[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 41 (Monday, March 26, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2853-S2879]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the hour of 2 p.m. 
having arrived, the Committee on the Judiciary is discharged from 
further consideration of S.J. Res. 4, which the clerk will report.
  The senior assistant bill clerk read as follows:

       A joint resolution (S.J. Res. 4) proposing an amendment to 
     the Constitution of the United States relating to 
     contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 4 
hours of debate equally divided between the Senator from South 
Carolina, Mr. Hollings, and the Senator from Utah, Mr. Hatch.
  The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent S.J. Res. 4 be 
printed in the Record at this particular point.
  There being no objection, the resolution was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                               S.J. Res 4

       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of 
     each House concurring therein), That the following article is 
     proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United 
     States, to be valid only if ratified by the legislatures of 
     three-fourths of the several States within 7 years after the 
     date of final passage of this joint resolution:

                              ``Article --

       ``Section 1. Congress shall have power to set reasonable 
     limits on the amount of contributions that may be accepted 
     by, and the amount of expenditures that may be made by, in 
     support of, or in opposition to, a candidate for nomination 
     for election to, or for election to, Federal office.
       ``Section 2. A State shall have power to set reasonable 
     limits on the amount of contributions that may be accepted 
     by, and the amount of expenditures that may be made by, in 
     support of, or in opposition to, a candidate for nomination 
     for election to, or for election to, State or local office.
       ``Section 3. Congress shall have power to implement and 
     enforce this article by appropriate legislation.''.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, as I was saying, we know about money. In 
fact, I had the small business appropriations subcommittee and I do not 
know 100 better small businessmen than the 100 Senators. You have to 
collect millions just in $1,000 increments. You wouldn't incorporate at 
$1,000-a-share of stock--you wouldn't get anywhere. You would have to 
work much longer than this, of course. But we do it.
  Back in 1966, Senator Mansfield said we would start voting at 9 
o'clock on Monday morning. I will never forget it. Then votes would 
ensue, and debates would ensue, and we would work until generally 
around 6 o'clock on Friday. It was a full workweek.
  I see my colleague from Kentucky is back down on the floor I want to 
talk about corruption because that is the sensitivity he has, that 
there is nothing corrupted--ha-ha.
  Monday is gone. And Fridays are gone. And Tuesday mornings are gone. 
And Wednesday evenings you have a window, and Thursday evening you have 
a window, and Wednesday at lunch you have a window, and Thursday at 
lunch you have a window--all for at least 20 to 25 percent of your time 
to collect money. Lunches, meetings with different groups downtown--I 
am part of it. I know. I struggle. I am from a Republican State, so I 
had to travel all around raising money during my last campaign. I am 
confident that people are ready and willing to vote for me. I have 
talked to them. But the contributions, incidentally, are listed in the 
newspaper and some people don't want to see their contributions appear, 
because when they go to the club on Saturday night, someone asks them, 
``Why did you give to that Democrat?''
  I mean, heavens above.
  So I travel the country, up to Minnesota, everywhere and anywhere I 
can, to collect money. That takes my time on weekends, weekdays, any 
nights that I can. So I am part of the corruption I am trying to cure.
  Mind you me, they do not have any idea of stopping this corruption. 
They thoroughly enjoy it because they know the one way to really play 
the campaign finance game for keeps and not for play, not for fun, is 
to pass a constitutional amendment.
  The constitutional amendment which was just printed in the Record 
does not endorse, it does not support, it does not oppose any bill or 
any initiative. It merely gives authority to the U.S. Congress to limit 
or regulate expenditures and contributions in Federal elections. And 
the state and municipal officials, as well as the state governors, have 
asked for a similar provision. So we have that provision in there for 
State elections as well.
  We all know, out in the hinterland, beyond the beltway, what a 
corruptive influence this has been. It takes all the time in the world 
to collect that $3,000 a day, every day, including Saturday and Sunday. 
We have gotten to the point that we have to collect more than a church 
on Sunday. It is a pitiful situation. But they know this is 
unconstitutional. It is unconstitutional, McCain-Feingold.
  It might be appropriate at this point to say the unanimous consent 
agreement was supposedly at the termination or the disposition of 
McCain-Feingold, because I did not want to interfere with the 
initiative of the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Wisconsin 
in McCain-Feingold. I voted for it, I guess, about five times. I will 
vote for it again because it may be constitutional--you can't tell with 
this Supreme Court. They found that the States always regulate their 
own elections, except when it came to Florida and the Presidency. And 
the very crowd in the minority, always talking about the States having 
control, became the majority and took over the election. Given this 
reversal of opinion, you never can tell if the Court would change their 
opinion about Buckley v. Valeo. I will vote for the severability also.

  I hope part of it is sustained by the Court. But we know good and 
well that they enjoy the wonderful charade and farce that has been 
going on in the Senate last week and this week, and particularly in the 
media. They don't have any idea of exposing this. If you can find in a 
newspaper that a constitutional amendment is to come up on Monday and 
be debated all day Monday, I will give the good government award to 
that particular newspaper. It is not even printed, they couldn't care 
less, because they know this thing should continue on, up, up, and 
away, millions upon millions, in order to hold a job, get elected.
  So, as to its unconstitutionality, let me refer, first, to my friend, 
the Senator from Kentucky. I do not like to mention him when he is not 
present on the floor, but I will again, when he comes to the floor. 
S.J. Res. 166, in 1987, by Senator McConnell of Kentucky, of a 
constitutional amendment. He says:

       The Congress may enact laws regulating the amounts of 
     expenditures a candidate may make from personal funds or the 
     personal funds of the candidate's immediate family, or may 
     incur with personal loans, and Congress may enact laws 
     regulating the amounts of independent expenditures by any 
     person other than by a political committee of a political 
     party, which can be made to expressly advocate the election 
     or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for Federal 
     office.

  The Senator from Kentucky and I appeared, and we testified before the 
Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Judiciary Committee in the 
Senate back at that time. And I quote Senator McConnell:

       I would not have any problem with amending the Constitution 
     with regard to the millionaire's problem.
  (Mr. AKAKA assumed the chair.)
  The reason I emphasize that is because every time I have mentioned 
this since that time, I had Senator McConnell worried about buying the 
office. But he found out that is the best and easiest way for that 
crowd to do it. He has sort of left me. He pontificates about the idea 
and how it is just horrible having a constitutional amendment to amend 
freedom of speech.
  Let me see exactly what he said at the particular time just by way of 
emphasis. He said on June 19, 1987, at page

[[Page S2854]]

of the Congressional Record, U.S. Senate:

       I believe that this resolution, unlike most constitutional 
     amendments, would zip through this body and zip through the 
     State legislatures.

  He didn't complain at that time about the time it took. But he says:

       These are constitutional problems demanding constitutional 
     answers. This Congress should not hesitate, nor do I believe 
     it would hesitate, to directly address these imbalances of 
     the campaign finance laws. I offer this constitutional 
     amendment in the sincere hope that the Senate will begin to 
     turn its attention to the real abuses in campaign finances, 
     millionaire loopholes, independent expenditures, political 
     action committee contributions, and soft money, and develop 
     simple, straightforward solutions rather than strangle the 
     election process with overall spending limits and a larger 
     political bureaucracy.

  The distinguished leader in opposition to McCain-Feingold, I used to 
stand with him because he was against soft money. He was against buying 
the office. But there you are.
  Of course, he reiterated on the floor the other day that we had 
reached the nub of the problem. He recognizes it still as a 
constitutional question.
  We go right to the long, hard task in March of trying to bring people 
to their senses once Buckley v. Valeo amended the first amendment. 
There isn't any question. They equated money with speech when Justice 
Stevens in the Nixon case said money is property. It was Kennedy who 
said that by the bifurcation and separating the contributions from the 
actual expenditures we had developed a new form of speech. Having money 
as speech is out of the whole cloth.
  I don't go out and ask one dollar for one vote. It is one man-one 
vote; or one person-one vote. But under Buckley v. Valeo, it is one 
dollar-one vote.
  By limiting the amount given but not the amount expended, they have 
taken away the freedom of speech of the Presiding Officer, and this 
particular Senator, because we don't have those millions to spend on 
elections such as we see being done this day and age. No questions are 
asked. The trend is more, more, and more.
  There was an article in the newspaper last week on how the Democratic 
Party was looking for millionaire candidates so we don't have to raise 
the money. If we can find a bunch of millionaire candidates, it would 
be wonderful. We would be in the majority. But that is very enticing 
but very corruptive for the simple reason that Buckley v. Valeo took 
away our freedom of speech.
  This constitutional amendment will reenact the freedom of speech for 
all Americans. What will happen is, of course, you can pass anything 
you want, I emphasize once more. This is not in support of McCain-
Feingold, or in opposition to McCain-Feingold, or in support or 
opposition to any particular initiative that the Senate may take or the 
Congress may take.
  But it frees us up--``Free at last,'' so to speak--in order to enact 
what we desire to enact with respect to campaign financing.
  I refer to the article ``Democracy or Plutocracy? The Case for a 
Constitutional Amendment to Overturn Buckley v. Valeo,'' by Jonathan 
Bingham.
  Mr. President, former Congressman Bingham wrote about it with 
distinction. But there is a more recent article from the James Madison 
Center for Free Speech, and an analysis of McCain-Feingold by James 
Bopp, general counsel for the James Madison Center for Free Speech. It 
can be found at: www.jamesmadisoncenter.org.
 Mr. President, an article entitled ``Court Challenge Likely if 
McCain-Feingold Bill Passes'' from the Washington Post of March 19 of 
this year by Charles Lane also points out the unconstitutionality of 
McCain-Feingold.
  I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

         Court Challenge Likely if McCain-Feingold Bill Passes


   Foes Cite Free-Speech Issues as Debate On Campaign Finance Reform 
                                 Begins

                           (By Charles Lane)

       The debate over campaign finance reform that begins today 
     in the Senate is just the start of a long journey that likely 
     will end in the courtroom.
       As even supporters of the bill sponsored by Sens. John 
     McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) concede, the 
     measure poses fundamental free-speech questions and faces an 
     inevitable court challenge by opponents if it becomes law. 
     The questions are serious enough that they will probably have 
     to be resolved by the Supreme Court.
       ``Everyone recognizes that there are constitutional issues 
     in McCain-Feingold, and everyone assumes it will end up at 
     the Supreme Court if it passes and is signed,'' said Lawrence 
     Noble, a former general counsel of the Federal Election 
     Commission who is executive director of the pro-reform Center 
     for Responsive Politics.
       The most vulnerable provision in the McCain-Feingold 
     legislation is a section that bars unions and corporations 
     from buying ``issue advertising'' on television and radio 
     that mentions federal candidates during a specified period 
     before elections. The same section also would subject other 
     interest groups that buy ads to new funding disclosure rules.
       McCain-Feingold's supporters say that under the law, the 
     ads are a sham--that they are not intended merely to inform 
     citizens about issues but rather to influence the outcome of 
     elections. The provision in the reform law, they say, is 
     necessary to close a loophole through which vast de facto 
     campaign contributions pass unregulated each election year.
       But the loophole exists largely because the Supreme Court 
     has said issue ads are a form of political expression that 
     must be left untouched by federal regulation. Opponents of 
     the bill say that means the issue-ad provision would be 
     overturned in the courts.
       ``It has no chance of being upheld,'' said James Bopp, 
     general counsel of the James Madison Center for Free Speech, 
     who has successfully challenged similar state issue-ad laws 
     in lower courts.
       Supporters of the McCain-Feingold bill say the provision 
     was carefully written to take into account the court's key 
     precedent in campaign finance matters, the 1976 case Buckley 
     v. Valeo.
       The court ruled in that case that the Constitution permits 
     the government to regulate the flow of money in politics to 
     prevent actual or apparent corruption. But such regulations 
     must be subjected to ``strict scrutiny'' by the court to 
     ensure that they do not unduly impede the free expression of 
     the political ideas that money pays for.
       Applying that balancing test to a 1974 campaign reform law, 
     the court upheld limits on contributions as well as 
     disclosure requirements. But it struck down limitations on 
     political communications ``relative'' to federal elections. 
     The court concluded that part of the statute was so vague it 
     could stifle too much political speech.
       Since Buckley, only limits on ``express advocacy''--
     political communications that specifically tell voters to 
     cast their ballots for or against a candidate--have been 
     upheld. So parties, unions, corporations and interest groups 
     have been able to buy issue ads freely, as long as they don't 
     urge a vote for a particular candidate.
       But McCain-Feingold's issue-ad provision is based on the 
     view that the court would accept an alternative to the 
     ``express advocacy'' standard as long as it isn't as vague as 
     the one the justices struck down in the Buckley case.
       The bill seeks to provide such an alternative by creating a 
     new category, ``electioneering communications,'' defined as 
     broadcast ads that refer to clearly identified candidates and 
     appear within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general 
     election.
       Having redefined issue ads in a way that captures their 
     true nature as campaign-related communications, McCain-
     Feingold backers say, Congress could subject those who pay 
     for the ads to spending and disclosure regulations without 
     running afoul of Buckley.
       Under the bill, unions and corporations would be barred 
     from spending their own funds on such ads. Interest groups 
     would be allowed to air them but would have to use individual 
     contributions to pay for them and disclose where the money 
     came from.
       ``There will be questions about issue ads,'' McCain said in 
     an interview, ``but I also believe . . . Supreme Court 
     justices . . . do read newspapers and watch TV. And it would 
     be hard to argue from a logical standpoint that the sham ads 
     are not intended to affect the election or nonelection of 
     candidates.''
       But McCain-Feingold opponents say the justices won't buy 
     this proposed revision of the ``express advocacy'' standard, 
     which has survived repeated challenges in lower federal 
     courts. No matter how McCain-Feingold defines the new 
     regulations, they argue, the court would see it as curtailing 
     a certain amount of political expression that has heretofore 
     enjoyed constitutional protection.
       ``To the extent the bill would . . . make illegal or 
     burdensome the funding of speech that has been protected up 
     till now, it is vulnerable to challenge,'' said Joel Gora, a 
     professor at Brooklyn Law School who represented the 
     plaintiffs in Buckley and is working with the American Civil 
     Liberties Union to defeat McCain-Feingold.
       Gora said that under McCain-Feingold, a group that opposed 
     that law but had no position on whether McCain should be a 
     senator would be subject to regulations if it wanted to run 
     an ad attacking the bill in Arizona within 60 days of a 
     Senate election involving McCain.
       The only alternative to the McCain-Feingold bill, a reform 
     proposal by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), does not include 
     restrictions on issue ads by corporations and unions, and 
     would not raise the same kinds of constitutional questions.

[[Page S2855]]

       The best-known provision of McCain-Feingold, a ban on 
     ``soft money,'' is a relatively open constitutional issue 
     because there is little in case law to suggest how a majority 
     of the court might view it.
       Under the law, wealthy individuals, unions and corporations 
     may give unlimited amounts of money to political parties for 
     ostensibly general purposes such as educating voters about 
     the issues and getting them to the polls on Election Day. 
     This is in contrast to ``hard money''--donations to specific 
     candidates that are subject to limits and disclosure 
     requirements.
       Reformers argue, however, that soft money has evolved into 
     a de facto campaign contribution because so much of it is 
     used to finance issue advertising targeted at specific 
     elections. They say it should be easy to persuade the court 
     to uphold a ban, just as it upheld contribution limits in 
     Buckley.
       ``The court will respect Congress's judgment that money is 
     fungible and that soft money is really working on a national 
     election,'' said Alan Morrison of the Public Citizen 
     Litigation Group.
       In a case decided last year, Nixon v. Shrink Missouri 
     Government PAC, the court, by a vote of 6 to 3, reaffirmed 
     Buckley's holding that contribution limits may be imposed to 
     combat political corruption or the appearance of corruption.
       The six-member majority included the court's four liberal 
     members and two conservatives, Chief Justice William H. 
     Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The opinion by 
     Justice David H. Souter cited ``the broader threat from 
     politicians too compliant with the wishes of large 
     contributors.''
       Two justices, Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 
     said in a concurring opinion that a soft money limitation 
     might well be constitutional under Buckley.
       However, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Antonin 
     Scalia, published a dissenting opinion indicating that even 
     existing campaign finance regulations suppressed too much 
     speech and that Buckley should be overruled on that basis.
       McCain-Feingold opponents say they would challenge the soft 
     money ban as an attack on free association and a threat to 
     the two-party system. Quite simply, they argue, soft money is 
     not a sham. It is used not only for issue ads but also for 
     general ``party-building'' activities and cannot be 
     eliminated without crippling the parties.
       As evidence of recent sympathy on the court for the special 
     role of parties in American politics, they cite a 1996 case 
     in which the court held that the government could not limit 
     the spending of hard money by a political party on behalf of 
     a candidate as long as the spending was ``independent'' of 
     the candidate's campaign.
       In reaching this conclusion, the court observed that it was 
     ``not aware of any special dangers of corruption associated 
     with political parties'' that would have warranted a 
     different conclusion.
       ``If the court continues to view parties as they did in 
     [that case] and other cases, I don't see how the soft money 
     ban can survive,'' Bopp said. ``There is no compelling 
     government interest that would support the gut-ripping of 
     political parties.''

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I harken to the memory of working with 
my distinguished colleague from Kentucky when he and I were on the same 
side. I also worked with the former counsel to the President, Lloyd 
Cutler, also the former Senator from Kansas, Mrs. Nancy Kassebaum, and 
others on the committee on the constitutional system. They appeared and 
testified about the need for a constitutional amendment.
  On every amendment, starting with the Domenici amendment last week, 
they are going to raise a constitutional question.
  There it is. Everybody likes to adhere to the Constitution because 
they respond to the very solemn scare tactics of my friend from 
Kentucky.
  The reason I described it as scare tactics--let me quote from last 
week, March 19 on page S2440 of the Congressional Record, I quote 
Senator McConnell:

       You have to go right to the core of the problem. The junior 
     Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Fritz Hollings, will offer 
     that amendment at some point as he has periodically over the 
     years. He deserves a lot of credit for understanding the nub 
     of the problem. The nub of the problem is you can't do most 
     of these things as long as the First Amendment remains as it 
     is.
       So Senator Hollings, at some point, I think under the 
     consent agreement, will probably at the end of the debate 
     offer a constitutional amendment . . . to regulate, restrict, 
     and even prohibit any expenditures ``by, in support of, or in 
     opposition to a candidate for public office.'' It would carve 
     and etch out of the First Amendment, for the first time since 
     the founding of our country and the passage of the Bill of 
     Rights, giving to the government at the Federal and State 
     level the ability to control political speech in this 
     country. It is worth noting that would also apply to the 
     media.

  Now you see the scare tactics. Wait a minute. After 230 years of 
history, and all of sudden we are going to monkey around, we are going 
to tamper with, and we are going to amend the first amendment for the 
first time since the founding of our country and the passage of the 
Bill of Rights--we are going to amend the first amendment.

  I note the Senator from Kentucky is a brilliant individual. He knows 
better. But he knows the art of defamation and debate. If he can scare 
those who have not paid attention to the debate last week and this 
week, and those who will not pay attention, then he'll prevail. There 
is nobody here but us chickens for the simple reason that they said 
last week I had to go on Monday. I had other engagements already 
because I am like all the other Senators, I have things to do. I can 
plan ahead, knowing that I can get out and raise money on Monday. Then 
they said, if you can't get back on Monday, you just stay here on 
Friday. I also, like all the other Senators--we voted at 9 o'clock and, 
boy, we broke out of that door. If you stood there at those double 
doors after that vote at 9:15 to 9:30, you would have been run over 
because we had to go. We have to collect that $3,000 that Friday, that 
$22,000 that week, that $7 million over the 6-year period. And so it is 
that he knows and I know they are not hearing this.
  We all do revere the Constitution. And we all revere the first 
amendment. But the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, watching those 
Oscars last night, he ought to get an Oscar for this one. Here it is:

       . . . I think under the consent agreement, will probably at 
     the end of the debate offer a constitutional amendment so the 
     Federal and all 50 State governments can have the unfettered 
     latitude to regulate, restrict, and even prohibit any 
     expenditures ``by, in support of, or in opposition to a 
     candidate for public office.'' It would carve and etch out of 
     the First Amendment, for the first time since the founding of 
     our country and the passage of the Bill of Rights, giving to 
     the government at the Federal and State level the ability to 
     control political speech in this country.

  Now, Mr. President, not so. He gets the Oscar because those who not 
listening heard that last week, when I couldn't get the floor and award 
him that particular Oscar. Because he knows from the debate of 1907 of 
the Tillman Act, under President Teddy Roosevelt, where the Federal 
Government controls the speech of corporations. And then in 1947, Harry 
Truman, in the Taft-Hartley Act, that is another one of ``the first 
time since the founding of our country and the passage of the Bill of 
Rights.'' That was the second time that I know of back in 1947 under 
Taft-Hartley.
  Poor Harry did it. They want to give him awards now. Everybody is 
trying to mimic Teddy Roosevelt over there on the Republican side. But 
they forget that ``for the first time'' Teddy did it back in 1907. We 
know about the shouting of fire in the theater, the clear and present 
danger ruling; that is another time that the first amendment was 
amended. We know, with respect to the prohibition against fighting 
words, that is another time that the first amendment was amended.
  Congress, since I have been here, gave the authority, in the Pacifica 
case that finally was determined. But we passed the enactment to tell 
the FCC to regulate obscenity over the airwaves. That deals with the 
first amendment. There were those seven dirty words in the Pacifica 
case.
  So it is that we have, about seven or eight times since the founding 
of our country ``etched out of the First Amendment.'' We took an 
exception with respect to slander. I cannot slander you; you cannot 
slander me. That is defamation. That is another time. There is false 
and deceptive advertising. Has the distinguished Senator never heard of 
the Federal Trade Commission? That is under the authority of the 
Federal Trade Commission: false and deceptive advertising. We regulate 
or amend, as he would say, carving and etching out, for the first time 
in our history since the founding of the Republic, an amendment to the 
first amendment.

