in Cuba and continue 
their dissent. We also met with foreign ambassadors, cabinet ministers, 
and the leader of Cuba's largest independent NGO.
  I left Cuba more convinced than ever that we must end our outdated 
Cuba policy. Last year, I introduced legislation to end the embargo and 
begin the process of normalization of our relations with Cuba. I will 
reintroduce similar legislation this year.
  The trade embargo of Cuba is a unilateral sanctions policy. Not even 
our closest allies support it. I have long opposed unilateral economic 
sanctions, unless our national security is at stake, and the Defense 
Department has concluded that Cuba represents no security threat to our 
nation.
  Unilateral sanctions don't work. They don't change the behavior of 
the targeted country. But they do hurt our farmers and business people 
by preventing them from exporting, and then allowing our Japanese, 
European, and Canadian competitors happily to rush in to fill the gap.
  Ironically, the U.S. embargo actually helps Castro. His economy is in 
shambles. The people's rights are repressed. These are the direct 
results of Castro's totally misguided economic, political, and social 
policies. Yet Fidel Castro is able to use the embargo as the scapegoat 
for Cuba's misery. Absurd, but true.
  We should lift the embargo. We should engage Cuba economically. The 
bill we are introducing today is a good first step. We tried to remove 
restrictions on food and medicine exports last year, but a small 
minority in the Congress prevented the will of the majority. And they 
compounded the damage by codifying restrictions on travel, that is, 
removing Presidential discretion to allow increased travel and promote 
people-to-people contact between Americans and Cuban citizens.
  Removing the food and medicine restrictions won't lead to a huge 
surge of American products into Cuba. But, today, Cuba's imports come 
primarily from Europe and Asia. With this liberalization, U.S. products 
will replace some of those sales. Our agriculture producers will have 
the advantage of lower transportation costs and easier logistics. It 
will be a start.
  Allowing for the expansion of travel will increase the exposure of 
the Cuban people to the United States. It will result in more travel by 
tourists, business people, students, artists, and scholars. It will 
bring us into closer contact with those who will be part of the 
leadership in post-Castro Cuba. It will spur more business, helping, 
even if only a little, the development of the private sector. Moreover, 
we need to restore the inherent right of Americans to travel anywhere.
  The world has changed since the United States initiated this embargo 
forty years ago. I am not suggesting that we embrace Fidel Castro. But 
if we wait until he is completely gone from the scene before we start 
to develop normal relations with leaders and people in Cuba, the 
transition will be much harder on the Cuban people. Events in Cuba 
could easily escalate out of control and become a real danger to the 
United States.
  I need to stress that a majority of members of Congress, in both the 
Senate and the House, supported these initial steps to end the embargo. 
By overwhelming votes in both Houses last year, we approved an end to 
unilateral sanctions on food and medicine exports to Cuba. But the will 
of the majority was stopped by a few members of Congress. This 
legislation will correct that.
  I hope to see the day when American policy toward Cuba is no longer 
controlled by a small coterie of leaders in the Congress along with a 
few private groups, and, instead, our policy will serve the national 
interest. Today's bill is a good first step.

                          ____________________