  We all go to classified briefings, particularly up on the fourth 
floor in the Capitol. That is another restriction we have on the first 
amendment.
  Of course, we can go right on down to the 24th amendment--well, the 
Hatch Act. I do not want to leave that out. We amended it in 1993. But 
you still can't run for these partisan political offices. You can't 
solicit contributions

[[Page S2856]]

or receive contributions. You can't politic on a Federal facility. We 
would be forbidden under the Hatch Act to campaign in this Federal 
facility, except for us. All we do is campaign here. We have to take 
care of ourselves here. We understand what the game is. Nobody is here. 
But I am here. And we have a constitutional amendment.
  And then, of course, the 24th amendment, the poll tax. Isn't that a 
wonderful thing? They said: Look, there should be no financial burden 
on the right to vote. Now, with Buckley v. Valeo there is a financial 
burden with respect to campaigning.
  The distinguished senior Senator from my State says at the end of 
next year he is not going to run for reelection. They have already, in 
a sense, crowned a Republican nominee according to my local news. 
Everybody has come out for him. Two or three Democrats have been up to 
see me. Each time I said: Now, wait a minute. You have to get $7 
million. You have to be prepared. Because I can tell you, here and now, 
I spent $5.5 million myself in 1998, and this will be 4 years hence by 
2002. So you have to get that $7 million. It has all but prohibited the 
poor from campaigning. It has all but prohibited the middle class from 
campaigning, or at least in relation to the Senate.
  I can tell you right now, we ought to have an amendment restoring 
every mother's son's right. I can see Russell Long standing right here 
at this desk. He put in the checkoff system so every mother's son could 
run for President. So we had to check off on the income tax to bill up 
the money. With respect to Buckley v. Valeo, let's amend that 
particular amendment to the first amendment; namely, the restriction 
they put on political speech of the poor and middle class in America.
  I have already had to discourage--I didn't mean to do it but you need 
to be realistic--and I am confident I have discouraged three candidates 
from running because unless and until they can get up in the political 
polls, our Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee cannot afford to 
give them any financial assistance. So they have to prove themselves. 
And in order to prove themselves in this game, you have to have money.
  Finally, of course, as I have already referred to, I would like to 
ask consent to have printed in the Record S.J. Res. 166 from the 
distinguished Senator from Kentucky. How could he stand in the well and 
say, ``It would carve and etch out of the First Amendment, for the 
first time since the founding of our country and the passage of the 
Bill of Rights'' wherein he, in S. Res. 166, tried that himself in 
1987? I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                             S.J. Res. 166

       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled, That the 
     following article is proposed as an amendment to the 
     Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to 
     all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when 
     ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several 
     States within seven years from the date of its submission to 
     the States by the Congress:

                               Article--

       ``Section 1. The Congress may enact laws regulating the 
     amounts of expenditures a candidate may make from his 
     personal funds or the personal funds of his immediate family 
     or may incur with personal loans, and Congress may enact laws 
     regulating the amounts of independent expenditures by any 
     person, other than by a political committee of a political 
     party, which can be made to expressly advocate the election 
     or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for Federal 
     office.
       ``Section 2. The several States may enact laws regulating 
     the amounts of expenditures a candidate may make from his 
     personal funds or the personal funds of his immediate family 
     or may incur with personal loans, and such States may enact 
     laws regulating the amounts of independent expenditures by 
     any person, other than by a political committee of a 
     political party, which can be made to expressly advocate the 
     election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for 
     State and local offices.''.

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, there we are: Five of the last six 
amendments have dealt with just that, with elections. Certainly, the 
Hollings-Specter amendment--and I want to note at this time the 
wonderful support of the distinguished Senator. He not only cosponsored 
it, he has been at the hearings and on the floor. He has given it warm 
support.
  We have other cosponsors. I thank them also: Mr. Reid of Nevada; Mr. 
Biden of Delaware; Mr. Miller of Georgia, and several others; Mr. 
Cleland; also the distinguished former majority leader, the Senator 
from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd, has been a stalwart with respect to the 
Constitution. The Senator from West Virginia understands better than 
any that this particular initiative is certainly as important as the 
poll tax, the 24th amendment. It is certainly as important as the 27th 
amendment, Senatorial pay. Come on. Here we have corrupted the entire 
process. We can't get any work done. We can't get regular Americans to 
run for public office. We can't give the people the time they deserve 
working at the job of being a U.S. Senator because we have to work at 
the job of staying a U.S. Senator. It certainly is just as important as 
Senatorial pay with respect to its significance and importance.
  The last five or six amendments dealt with elections. This would be 
the 25th amendment and would be immediately, I am led to believe, 
ratified by the several States.
  I have touched on the corruption. There are other points we want to 
make for the Record.
  I yield the floor, retain the balance of my time, and grant our 
distinguished friend from West Virginia such time as he may consume.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the very distinguished Senator from 
South Carolina, Mr. Hollings, for yielding to me. I thank him for being 
the author and chief sponsor of this amendment. I thank him for his 
steadfast and clear-sighted approach to a very serious and growing 
problem facing our Republic. I thank him for allowing me to join him in 
cosponsoring this amendment.
  Ralph Waldo Emerson, in an oration delivered on August 31, 1867, 
said:

       This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but 
     know what to do with it.

  As the Senate considers the proposed constitutional amendment offered 
by our distinguished colleague from South Carolina, Mr. Hollings, it is 
my fervent hope that each of us will take heed of Emerson's apt words. 
We have the opportunity to take an important step in the direction of 
restoring the people's faith and in our ability to rise above 
partisanship and really do something about our present sorry system of 
financing Federal campaigns.
  If 55 years ago, when I started out in politics, we had had the 
current system of funding campaigns, somebody else would be standing at 
this desk. It wouldn't be I. I came from the very bottom of the ladder. 
There were no lower rungs in my ladder. There weren't any bottom rungs 
in my ladder. I came out of a coal camp. What did I have?
  If I might, for a moment, tinker with grammar, ``I didn't have 
nothing,'' as they would say. ``I ain't got nothing.'' All I had was 
myself and my belief in our system. I believed in a system, then, in 
which a person who didn't have anything, a person who was poor, a 
person who came from lowly beginnings but who could pay his filing fee, 
could run for office.
  I graduated from high school in 1934 in the midst of the Depression. 
I married 64 years ago the month after next. I married a coal miner's 
daughter. We didn't have anything. We only had two rooms in which to 
live in the coal company house. I started out making $50 a month. When 
I married I was making the huge sum of $70 a month. All I had was a 
high school education. I didn't have a college education. That was all 
I had.

  The man who raised me, my uncle, was not a banker. He was not a big 
politician. He was not a former judge. He was not a former 
officeholder. He was a coal miner, a lowly coal miner. He was honest.
  What did I have? Who was I to run for office? Who was I to offer 
myself to the people with just a high school education. That was all. 
That coal miner was the only dad I ever knew so I felt good about being 
his son. I didn't have anything. There I was, a coal miner's son, 
starting to find my way up the ladder of a political career.
  Could I do it today? I would go to Senator Hollings and say: I would 
like to run for the House of Delegates in West Virginia. I would like 
to run for the House of Representatives in Washington. What advice do 
you have for

[[Page S2857]]

me? He would say to me today, as he said to others: Who are you? What 
is your background? That is not so important. But have you got any 
money? How much money are you willing to spend on this? I would have 
been out, if it had depended upon money. I would have been out at the 
beginning. I would never have gotten to first base.
  The current system is rotten, it is putrid, it stinks. The people of 
this country ought really to know what this system is giving to them 
and what it is taking from them. This system corrupts political 
discourse. It makes us slaves, makes us beholden to the almighty dollar 
rather than be the servants of the people we all aspire to serve.
  Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has given this kind of campaign 
system first amendment protection.
  In Buckley v. Valeo, the Court made it extraordinarily difficult for 
the public to have what it wants: reasonable regulations of campaign 
expenditures which do not either directly or indirectly limit the ideas 
that may be expressed in the public realm. I submit that such 
regulations will actually broaden the public debate on a number of 
issues by freeing it from the narrow confines dictated by special 
interest money.
  We may be able to fool ourselves, but the time is long past for all 
of us to stop trying to fool the American people. They are more than 
aware that both political parties--both political parties--abuse the 
current system and that both political parties fear to change that 
system. Each party wants to preserve its advantages under the system, 
but the insidious system of campaign fundraising will eventually 
undermine the very foundation of this Republic.
  What I am saying is, that this system of funding our political 
campaigns is going to undermine the Republic. For our own sakes and for 
the sake of the people, we must find a way to stop this political 
minuet. We must come to grips with the fact that the campaign finance 
system in its current form is simply, simply, simply unworthy of 
preservation.
  I have spoken on this floor many times before about the exponential 
increase in campaign expenditures since I first ran for the Senate in 
1958. Jennings Randolph and I ran for the Senate in 1958. There was a 
situation in West Virginia in which the late Senator M.M. Neely died 
and left 2 years of his Senate tenure open, which meant we had two 
Senate seats in West Virginia to fill in the same election. Senator 
Randolph ran for the 2-year term, I ran for the 6-year term, and we 
decided to team up and run together. There were several other Democrats 
running for both seats. But we teamed up and we ran that campaign--two 
Senators--for $50,000. That is all we had, $50,000. We didn't have 
television in those days. Oh, there were a few black and white sets 
around. But we didn't have these expensive campaign consultants. We 
didn't know anything about these kinds of negative campaigns. We just 
went around from courthouse to courthouse and spoke in the courthouse 
yards. I played my fiddle --drew a good crowd. But we didn't have these 
expensive campaigns. Otherwise, we could not have run.
  I was running against an incumbent Republican Senator, Senator 
Chapman Revercomb. We could not have done it. That was in 1958. We had 
$50,000, two Senators.
  I recently heard one of the richest men in America say that political 
access is ``undervalued'' in the campaign finance market. Campaign 
contributions will continue to increase until a ``market valuation'' is 
achieved, thus causing the cost of a reasonably effective campaign to 
continue to skyrocket. We haven't hit the top yet, by any means. It 
already costs tens of millions of dollars to run an effective campaign 
for the Senate in many States.
  What do we tell a poor kid from the hollows? What do we tell a poor 
kid from the coal camps? Forget it. Yet, that person may have the 
capacity and the drive to be a good Senator. A campaign for the Senate 
will be beyond his or her personal means and beyond the means of 
friends and associates.
  We must act to put the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the 
Presidency within the reach of anyone with the brains, with the spirit, 
with the spine, and with the desire to go for it. And the proposed 
constitutional amendment before us today is a necessary step on the way 
to accomplishing that goal. Yes, it amends the First Amendment.
  One of the great ironies of the current campaign financing system is 
that it puts more distance between candidates and the people they hope 
to represent. Campaigns of today are technologically sophisticated. 
They rely increasingly on mass media. The whole point of current 
campaigns has become raising enough money to pay to more people, more 
times, over the airwaves.
  There is no argument that there is an efficiency consideration here. 
People's lives today are complicated. They have to run from pillar to 
post, to work, to school, to the grocery store, to the dry cleaner, 
cook dinner, put the kids to bed, and so on and on and on, over and 
over again. Families do not have the time or the inclination to attend 
community functions as they used to years ago. Even if they did, there 
is this crazy ``boob tube'' in the home. I don't listen to it a great 
deal. I long ago learned that is almost a complete waste of time to 
listen. I so listen every Saturday night to that British show, 
``Keeping Up Appearances.'' I recommend that anybody and everybody 
watch that show. You won't hear any profanity in it, you won't see any 
violence in it, and it is not a story about sex. So, listen to 
``Keeping Up Appearances'' on Channel 26 and Channel 22, public 
television.
  May I say to my friend from South Carolina and my equally good friend 
from Connecticut, I have been in Washington 49 years. I have been to 
one movie, and I did not stay through that one. Yul Brynner was playing 
in it. It bored me to death, and I left about halfway through. But I 
have seen some good movies on Channel 26, Channel 22--public 
television. I like Masterpiece Theater. It gives us some good, clean, 
wholesome movies to watch. Otherwise, do not waste your time watching 
TV.
  I have had some recent campaign events in some of West Virginia's 
communities where people still come out to hear candidates, but in our 
Nation today, such events are the exception, not the rule. So to 
influence voters, we pay high-priced consultants, and many times, I say 
to my friend from South Carolina, we probably know a good bit more 
about politicking and what needs to be seen and said than they do, but 
they sure know how to spend your money; they sure know how to take your 
money. These TV people just rack it up.
  I must say that TV is the greatest medium that was ever invented, I 
suppose. At least it will hold its own with the printed media. But I 
think it is helping to ruin these political campaigns.
  To influence voters, we pay high-priced consultants to produce slick, 
high-priced ads and to buy high-priced television and radio time to air 
them. Our opponents do the same, which leads our expensive consultants 
to encourage us to tape more ads--tape more ads--and buy more 
advertising time. It is a vicious circle that requires candidates to 
spend more and more time raising money and less and less time listening 
to the people and working for the people, once they are elected, whom 
they wish to represent.
  I have been majority leader in this Senate, and I have been minority 
leader, and I can tell Senators that this money chase is a real 
headache for the leaders in this Senate. It used to be, when I was the 
leader, I was continually being importuned by colleagues--Senators on 
my side of the aisle--to not have votes on this afternoon, not have 
votes on tomorrow, not have votes on Fridays, not have votes on 
Mondays, not have votes on Tuesdays until after the weekly conference 
luncheon.
  When I first came to the Senate, we did not have weekly Democratic 
conferences. Mostly, the Republicans had conferences, but we did not 
necessarily have a conference every week. It was after I became leader 
that we started to have regular conferences every week. It was I, as 
the leader, who had the first so-called retreat with our Democratic 
colleagues. We went over to Canaan Valley in West Virginia, and we also 
went up to Shepherdstown on another occasion.
  We did not have any retreats prior to my being leader. We did not 
have all

[[Page S2858]]

these campaign financing problems. We did not have to raise so much 
money for campaigns until, for the most part, I was leader for the 
second time in the 100th Congress.
  It was in the 100th Congress that I offered a cloture motion eight 
times--eight times--to try to have the Senate act on campaign financing 
legislation--eight times. That is the highest number of cloture motions 
ever offered by a leader in this Senate on any matter; eight times, and 
I failed eight times. I was never able to get more than a half 
dozen members of the Republican Party to vote for cloture on campaign 
financing legislation.

  The result of the campaign financing system we now have is that today 
there are fewer rallies, there is less knocking on doors, less face-to-
face time with the voters, less handshaking by the candidate. No wonder 
the people think we are out of touch. We do not see the people.
  For the most part, we go to those meetings that are held by special 
interest groups. They are good people to see--I am not saying that. We 
do not generally see the general run of people. Those old-time rallies 
and meetings do not occur so much anymore. Through the creative use of 
film and audiotape, we have made ourselves intangible.
  While I am very reluctant to amend the Constitution, I am not opposed 
to amendments in all circumstances. The Constitution contains a 
provision, as we all know, for amendments, and it is there for a 
purpose. Whereas, as in Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court creates a 
significant obstacle to democratic self-government, it is certainly 
appropriate for us to approve a constitutional amendment. Otherwise, I 
regard the prospects as slim for comprehensive reform legislation that 
would both free the Congress from the iron grip of the special 
interests and put Federal office within the reach of every able and 
willing American.
  By equating campaign expenditures with free speech, the Supreme Court 
has made it all but impossible for us to control the ever-spiraling 
money chase. Under current constitutional jurisprudence, any 
legislation intended to control the cancerous effects of money in 
politics may necessarily be complicated and convoluted. The 
complications we are forced to resort to, in turn, may create new 
opportunities for abuse.
  Some argue that money will find a way to control the process, 
regardless of what we do. I respond that a simple and straightforward 
limit on campaign expenditures is much more difficult to circumvent 
than the maze of regulations to which we have had to resort. I wonder, 
too, whether these opponents of campaign finance reform are willing to 
permit money to buy anything on the grounds that it is difficult to 
control.
  Even without a constitutional amendment, we can, of course, tinker 
around the edges, but we cannot enact comprehensive legislation that 
will get to the heart of the problem. I wish we could. But the fact is 
we cannot get the kind of legislation we really need unless we first 
adopt an amendment to the Constitution. I have come to that conclusion.
  We see it every year. The money chase gets tighter, takes more and 
more money, and the love of money is the root of all evil. We learned 
that at our mother's knee and from the Bible. The love of money is the 
root of all evil. Just look at what it has done in politics, and one 
will see what it has meant.
  Our campaign financing system clouds our judgments. Fear of losing 
advantage is what has driven both parties to be reluctant to enact 
meaningful expenditure reform.

  I understand this is the system we are in. As long as this is the 
system, if I am running, I do what the system allows me, and I do what 
the system requires. I try to raise money. It is the most demeaning 
thing I as a Senator have to experience. Demeaning. I don't like going 
around asking for money. I abhor it. That is the way it is.
  The fixation with maintaining advantage is blinding us to the dangers 
to our credibility. Credibility is a precious commodity. More important 
to a politician than--yes, more important--than money. When we lose our 
credibility, no amount of money will enable us to buy it back.
  People out there who are watching: Do you know what campaign 
financing does to your interests as we, the legislators, pass laws, 
vote on amendments? Do you, the people, know that you, not organized, 
do not wield the influence, man for man and woman for woman, that is 
wielded by the special interest groups? This is not to say that they 
don't have the best interests of the country in mind. They have the 
best interests of the country in mind as they see those best interests. 
We are beholden, we in this body, and in the other body, and at the 
White House, are beholden to the people who help us to win by giving us 
contributions. You people who are not organized come in second.
  When we lose our credibility, no amount of money will enable us to 
buy it back. Already, many of our citizens don't vote. They don't think 
their vote counts. They don't feel we are influenced by their votes, so 
they don't vote. Let us fear the further erosion of our Republic.
  I am sorry that it has come to this. I am sorry that it has come to 
the point that, if we are going to deal with this Frankenstein monster 
that is in our midst--this campaign financing system--we have to amend 
the Constitution of the United States. I am sorry for that.
  They say, well, this is the first time, this will be the first 
occasion in which we would amend the first amendment to the 
Constitution. What is worse? What is worse? Keeping the first amendment 
intact or saving our country, saving our Republic, from its eventual 
complete destruction because the people in whom the power and the 
sovereignty resides are no longer the main focus of the attention of 
legislators and Presidents?
  I think to continue down this road is to destroy this Republic and 
the things for which that flag stands. If there is only one way to save 
it, and that is to amend the first amendment to the Constitution, then 
let's amend it.
  It is sad. To one who started out in politics with nothing --I didn't 
have, as I say, a father who could lift me up, who could go to the 
banks in the city and say, this is my son, help him; who could go to 
the civic clubs and say, invite my son to speak, help him; who could 
look to the lawyers in the community and say, I'm a lawyer, I'm a 
judge, I want you to help my son--I didn't have that kind of father to 
lift me up and help me in politics. I could hardly put two nickels 
together.
  Now what do we see? We see a situation in which that coal miner's son 
could never come to the Senate. No coal miner's son could ever lift 
himself up by the ladder that has no rungs at the bottom and come to 
the Senate. That could not be one of his or her dreams.
  I compliment the distinguished Senator from South Carolina who is a 
leader in this effort. This is a good time, as Ralph Waldo Emerson 
said, if only we know what to do with it. Let us not squander an 
opportunity to begin to fix this thoroughly rotten campaign finance 
system once and for all. Let us not continue to disappointment the 
American people.
  Yes, I am ready to amend the first amendment to the Constitution. 
What good is it if we have a first amendment to the Constitution if we 
destroy the Republic in the meantime? I see this flawed campaign 
financing system as a real dagger at the heart of our constitutional 
Republic. What good is a Constitution without a Republic?
  As I see it, take your choice: Keep the first amendment, unamended, 
or continue down this path of destruction of the Republic and 
everything it stands for.
  Let us take a stand and support this proposed amendment to the 
Constitution.
  In Atlanta, there is a monument to the memory of the late Benjamin 
Hill. Inscribed on that monument are these words:

       Who saves his country saves himself, saves all things, and 
     all things saved do bless him. Who lets his country die, lets 
     all things die, dies himself ignobly, and all things, dying, 
     curse him.

  I say to Senators, let us save our country.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I hope everyone had an opportunity to 
hear that and those who did not have

[[Page S2859]]

an opportunity to see the speech of the distinguished Senator from West 
Virginia in the Congressional Record. He talks from a 50-year or more 
experience here in the Senate, and, assiduous as he is to protect the 
Constitution, to go with this particular amendment means that we are in 
the extreme, that it is absolutely necessary.
  I feel the same way. I don't like to amend the Constitution. But I 
take the position that it was the Court itself, in Buckley v. Valeo, 
that amended the Constitution with this distorted bifurcation, equating 
money with speech and then controlling some but not other moneys. As a 
result, we end with this duplicitous situation of the money chase.
  Let me yield, before I have some other comments, to our distinguished 
floor leader, Senator Dodd.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I hope as well Members who are not here will 
read the remarks of our colleague from West Virginia. It is about as 
concise and thorough a description of the current status of affairs as 
anything you are going to hear or have heard over the last week or so 
as we have discussed campaign finance reform or, I suspect, that you 
are going to hear for the remainder of this week or into next week, if 
we have to take additional time to debate the McCain-Feingold 
legislation.
  There is not a great deal I could add to it. He captures my thoughts, 
my sentiments, far more eloquently than anything I have ever said about 
the subject matter, and I have spoken on it on numerous occasions. His 
language is graphic in a couple of instances, but it is appropriate 
language to describe the current state of affairs, the current 
circumstances in which we find ourselves in this beloved Nation of 
ours.
  There is nothing more fundamental. I know there are other subject 
matters this body wants to address, issues of budget and taxes and 
education, environment, health care. They are all very important 
subject matters. They certainly have a more contemporaneous appeal than 
the subject of campaign finance reform. Certainly every poll that is 
done in the country indicates that this subject matter ranks near the 
bottom of issues about which the public cares.
  I think I understand why, at least in part. In part, it is because 
people have become so disgusted with it and have little hope things are 
going to change and are just so accepting, unfortunately, of the 
present state of circumstances with no likelihood it is going to 
change.
  While I think these other subject matters have value and importance, 
in my view nothing we will debate or discuss in the coming Congress or 
coming Congresses will exceed in value or importance the subject matter 
which we will decide later today, and during the remainder of the week 
if the Hollings proposal is rejected, as I suspect it will be based on 
earlier votes we have had. I say that with a deep sense of regret 
because he is addressing the issue in a way that, unfortunately, it can 
only be addressed.
  I am very respectful of the U.S. Supreme Court. As someone who is a 
graduate of law school, an attorney, licensed in my State, I was 
trained to revere the Supreme Court of the United States and respect 
all of its decisions. But the decision in Buckley v. Valeo, reached 
more than a quarter of a century ago, that equates money with speech, 
could not be more flawed, in my view. That is to suggest that the 
microphone which I am using here today is equal to speech, or that the 
sound system in here is equal to speech, or some other form of currency 
that may exist is equal to speech. Nothing could be further from the 
truth. Justice Stevens had it right: Money is property, just as this 
microphone is property, just as the sound systems are property. It is 
not speech, it is merely a vehicle by which we enhance the volume of 
our voice.

  A columnist and reporter in my State of Connecticut got it right. 
Only in American politics would we equate free speech with the present 
set of circumstances. It is an oxymoron, she said. There is nothing 
free about it. Speech only belongs, in American politics, to those who 
can afford to buy it. It is not speech at all. But because the Court 
arrived at that decision, we have found ourselves, over the last 
quarter of a century, grappling with how we can regulate to some degree 
this excessive--to put it mildly--explosion in the cost of running for 
public office. Not just the Senate; in the House of Representatives and 
local offices in our respective States, the cost has risen 
dramatically.
  I fear, as the Senator from West Virginia has so eloquently stated, 
if we do not do something meaningful about this, that we do put our 
democracy in peril. That is not an exaggeration. That is not hyperbole. 
When we have reached the situation in this country where the maximum 
contribution you can give is $1,000--in effect, $2,000--and we are 
about to raise that to possibly $3,000 or $6,000, for a couple to 
$12,000--and an annual calendar year level of contributions by 
individuals to $75,000 or a couple to $150,000, and we are told that is 
barely enough to finance the campaign system in this country, that we 
are going to have to index it so we can have incremental increases as 
the cost-of-living goes up--I always thought cost-of-living adjustments 
were done for the poor, people on Social Security, people who could not 
make ends meet, buy groceries, pay the rent, clothe themselves, so we 
built in a cost-of-living adjustment to assist those people. A cost-of-
living adjustment for less than 1 percent of the American public who 
can afford to write a $1,000 check to finance a Federal office--they 
need a cost-of-living adjustment so they can buy more influence? That 
is incredible to me, that we would even entertain such a thought as 
part of the campaign finance reform mechanisms.
  I served for 2 years as the general chairman of the Democratic Party, 
a position I was proud to hold. I did not seek it. I was asked to do 
it. I filled a similar role to that held by the former majority leader 
of the Senate, Bob Dole, former colleague Paul Laxalt, and others over 
the years who had been asked to fill those roles, particularly during a 
national campaign. I got to see firsthand what could happen when the 
money chase gets out of hand. It got out of hand in both parties.

  My great fear is that if we don't learn these lessons, if we don't 
understand how disgusted the American public is and how narrow the pool 
of likely candidates for public office is becoming, and how that 
jeopardizes the institutions which we are responsible for preserving 
for future generations to be able to inherit and sit at these desks and 
chairs, and debate the issues of their day, that we are naive at best 
and border on corruption at its worst. It is getting to that.
  Two-hundred years ago in order to seek public office you had to be a 
white male who owned property. We changed the laws in this country. It 
is no longer the case. But we have established a de facto set of 
barriers that are almost as pernicious. That barrier has become money; 
unless you have wealth or access to it or are willing to make 
compromises, a coal miner's son or daughter, as the Senator from West 
Virginia said, or anyone else of modest means, for that matter, is 
going to be de facto excluded from seeking public office.
  I noted this morning in the New York Times a story by John Cushman, 
entitled ``After Silent Spring Industry Put Spin on All It Brewed.'' 
The subject matter of the article concerns the chemical industry and 
how it is particularly involved in this. But I suspect they are not 
unique, and that this happens across the board.
  It is interesting to read one paragraph. I ask unanimous consent that 
the entire article be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

        After `Silent Spring' Industry Put Spin on All It Brewed

                        (By John H. Cushman Jr.)

       Washington, March 25.--The year was 1963, the publication 
     of Rachel Carson's ``Silent Spring'' had just opened the 
     modern environmental movement, and the chemical industry 
     reckoned it had a public relations emergency on its hands.
       Already that year, the industry's trade association had 
     spent $75,000 scraped together for a ``crash program'' to 
     counter the book's environmental message. It needed an 
     additional $66,000 to expand the public relations campaign. 
     Several companies quickly pledged more money to challenge the 
     book's

[[Page S2860]]

     arguments, according to the association's internal documents.
       That chain of events would be repeated time and again, at 
     ever increasing expense, as the industry's lobbying arm in 
     Washington, now known as the American Chemistry Council, 
     confronted the environmental age in the corridors of power 
     and in the arena of public opinion.
       Now the industry's practices over the decades are facing 
     unusual and unwanted exposure, as its documents, turned up by 
     trial lawyers in lawsuits against the industry, are being 
     published by environmental advocates on the Web and explored 
     in a PBS documentary on Monday. Many of the documents were 
     disclosed in 1998 in a series of articles in The Houston 
     Chronicle, but until now they have not received much wider 
     attention.
       The adverse publicity is nothing new for the chemical 
     industry.
       ``I seem, perhaps like Halley's comet, to float 
     periodically into the orbit of your board,'' an industry 
     lobbyist, Glen Perry, said to the chemical group's board in 
     1966, ``generally with my hand outstretched in a plea for 
     financial support of efforts to avert, or avoid the 
     consequences of, some frightful catastrophe. Like Rachel 
     Carson.''
       Or Bhopal. Or Love Canal. Or state ballot initiatives 
     unfriendly to the industry, or legislation tightening 
     regulations on toxic wastes. Or even the industry's growing 
     perception that no matter how much money it spent on public 
     relations--amounts that grew from a few thousand dollars a 
     year to a few million a year as the decades passed--it was 
     losing its war for public opinion.
       The industry used many weapons in its campaigns to 
     influence state and federal laws; public relations was just 
     one of them.
       Giving money to candidates, of course, played an important 
     role in the industry's strategy, according to a 1980 document 
     discussing ``political muscle, how much we've got, and how we 
     can get more.''
       Spending by political action committees helped its 
     lobbyists gain access to members of Congress, the document 
     said. ``But over the long term, the more important function 
     of the PAC's is to upgrade the Congress,'' it said.
       Just as important, said a 1984 document, were carefully 
     orchestrated ``grass roots efforts'' like the industry's 
     establishment of a pressure group with the benign name 
     Citizens for Effective Environmental Action Now.
       The industry spent more than $150,000 that year to make 
     25,000 phone calls and send 42,000 pieces of direct mail. 
     Adopting new computer technology for the first time, the 
     group documented more than 7,000 calls and telegrams to seven 
     important Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, 
     which was drafting the Superfund legislation governing toxic 
     waste dumps.
       ``Grass roots delivered three congressmen who were ready to 
     take action during committee writing of legislation,'' the 
     document said. But the ``industry lobby was unable to respond 
     quickly to their offer of help,'' the industry association's 
     assessment noted. ``We must be prepared to provide the 
     congressmen with a simple action plan and legislative 
     language.''
       But Congress was responding to broader public concerns, and 
     for decades the industry was painfully conscious of how hard 
     it was to sway public opinion.
       ``The Public Relations Committee realizes that public fear 
     of chemicals is a disease which will never be completely 
     eradicated,'' a committee member, Cleveland Lane, reported in 
     1964. ``It may lie dormant or appear from time to time as a 
     minor rash, but it can flare up at any time as a major and 
     debilitating fever for our industry as a result of a few, or 
     even one instance, such as the Mississippi fish kill, or the 
     publication by some highly readable alarmist, or as an issue 
     seized upon by some politician in need of building a 
     crusading image.''
       At the same time, Mr. Lane acknowledged that only deeds, 
     not words, could salvage the industry's reputation--a credo 
     that industry lobbyists repeat to this day.
       ``No public relations operation, no matter how effective, 
     can cover up acts of carelessness or neglect which do harm to 
     the citizens,'' said Mr. Lane, who worked for Goodrich-Gulf 
     Chemicals Inc. ``As long as we produce products or conduct 
     operations which can cause health hazards, public discomfort 
     or property damage, we must do all we can to prevent these 
     situations.''
       In recent years, the industry has increasingly tailored its 
     publicity campaigns to emphasize its efforts to follow strict 
     safety standards, set forth in a voluntary effort it calls 
     Responsible Care. The effort is intended to control the risks 
     of chemical pollution and help convince a skeptical public 
     that the industry is made up of good corporate citizens.
       Among those not convinced of the industry's good faith is 
     Bill Moyers, whose documentary for PBS focuses on the dangers 
     of exposure to vinyl chloride, the subject of litigation by a 
     chemical industry worker's widow that uncovered the 
     documents. The report relies heavily on them to assert that 
     the companies and their trade association covered up the 
     dangers of the chemical, used for making plastic products.
       Even before the documentary was broadcast, the industry 
     group charged Mr. Moyers last week with ``journalistic 
     malpractice'' for not including interviews with its spokesmen 
     or allowing them to preview the program. Instead, Mr. Moyers 
     has invited them to react to his documentary in a half-hour 
     discussion to be broadcast immediately afterward.
       ``I consider myself in good company to be attacked by the 
     industry that tried to smear Rachel Carson,'' Mr. Moyers said 
     on Friday.
       The Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization 
     in Washington, plans to publish on its Web site on Tuesday 
     tens of thousands of pages of internal industry documents 
     produced in lawsuits. The group plans to expand the Web site, 
     www.ewg.org, into a wide-ranging archive of industry 
     documents.
       The documents cover not just vinyl chloride and public 
     relations crusades but every facet of the industry 
     association's work, from lobbying on taxes and price controls 
     to transportation safety and the growing array of laws and 
     regulations that have taken effect since the 1960's.
       In 1979, the industry began a multi-million-dollar 
     advertising effort to counter ``growing evidence that the 
     public image of the chemical industry is unfavorable, and 
     this has negative results on sales and profits,'' one 
     document explained.
       Then in 1984, disaster struck with the explosion of a 
     chemical plant in Bhopal, India, which killed and injured 
     thousands of people.
       The industry found in surveys later that ``we are perceived 
     as the No. 1 environmental risk to society,'' an industry 
     association official told the group's board in 1986.
       Despite continued spending to improve its image, little had 
     changed by 1990, association officials fond.
       ``There is a rising tide of environmental awareness in the 
     country,'' a document reported that year. ``Favorable public 
     opinion about the industry continues to decline.'' In a 
     decade, the percentage of the public that considered the 
     industry under-regulated grew to 74 percent from 56 percent.
       So as the environmental groups, with membership expanding 
     by hundreds of thousands of people a year, laid plans for a 
     20th celebration of Earth Day, in 1990, the industry worked 
     to make its voice heard, too.
       For the first time, it began to advertise its Responsible 
     Care program, setting aside a $5 million, five-year budget to 
     make its approach known to the public. ``The public must see 
     an entire industry on the move,'' one document said.
       ``The term `public relations' is morally bankrupt,'' a 
     memorandum cautioned, ``and yet, done properly, is exactly 
     what is needed to make Responsible Care work.''
       And in interviews last week, the group's lobbyists said 
     that Responsible Care was steadily improving the industry's 
     environmental performance--and that its latest polling 
     suggested this approach now seemed to be winning over the 
     public.
       ``The evolution of an industry is a journey,'' said Charles 
     W. Van Vlack, the American Chemistry Council's chief 
     operating officer. ``It is a fascinating evolution in terms 
     of attitude and in terms of performance. We went through the 
     process of the public coming to terms with our industry 
     before most, if not all, other industries. It was in our 
     face--we had to deal with it.''

  Mr. DODD. As is my colleague from West Virginia, I am most reluctant 
to amend the Constitution. I have resisted almost every single effort 
except this one during my 20 years as a Member of the Senate. I cherish 
and carry with me every day a copy of the Constitution given to me by 
the Senator from West Virginia, my seatmate. In fact, it is inscribed 
by him to me. I cherish it.
  To illustrate the point, I will bring it out of my pocket. I carry it 
every day--Senator Byrd carries his with him as well--to remind me of 
the important role we fill here as Members of this body, and how we 
should cherish and protect that document. But I know of no other means 
by which we can effectuate a fundamental change in these laws.
  I think we have made some decent progress on the McCain-Feingold 
legislation. I am a supporter of it because it is the only means by 
which we are going to be able to bring some possible discipline to the 
process. It will slow down the exponential growth of the cost of these 
campaigns.
  But the real answer is what the Senator from South Carolina has 
offered. That is the real answer. It is the only answer.
  Someday we may adopt this, if the situation continues to run out of 
hand. The Senator from South Carolina, myself and the Senator from West 
Virginia may no longer be Members of this body. I am sorry to say that, 
but that may be the case.
  Others may look back to this debate and the debate we had in 1997, or 
other debates over the years, in which the Senator from South Carolina 
has raised this proposal on the issue of campaign finance reform that 
came to the floor of the Senate, and rue that we did not in earlier 
times take the steps that the Senator has suggested as a way of 
providing us with a more simple and clear-cut manner by which to 
regulate the condition of our Federal elections.

[[Page S2861]]

  As the Senator from South Carolina has pointed out, we have now run 
Presidential elections for 25 years with public financing. No less a 
conservative than Ronald Reagan accepted public money, as had George 
Bush. As a condition of accepting Federal dollars, of course, they were 
limited in the amount they could spend.
  Public financing has even less of a chance of being adopted by this 
Congress than the proposal offered by the Senator from South Carolina. 
I am sorry that is the case as well--not because I particularly like 
the idea of public financing. But in the absence of that, and given the 
Buckley v. Valeo decision, it is very difficult for us to craft 
legislation that is going to survive constitutional scrutiny in light 
of the Buckley v. Valeo decision, hence the value of the importance of 
the amendment offered by the Senator from South Carolina.
  I noted this morning that William Safire had a column called 
``Working Its Will,'' in which he endorses the McCain-Feingold 
approach, as I read it. But I was struck by the story told at the 
outset of the column, which I will share with my colleague. He said:
       The story is told of the corrupt Albany judge who called 
     opposing trial lawyers into his chambers.
       ``You offered me a $5,000 campaign contribution to throw 
     this case to the plaintiff,'' said the fair-minded judge, 
     ``and defendant's lawyer here just offered me $10,000 to find 
     for his client. Now how about plaintiff giving me $5,000 
     more, evening things up--and we try the case on the merits?''

  It almost seems like that is what happened here. Money talks, but 
money is not speech. That is the essence of the offense and defense of 
campaign finance reform.
  William Safire goes on in this column.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that column be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the column was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                       [From the Washington Post]

                            Working Its Will

                          (By William Safire)

       The story is told of the corrupt Albany judge who called 
     opposing trial lawyers into his chambers.
       ``You offered me a $5,000 campaign contribution to throw 
     this case to the plaintiff,'' said the fair-minded judge, 
     ``and defendant's lawyer here just offered me $10,000 to find 
     for his client. Now how about plaintiff giving me $5,000 
     more, evening things up--and we try the case on the merits?''
       Whether the bidding war that is now American politics will 
     continue in this fashion is to be decided in the Senate this 
     week. Every senator knows the subject cold and need not rely 
     on staff expertise or party discipline for guidance. Rarely 
     do voters see such a revealing free-for-all.
       Money talks, but money is not speech. That, in essence, is 
     the offense and defense of campaign finance reformers.
       That heavy political contributions influence officeholders 
     is beyond dispute. Money for ``access'' rarely qualifies as 
     prosecutable bribery, but the biggest givers are usually the 
     biggest receivers. The pros know that a quo has a way of 
     following a quid and the public is not stupid.
       The purchase of a pardon by Marc Rich haunts the Senate 
     this week. The stain spreads; now we learn that the fugitive 
     billionaire, with $250,000 to the Anti-Defamation League, 
     induced its national director to lobby President Bill Clinton 
     for forgiveness and thereby bring glee to the hearts of anti-
     Semites. (Abe Foxman should resign to demonstrate that 
     ethical blindness has consequences.)
       But the hurdle that Senators John McCain and Russell 
     Feingold must jump is this: does the restriction of money in 
     campaigns deny anyone freedom of speech?
       Of course it does. But we abridge free speech all the time, 
     in protecting copyright, in ensuring defendants' rights to 
     fair trials, in guarding privacy, in forbidding malicious 
     defamation and incitement to riot. Because no single one of 
     our rights is absolute, we restrain one when it treads too 
     heavily on another.
       That's why our courts have held repeatedly in the past 
     century that the Constitution permits restrictions on 
     political contributions. Just as antitrust laws encouraged 
     competition in business, anti-contribution laws have enhanced 
     competition in politics. Freedom of speech is diminished when 
     one voice who can afford to buy the time and space is allowed 
     to drown out the other side.
       Washington opponents of campaign finance reform offer less 
     lofty arguments, too.
       1. ``Holding down the number of paid political spots will 
     increase the power of the media at the expense of the 
     political parties.'' And what do my ideological soulmates 
     fine so terrible about that? The wheezing liberal voices of 
     the Bosnywash corridor are as often as not clobbered by the 
     intellectual firepower of conservative columnists, Wall 
     Street Journal editorialists and good-looking talking heads. 
     Wake up and smell the right-wing cappuccino, fellas.
       2. ``If we close the soft-money loop-hole, money will soon 
     find another way to reach politicians.'' Fine; that will 
     provide a campaign platform for the next generation's great 
     white hat. The tree of liberty must constantly be refreshed 
     by the figurative blood of tyrannous fund-raisers, as 
     Jefferson almost said.
       3. ``If this goo-goo abomination passes with all its 
     amendments, and any one item is struck down by the courts, 
     then the whole thing must go up in smoke.'' Do Republicans 
     really want to hold that unseverability gun to the head of 
     the Rehnquist court? Why, if you're so hot for freedom of 
     speech, tempt the high court to weaken the First Amendment by 
     letting a questionable part of an all-or-nothing law through?
       Tomorrow the senators seeking to keep in place the Clinton-
     McAuliffe fund-raising abuses that so polluted the 90's will 
     offer the Hagel substitute for the McCain-Feingold bill. It's 
     sabotage, plain and simple, ``limiting'' soft-money gifts to 
     a half-million dollars per fat-cat family per election cycle.
       Senators, fresh from offending billionaire candidates and 
     from thumbing the eye of the powerful broadcasters' lobby, 
     should cherry-pick a few items from the Hagel substitute, up 
     the hard-money limit to $2,500 and take their chances on a 
     sore-loser filibuster by voting down the all-or-nothing 
     trick.
       If that's the will the Senate works, I think President Bush 
     would tut-tut and sign McCain-Feingold. That's because I'm an 
     optimist and believe in the two-party system.

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, there is a column that addresses a situation 
in my own State of Connecticut but also talks about the subject matter 
of campaign financing across the country, written by Michele Jacklin of 
the Hartford Courant.
  I ask unanimous consent that her column be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the column was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                   [From the Courant, March 25, 2001]

               Campaign Finance Bill Levels Playing Field

                          (By Michele Jacklin)

       Warren Buffett, the third richest person in America and 
     someone who could buy any politician he wants, weighed in on 
     the campaign finance reform debate last Sunday.
       Characterizing the existing fund-raising system as ``a 
     shakedown of sorts,'' Buffett said politicians offer a 
     product for sale ``and the product is access and influence.''
       ``It's not buying votes, but it's getting in the door. And 
     the people with the most money are going to get in the door 
     the most frequently,'' Buffett said on ABC's ``This Week.''
       Mind you, Buffett is so rich he could walk through any door 
     unimpeded. But the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and a 
     growing number of people in all walks of life have come to 
     realize that the pay-to-play system is unfair. Thanks to 
     outdated laws and wrong-headed judicial decisions, this 
     nation has become a plutocracy in which only the voices of 
     the wealthy are heard above the din.
       The word ``voices'' is especially crucial in the debate 
     about campaign finance reform that is raging in Washington 
     and in Hartford. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that 
     campaign spending is speech and cannot be constrained under 
     the First Amendment. But do you think the nine jurists on the 
     court, most of whom are millionaires themselves, intended 
     that the voices of the rich should be louder and stronger 
     than the voices of the less privileged?
       To be sure, President Bush and a majority of Republican 
     officeholders think so. They oppose congressional efforts to 
     ban the use of unregulated, unlimited ``soft money'' in 
     federal campaigns. Just the other day, with Democratic help, 
     the Senate approved an amendment to the McCain-Feingold bill 
     that would allow federal candidates to raise substantially 
     larger amounts of money from individuals when they run 
     against wealthy candidates who bankroll their own 
     candidacies.
       As a result, the National Voting Rights Institute switched 
     from supporting the soft-money legislation to opposing it, 
     saying: ``For the vast majority of Americans who cannot 
     afford to make a $1,000 contribution, the amended McCain-
     Feingold bill now makes matters worse.''
       And Doris Haddock, a 91-year-old woman who walked across 
     America to raise awareness of the issue, said of the 
     amendment: ``It creates a fairer fight between the rich and 
     the super-rich, but it still leaves out the man on the 
     street. What's the point of a level playing field when the 
     field is on the moon?''
       Here in Connecticut, Democratic legislators are wrestling 
     with ways to not only make the playing field a little more 
     even--at least in terms of statewide races--but to keep it on 
     planet Earth.
       You'll hear two major complaints about the public financing 
     bill passed Wednesday by the Government Administration and 
     Elections Committee. First, that taxpayers shouldn't be 
     forced to pay for political campaigns and second, that the 
     legislation isn't perfect.
       The first objection is absurd. In fact, taxpayers wouldn't 
     be forced to do anything;

[[Page S2862]]

     they would be able to choose whether to contribute $5 via 
     checkoff on their state income tax forms. Also, an 
     individual's taxes pay for many things that he or she might 
     not like. I don't want my federal taxes used to build Osprey 
     tilt-wing aircraft, whose only purpose I can figure is to 
     kill American military personnel. Guess what? Tough noogies.
       As for it not being a perfect bill, OK. It's not. Sen. 
     Andrew W. Roraback of Goshen, using some contorted logic, 
     urged his colleagues to vote for Gov. John G. Rowland's 
     alternative plan ``in the belief that doing something is 
     better than doing nothing.''
       But if Rowland's minimalist--and constitutionally suspect--
     plan (which was rejected by the elections panel) is better 
     than nothing, why not take the next step and rid the system, 
     to as great an extent as possible, of special-interest money? 
     But Roraback and his fellow Republicans, with the exception 
     of freshman Rep. Diana S. Urban of North Stonington, opposed 
     the public financing bill.
       Under the proposal, candidates for governor and other 
     statewide offices would be eligible for public financing if 
     they first raised a set amount of money (90 percent of it 
     from Connecticut residents) to establish their legitimacy and 
     voluntarily agreed to spending limits. Candidates would be 
     prohibited from accepting money from political committees.
       The bill is a huge improvement over last year's version, 
     which Rowland vetoed, in that it applies to the entire 
     campaign cycle, not just to the months following the parties' 
     nominating conventions.
       But there is an imperfect part. The bill doesn't go far 
     enough in limiting the influence of special interests in 
     legislative campaigns. The financing plan is modeled on one 
     used in Nebraska: A candidate would voluntarily agree to 
     spending limits. If his or her opponent violated those 
     limits, the candidate would be eligible for some public 
     money. PACs and lobbyists would face restrictions on what 
     they could give.
       Rep. Alex Knopp of Norwalk, the chief architect of the 
     bill, acknowledged its flaws, but said there wouldn't be 
     enough state money, at least not right away, to offer public 
     financing to everyone.
       Should the bill reach his desk, Rowland will probably 
     strike it down again. In the name of free speech, special 
     interests will be allowed to continue to unduly influence our 
     elected leaders.
       Make no mistake, those who hide behind the shield of free 
     speech have turned it into an oxymoron. In the context of 
     American politics, speech isn't free. It belongs only to 
     those who can afford it.

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, she makes the point, and I will quote her. I 
should give her credit for this. She says:

       Make no mistake, those who hide behind the shield of free 
     speech have turned it into an oxymoron. In the context of 
     American politics, speech isn't free. It belongs only to 
     those who can afford it.

  That says it about as well and as concisely as anything I have seen 
in print.
  We will vote on this matter later today. We had 33 votes or 
thereabouts the last time, and I am hopeful we may get a few more of 
those who will want to join us in what I consider to be a noble cause.
  I thank my colleague from South Carolina for his efforts. As he has 
pointed out on numerous occasions, there are other examples where we 
limit speech. Speech is not a right without its limitations. And there 
are countless examples of where, in fact, we limit speech because of 
circumstances that we have discerned to be more valuable and more 
important than unfettered speech.
  Certainly, in my view, nothing can be more serious than the debate 
about campaign finance reform and trying to put the brakes on slowing 
down the money chase, trying to make seeking public office more 
available to more people, people with good ideas and creativity and 
imagination and energy who serve in public life but who, because of the 
rising costs of these campaigns, will be excluded from that 
possibility.
  The Senator from South Carolina has come up with the only workable 
solution that I can think of at this juncture. In the absence of it 
being adopted, of course, I will continue to support McCain-Feingold 
because I know of no other way in the absence of that than trying to do 
something about it.
  A better way of dealing with this is to adopt the amendment being 
offered by the Senator from South Carolina. I am pleased to be a 
supporter of it. I thank him for doing so.
  I regret there are not more Members here to engage in this debate 
today. I realize it is Monday. As the Senator from West Virginia said, 
people are probably out holding fundraisers all across the country. As 
one of our colleagues pointed out the other day, you have to raise 
$100,000 a week now to compete effectively in one of the largest States 
in this country. In my State, one of the smallest States in the 
country, you have to raise over $1,000 a day, every day; in fact, more 
than that in order to compete in a contested matter in the small State 
of Connecticut. I have watched a statewide race go from $400,000 in the 
mid-1970s to $5, $6, $7 million today in Connecticut.
  That is obscene. There is no other way to describe it. It is obscene. 
And anyone who has looked at it agrees. The idea, as some have said, 
that the problem is not that there is too much money in politics but 
that there is too little really just runs smack into what most 
Americans, the overwhelming majority of Americans, believe. They 
understand it. I think we know that they understand it.
  I think it is regrettable that we are not going to do something more 
about it, particularly the idea that is being suggested this afternoon 
by the Senator from South Carolina.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. HOLLINGS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Again, the distinguished Senator from Connecticut 
passionately speaks common sense. It is the most moving speech I have 
heard with respect to this particular initiative. I wish everyone could 
have been here to hear that. I hope they look at his remarks in the 
Record so they can understand just exactly what is behind this 
particular initiative.
  Mr. President, Senator Specter and I have a constitutional amendment 
which states that Congress is hereby authorized to regulate or control 
expenditures in Federal elections. Senator Specter and I have been here 
before to argue for this same amendment and we are pleased to have this 
opportunity again, this time with the support of Senators Byrd, 
Cleland, Miller, Biden and Reid. But Mr. President, this is perhaps the 
most timely debate for this Constitutional Amendment because critics 
here in this body and commentators have spent much time discussing the 
constitutionality of McCain-Feingold and the various proposed 
amendments to this bill.
  I want to state clearly, here at the outset, that this amendment does 
not frustrate, oppose, support, or endorse any particular plan of 
reform. Rather, it is the first step toward meaningful reform, 
regardless of the approach. To that end, I hoped to debate this at the 
conclusion of McCain-Feingold so that it could not be used as a sword 
against that measure.
  We had our first fit of conscience when we passed the 1974 Federal 
Election Campaign Act. This act came about due to the untoward activity 
in the 1967 and 1971 Presidential races. I want to remind everyone that 
this was a deliberate, bipartisan effort. It set spending limits on 
campaigns, limited candidates' personal spending, limited expenditures 
by independent persons or groups for or against candidates, set 
voluntary spending limits as a condition for receiving public funding, 
set disclosure requirements for campaign spending and receipts, set 
limits on contributions for individuals and political committees, and 
created the Federal Election Commission. This was a comprehensive 
proposal, with each part complementing the other.
  However, the Supreme Court supplanted this regime with its views on 
campaign finance in the now infamous decision, Buckley v. Valeo. The 
resulting system put a premium on fund raising and encouraged covert 
money donations. Don't take my word for it, look at Justice Kennedy's 
dissenting opinion in the recent Court decision, Nixon v. Shrink 
Missouri Government PAC:

       The plain fact is that the compromise the Court invented in 
     Buckley set the stage for a new kind of speech to enter the 
     political system. It is covert speech. The Court has forced a 
     substantial amount of political speech underground, as 
     contributors and candidates devise even more elaborate 
     methods of avoiding contribution limits, limits which take no 
     account of rising campaign costs. The preferred method has 
     been to conceal the real purpose of the speech. Soft money 
     may be contributed to political parties in unlimited amounts 
     . . . Issue advocacy, like soft money, is unrestricted . . . 
     while straightforward speech in the form of financial 
     contributions paid to a candidate, speech subject to full 
     disclosure and prompt evaluation by the public, is not. The 
     current system would be unfortunate, and suspect under the 
     First Amendment, had it evolved from a deliberate legislative 
     choice; but its unhappy origins are in our earlier decree in

[[Page S2863]]

     Buckley, which by accepting half of what Congress did 
     (limiting contributions) but rejecting the other (limiting 
     expenditures) created a misshapen system, one which distorts 
     the meaning of speech.

  Forgive me for the length of the above quote, but I feel Justice 
Kennedy hit the nail on the head. Now, we must excise this cancer from 
our political system. But it is an exercise in futility to address any 
particular campaign reform plan without first enacting a constitutional 
amendment because Buckley is still the law of the land.
  One critical flaw in the Buckley decision is that the Court equated 
money with speech. Justice Stevens, however, correctly noted in his 
concurring opinion in Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, ``Money 
is property; it is not speech.'' Justice Stevens explains that while 
the Constitution protects an individual's decision about how to use his 
or her property, ``[t]hese property rights, however, are not entitled 
to the same protection as the right to say what one pleases.'' An 
individual's right to get up on a stump and speak on behalf of or in 
opposition to a candidate is markedly different from ``speaking'' with 
money. Justice Kennedy, also in Shrink, observes that there is a 
difference between inspiring volunteers through speech and hiring 
volunteers with money. The first activity deserves the utmost 
protection. Unfortunately, those are minority views of the Court.
  For the sake of argument, assume money is speech as my colleague from 
Kentucky asserts. At the start of the debate we heard the Senator from 
Kentucky provide me the compliment of saying that ``I understand the 
nub of the issue.'' Of course after that fleeting moment he argues why 
we should not accept this measure. Of course there was a time when he 
saw the value of this approach. In 1987, my colleague offered a 
constitutional amendment to restrict the amount of money wealthy 
individuals could spend on their election. The important point is not 
that he once advocated that position, but rather, it recognizes that 
speech is not completely unfettered when there are significant 
interests that require its limitation. The following are a few examples 
of where speech is limited: If it creates a clear and present danger of 
imminent lawless action; if it constitutes fighting words; if it is 
obscene; [The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 in FCC v. Pacifica that the 
Federal Communications Commission could limit what they considered 
offensive language on the airwaves]; if it constitutes defamation; if 
it amounts to false and deceptive advertisement.
  Let me also point out a couple of speech restrictions perhaps more 
closely related to the current debate. The Hatch Act limits federal 
employee involvement in campaigns. Admittedly, the ``Hatch Act 
Amendments of 1993'' removed most of the restrictions on voluntary, 
free-time activities by federal employees; however the following are a 
sample of the restrictions that still apply:
  Federal employees are generally restricted from soliciting, accepting 
or receiving political contributions from any person; they may not run 
for office in most partisan elections; they are generally prohibited 
from engaging in partisan campaign activity on federal property, on 
official duty time, while wearing a uniform or insignia identifying 
them as federal officials or employees, or while using a government 
vehicle.
  Finally, as Justice Breyer, in Nixon v. Shrink, notes ``The 
Constitution often permits restrictions on speech of some form in order 
to prevent a few from drowning out the many--in Congress, for example, 
where constitutionally protected debate, Art. I, Sec. 6, is limited to 
provide every Member an equal opportunity to express his or her views. 
Or in elections, where the Constitution tolerates numerous restrictions 
on ballot access, limiting the political rights of some so as to make 
effective the political rights of the entire electorate.'' This is an 
important point Mr. President. I have long maintained that it is ill-
advised to allow one who possesses more money to drown out the speech 
of another with less money. Essentially what we are saying now is if 
you have money, speak, if you don't, you have the right to keep your 
mouth shut. It is from this line of arguments that I really draw my 
conclusion that I am the one promoting speech.
  So there is precedent for limiting speech where there are equally 
important interests at stake. Our campaign system is of sufficient 
importance and has sufficient problems to warrant limited restrictions. 
Just consider the affect of the cost of running for office. The 
exorbitant costs of campaigns today are a real hurdle, preventing many 
people from throwing their hat into the arena. The average amount spent 
on a campaign for the United States Senate in the year 2000 was 
approximately $7 million. Can you imagine that. That means you have to 
raise on average $22,000 each week for the six years you are in the 
Senate in order to get ready for your next election. Or stated another 
way, you have to raise over $3000.00 per day. Yes that's per day. 
Saturday and Sunday, you need to raise $3000.00. Something is wrong 
when you have to raise more on Sunday than your church.
  Sadly this has really become a money chase. Rampant fund raising 
threatens the very fabric of democracy because it causes people to lose 
faith in the political system. They see their candidates motivated by 
contributions and not by important issues in their community. It often 
seems to the voting public that its voice is being drowned out by the 
hum of cash registers. That of course was not always the case. When I 
first ran for office, much of my campaign work was accomplished through 
volunteers. It was more enjoyable to campaign because you could really 
focus on the individual citizen rather than on raising money. You can't 
afford to go door to door anymore.
  By extension, while politicians are out courting money they are 
obviously not in Washington addressing the concerns of their 
constituents. There is no doubt that our current campaign finance 
system has bred absenteeism in the Senate chamber. We no longer arrive 
to work at 9 o'clock in the morning on Monday and struggle to close 
shop by 5 o'clock in the afternoon on Friday like we once did. Now on 
Monday and on Tuesday morning, there is no real floor debate because so 
many people are out raising money. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, we 
request time windows so that we can do more fund raising. And then as 
soon as Friday rolls around, we bolt from the starting blocks for 
another leg in the money race. If curing this sickly system isn't in 
the governmental interest, then I don't know what is.
  We realize these problems and are now faced with the present dilemma 
of deciding how to reform this broken system under the misguided 
framework laid out in Buckley. The Senator from Arizona and the Senator 
from Wisconsin are to be commended. They are dedicated and have 
successfully drawn attention to this issue. But their critics assert 
the same two arguments: 1. their proposal does not go far enough, or 2. 
their proposal goes too far and runs afoul to the Constitution. This 
will be the case with any serious proposal because of Buckley.
  The unconstitutionality of the Snowe-Jeffords portion of the McCain-
Feingold bill which addresses issue advocacy has been talked about, and 
written about. Recently, Charles Lane wrote an article for the 
Washington Post titled, ``Court Challenge Likely if McCain-Feingold 
Bill Passes.'' The reason for this is that in Buckley, the Supreme 
Court held that campaign finance limitations apply only to express 
communications, such as ``vote for,'' ``elect,'' ``support,'' ``cast 
your ballot for,'' and ``Smith for Congress,'' that advocate the 
election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for federal office 
in express terms. If express words such as these are not present, then 
it is issue advocacy and cannot be regulated. The circuit courts, 
following the Buckley precedent, have drawn a bright line by requiring 
these express words and rejecting intermediate tests to determine 
whether something constitutes express advocacy or issue advocacy. Maine 
Right to Life Committee v. FEC, Oct. 6, 1997, the First Circuit 
affirmed the district court's opinion that the ``reasonable person'' 
standard in its definition of ``express advocacy'' infringed upon issue 
advocacy, an area protected by the First Amendment. The Fourth Circuit 
reached a similar conclusion in FEC v. Christian Action Network, 92 
F.3d 1178, 4th Cir. 1997. The Second Circuit, in Vermont Right to 
Life Committee v.

[[Page S2864]]

Sorrell, determined state campaign regulations were unconstitutional 
because they regulated express and implicit advocacy. It is evident 
that when the government seeks to regulate anything more than express 
or explicit advocacy, which is what they try to do in McCain-Feingold, 
the courts strike it down.

  Mr. President, the soft money ban of McCain-Feingold also faces 
constitutional challenges. The Supreme Court made it clear in Buckley 
that any restriction on First Amendment rights must be narrowly 
tailored to further a substantial governmental interest such as the 
prevention of corruption or the appearance of corruption. In Federal 
Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, 
Colorado I., the Court raised doubts about the risk of corruption 
between parties and candidates. On remand to the district court, 
Colorado II, the court examined whether section 441a(d) of the FECA may 
constitutionally impose coordinated expenditure limits upon parties. 
The lower court found that ``contributor-to-party-to-candidate 
pressure'' is an ``unlikely avenue of corruption'' and that party 
pressure over candidates does not result in corruption. The court 
reasoned that political parties serve to promote political ideas and by 
deciding whether or not to support a candidate that subscribes to these 
ideas does not equal corrupting influence. This case was again appealed 
to the Tenth Circuit. In its May 5, 2000 decision, the circuit court 
affirmed the district court and echoed its reasoning. Allow me to read 
the following quotes from the circuit court's decision:
  ``Political parties today represent a broad-based coalition of 
interests, and there is nothing pernicious about this coalition shaping 
the views of its candidates;''
  ``However, the premise of this theory, namely that, political parties 
can corrupt the electoral system by influencing their candidates' 
positions, gravely misunderstands the role of political parties in our 
democracy,'' and finally;
  ``The opportunity for corruption or its appearance of corruption is 
greatest when the political spending is motivated by economic gain. As 
discussed below, political parties are diverse entities, one step 
removed from the candidate, and they exist for noneconomic reasons.''
  Based on these cases, the ban on soft money is unconstitutional as 
well. James Bopp is general counsel to the James Madison Center for 
Free Speech and served as counsel in more than 60 election-related 
cases, including the Maine Right to Life v. FEC and the Vermont Right 
to Life v. FEC cases mentioned earlier. Mr. Bopp is certainly an expert 
in this area. That is why I found his analysis of McCain-Feingold 
particularly persuasive. According to Bopp:

       Because McCain-Feingold 2001 prohibits the raising of 
     ``soft money'' by national political parties, they have no 
     such money available for issue advocacy, legislative, and 
     organizational activities. It treats political parties as if 
     they were federal-candidate election machines . . . Yet these 
     restrictions fail constitutional muster. Political parties 
     enjoy the same unfettered right to issue advocacy as other 
     entities, which is especially appropriate because advancing a 
     broad range of issues is their raison d'etre. ``Reforms'' 
     banning political parties from receiving and spending so-
     called ``soft money'' cannot be justified as preventing 
     corruption, since the Supreme Court has already held that 
     interest insufficient for restricting issue advocacy in 
     Buckley.

  According to Bopp, if there is not the threat of corruption or the 
appearance of corruption when we speak of political parties, then you 
can't restrict how they raise their money. Thus, the soft money 
regulations in McCain-Feingold are also likely to be found 
unconstitutional.
  In light of the above, a constitutional amendment is a necessary 
first step to real reform. Until we do this we are merely trying to 
patch a leaky dam with Bandaids. Certainly, amending the constitution 
is not something we should do lightly. But, campaign finance goes right 
to the heart of our democracy. That is likely the reason that of the 
nine most recent amendments, seven relate to our electoral process: The 
19th amendment gave women the right to vote; the 20th set the beginning 
of Presidential and Congressional terms and provided for succession of 
the President and Vice President, (i.e., this amendment established 
procedure to replace the President or Vice President elect upon their 
death or incapacitation); the 22nd amendment provided Presidential term 
limits; the 23rd amendment provided the D.C. electoral votes in 
Presidential elections; the 24th amendment eliminated the Poll tax; the 
25th amendment established the procedure for Presidential succession 
whether by death or incapacitation; the 26th amendment changed the 
voting age to 18.
  Surprisingly, the average length of time it took for passage of 
Amendments 20-26 was a little over 17 months. What's even more 
compelling is the fact that the 24th amendment already recognizes the 
influence of money on the freedom of political speech. It says that it 
is unconstitutional to place a financial burden on voters in order for 
them to voice their political opinions at the polls. In other words, it 
gives us ``one man, one vote.'' The poorest of the poor can cancel out 
the richest of the rich. This is the same spirit that's driving 
campaign finance reform today.
  Mr. President, it isn't that the people do not trust us. I think they 
are bored with us. When you talk about campaigns and everything else 
like that, today's model is, you hire a consultant, and he gets the 
poll, and you get seven or eight hot-button items or issues, and you 
counsel: Do not take too strong a position pro or con--for or against--
but, on the contrary, say you are concerned: ``I'm troubled.'' 
Everybody who comes to this blooming place is troubled, and they are 
concerned. But I can't find them taking a position on anything. And 
that goes for Republicans and for Democrats--all the candidates.
  So unless you get a unique individual, such as the Senator from 
Arizona, Mr. McCain, who had no poll, obviously, to get around to this 
campaign finance--and certainly it was not boring. He kept them on 
fire, and kept them going, and kept them interested--and keeps them 
interested. That is why we are having this debate. But the truth of the 
matter is that politics has been taken out of campaigning.
  Let me emphasize what the Senator from West Virginia was talking 
about regarding campaigns. No. 1, we used to have nothing but 
volunteers. I ran for the State house of representatives for $100 back 
in 1948--over 50 years ago. There were 24 candidates. I led the ticket. 
But I worked, and I saw people. I talked and listened to people. There 
weren't fundraisers to go to.
  Now, in contrast, there are only fundraisers to go to. In fact, on 
the recent campaign, I was going around not just thanking but talking 
to old friends, and many said: Why are you coming around now? You have 
already won a wonderful race by a good majority. Why are you coming 
around now?
  I said: I didn't get to see you. I didn't get to talk to you. I could 
only go to fundraisers.
  Mind you me, if you have run, as I have, for the legislature, for 
Lieutenant Governor, Governor, and the U.S. Senate--I have been elected 
seven times--at the country store at the crossroads outside of Honea 
Path on the way into Anderson, they want to know why I didn't come by. 
So I go by that shift at a mill in Edmund, SC. If I don't get to that 3 
o'clock shift, I have ``Potomac fever,'' I have forgotten about the 
people.
  So I know what it is to campaign without money. It is much better 
than this money chase and the TV squibs about how I am against crime, 
how I am for education. That crowd over there, they come out for 
education. They did their best to abolish the Department under 
President Reagan, under President Bush, under President Clinton. They 
had the Contract in the mid-1990s, a few years ago, and wanted to 
abolish the Department of Education. But that is canned now. They are 
all for education. They are not for it, but they have to identify with 
it because the company consultants have said so. That is what is going 
on.
  So the people really are bored with all the campaigning because there 
is nothing to it. You can't get them to take a stand other than they 
are just for this or that popular thing. They finally found out it was 
unpopular to try to veto, but they tried for 20 years to abolish the 
Department of Education. I can tell you because I was here and helped 
defend it over those 20 years.
  But the people have been taken out of the campaign themselves. That 
is all

[[Page S2865]]

you have, time to go on the money chase. Obviously, those making the 
contributions have already made up their mind or they wouldn't have 
come to the event in the first instance. And you wouldn't have gone to 
the event except for the money involved.

  So there it is. I think that at this particular time, other than 
citing a dozen variations of the first amendment--or you might say 
amendments to that first amendment--I think it ought to be emphasized 
just exactly what has occurred in the words of Justice Kennedy in the 
Nixon v. Shrink Missouri case. I quote from him:

       The plain fact is that the compromise the Court invented in 
     Buckley set the stage for a new kind of speech to enter the 
     political system. It is covert speech. The Court has forced a 
     substantial amount of political speech underground, as 
     contributors and candidates devise even more elaborate 
     methods of avoiding contribution limits, limits which take no 
     account of rising campaign costs. The preferred method has 
     been to conceal the real purpose of the speech. Soft money 
     may be contributed to political parties in unlimited amounts. 
     . . . Issue advocacy, like soft money, is unrestricted. . 
     .while straightforward speech in the form of financial 
     contributions paid to a candidate, speech subject to full 
     disclosure and prompt evaluation by the public is not. The 
     current system would be unfortunate, and suspect under the 
     First Amendment, had it evolved from a deliberate legislative 
     choice; but its unhappy origins are in our earlier decree in 
     Buckley, which by accepting half of what Congress did 
     (limiting contributions) but rejecting the other (limiting 
     expenditures) created a misshapen system, one which distorts 
     the meaning of speech.

  Let me add my comment: And distorts the freedom of speech.
  The constitutional amendment will give the opportunity to the U.S. 
Congress to restore that freedom of speech to all Americans.
  We have used over three-quarters of our time, Mr. President, and I 
have some speakers coming who want to speak when they arrive here at 5 
o'clock. So let me suggest the absence of a quorum. I would like to 
speak to the distinguished leader on the other side to see if I could 
charge it to him, or certainly not just run the time out in a quorum 
call and then have 2 hours and no chance to respond. But I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for about 10 minutes or less and that the time be 
counted against the opponents of the legislation. I am told, talking to 
staff, that is not objectionable.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Dodd are located in today's Record under 
``Morning Business.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, before we have the quorum, the Senator 
from Pennsylvania is the principal cosponsor. We have 20 minutes 
remaining. We have some other speakers coming. I will try to borrow 
some time from Senator McConnell when he regains the floor. I ask 
unanimous consent that the quorum call then be charged to both sides.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have just arrived from Pennsylvania. I 
am going to take about 3 minutes to prepare a statement. I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, again, I join my distinguished colleague 
from South Carolina, Senator Hollings, in offering a constitutional 
amendment which, simply stated, would allow the Federal Government, 
through its Congress, signed by the President, or overriding the 
Presidential veto, and the State legislatures, in due form according to 
State law, to enact legislation to limit expenditures and contributions 
on campaign matters.
  In so doing, I would not in any way suggest changing the language of 
the first amendment, which I consider sacrosanct and have personal 
reverence for. But in moving for a constitutional amendment on this 
issue to overturn Buckley v. Valeo, there is no reference here to 
changing any language of the first amendment, but only to changing the 
interpretation of the Supreme Court of the United States in Buckley v. 
Valeo. That decision was extraordinarily complicated. The main portion, 
which I hold in my hand, runs 145 pages. That is not considering the 
dissents which were brought. Chief Justice Burger concurred in part and 
dissented in part, and Justice White concurred in part and dissented in 
part. Justice Marshall dissented in part. Justice Rehnquist concurred 
in part and dissented in part. By the time you finish reading the 
opinion in Buckley v. Valeo, what you find is a constitutional 
quagmire--a constitutional quagmire which, in the past 25 years, has 
led to extraordinary litigation and some of the most absurd results in 
constitutional history.
  For example, the controversy has arisen as to what is an advocacy ad 
and what is an issue ad. The Supreme Court of the United States, in one 
small paragraph in this lengthy opinion, said that in order to uphold 
the statute so that it would not be considered vague and therefore 
violative of the due process clause of the fifth amendment, 
unconstitutional on grounds of vagueness, that the statute would 
require specific language, such as ``vote for'' or ``vote against,'' 
``support,'' or ``defeat.'' That has brought about the dichotomy on 
what is an advocacy ad, which the Supreme Court designed as ``vote 
for,'' or ``vote against,'' et cetera, or what is an issue ad.
  Look at what has happened. In the 1996 campaign, President Clinton 
put on the following ad, which was deemed to be an issue ad, not an 
advocacy ad. What I am about to read to you has been interpreted to be 
just on issues and not urging the election of President Clinton or the 
defeat of Senator Dole. This is the ad:

       America's values: Head Start, student loans, toxic cleanup, 
     extra police, protected in the budget agreement. The 
     President stood firm. Dole-Gingrich's latest plan includes 
     tax hikes on working families, up to 18 million children 
     facing health care cuts, Medicare slashed $167 billion. Then 
     Dole resigns, leaving behind him the gridlock he and Gingrich 
     created. The President's plan: Politics must wait. Balance 
     the budget. Reform welfare. Protect our values.

  It would be hard to conceive an advertisement which was any more 
emphatic to reelect President Clinton and to defeat Senator Dole. But 
the exact same pattern was followed by the other side, the Republican 
National Committee. Listen to the following ad:

       Three years ago, Bill Clinton gave us the largest tax 
     increase in history, including a four-cents-a-gallon increase 
     on gasoline. Bill Clinton said he felt bad about it.

  Then there is a videotape of Clinton saying, ``People in this room 
still get mad at me over the budget process because you think I raised 
your taxes too much. It might surprise you to know that I think I 
raised them too much.'' Then President Clinton's face fades out and the 
announcer comes back on and says, ``OK, Mr. President, we are 
surprised. So now surprise us again. Support Senator Dole's plan to 
repeal your gasoline tax and learn that actions do speak louder than 
words.'' Now how that ad could possibly be interpreted as dealing only 
with issues and not with the advocacy of Senator Dole's election and 
the defeat of President Clinton's bid for reelection--I don't like the 
expression ``boggles the mind,'' but it boggles the mind. But that is 
the consequence of Buckley v. Valeo.
  And, then, referring to a single ad in the election for the year 2000 
Presidential--this is a brief statement because of limited time. We 
could go into many advertisements that are the same, advocating the 
election of one candidate and the defeat of the other, but because of 
Buckley v. Valeo are held to be issue ads. This is an unusual one, even 
in the context of issue ads. This is in the election for the year 2000. 
This is an advertisement paid for by the Democratic National Committee:

       George W. Bush chose Dick Cheney to help lead the 
     Republican Party. What does Cheney's record say about their 
     plans? Cheney was only one of eight Members of Congress to 
     oppose the Clean Water Act, one of few to

[[Page S2866]]

     vote against Head Start, and he voted against the school 
     lunch program and against health insurance for people who 
     lost their jobs. Cheney, an oil company CEO, said it was good 
     for OPEC to cut production of oil and gas so prices can rise. 
     What are their plans for working families?

  It is obvious that the language just read urges defeat of the 
candidate, Vice President Cheney. But how ludicrous is it to say that 
this could remotely be considered an issue ad when it takes up the 
Clean Water Act? There has been no debate about the Clean Water Act. It 
could not possibly be an issue on the American political scene. It 
talks about the Head Start Program, which has been accepted in America 
for more than a decade--hardly a matter that relates to an issue--or 
the school lunch program. Again, it is absolutely ludicrous to say that 
those matters relate to issue advertisements.
  All of this has happened because of the progeny of Buckley v. Valeo. 
The decision in Buckley is inordinately complicated. As I say, there 
are 145 pages in the main text before coming to the dissents and 
concurrences by Chief Justice Burger, Justice White, Justice Marshall, 
and Justice Rehnquist. And then within the doctrines of their 
concurring and dissenting opinions, Mr. Justice White concurred in part 
and dissented in part. This is the start of his opinion:

       I concur in the Court's answers to certified questions 1, 
     2, 3(b), 3(c), 3(e), 3(f), 3(h), 6, 7, 7(a), 7(b), 7(c), 
     7(d), 8, 8(a), 8(b), 8(c), 8(d), 8(f).
       I dissent from the answers to certify questions 3(a), 3(d), 
     4(a), and I also join in part three of the court's opinion 
     adding much of parts 1/B II and IV.

  It takes a complicated crossword puzzle analysis to go through the 
opinions and to figure out who agrees with what and who dissents from 
what and what is the conclusion. If there ever was a constitutional 
quagmire, this is it.
  Regrettably, Justice Stevens did not participate in the decision in 
Buckley v. Valeo. Justice Stevens has since participated in the 
decisions on the issue and has articulated the view that the Supreme 
Court was wrong in Buckley in equating money and speech.
  It seems to me to be a non sequitur on its face, to be diplomatic and 
not to call it absurd, ridiculous, or preposterous, that money equals 
speech. Yet in a society which comprises democratic rule, one person 
one vote, where do you end up with the ability of people to spend 
unlimited sums of money to carry their political point of view? Freedom 
of speech means that someone can advocate, state, articulate, argue, 
but it hardly means, in my opinion, that somebody should be weightier 
in speech because his bank account is weightier. I come to this issue 
with a little bit of a personal bias, if I may state briefly my own 
personal experience with Buckley v. Valeo.
  In January of 1976, when Buckley v. Valeo was decided, I was in a 
primary contest with Congressman John Heinz for the Republican 
nomination for the U.S. Senate. In late January 1976, the Supreme Court 
of the United States said that Congressman Heinz could spend millions, 
which he did, and that my brother, Morton Specter--he could not have 
met the highest financing, but he could have done quite well--was 
limited to $1,000. I petitioned for leave to intervene in Buckley v. 
Valeo and to file a brief in Buckley v. Valeo. So I am no Johnny-come-
lately to this issue.
  When Senator Hollings said to me years ago: Arlen, why don't we take 
on Buckley v. Valeo, I understood Fritz, barely, and we have been 
fighting this constitutional amendment for years. Senator Hollings, if 
he were understood totally, would have carried the day a long time ago 
when he ran for President in 1984. I am pretty sure I have the year 
right. When the campaign was over, Senator Hollings approached me in 
the steam room one day and said: My Presidential campaign went nowhere. 
Everybody thought Fritz Hollings was a German moving company. Fritz 
Hollings.
  We have been at this for a long time, and we have not gotten very 
far. We have not gotten very far because there is a coalition of people 
who articulate the sanctity of freedom of speech, and there are the 
people who would like to keep the current finance system in effect to 
benefit those who can raise the most money or those who have the most 
money.
  While I do not like to repeat myself, it is worth repeating that I 
would not dream of changing the language of the first amendment, but I 
would actively argue that because a majority of Supreme Court Justices 
have interpreted the first amendment as they have in Buckley v. Valeo, 
their interpretations are not sacrosanct. There are many, many, many 
Supreme Court decisions which are 5-4. One vote decides some of the 
most important questions touching the lives of Americans every day. 
Those are interpretations of the Constitution. They are not holy writ. 
They do not come from Mount Olympus. They do not come from Mount Sinai. 
While their opinions may be better than mine, they are not better than 
Senator Hollings, a very distinguished lawyer and constitutional 
scholar.
  I think we have standing to say: Let's take another look at Buckley 
v. Valeo. Let's see where it leaves us.
  We have had very extended debate during the course of the past week, 
and now we are starting the second week on campaign finance reform. 
Continually the issue is raised: What you are proposing is 
unconstitutional. No matter what it is, which side, the argument is 
raised that it is unconstitutional.
  On Thursday afternoon we had an extensive debate with the Senator 
from Kentucky, Mr. McConnell, the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Biden, the 
Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Thompson, and I, and we were 
pontificating--I was pontificating; they were giving legal arguments--
about what was constitutional and what was not constitutional; what is 
a bright line to satisfy Buckley v. Valeo. We could all be right or we 
could all be wrong because the reality is you cannot figure out what 
Buckley v. Valeo means.
  There have been a plethora of decisions I have gone through preparing 
for these discussions, and this is only a small part of it. It is 
beyond peradventure a constitutional quagmire.
  The Supreme Court of the United States has said the obvious in 
Buckley, that there is the authority to regulate speech where you have 
corruption or the appearance of corruption. The appearance of 
corruption is rank in America today.
  We passed a bankruptcy bill the week before last. I thought it was a 
good bill, and I voted for it. I voted for it because there are many 
people who are avoiding their debts who can afford to pay their debts. 
The bankruptcy law has sufficient flexibility so the bankruptcy judge 
can schedule payments that somebody can afford.
  The Senate took a shellacking in the media because of contributions 
and what was characterized as the appearance of corruption, that 
Senators votes were bought.
  A series of books are cited in the amendment which I offered last 
week: ``The Best Congress Money Can Buy,'' ``Party Finance and 
Political Corruption.'' I ask unanimous consent that this list be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       (A) Backroom Politics: How Your Local Politicians Work, Why 
     Your Government Doesn't, and What You Can Do About It, by 
     Bill and Nancy Boyarsky (1974);
       (B) The Pressure Boys: The Inside Story of Lobbying in 
     America, by Kenneth Crawford (1974);
       (C) The American Way of Graft: A Study of Corruption in 
     State and Local Government, How it Happens and What Can Be 
     Done About it, by George Amick (1976);
       (D) Politics and Money: The New Road to Corruption, by 
     Elizabeth Drew (1983);
       (E) The Threat From Within: Unethical Politics and 
     Politicians, by Michael Kroenwetter (1986);
       (F) The Best Congress Money Can Buy, by Philip M. Stern 
     (1988);
       (G) Combating Fraud and Corruption in the Public Sector, by 
     Peter Jones (1993);
       (H) The Decline and Fall of the American Empire: 
     Corruption, Decadence, and the American Dream, by Tony Bouza 
     (1996);
       (I) The Pursuit of Absolute Integrity: How Corruption 
     Control Makes Government Ineffective, by Frank Anechiarico 
     and James B. Jacobs (1996);
       (J) The Political Racket: Deceit, Self-Interest, and 
     Corruption in American Politics, by Martin L. Gross (1996).
       (K) Below the Beltway: Money, Power, and Sex in Bill 
     Clinton's Washington, by John L. Jackley (1996);
       (L) End Legalized Bribery: An Ex-Congressman's Proposal to 
     Clean Up Congress, by Cecil Heftel (1998);
       (M) Year of the Rat: How Bill Clinton Compromised U.S. 
     Security for Chinese Cash, by Edward Timperlake and William 
     C. Triplett, II (1998);
       (N) The Corruption of American Politics: What Went Wrong 
     and Why, by Elizabeth Drew (1999);

[[Page S2867]]

       (O) Corruption, Public Finances, and the Unofficial 
     Economy, by Simon Johnson, Daniel Kaufmann, and Pablo Zoido-
     Lobatoon (1999); and
       (P) Party Finance and Political Corruption, edited by 
     Robert Williams (2000).

  Mr. SPECTER. There is no doubt that the public is concerned about the 
appearance of corruption. It is my hope that there will be a close look 
at this issue by those who are interested in campaign finance reform. 
If someone is not interested in campaign finance reform, then I can 
understand a vote against this constitutional amendment.
  Let's not clear the underbrush of Buckley v. Valeo if someone does 
not want to have campaign finance reform, but if someone wants to have 
campaign finance reform--and there are many people who oppose this 
constitutional amendment on the ground that it is a change of the first 
amendment--they are simply wrong.
  There is no change in the first amendment. There is a change in a 
majority of the nine people on the Supreme Court who have interpreted 
the first amendment.
  I thank the Chair. I thank my distinguished colleague from South 
Carolina, and I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, the proposal of the Senator from 
South Carolina to eviscerate the first amendment is as refreshing as it 
is frightful.
  It is a blunt instrument, this proposed amendment to the 
Constitution. It consists of a simple paragraph repeated twice so that 
the State governments, as well as Congress, would be empowered to 
restrict the heretofore sacrosanct, all contributions and spending 
``by, in support of, or in opposition to candidates for public 
office.'' The whole political ballgame: citizen groups, individuals, 
parties and the candidates.

  Unlike the McCain-Feingold, the Hollings constitutional amendment 
does not include a special exemption for the news and entertainment 
media.
  And unlike the McCain-Feingold debate, the casual observer will not 
be confused by the campaign finance vocabulary. ``Issue advocacy,'' 
``express advocacy,'' ``electioneering,'' ``soft money,'' ``hard 
money''--these terms of art in the McCain-Feingold debate are absent 
from the Hollings constitutional amendment, which reads simply: ``by, 
in support of, or in opposition to.''
  Plain English. These eight words in the Hollings constitutional 
amendment sum up the reformers' agenda for the past quarter-century as 
they have sought to root out of American political life any speech or 
activity which could conceivably affect an election or be of value to a 
politician.
  Except the media's speech, of course. McCain-Feingold takes care of 
them with a special exemption on page 15 of their bill to foreclose 
prosecution of their ``electioneering'' in newspapers, on radio and 
television.
  The Hollings amendment reaches right in and rips the heart right out 
of the First Amendment.
  No pretense. No artifice. No question about it. If you believe that 
the government--federal and state--ought to be omnipotent in their 
power to restrict all contributions and spending ``by, in support of, 
or in opposition to'' candidates for public office . . . then the 
Hollings amendment is for you.
  If you believe that the United States Supreme Court should be taken 
out of the campaign finance equation, then the Hollings constitutional 
amendment is for you.
  If the Hollings amendment had been in place twenty-five years ago, 
there would have been no Buckley v. Valeo decision. Congress would have 
gotten its way in the 1970s: independent expenditures would be capped 
at $1,000. Any issue advocacy that FEC bureaucrats deem capable of 
influencing an election would be capped at $1,000.
  Citizen groups would have to disclose to the government their donor 
lists. Sierra Club members who live in small towns out west where 
environmentalists are not universally revered--and whose need for 
anonymity has been cited by Sierra Club officials as the reason they 
keep donor names secret--would have their names publicly listed on a 
government database, probably the Internet.
  All of us politicians' campaigns would be constrained by mandatory 
spending limits. There would be no ``millionaire's loophole'' because 
millionaires would be under the spending limits, too.
  There would be no taxpayer financing. It would not be necessary, 
because spending limits would not have to be voluntary.
  That's why the American Civil Liberties Union counsel, Joel Gora, who 
was part of the legal team in the Buckley case has labeled the Hollings 
constitutional amendment: a ``recipe for repression.''
  The media--news and entertainment divisions--ought to take note. 
There is no exemption for them in the Hollings constitutional 
amendment. No media ``loophole.'' Under the Hollings constitutional 
amendment, the federal and stage governments could regulate, restrict, 
even prohibit, the media's own issue advocacy, independent expenditures 
and contributions. Just so long as the restrictions were deemed 
``reasonable.''
  I commend the Senator from South Carolina for offering this 
amendment, insofar as he lays out on the table just what the stakes are 
in the campaign finance debate.
  To do what the reformers say they want to do--limit ``special 
interest'' influence--requires limiting the United States Constitution 
which gives ``special interest''--that is, all Americans--the freedom 
to speak, the freedom to associate with others in a cause, and the 
freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
  You have to gut the first amendment. You have to throw out on the 
trash heap that freedom which the U.S. Supreme Court said six decades 
ago, is ``the matrix, the indispensable condition of nearly every other 
form of freedom.''
  If you believe McCain-Feingold is constitutional, as its advocates 
claim it is, then you do not need the Hollings constitutional 
amendment. In fact, Senator Feingold is against the constitutional 
amendment.
  If you vote for the Hollings constitutional amendment, then you have 
affirmed what so many of us in and outside of the Senate have been 
saying: that to do what McCain Feingold's proponents want to do--
restrict all spending by, in support of and in opposition to 
candidates, then you need to get rid of the first amendment. That is 
the core of the problem.
  If you really want to reduce special interest influence on American 
politics, you need to get rid of the first amendment.
  Fortunately, Madam President, this amendment, which Senator Hollings 
has certainly persevered in offering over the years, continues to lose 
support. The first time I was involved in this debate back in 1988, it 
actually passed--bearing in mind it requires 67, a majority, for this 
amendment--52-42. That rough majority persisted in a second vote in 
1988 and then a sense of the Senate vote in 1993.
  Then in 1995 the support for it dropped from 52 down to 45 and in 
1997 from 45 down to 38, and last year, March 28, 2000, this proposal 
was defeated 67-33. Only 33 Senators a year ago believed it was 
appropriate to amend the Constitution for the first time in history to 
give the Government this kind of power.
  One of the reasons this constitutional amendment is growing in 
unpopularity is that it has a lot of opponents. Common Cause is opposed 
to it. I ask unanimous consent two letters from Common Cause on the 
subject be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                 Common Cause,

                                   Washington, DC, March 12, 1997.
       Dear Senator: The Senate is expected to vote later this 
     week on a proposed constitutional amendment to provide 
     Congress with the ability to impose mandatory limits on 
     campaign spending, thus overriding a portion of the Supreme 
     Court's 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo.
       Common Cause opposes the constitutional amendment because 
     it will serve as a diversionary tactic that could prevent 
     Congress from passing campaign finance reform this year. We 
     believe that a constitutional amendment is not necessary in 
     order to achieve meaningful and comprehensive reform.
       Under existing Supreme Court doctrine, Congress has 
     significant scope to enact tough and effective campaign 
     finance reform consistent with the Court's interpretation of 
     the First Amendment in Buckley.
       The McCain-Feingold bill, S.25, provides for significant 
     reform within the framework

[[Page S2868]]

     of the Buckley decision. The legislation would:
       Ban soft money;
       Provide reduced postage rates and free or reduced cost 
     television time as incentives for congressional candidates to 
     agree to restrain their spending;
       Close loopholes related to independent expenditures and 
     campaign ads that masquerade as ``issue advocacy'';
       Reduce the influence of special-interest political action 
     committee (PAC) money;
       Strengthen disclosure and enforcement.
       A recent letter to Senators McCain and Feingold from 
     constitutional scholar Burt Neuborne, the Legal Director of 
     the Brennan Center for Justice and a past National Legal 
     Director of the ACLU, sets forth the case that the McCain-
     Feingold bill is constitutional, Professor Neuborne finds 
     that the key provisions of the bill are within the Court's 
     existing interpretation of the First Amendment, and he thus 
     demonstrates that a constitutional amendment is not necessary 
     to enact reform.
       Professor Neuborne concludes that the voluntary spending 
     limits in the McCain-Feingold bill are consistent with the 
     Supreme Court's ruling in Buckley. He further concludes that 
     ``Congress possesses clear power to close the soft money 
     loophole by restricting the source and size of contributions 
     to political parties. . . .'' He also concludes that efforts 
     to close loopholes relating to independent expenditures and 
     so-called ``issue ads'' are also within Congress existing 
     authority.
       It is, therefore, not necessary to amend the Constitution 
     in order to enact meaningful campaign finance reform. 
     Congress has the power, consistent with the First Amendment, 
     to enact comprehensive reform by statute.
       A constitutional amendment for campaign finance reform 
     should not be used as a way to delay reform legislation. 
     Typically, amending the Constitution takes years. After both 
     Houses of Congress adopt an amendment by a two-thirds vote, 
     it has to be approved by three-quarters of the state 
     legislatures. Even then, the Congress would still have to 
     take up enacting legislation. This is a lengthy and arduous 
     process.
       Congress needs to act now to address the growing scandal in 
     the campaign finance system. Congress can act now--and 
     consitutionally--to adopt major reforms. Congress need not 
     and should not start a reform process that will take years to 
     complete by pursing campaign finance reform through a 
     constitutional amendment. Instead, the Senate should focus 
     its efforts on enacting S.25, comprehensive bipartisan 
     legislation that represents real reform. It is balanced, 
     fair, and should be enacted this year to ensure meaningful 
     reform of the way congressional elections are financed.
           Sincerely.
                                                      Ann McBride,
     President.
                                  ____



                                                 Common Cause,

                                   Washington, DC, March 23, 1988.
       Dear Senator: The Senate is expected to consider shortly 
     S.J. Res. 21, a proposed amendment to the Constitution to 
     give Congress the power to enact mandatory limits on 
     expenditures in campaigns. Common Cause urges you not to 
     support S.J. Res. 21.
       The fundamental problems caused by the massive growth in 
     spending for congressional elections and by special interest 
     PAC giving demand effective and expeditious solution. The 
     Senate recently came within a handful of votes of achieving 
     this goal. For the first time since the Watergate period, a 
     majority of Senators went on record in support of 
     comprehensive campaign finance reform legislation, including 
     a system of spending limits for Senate races. It took an 
     obstructionist filibuster by a minority of Senators to block 
     the bill from going forward.
       The Senate now stands within striking distance of enacting 
     comprehensive legislation to deal with the urgent problems 
     that confront the congressional campaign finance system. The 
     Senate should not walk from or delay effort. But that is what 
     will happen if the Senate chooses to pursue a constitutional 
     amendment, an inherently lengthy and time-consuming process.
       S.J. Res. 21, the proposed constitutional amendment, would 
     not establish expenditure limits in campaigns; it would only 
     empower the Congress to do so. Thus even if two-thirds of the 
     Senate and the House should pass S.J. Res. 21 and three-
     quarters of the states were to ratify the amendment, it would 
     then still be necessary for the Senate and the House to pass 
     legislation to establish spending limits in congressional 
     campaigns.
       Yet it is this very issue of whether there should be 
     spending limits in congressional campaigns that has been at 
     the heart of the recent legislative battle in the Senate. 
     Opponents of S. 2, the Senatorial Election Campaign Act, made 
     very clear that their principal objection was the 
     establishment of any spending limits in campaigns.
       So even assuming a constitutional amendment were to be 
     ratified, after years of delay the Senate would find itself 
     right back where it is today--in a battle over whether there 
     should be spending limits in congressional campaigns. In the 
     interim, it is almost certain that nothing would have been 
     done to deal with the scandalous congressional campaign 
     finance system.
       There are other serious questions that need to be 
     considered and addressed by anyone who is presently 
     considering supporting S.J. Res. 21.
       For example, what are the implications if S.J. Res. 21 
     takes away from the federal courts any ability to determine 
     that particular expenditure limits enacted by Congress 
     discriminate against our otherwise violate the constitutional 
     rights of challengers?
       What are the implications, if any, of narrowing by 
     constitutional amendment the First Amendment rights of 
     individuals as interpreted by the Supreme Court?
       We believe that campaign finance reform legislation must 
     continue to be a top priority for the Senate as it has been 
     in the 100th Congress. If legislation is not passed this 
     year, it should be scheduled for early action in the Senate 
     and the House in 1989.
       In conclusion, Common Cause strongly urges the Senate to 
     face up to its institutional responsibilities to reform the 
     disgraceful congressional campaign finance system. The Senate 
     should enact comprehensive legislation to establish a system 
     of campaign spending limits and aggregate PAC limits, instead 
     of pursuing a constitutional amendment that will delay 
     solving this fundamental problem for years and then still 
     leave Congress faced with the need to pass legislation to 
     limit campaign spending.
           Sincerely,
                                                  Fred Wertheimer,
                                                        President.

  Mr. McCONNELL. The Washington Post is against it, and I ask unanimous 
consent their editorial opposing it be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, Apr. 6, 1988]

                            Campaign Spinach

       Sen. Ernest Hollings was not an admirer of S. 2, the sturdy 
     bill his fellow Democrats tried to pass to limit 
     congressional campaign spending by setting up a system of 
     partial public finance. He agreed to vote for cloture, to 
     break a Republican filibuster, only after Majority Leader 
     Robert Byrd agreed to bring up a Hollings constitutional 
     amendment if cloture failed. Mr. Byrd, having lost on S. 2, 
     is now about to do that.
       Right now Congress can't just limit spending and be done 
     with it; the Supreme Court says such legislation would 
     violate the First Amendment. Limits can only be imposed 
     indirectly--for example, as a condition for receipt of public 
     campaign funds. The Hollings amendment would cut through this 
     thick spinach by authorizing Congress to impose limits 
     straightaway. The limits are enticing, but the constitutional 
     amendment is a bad idea. It would be an exception to the free 
     speech clause, and once that clause is breached for one 
     purpose, who is to say how many others may follow? As the 
     American Civil Liberties Union observed in opposing the 
     measure, about the last thing the country needs is ``a second 
     First Amendment.''
       The free speech issue arises in almost any effort to 
     regulate campaigns, the fundamental area of free expression 
     on which all others depend. There has long been the feeling 
     in and out of Congress--which we emphatically share--that 
     congressional campaign spending is out of hand. Congress 
     tried in one of the Watergate reforms to limit both the 
     giving and the spending of campaign funds. The Supreme Court 
     in its Buckley v. Valeo decision in 1976 drew a rather 
     strained distinction between these two sides of the campaign 
     ledger. In a decision that let it keep a foot in both camps--
     civil liberties and reform--it said Congress could limit 
     giving but not spending (except in the context of a system of 
     public finance). In the first case the court found that ``the 
     governmental interest in preventing corruption and the 
     appearance of corruption'' outweighed the free speech 
     considerations, while in the second case it did not.
       Mr. Hollings would simplify the matter, but at considerable 
     cost. His amendment said, in a recent formulation: ``The 
     Congress may enact laws regulating the amounts of 
     contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections 
     to federal offices.'' But that's much too vague, and so are 
     rival amendments that have been proposed. Ask yourself what 
     expenditures of a certain kind in an election year are not 
     ``intended to affect'' the outcome? At a certain point in the 
     process, just about any public utterance is.
       Nor would the Hollings amendment be a political solution to 
     the problem. Congress would still have to vote the limits, 
     and that is what the Senate balked at this time around.
       As Buckley v. Valeo demonstrates, this is a messy area of 
     law. The competing values are important; they require a 
     balancing act. The Hollings amendment, in trying instead to 
     brush the problem aside, is less a solution than a dangerous 
     show. The Senate should vote it down.

  Mr. McCONNELL. No surprisingly, George Will is opposed to it, and I 
ask unanimous consent two editorials be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Feb. 13, 1997]

                             Government Gag

                          (By George F. Will)

       ``To promote the fair and effective functioning of the 
     democratic process, Congress, with respect to elections for 
     federal office, and States, for all other elections, 
     including initiatives and referenda, may adopt reasonable 
     regulations of funds expended, including

[[Page S2869]]

     contributions, to influence the outcome of elections, 
     provided that such regulations do not impair the right of the 
     public to a full and free discussion of all issues and do not 
     prevent any candidate for elected office from amassing the 
     resources necessary for effective advocacy.
       ``Such governments may reasonably define which expenditures 
     are deemed to be for the purpose of influencing elections, so 
     long as such definition does not interfere with the right of 
     the people fully to debate issues.
       ``No regulation adopted under this authority may regulate 
     the content of any expression of opinion or 
     communication.''--Proposed amendment to the Constitution
       Like the imperturbable Sir Francis Drake, who did not allow 
     the Spanish Armada's arrival off England to interrupt a game 
     of bowling, supposed friends of the First Amendment are 
     showing notable sang-froid in the face of ominous 
     developments. Freedom of speech is today under more serious 
     attack than at any time in at least the last 199 years--since 
     enactment of the Alien and Sedition Acts. Actually, today's 
     threat, launched in the name of political hygiene, is graver 
     than that posed by those acts, for three reasons.
       First, the 1798 acts, by which Federalists attempted to 
     suppress criticism of the government they then controlled, 
     were bound to perish with fluctuations in the balance of 
     partisan forces. Today's attack on free speech advances under 
     a bland bipartisan banner of cleanliness.
       Second, the 1798 acts restricted certain categories of 
     political speech and activities, defined, albeit quite 
     broadly, by content and objectives. Today's enemies of the 
     First Amendment aim to abridge the right of free political 
     speech generally. It is not any particular content but the 
     quantity of political speech they find objectionable,
       Third, the 1798 acts had expiration dates and were allowed 
     to expire. However, if today's speech-restrictors put in 
     place their structure of restriction (see above), its anti-
     constitutional premise and program probably will be 
     permanent.
       Its premise is that Americans engage in too much 
     communication of political advocacy, and that government--
     that is, incumbents in elective offices--should be trusted to 
     decide and enforce the correct amount. This attempt to put 
     the exercise of the most elemental civil right under 
     government regulation is the most frontal assault ever 
     mounted on the most fundamental principle of the nation's 
     Founders.
       The principle is that limited government must be limited 
     especially severely concerning regulation of the rights most 
     essential to an open society. Thus the First Amendment says 
     ``Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of 
     speech,'' not ``Congress may abridge the freedom of speech 
     with such laws as Congress considers reasonable.''
       The text of the proposed amendment comes from Rep. Richard 
     Gephardt, House minority leader, who has the courage of his 
     alarming convictions when he says: ``What we have is two 
     important values in conflict: freedom of speech and our 
     desire for healthy campaigns in a healthy democracy. You 
     can't have both.''
       However, he also says: ``I know this is a serious step to 
     amend the First Amendment. . . . But . . . this is not an 
     effort to diminish free speech.'' Nonsense. Otherwise 
     Gephardt would not acknowledge that the First Amendment is an 
     impediment.
       The reformers' problem is the Supreme Court, which has 
     affirmed the obvious: Restrictions on the means of making 
     speech heard, including spending for the dissemination of 
     political advocacy, are restrictions on speech. It would be 
     absurd to say, for example: ``Congress shall make no law 
     abridging the right to place one's views before the public in 
     advertisements or on billboards but Congress can abridge--
     reasonably, of course--the right to spend for such things.
       Insincerity oozes from the text of the proposed amendment. 
     When Congress, emancipated from the First Amendment's 
     restrictions, weaves its web of restraints on political 
     communication, it will do so to promote its understanding of 
     what is the ``fair'' and ``effective'' functioning of 
     democracy, and ``effective'' advocacy. Yet all this 
     regulation will be consistent with ``the right of the people 
     fully to debate issues,'' and with ``full and free discussion 
     of all issues''--as the political class chooses to define 
     ``full'' and ``free'' and the ``issues.''
       In 1588 England was saved not just by Drake but by luck--
     the ``Protestant wind'' that dispersed the Armada. Perhaps 
     today the strangely silent friends of freedom--why are not 
     editorial pages erupting against the proposed vandalism 
     against the Bill of Rights?--are counting on some similar 
     intervention to forestall today's ``reformers,'' who aim not 
     just to water the wine of freedom but to regulate the 
     consumption of free speech.
                                  ____


                [From the Washington Post, Apr. 2, 2000]

                      Improving the Bill of Rights

                          (By George F. Will)

       Last week Washington was a sight to behold. Two sights, 
     actually, both involving hardy perennials. The city was a 
     riot of cherry blossoms. And senators were again attacking 
     the First Amendment.
       Thirty-three senators--30 Democrats and three Republicans--
     voted to amend the First Amendment to vitiate its core 
     function, which is to prevent government regulation of 
     political communication. The media generally ignored this: 
     Evidently assaults on the First Amendment are now too routine 
     to be newsworthy. Besides, most of the media favor what last 
     week's attack was intended to facilitate, the empowerment of 
     government to regulate political advocacy by every individual 
     and group except the media.
       The attempt to improve Mr. Madison's Bill of Rights came 
     from Fritz Hollings, the South Carolina Democrat, who 
     proposed amending the First Amendment to say Congress or any 
     state ``shall have power to set reasonable limits on the 
     amount of contributions that may be accepted, and the amount 
     of expenditures that may be made by, in support of, or in 
     opposition to, a candidate for nomination for election to, or 
     for election to, federal office.''
       So, this license for politicians to set limits on 
     communication about politicians requires that the limits be, 
     in the judgment of the politicians, ``reasonable.'' Are you 
     reassured? Hollings, whose candor is as refreshing as his 
     amendment is ominous, says, correctly, that unless the First 
     Amendment is hollowed out as he proposes, the McCain-Feingold 
     speech-regulation bill is unconstitutional.
       Fuss Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who is John McCain's 
     co-perpetrator, voted against Hollings in order to avoid 
     affirming that McCain-Feingold is unconstitutional. McCain 
     voted with Hollings.
       The standard rationale for regulating the giving and 
     spending that is indispensable for political communication is 
     to avoid ``corruption'' or the appearance thereof. Hollings, 
     who has been a senator for 33 years, offered a novel notion 
     of corruption. He said the Senate under Montana's Mike 
     Mansfield (who was majority leader 1961-76) used to work five 
     days a week. But now, says Hollings, because of the 
     imperatives of fund-raising, ``Mondays and Fridays are gone'' 
     and ``we start on the half day on Tuesdays,'' and there are 
     more and longer recesses. All of which, says Hollings, 
     constitutes corruption.
       Well. The 94th Congress (1975-76), Mansfield's last as 
     leader, was in session 320 days and passed 1,038 bills. The 
     105th Congress (1997-98) was in session 296 days and passed 
     586 bills. The fact that 22 years after Mansfield's departure 
     there was a 7.5 percent reduction in the length of the 
     session but a 43.5 percent reduction in legislative output is 
     interesting. But it is peculiar to think that passing 586 
     bills in two years--almost two bills every day in session--is 
     insufficient. Is the decline in output deplorable, let alone 
     a form of corruption, and hence a reason for erecting a 
     speech-rationing regime?
       The Framers of the First Amendment were not concerned with 
     preventing government from abridging their freedom to speak 
     about crops and cockfighting, or with protecting the 
     expressive activity of topless dancers, which of late has 
     found some shelter under the First Amendment. Rather, the 
     Framers cherished unabridged freedom of political 
     communication. Last week's 33 votes in favor of letting 
     government slip Mr. Madison's leash and regulate political 
     talk were 34 fewer than the required two-thirds, and five 
     fewer than Holling's amendment got in 1997. Still, every time 
     at least one-third of the Senate stands up against Mr. 
     Madison, it is, you might think, newsworthy.
       Last week's campaign reform follies included a proposal so 
     bizarre it could have come only from a normal person in jest, 
     or from Al Gore in earnest. He proposes to finance all 
     congressional and Senate races from an ``endowment'' funded 
     with $7.1 billion (the .1 is an exquisite Gore flourish) in 
     tax deductible contributions from individuals and 
     corporations.
       An unintended consequence of Gore's brainstorm would be to 
     produce, in congressional races across the country, 
     spectacles like that in the Reform Party today--federal money 
     up for grabs, and the likes of Pat Buchanan rushing to grab 
     it. But would money flow into the endowment?
       With the scary serenity of a liberal orbiting reality, Gore 
     says: ``The views of the donor will have absolutely no 
     influence on the views of the recipient.'' Indeed, but the 
     views of particular recipients also would be unknown to 
     particular donors because all money pour into and out of one 
     pool. So what would be the motive to contribute?
       Still, Gore has dreamt up a new entitlement (for 
     politicians) to be administered by a new bureaucracy--a good 
     day's work for Gore.

  Mr. McCONNELL. The ACLU, of course, is opposed to it. I ask their 
letter in opposition be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                               American Civil Liberties Union,

                                   Washington, DC, March 24, 2000.
       Dear Senator: The American Civil Liberties Union strongly 
     opposes S.J. Res. 6, the proposed constitutional amendment 
     that permits Congress and the states to enact laws regulating 
     federal campaign expenditures and contributions.
       Whatever one's position may be on campaign finance reform 
     and how best to achieve it, a constitutional amendment of the 
     kind here proposed is not the solution. Amending the First 
     Amendment for the first time in our history in the way that 
     S.J. Res. 6 proposes would challenge all pre-existing First 
     Amendment jurisprudence and would give to Congress and the 
     states unprecedented,

[[Page S2870]]

     sweeping and undefined authority to restrict speech protected 
     by the First Amendment since 1791.
       Because it is vague and over-broad, S.J. Res. 6 would give 
     Congress a virtual ``blank check'' to enact any legislation 
     that may abridge a vast array of free speech and free 
     association rights that we now enjoy. In addition, this 
     measure should be opposed because it provides no guarantee 
     that Congress or the states will have the political will, 
     after the amendment's adoption, to enact legislation that 
     will correct the problems in our current electoral system. 
     This amendment misleads the American people because it tells 
     them that only if they sacrifice their First Amendment 
     rights, will Congress correct the problems in our system. Not 
     only is this too high a price to demand in the name of 
     reform, it is unwise to promise the American people such an 
     unlikely outcome.
       Rather than assuring that the electoral processes will be 
     improved, a constitutional amendment merely places new state 
     and federal campaign finance law beyond the reach of First 
     Amendment jurisprudence. All Congress and the states would 
     have to demonstrate is that its laws were ``reasonable.'' 
     ``Reasonable'' laws do not necessarily solve the problems of 
     those who are harmed by or locked out of the electoral 
     process on the basis of their third party status, lack of 
     wealth or non-incumbency. The First Amendment properly 
     prevents the government from being arbitrary when making 
     these distinctions, but S.J. Res. 6 would enable the Congress 
     to set limitations on expenditures and contributions 
     notwithstanding current constitutional understandings.
       Once S.J. Res. 6 is adopted, Congress and local governments 
     could easily further distort the political process in 
     numerous ways. Congress and state governments could pass new 
     laws that operate to the detriment of dark horse and third 
     party candidates. For example, with the intention of creating 
     a ``level playing field'' Congress could establish equal 
     contribution and expenditure limits that would ultimately 
     operate to the benefit of incumbents who generally have 
     higher name recognition, greater access to their party 
     apparatus and more funds than their opponents. Thus, 
     rather than assure fair and free elections, the proposal 
     would enable those in power to perpetuate their own power 
     and incumbency advantage to the disadvantage of those who 
     would challenge the status quo.
       S.J. Res. 6 would also give Congress and every state 
     legislature the power, heretofore denied by the First 
     Amendment, to regulate the most protected function of the 
     press--editorializing. Print outlets such as newspapers and 
     magazines, broadcasters, Internet publishers and cable 
     operators would be vulnerable to severe regulation of 
     editorial content by the government. A candidate-centered 
     editorial, as well as op-ed articles or commentary printed at 
     the publisher's expense are most certainly expenditures in 
     support of or in opposition to particular political 
     candidates. The amendment, as its words make apparent, would 
     authorize Congress to set reasonable limits on the 
     expenditures by the media during campaigns, when not strictly 
     reporting the news. Such a result would be intolerable in a 
     society that cherishes the free press.
       Even if the Congress exempted the press from the amendment, 
     what rational basis would it use to distinguish between 
     certain kinds of speech? For example, why would it be 
     justified for Congress to allow a newspaper publisher to run 
     unlimited editorials on behalf of a candidate, but to make it 
     unlawful for a wealthy individual to purchase a unlimited 
     number of billboards for the same candidate? Likewise, why 
     would it be permissible for a major weekly newsmagazine to 
     run an unlimited number of editorials opposing a candidate, 
     but impermissible for the candidate or his supporters to 
     raise or spend enough money to purchase advertisements in the 
     same publication? At what point is a journal or magazine that 
     is published by an advocacy group different from a major 
     daily newspaper, when it comes to the endorsement of 
     candidates for federal office? Should one type of media 
     outlet be given broader free expression privileges than the 
     other? Should national media outlets have to abide for fifty 
     different state and local standards for expenditures? These 
     are questions that Congress has not adequately addressed or 
     answered.
       Moreover, the proposed amendment appears to reach not only 
     expenditures by candidates or their agents but also the truly 
     independent expenditures by individual citizens and groups--
     the very speech that the First Amendment was designed to 
     protect.
       If Congress or the states want to change our campaign 
     finance system, then it need not throw out the First 
     Amendment in order to do so. Congress can adopt meaningful 
     federal campaign finance reform measures without abrogating 
     the First Amendment and without contravening the Supreme 
     Court's decision in Buckley v. Valeo. Some of these reform 
     measures include:
       Public financing for all legally qualified candidates--
     financing that serves as a floor, not a ceiling for campaign 
     expenditures;
       Extending the franking privilege to all legally qualified 
     candidates;
       Providing assistance to candidates for broadcasting 
     advertising;
       Improving the resources for the FEC so that it can provide 
     timely disclosure of contributions and expenditures;
       Providing resources for candidate travel.
       Rather than argue for these proposals, many members of 
     Congress continue to propose unconstitutional measures, such 
     as the McCain/Feingold bill that are limit-driven methods of 
     campaign finance reform that place campaign regulation on a 
     collision course with the First Amendment. Before Senators 
     vote to eliminate certain First Amendment rights, the ACLU 
     urges the Congress to consider other legislative options, and 
     to give these alternatives its considered review through the 
     hearing and mark-up processes.
       The ACLU urges Senators to oppose S.J. Res. 6. As Joel 
     Gora, Professor of Law of the Brooklyn Law School recently 
     stated, ``This constitutional amendment is a recipe for 
     repression.''
           Sincerely,
                                                  Laura W. Murphy.

  Mr. McCONNELL. The Cato Institute is opposed. I ask unanimous consent 
its letter be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                           The Cato Institute,

                                   Washington, DC, March 24, 2000.
     Hon. Mitch McConnell,
     Chairman, Committee on Rules and Administration, U.S. Senate, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman McConnell: Your office has invited my brief 
     thoughts on S.J. Res. 6, offered by Senator Hollings for 
     himself and Senators Specter, McCain, and Bryan, which 
     proposes an amendment to the Constitution of the United 
     States that would grant power to the Congress and the States 
     ``to set reasonable limits on the amount of contributions 
     that may be accepted by, and the amount of expenditures that 
     may be made by, in support of, or in opposition to, a 
     candidate for nomination for election to, or for election 
     to,'' any federal, state, or local office.
       It is my understanding that on Monday next, Senator 
     Hollings is planning to offer this resolution as an amendment 
     to the flag-burning amendment now before the Senate. For my 
     thoughts on the proposed flag-burning amendment, please see 
     the testimony I have given on the issue, as posted at the 
     website of the American Civil Liberties Union, and the op-ed 
     I wrote for the Washington Post, copies of which are 
     attached.
       Regarding the proposed campaign finance amendment, I am 
     heartened to learn that those who want to ``reform'' our 
     campaign finance law are admitting that a constitutional 
     amendment is necessary. But that very admission speaks 
     volumes about the present unconstitutionality of most of the 
     proposals now in the air. It is not for nothing that the 
     Founders of this nation provided explicitly for unrestrained 
     freedom of political expression and association--which 
     includes, the Court has said, the right to make political 
     contributions and expenditures. They realized that 
     governments and government officials tend to serve their own 
     interests, for which the natural antidote is unfettered 
     political opposition--in speech and in the electoral process.
       In the name of countering that tendency this amendment 
     would restrict its antidote. It is a ruse--an unvarnished, 
     transparent effort to restrict our political freedom and, by 
     implication, the further freedoms that freedom ensures. That 
     it is dressed in the gossamer clothing of ``reform'' only 
     compounds the evil--even as it exposes its true character. If 
     the true aim of this amendment is incumbency protection, then 
     let those who propose it come clean. Otherwise, they must be 
     challenged to show why the experience of previous ``reforms'' 
     will not be repeated in this case too. Given the evidence, 
     that will not be an enviable task.
       Fortunately, candor is still possible in this nation. This 
     is an occasion for it. I urge you to resist this amendment 
     with the forces that candor commands.
           Yours truly,
                                                      Roger Pilon.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Other countries tried to do what the distinguished 
Senator from South Carolina seeks to do, other countries unfettered by 
the first amendment. They don't have the problem we have in trying to 
restrict the speech of their citizens. A quick glance around the world 
makes clear that more government control of speech in the places where 
it is allowed is not the answer.
  The first amendment distinguishes us from the rest of the world. The 
first amendment allows the citizens--not the government; the citizens, 
not the government--to control speech. Consequently, much of the rest 
of the world has restricted political speech far more than we have in 
the United States. Reformers abroad, as those at home, seek to reduce 
cynicism about the government and increase voter participation. With no 
first amendment in these other countries to get in the way, the 
reformers have been able to enact sweeping reforms.
  Let me share with my colleagues some of the other countries' 
experience. Canada, our neighbor to the north, has passed many of the 
types of regulations supported by those supporting McCain-Feingold. 
Canada has

[[Page S2871]]

adopted the following regulations of political speech: A spending limit 
that all national candidates must abide by to be eligible to receive 
taxpayer matching funds. Candidates can spend $2 per voter for the 
first 15,000 votes they get, and $1 per voter for all the votes up to 
25,000, and 50 cents per voter beyond 25,000 voters.
  There are spending limits on parties that restrict parties to 
spending a product of a multiple used to account for the cost of living 
times the number of registered voters in each electoral district in 
which the party has a candidate running for office. It comes out now to 
about $1 a voter.
  The Canadian Government requires that radio and television stations 
provide all parties with a specified amount of free time during the 
month prior to the election. The Government also provides subsidies to 
defray the cost of political publishing and gives tax credits to 
individuals and corporations which donate to candidates and/or parties.
  The most recent political science studies of Canada demonstrate, 
despite all of this regulation of political speech by candidates and 
parties, the number of Canadians who believe the Government doesn't 
care what people such as I think has grown from roughly 45 percent to 
approximately 67 percent. Confidence in the national legislature has 
declined from 49 percent to 21 percent, and the number of Canadians 
satisfied with their system of government has declined from 51 percent 
to 34 percent.
  If you think the Canadians have gotten a handle on speech, let me 
tell you about the Japanese. In order to try to squeeze all that 
opinion out of politics, the Japanese Government limits the number of 
days you can campaign, the number of speeches you can give, the types 
of places you can speak, the number of handbills and bumper stickers 
you can print, and even the number of megaphones you can buy. They 
allow each candidate to have one megaphone. So I think we can pretty 
safely say that over in Japan, unfettered buying, anything like the 
first amendment, they have squeezed all that money right out of 
politics.

  What has been the result? The number of Japanese citizens who have 
``no confidence in legislators'' has risen to 70 percent and voter 
turnout has continued to decline.
  Let's take a look at another country that has passed these kinds of 
sweeping restraints on citizens' speech--France. In France, they have 
government funding of candidates, government funding of parties, free 
radio and television time, reimbursement for printing posters and for 
campaign-related transportation. They ban contributions to candidates 
by any entity except parties and political action committees. 
Individual contributions to parties are limited, and there are strict 
expenditure limits set for each electoral district and frequent 
candidate auditing.
  Despite these regulations, the latest political science studies in 
France indicate that the French people's confidence in their government 
and political institutions has continued to decline and voter turnout 
has continued to decline.
  Let's take a look at Sweden. Sweden has imposed the following 
regulations on political speech. In Sweden, there is no fundraising or 
spending at all for individual candidates. Citizens merely vote for 
parties which assign seats on the proportion of the votes they receive. 
The government subsidizes print ads by parties. Despite the fact that 
Sweden has no fundraising or spending for individual candidates since 
these requirements have been in force, the number of Swedes disagreeing 
with the statement that ``parties are only interested in people's 
votes, not in their opinions'' has declined from 51 percent to 28 
percent. The number of people expressing confidence in the Swedish 
Parliament has declined from 51 percent to 19 percent.
  So my point is this: There are some countries that are unfettered, 
unburdened, if you will, by the free speech requirements of the first 
amendment, and they have gone right at the heart of this problem in a 
way that would warm the heart of the most aggressive reformer. They 
have squeezed all this money and all this speech right out of the 
system. All it has done is driven the cynicism up and the turnout down.
  Even if all of these restrictions had been a good idea someplace in 
the world, they clearly are not a good idea here. I hope the trend on 
the Hollings constitutional amendment will continue. It is a downward 
trend. Last March only 33 Members of the Senate supported this 
constitutional amendment, and I hope that will be the high-water mark.
  I believe Senator Hatch is here. He is controlling the time on this 
issue. I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Utah is 
recognized.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I rise this afternoon to address, as I 
have in prior years, the Constitutional Amendment to limit campaign 
contributions and expenditures that my colleague from South Carolina 
has once again brought to the Senate floor.
  Two election cycles have come and gone since this amendment was first 
debated in this chamber. And, unfortunately, these last two elections 
have shown that money remains as big--or an even bigger--part of our 
campaigns as it was when this Amendment was first introduced.
  I know that most in this body deplore the role of money in the 
electoral process. And, Mr. President, I believe that the debate in 
this chamber over the last week has plainly shown that each of us would 
vote in favor of a solution that would, in a fair, even-handed, and 
constitutional way, reduce the role of money in campaigns.
  But as I noted in the debate over this same amendment in 1997, there 
is a right way of reforming our system of campaign finance. And, there 
are wrong ways.
  While I certainly sympathize with the sentiments that have motivated 
my colleagues to introduce this proposal, I submit that circumscribing 
the First Amendment of our Constitution is simply the wrong way to 
address campaign finance reform. I also think the McCain-Feingold bill 
in fringes upon the First Amendment, and that is what the distinguished 
Senator from South Carolina is trying to resolve with his amendment, 
which would be the only way, it seems to me, of resolving this matter 
in a way that ultimately the people who are supporting the McCain-
Feingold bill would like to do.
  The proposal we are debating today would amend the Constitution to 
allow Congress and the States to set any ``reasonable'' limits on (1) 
campaign contributions made to a candidate and (2) expenditures in 
support or opposition to a candidate made by the candidate or on behalf 
of the candidate.
  Why do I oppose this amendment?
  For the first time in the history of this Republic this amendment 
would put an express limitation on one of the bulwark protections that 
has defined and strengthened this great nation for over two centuries--
the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
  And perversely, we would not be seeking to limit this important 
safeguard of our liberty in order to eliminate speech that is on the 
margin of the First Amendment protection.
  We would not be seeking to eliminate speech that deeply offends the 
majority of our citizens, such as the so-called speech involved in the 
desecration of our national symbols.
  We would not be seeking to eliminate speech that malevolently 
capitalizes on the unhealthy historical divisions within our society, 
such as racially motivated ``hate speech.''
  We would not be seeking to eliminate speech that insidiously corrupts 
the morals of our children, such as pornography.
  No. Ironically, the first category of speech singled out for 
regulation by this proposal is the category of speech that is 
universally recognized as being at the core of the First Amendment 
protection: the right to engage in unfettered debate about political 
issues.
  What the supporters of today's proposal often fail to emphasize is 
that the money involved in electoral campaigns does not end up in the 
pockets of the candidates. And it is not thrown into some black hole.
  The money spent by campaigns, or by third parties in an effort to 
influence campaigns, is directed toward one simple aim: to express a 
particular message.
  Money may be spent by a candidate to take out a newspaper 
advertisement setting forth his or her positions on the issues.

[[Page S2872]]

  Money may be spent by an interest group on a television advertisement 
to publicize the voting record of an incumbent.
  Money may be spent by a concerned individual to fund a study on how 
certain legislation would affect similarly situated people. In each 
case, the goal is the same: to educate and/or influence the electorate 
with respect to political issues.
  Supporters of today's proposal believe that there is too much of this 
political debate. As a result, supporters of this proposal would 
curtail the First Amendment to allow Congress and the state 
legislatures to place limits on the amount of political debate that 
will be allowed in connection with an election.
  If this amendment passes, will a person still be allowed to say, 
``Vote against Senator X''? Yes, they will.
  Will that person be able to print a handbill that says ``Vote against 
Senator X''? Only if the government decides that such an expenditure is 
``reasonable.''
  Will that person be able to take out an advertisement in a local 
newspaper that says, ``Vote against Senator X''? Only if the Government 
decides that such an expenditure is reasonable.
  How is Congress to decide whether such expenditures are reasonable? 
The proposal we are debating today is silent on that subject. I would 
note, however, that Senator X would be one of the lawmakers responsible 
for deciding whether, and under what circumstances, such expenditures 
would be allowed.
  In effect, today's proposal would allow Congress and the state 
legislatures to censor speech for just about any reason, as long as 
they could establish that their censorship was ``reasonable.'' The free 
speech rights of all Americans would be subject to the vagaries and 
passions of fleeting majorities. If there was anything our Founding 
Fathers really were concerned about and alarmed about, that is a pure 
majoritarian type of rule in the country.
  The Hollings Amendment would change the very nature of our 
constitutional democratic form of government. By limiting robust 
political debate, the amendment would tilt the scales sharply in favor 
of incumbents, who benefit from limitations on debate because of their 
higher name recognition and their ability to direct governmental 
benefits to their home districts. Such advantages would only be 
magnified by permitting incumbents to decide what type of political 
speech is ``reasonable'' in connection with the efforts by challengers 
to unseat them.
  I would like to take a couple of minutes to explain in greater depth 
what the dangers of this Constitutional amendment are:
  Let me start with the importance of the first amendment to free 
elections.
  The very purpose of the First Amendment's free speech clause is to 
ensure that the people's elected officials effectively and genuinely 
represent the public. The Founders of our country certainly understood 
the link between free elections and liberty. Representative 
government--with the consent of the people registered in periodic 
elections--was--to these leaders of our new nation--the primary 
protection of natural or fundamental rights. As Thomas Jefferson put it 
in the Declaration of Independence, to secure rights ``Governments are 
instituted among Men'' and must derive ``their just Powers from the 
Consent of the Governed.''
  The nexus between free elections and free speech was equally 
understood. As Jefferson said:

       Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a 
     government without newspapers, or newspapers without 
     government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the 
     latter.

  [Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington (January 16, 
1787), reprinted in 5 The Founder's Constitution 122 (P. Kurland & R. 
Lerner ed., 1987)].
  Without free speech, there can be no government based on consent 
because such consent can never be truly informed. Obviously, we would 
have no democracy at all if the government were allowed to silence 
people's voices during an election. It is especially important to our 
democracy that we protect a person's right to speak freely during an 
electoral campaign--because it is through elections that the 
fundamental issues of our democracy are most thoroughly debated, and it 
is through our elections that the leaders of our democracy are put in 
place to carry out the people's will.

  No. 2, the amendment will overturn the Buckley case.
  The Supreme Court of the United States recognized this fundamental 
principle of democracy in the 1976 case of Buckley v. Valeo. In that 
case, the Court held:

       Discussion of public issues and debate on the 
     qualifications of candidates are integral to the operation of 
     the system of government established by our Constitution. The 
     First Amendment affords the broadest protection to such 
     political expression in order to assure the unfettered 
     interchange of ideas. . . [Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. at 14].

  Moreover, the Court in Buckley recognized that free speech is 
meaningless unless it is effective. During a campaign, not only does a 
person have the right to speak out on candidates and issues, a person 
also has the right to speak out in a manner that will be heard. The 
right to speak would have little meaning if the government could place 
crippling controls on the means by which a person was permitted to 
communicate his message. For instance, the right to speak would have 
little meaning if a person was required to speak in an empty room with 
no one listening.
  And in today's society, the right to speak would have little meaning 
if a person were required to forego television, radio, and other forms 
of mass media, and was instead forced to go door to door to impart his 
message solely by word of mouth. Accordingly, the Supreme Court in 
Buckley v. Valeo, and in a string of subsequent cases, has consistently 
ruled that campaign contributions and expenditures are constitutionally 
protected forms of speech, and that regulation of campaign 
contributions and expenditures must be restrained by the prohibitions 
of the First Amendment.
  The Buckley Court made a distinction between campaign contributions 
and campaign expenditures. The Court found that the free speech 
concerns inherent in campaign contributions are less than in campaign 
expenditures because contributions convey only a generalized expression 
of support. But expenditures are another matter. These are given higher 
First Amendment protection because they are direct expressions of 
speech.
  In the words of the Buckley Court:

       A restriction on the amount of money a person or group can 
     spend necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by 
     restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of 
     their exploration, and the size of the audience reached. This 
     is because virtually every means of communicating in today's 
     mass society requires the expenditure of money. [424 U.S. at 
     19-20].

  The Hollings Amendment's allowance of restrictions on expenditures by 
Congress and state legislatures would impose direct and substantial 
restraints on the quantity of political speech. It would permit 
significant limitations on both individuals and groups from spending 
money to disseminate their own ideas as to which candidate should be 
supported and what cause is just. The Supreme Court noted that such 
restrictions on expenditures, even if ``neutral as to the ideas 
expressed, limit political expression at the core of our electoral 
process and of the First Amendment freedoms.'' [Buckley at 39].
  Indeed, under the Hollings proposal, even candidates could be 
restricted from engaging in protected First Amendment expression. 
Justice Brandeis observed, in Whitney v. California, [274 U.S. 357, 375 
(1927)], that in our republic, ``public discussion is a political 
duty,'' and that duty will be circumscribed where a candidate is 
prevented from spending his or her own money to spread the electoral 
message. That a candidate has a First Amendment right to engage in 
public issues and advocate particular positions was considered by the 
Buckley Court to be of:

       particular importance . . . candidates [must] have the 
     unfettered opportunity to make their views known so that the 
     electorate may intelligently evaluate the candidates' 
     personal qualities and their positions on vital public issues 
     before choosing among them on election day. 424 U.S. at 53.

  Campaign finance reform should not be at the expense of free speech. 
This amendment--in trying to reduce the costs of political campaigns--
could cost us so much more. It could cost us our heritage of political 
liberty.

[[Page S2873]]

  Groups as diverse as the ACLU and the Heritage Foundation have united 
in their opposition to this constitutional amendment. The ACLU calls 
the amendment a ``recipe for repression'' and the Heritage Foundation 
characterizes it as an abridgement of our ``fundamental liberty.''
  Mr. President, there are some who may believe that the First 
Amendment is inconsistent with campaign finance reform. I strongly 
disagree.
  In fact, just the opposite is true. It is impossible to have healthy 
campaigns in a healthy democracy without freedom of speech as it is 
currently protected by our First Amendment. That is why I oppose the 
Hollings Amendment.
  No. 3, the amendment will blur the distinction between express and 
issue advocacy.
  This proposed constitutional amendment is so broad that it would also 
blur the distinction between express advocacy and issue advocacy.
  The Supreme Court in Buckley held that any campaign finance 
limitations apply only to ``communications that in express terms 
advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for 
federal office.'' [Buckley, 424 U.S. at 44]. Communications without 
these electoral advocacy terms have subsequently been classified by 
courts as ``issue advocacy'' entitled to full First Amendment strict 
scrutiny protection.
  This constitutional amendment is drafted in a such a manner that pure 
issue advocacy will be swept up in regulation. In fact, the Amendment 
is so broad that it would allow regulation of political speech, even if 
such speech doesn't refer to a particular candidate. If a statement 
implies that a candidate is for or against an issue, that speech could 
fall under expenditure limits authorized by this provision.
  This is a compete reversal of the ``bright line'' test established by 
the Supreme Court that protects issue advocacy from regulation unless 
it uses words that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a 
clearly identified candidate. It is also a complete reversal of the 
view now encompassed in law that government has no real interest in 
restricting the free flow of speech and ideas.
  Now, supporters of this constitutional amendment may tell us that 
they are all for ending the distinction imposed by Buckley between 
express advocacy and issue advocacy and that it is in practice 
unworkable. Well, they are in part right. Sometimes it is a hard line 
to draw. But this ``bright line'' test does have the great benefit that 
if error exists, it falls on the side of free speech.
  Look, nothing in this world is perfect, particularly in the world of 
campaigns and politics. So if we err, if we make mistakes, doesn't make 
sense to create a system where the mistake results in the over-
protection of a fundamental constitutional right?
  If we believe that the distinction between issue and express advocacy 
is unworkable, then the solution is to protect both under the strictest 
of safeguards. Each, in my view, should have the highest First 
Amendment protection--and I believe that this is the direction that the 
Supreme Court will eventually take.
  I believe the adoption of this constitutional amendment is wrong.
  Amending the Constitution should not be done lightly. And amending 
the First Amendment should only be done for the most compelling, 
exigent reasons. These reasons are not present.
  If S.J. Res. 4 were ratified, pre-existing first amendment 
jurisprudence would be overturned and Congress and the States would 
have unprecedented, sweeping and undefined authority to restrict speech 
currently protected by the first amendment.
  This constitutional amendment places State and Federal campaign 
finance law beyond the reach of first amendment jurisprudence. All that 
Congress and the States would have to demonstrate to the Court is that 
their laws restricting political speech were ``reasonable.'' No longer 
would Congress have to demonstrate a ``compelling interest'' in order 
to infringe on our citizens first amendment liberties.
  If S.J. Res. 4 is adopted, Congress and State legislatures could 
easily distort the political process. Indeed, the ACLU, not an 
institution that I always agree with, in reflecting on a nearly 
identical proposed constitutional amendment in 1997, noted that 
incumbents could pass laws virtually guaranteeing their reelection. I 
quote:

       Congress and state governments could pass new laws that 
     operate to the detriment of dark-horse and third party 
     candidates. For example, with the intention of creating a 
     ``level playing field'' Congress could establish equal 
     contribution and expenditure limits that would ultimately 
     operate to the benefit of incumbents who generally have a 
     higher name recognition than their opponents, and who are 
     often able to do more with less funding. Thus, rather than 
     assure fair and free elections, the proposal would enable 
     those in power to perpetuate their own power and incumbency 
     advantage to the disadvantage of those who would challenge 
     the status quo.

  Moreover, ratification of this constitutional amendment could very 
well destroy the freedom of the press. Let me quote the ACLU again:

       [The Amendment] would also give Congress and every state 
     legislature the power, heretofore denied by the First 
     Amendment, to regulate the most protected function of the 
     press--editorializing. Print outlets such as newspapers and 
     magazines, broadcasters, Internet publishers and cable 
     operators would be vulnerable to severe regulation of 
     editorial content by the government. A candidate-centered 
     editorial, as well as op-ed articles or commentary printed at 
     the publisher's expense are most certainly expenditures in 
     support of or in opposition to particular political 
     candidates. The amendment, as its words make apparent, would 
     authorize Congress to set reasonable limits on the 
     expenditures by the media during campaigns, when not strictly 
     reporting the news. Such a result would be intolerable in a 
     society that cherishes the free press.

  Let me point out again that the proposed amendment appears to reach 
not only expenditures by candidates but also independent expenditures 
by individual citizens and groups. These independent expenditures are 
the very type of speech that the first amendment was designed to 
protect.
  Madam President, I am sure the authors of this amendment are very 
sincere and that they mean well by the amendment. I have no doubt about 
that. I know my colleague from South Carolina, and he is a good man and 
a fine Senator. I think he probably believes that no Congress of the 
United States would go beyond certain reasonable limits and neither 
would any State legislature.
  But what guarantees do we have, should this amendment pass, that a 
bunch of radicals would not be able to take control of the House and 
Senate or respective State legislatures? And if they do, how are we 
going to be assured that the Supreme Court will set things right if 
this amendment passes and becomes part of the Constitution?
  I would hope that people elected to the Congress would never act 
inappropriately. I would hope that people elected to State legislatures 
would never act inappropriately or that they would not act so as to 
take away basic fundamental rights of people. But if this amendment 
passes, there is no guarantee that we will not someday have that type 
of radicalness that will take over in some States first and then 
ultimately perhaps even in the Congress.
  There is a wide disparity of beliefs sometimes between the far left 
and the far right over what are fundamental rights. I have to tell you, 
if either of them really got control, under this amendment it could be 
a real mess.
  Plus, this amendment basically, it seems to me, makes it very 
difficult for those who are challenging incumbents to be able to make a 
challenge that really the first amendment anticipates they should be 
permitted to make.
  I have talked long enough. For reasons I have set forth this 
afternoon, it is my view that adoption and ratification of this 
amendment would fundamentally change our constitutional Republic. The 
censorship power of government would inalterably be enlarged. Free 
speech and free elections would be endangered. As sincerely brought as 
this amendment is, I still believe it is a very dangerous amendment in 
the overall scope of things. Perhaps if we had 100 people exactly like 
the distinguished Senator from South Carolina, this amendment would 
work just as well as could be. But I do not think we can always rely on 
that. I am concerned about that. Plus, I do not think that you should 
take away rights that really are speech rights when it comes to 
elections.
  In contrast, of course, I am the author of the constitutional 
amendment to permit Congress to ban the physical desecration of our 
flag. A number of

[[Page S2874]]

times this Congress has passed legislation, with overwhelming support, 
to stop that, but each time it has been declared unconstitutional.
  Frankly, I do not believe that urinating on our flag or desecrating 
our flag by somebody defecating on it or by burning it, that that is 
what you would call speech, but that is what the Supreme Court has 
said. In that case, we do need a constitutional amendment.
  Unlike the Hollings amendment, the flag amendment would not affect 
the first amendment.
  Some have suggested that my opposition to the Hollings amendment is 
inconsistent with my strong support for the flag protection amendment. 
Nothing could be further from the truth.
  Unlike the Hollings amendment, the flag protection amendment simply 
restores the first amendment to what it meant before two recent 5-to-4 
Supreme Court decisions. Before the 1989 Texas v. Johnson case and the 
1990 United States v. Eichman decision, the U.S. Supreme Court and 
numerous state supreme courts had upheld laws punishing flag 
desecration as compatible with both the letter and the spirit of the 
first amendment. Such laws had been on the books for most of this 
country's 200-year history.
  The flag protection amendment respects the difference between pure 
political speech and physical acts. It is extremely narrow, allowing 
Congress only the power ``to prohibit the physical desecration of the 
flag of the United States.'' Any law passed pursuant to the amendment 
could extend no further than a ban on acts of physical desecration, and 
would not affect anyone's ability to participate in the political 
process.
  Unlike political contributions, the physical ruination of a flag adds 
nothing to political discourse. Whether good or bad, the reality of 
modern American politics is that money is essential to advocacy. 
Broadcasting a message--whether in print, on television or radio, or 
even over the Internet--costs money. A constitutional amendment 
prohibiting political donations would undeniably restrict people's 
ability to convince others of their point of view. But lighting fire to 
the flag is different. It is not an essential part of any message. In 
fact, often the audience for such demonstrations does not understand 
what policy or idea that motivated the burner to burn. The flag 
protection amendment leaves untouched everyone's right to articulate--
and advocate publicly for--their point of view.
  In sum, passage of the flag amendment would overturn two Supreme 
Court decisions: Johnson and Eichman. It would leave the Constitution 
exactly intact as it was understood prior to 1989. It would do nothing 
else. In contrast, the Hollings amendment would be a radical alteration 
of Americans' fundamental right to participate in the democratic 
process.
  Let me end with this. The McCain-Feingold bill is defective inasmuch 
as it does provide a means whereby you can limit the free speech rights 
of people with regard to soft money. I do think probably the Supreme 
Court would uphold the Hagel approach to it, although I question 
whether even a cap on soft money to the tune of $60,000 per individual 
would be upheld by the Supreme Court; but it could be.
  Probably my friend from South Carolina feels the same way, that 
without a constitutional amendment change, it is just a matter of time 
until McCain-Feingold will be overturned. I believe it will be 
overturned, should it pass in its current form. And one reason it will 
be overturned is because of the limitation of real speech rights.
  Frankly, Buckley v. Valeo, I don't think is wrong. With that, I hope 
my colleagues will vote against this amendment, as well intentioned as 
it is.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. SESSIONS addressed the Chair.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
  Mr. HATCH. I yield whatever time the Senator needs.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank the distinguished chairman of 
the Judiciary Committee. Once again, he has gone right to the heart of 
the matter. I hope the people were listening to his comments at the 
conclusion of his remarks in which he summed up, very succinctly, the 
issues with which we are wrestling.
  Yes, we wish money were not such a significant part of being able to 
get out your message in America. I do not have any personal wealth I 
can put into getting out my message, but it is a way to get out that 
message. As Senator Hatch said, this deals with real speech.
  This proposed constitutional amendment is breathtaking in its reach. 
It flat out says that Congress and State legislatures--incumbent 
politicians--can pass laws that would limit their opposition's right to 
raise money and to speak out during an election cycle. That is what we 
are talking about. That is what McCain-Feingold does without proposing 
a constitutional amendment.
  What Senator Hollings has wrestled with over the years is a 
constitutional amendment that he believes would allow the Congress 
constitutionally to be able to restrict the right of people to come 
together to assemble, to print out press beliefs that they have, or to 
project them and amplify them over radio and television. They say this 
is not an infringement on the most historic freedom, the cornerstone of 
American freedoms: the right to speak out.
  I think this, if passed, would be a colossal blunder of historic 
proportions. I think this proposed amendment, if passed, would reflect 
the greatest constitutionally proposed threat to liberty and freedom 
that I have known in my lifetime, maybe since the founding of this 
country, of speech and the press and assembly.
  We should not do this. If we say this Congress can stop the current 
constitutional right of free Americans to come together, raise money, 
and buy and amplify their speech on radio or TV, Internet, and so 
forth, to advocate their views, we will have made a major move away 
from freedom in this country.
  Senator Hatch said in his remarks that without a doubt the censorship 
power of the Government will have been enlarged. I remain stunned, 
really, that persons whom I admire as champions of liberty, such as the 
distinguished Senator from South Carolina, can miss this. Maybe I am 
missing it. I don't know. I can't see that I am missing it. I don't 
think I am missing it. Maybe I am. I don't think this is an itty-bitty 
issue. I think it is a historic and defining issue.
  I am wondering: Where are our liberal friends? Where is the free 
speech crowd? What about our law school deans and professors, are they 
reading this? The ACLU has picked it up. They call it a recipe for 
repression. They see it for what it is. I respect them for that. They 
generally can be fully counted on in free speech issues. They believe 
depiction of child pornography is free speech and should be protected. 
I don't know that that is speech.
  I know the Founding Fathers fundamentally wanted to protect political 
speech. This amendment sets up a construction that would allow the 
constraint of political speech during an election of all times.
  I didn't want to be too involved in all this debate. I try not to get 
involved in everything that goes on on the floor. This is an issue in 
which I am interested, but I have spoken once already on a particular 
issue. I just want to be on record, I want it recorded on this floor 
for my constituents and my children, that I was standing here and being 
counted on this one. I want it on the record that this Senator will not 
support a constitutional amendment to restrict the right of people to 
assemble, raise money, and speak out during an election cycle. That is 
just fundamental to what America is about. It is important. I believe 
it is an issue on which I have an obligation to speak.
  It has been suggested, that this is not an amendment to the first 
amendment. Well, I suggest it is an amendment to the first amendment. 
They say: Well, it is going to be amendment No. 20 something; it is not 
going to be written right up there on the first amendment. You are not 
going to strike out any words in the first amendment. Well, it is going 
to be in the Constitution. It is going to be given equal play with the 
first amendment. And since it passed subsequent to it, it will be 
defined by the courts that if it is in any way contrary to the first 
amendment, then the Hollings amendment will be given precedence because 
it was designed to modify the problems that have arisen

[[Page S2875]]

which courts have concluded that certain campaign finance laws people 
are so determined to pass infringe on the first amendment.
  That is what Buckley says. Buckley was based on the first amendment. 
That is why the Court ruled the way they did. They didn't conjure it 
out of thin air.
  It is not just the Buckley case that would be reversed. There are a 
plethora of cases, Buckley progeny, that have upheld Buckley and gone 
further than Buckley. All of them would be undermined or overruled by 
this law if it were to become a part of our Constitution.
  They say that rich people have more rights because they can afford to 
buy time and they have special interests. Let's be frank about it; 
everybody has a special interest. That is what we all are. As human 
beings, we have interests; we have beliefs. We want to see those made 
law. Whether it is dealing with low taxes, or abortion, or gun 
ownership, or redistribution of wealth, or the military, or drug laws, 
or health care, or education, we all have beliefs for which we want to 
fight. Everything is a special interest of a sort.

  I note in passing that some elite groups, some wealthy entities, 
apparently will not be covered--at least it is said they will not be, 
although the ACLU thinks they might. I suggest that some of those 
groups, such as NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, New York Times, Washington Post, 
the Los Angeles Times, all the Gannett chain, all the big newspaper 
chains, they can go on and run full-page ads day after day, full-page 
editorials slamming the Senator from Alabama and saying he is a 
terrible person. Apparently, if your money wasn't consistent with the 
way the Congress says, a group of people couldn't go into that 
newspaper and buy a full-page ad to respond to their full-page 
editorial.
  Throughout the history of this country, newspapers have gone off on 
tangents for one thing or another they steadily believed in, biased 
their news articles, editorialized every day on things in which they 
believed. It has been protected by the first amendment. These wealthy 
groups of elite intellectuals and power interests have a right to 
propagate, I suppose, right up to election day. Surely, under this 
proposed amendment, they wouldn't say they couldn't do that, their 
newspaper couldn't run an editorial on the day of the election to say 
who to vote for, but they apparently are saying that another 
corporation, no less noble or no less venal than the New York Times, 
can't publish an editorial or buy an ad in the newspaper to rebut that 
article.
  This freedom to speak out is particularly valuable in times of 
persecution or oppression and discrimination against an unpopular 
minority. Is not the ability of a minority group that might be 
subjected to oppression sometime in the future--isn't their ability to 
defend themselves, to get their message out, undermined if they can't 
assemble and raise money and speak out against a candidate they believe 
threatens their very existence?
  I have mentioned that when I ran for office, my opponent was a 
skilled trial lawyer. One of my lawyer friends said: Jeff, I think you 
threaten our business. You don't believe in lawsuits like we do.
  I said: Well, I guess I don't.
  They spent over $1 million raising money to beat up on me. What is 
wrong with that? They thought I threatened the way they wanted to do 
business as lawyers. They thought changes on tort reform that I might 
favor threatened their business, and they wanted to defend themselves. 
Apparently, under this rule, they could be constricted substantially in 
their ability to complain during an election cycle about a politician 
who threatens them. That is just a group. That didn't deal with actual 
repression, but it could be a matter in the future of actual 
repression.
  We ought not to pass a constitutional amendment that would limit the 
rights of persons in the future to defend themselves against actual 
oppression. It constrains not only the ability to raise money but the 
expenditures of money. It says the legislature and the Congress can 
pass reasonable laws that would control expenditures ``in support of or 
in opposition to a candidate.'' That is a serious matter, saying 
independent, free Americans cannot come together and assemble and speak 
out during an election in opposition to or in favor of a candidate. 
That is really a change. It does affect the first amendment because the 
first amendment has constrained Congress from doing that, and that is 
why this amendment has been placed here, to allow Congress to do that 
very thing.
  I know the Senator from Utah, Mr. Hatch, the Judiciary Committee 
chairman, mentioned the flag burning amendment. We have Members of this 
body who believe the physical act of burning a flag or desecrating a 
flag is speech. They object to any amendment that would protect the 
flag. I will just say that I think Chief Justice Rehnquist is right 
that if it is speech to burn or desecrate a flag, it is at best a grunt 
or a roar.
  But the amendment before us today and, in fact, in large part the 
McCain-Feingold bill is a bill that goes to the heart of political 
speech. And when do they want to control it? During the election cycle. 
That is when they want to control it. Oh, it is all right to have 
violent, pornographic videos and images. They say that is speech and it 
must be defended to the death. But you can't have a group of people get 
together in this country and propose that the Senator from Alabama is 
dead wrong and ought to be thrown out of office. If Richard Nixon 
proposed a law and Congress passed the law, when we were having 
protests during the Vietnam war, when I was in college and law school 
and all these professors, the great constitutional scholars that they 
were--I wonder what they would have said if Nixon had proposed an 
amendment that would keep people from raising money and speaking out. I 
think they would have been upset. I wonder where they are today.
  I was shocked that, in 1997, 38 Senators in this body voted for this 
amendment. Last year, I was pleased to note that the number had dropped 
to 33. I hope that number will continue to fall.
  Madam President, freedom is scary. It allows things to get a bit out 
of control, when people are free to just go and say what they want to. 
And you can't quite manage it as we in Congress like to manage things, 
because we want to have it just right so there will be no spoilage, and 
we don't want any corruption here or any unfair threat to us. We just 
want to control this thing. But we are a nation of freedom, of liberty, 
of independence, free to speak out and say what we want, especially in 
an election cycle.
  But over the long haul of our Nation, this free debate, this 
challenging of everybody's positions and issues, and debate has been 
healthy for us. It strengthens us as a nation. We must not turn back 
the clock by adopting an amendment, or some of the language in McCain-
Feingold, that I believe likewise constrains freedom unjustifiably.
  So the censorship power of our Government would be greatly enlarged 
if this amendment were to pass. It would allow the constriction of 
debate on the core issues of America, political, philosophical issues 
of intellectual power and breadth that affect the future of our 
country. That debate would be restricted significantly.
  I think it would be wrong to pass the Hollings constitutional 
amendment. As written, McCain-Feingold, without this amendment, has a 
slim chance of being sustained. I think it will have to be either 
defeated or amended.
  I thank the Chair for the time and yield the floor.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, how much time remains?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Fitzgerald). There are 55 minutes under 
the control of the Senator from Utah, 24 seconds for the Senator from 
South Carolina.
  Mr. HATCH. Senator Biden would like to speak in favor of the 
amendment. As a courtesy, I am certainly going to yield some time to 
the Senator. Senator Reed, who also wants to speak in favor, I will 
yield him 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized.
  Mr. HATCH. I ask unanimous consent that following that, Senator 
Feingold be given the floor and I will give him 5 minutes as well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator from Delaware is recognized.

[[Page S2876]]

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I would like to begin today by praising my 
distinguished colleague from South Carolina for the leadership and 
determination that he has brought to this debate.
  I would also like to apologize to him. Apologize that he has to come 
to this floor yet again to cut through all the rhetoric, and high-
minded talk, to get to the single most important fact in this debate. 
And that is, nothing will change in our campaign finance system until 
we have the Constitutional ability to limit spending in congressional 
campaigns.
  And the only way that we can do that other than through voluntary 
limits is by standing with Senator Hollings to pass this Constitutional 
amendment.
  We've been down this road many times, Mr. President. As the Senator 
from South Carolina will tell you, he and I have stood on this floor 
urging the Senate to take this first fundamental step by passing his 
amendment. We have recited fact after fact to illustrate how the 
spending in last election cycle was far worse than the previous cycle. 
And each time that we stand here, the story get's worse and worse.
  The truth is, unless we adopt Senator Hollings' amendment and pass 
the McCain-Feingold bill, we will back here in 2 years--reciting a new 
round of statistics to illustrate how bad the system got in 2002.
  Mr. President, our system is spiraling out of control. And it will 
continue this spiral, unabated, until we pass needed reforms. But 
nothing can fundamentally change the way in which our process works 
until we have the ability under the law to limit the amount of money 
that is spent on campaigns.
  Twenty-five years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that spending money 
was the same thing as speech. The Court said that writing a check for a 
candidate was speech, but writing a check to a candidate is not speech.
  The Supreme Court made a supremely bad and, I believe, supremely 
wrong decision. By saying that Congress shall make no law abridging the 
freedom to write a check, the Court is saying that Congress cannot take 
the responsible step of limiting how much money politicians can spend 
in trying to get elected. We have to start putting limits on spending, 
Mr. President, because money is beginning to overtake the system.
  In the twenty-five years since the Supreme Court's ruling, the 
general cost of living has tripled, but the total spending on 
Congressional campaigns has gone up eightfold. Think about it: eight 
times!
  For the winning candidates, the average House race went from $87,000 
to $816,000 in 2000. And here on the Senate side, winners spent an 
average of $609,000 in 1976, but last year that average shot up to $7 
million.
  And the Federal Election Commission estimates that last year more 
than $1.8 billion dollars in federally regulated money was spent on 
federal campaigns alone, and that doesn't even count the huge amount of 
soft money that was used in an attempt to influence federal elections.
  Yes, these numbers are staggering. But even more so, is the thought 
that they will continue rise unless something is done. And I belive 
that the single most important thing that we can do from a purely 
practical sense is to amend the Constitution and give us the right to 
limit the amount of money that candidates are able to spend.
  I don't approach this lightly, Mr. President. Amending our 
Constitution is not a trivial matter. We have seldom done it in our 
history, and we have only done so when it was truly needed. 
Reluctantly, I have reached the conclusion that it is needed, now. For 
if we do not take this opportunity to seize control of our system, we 
will be right back here merely debating the problem, instead of solving 
it. And when we return 2, 4, maybe 6 years from now, the problem will 
be even worse than it is today, and as a result, much harder to solve.
  Mr. President, the sooner we take action, the sooner we will be able 
to restore the public's faith in our democracy. I urge all of my 
colleagues to stand with the distinguished Senator from South Carolina 
and adopt this Constitutional amendment as a first, and fundamental, 
step toward reclaiming our political system for the American people.
  Mr. President, let's get something straight here. The first amendment 
is not absolute. No amendment is absolute. When there is a Government 
interest, in this case of curbing corruption, there is a Government 
rationale to be able to deal with what the Court refers to as speech. I 
think Justice Stevens got it right in a case decided 24 years after 
Buckley v. Valeo, I say to my friend from Alabama. He said money is not 
speech, money is property. Money is property. We are talking about 
speech.
  All the folks sitting up here in the gallery are in fact interested 
in free speech. But it does not go unnoticed that their ability to 
speak freely and be listened to depends upon how much money they have. 
You can be as free-speaking as you want. You can stand in a corner or 
in a park with a megaphone and go on and on about what you think should 
be done. You can seek free press. But you are unable to go into the 
Philadelphia media market and pay $30,000 for a 30-second ad to say my 
good friend from Alabama is a chicken thief or is a war hero. You are 
not able to do that. That takes money. Money talks. Money talks. Money 
is property. Money is not speech, money is property.
  The fact of the matter is, in this context, if you look at my friend 
from Alabama, and others, the Court, in the progeny of Buckley, has 
allowed us to regulate campaign contributions under certain 
circumstances. So this notion that it is absolute is absolutely 
inaccurate. I will not go into further detail because of the time 
constraints here.
  Let me say again that I thank my friend from South Carolina because, 
when all is said and done, this is the only deal in town. It is 
fascinating. If you look at what happened here, we can pass the McCain-
Feingold bill--and I am for it--but I promise you, we are going to be 
back here in a year or two, or three, on a simple proposition. The 
simple proposition is that the cost of campaigning has gone up 
eightfold in the same time that we have been in a system where the cost 
of inflation has gone up significantly less than that. Since 25 years 
ago, at the time of the Supreme Court ruling, the general cost of 
living has tripled, the cost of running a campaign has gone up 
eightfold. Now, for a winning candidate, the average of a House race 25 
years ago was $87,000. This time around, it is $816,000, average.
  Let me tell you, if you have a lot of money, you can speak a lot 
louder, your voice is heard more. If you don't have a lot of money, you 
are not heard. I didn't think that is what the founders had in mind 
when they talked about speech. They didn't sit down and say, by the 
way, landowners with a lot of money should be able to be heard more 
than the guy who is the shoemaker in the village, or the village 
cobbler. They didn't say that. Money is property. Money is property. It 
is not speech.
  On the Senate side, let's take a look at what happened. When I ran in 
1972--and I won't even go back that far--I spent $286,000 in the 
election. The Senate race in Delaware combined cost over $13 million--
not my race; I am not up until this time.
  Let's get something else straight. One of the reasons our friends 
aren't so crazy about this amendment is all of us who hold public 
office now are in pretty good shape without this amendment.
  It is not merely what the other guy can do to you. You sit there and 
say: That interest does not like me, so they will spend a lot of money. 
If you are popular enough in your home State, guess what. They are 
worried what you will do to them.
  I am not going to have any trouble raising money as long as I stay 
relatively popular. Right now I am relatively popular. Guess what. I 
would hate to be getting starting now to try to run in Delaware. I do 
not know how they do it. How do they do it? How do they raise a minimum 
of 2 million bucks or probably, if it is a race, $5 million, in a 
little State with only 400,000 registered voters? Heck, we could go out 
and pay everybody. We could go out and give them all a bonus, increase 
their standard of living if we took that $13 million and spread it 
among 400,000 voters.
  This is getting obscene. What is going to control? What is the deal 
here? I know this amendment is not going to pass this time, but I want 
to

[[Page S2877]]

be on the side of right on this one, like I have from the very 
beginning when my friend from South Carolina proposed this. If, in 
fact, the average cost of a Senate election--catch this--in 1976, the 
average cost of a State election was $609,000. Do you know what it was 
this last cycle? Seven million dollars. Did you hear what I said? Seven 
million dollars. Give me a break--free speech, whoa.
  You better have won the genetic pool, as the distinguished financier 
from the great State of Nebraska says. You better have won the genetic 
pool and inherited a whole lot of money, or you better have an awful 
lot of very rich friends, people with a lot of money, otherwise how do 
you get in the game? How could I possibly--maybe this is a good reason 
not to have the amendment--but how could I as a 29-year-old guy, coming 
from a family with no money--I am the first U.S. Senator I ever knew in 
effect--how could I have gotten elected? How could I do it now? I have 
been here now for 28 years. Obviously, the people of Delaware do not 
think I have done a real bad job. How could I have gotten here if, in 
fact, I had to go out and raise $2 million, $3 million, $4 million, $5 
million, or $9 million? I will tell you what happens.
  You engage in an incredible exercise of rationalization. You go out 
there and say: I am going to stick to my principles. I will give a 
specific example.
  When I ran the first time, at the very end--and my friend from South 
Carolina knows because he headed up the campaign committee and he is 
more responsible for my being here than anyone in the Senate because he 
helped me. We narrowed the race down to a percentage point with 10, 11 
days to go. My brother Jim, 24 years old, was raising my money and 
said: Joe--we had no TV ads--the radio station called and the ads come 
off the air on Friday--this is 10 days before the election and my ads 
were working. You need $20,000. We have no money.
  He set up a meeting with a bunch of good people, decent, honorable 
men my age, maybe a little older, very wealthy people in my State who 
were, like me, opposed to the war in Vietnam, pro-environmental 
movement, and thought women's rights should be expanded. They were 
basically Republicans, but they were moderate Republicans.
  I drove out to a place called Greenville, DE. I walked in to this 
investment banking operation in a beautiful area, one of the wealthiest 
areas in America. My friend knows it well. I sat down with six or eight 
fine men. They offered me a drink. I sat there and had a Coke. We 
talked about my position on promoting the rights of women, the equal 
rights amendment because they were for it. I talked about the 
environmental questions. I talked about the war in Vietnam, et cetera. 
Then one guy said: Joe, what is your position on capital gains? No one 
here will remember except my friend from South Carolina, but at that 
time it was a big issue in the 1972 campaign. Nixon either wanted to 
eliminate it or drastically reduce it, I cannot remember.

  Guess what. I knew all I had to say was: You know, gentlemen, I 
really think we should have a cut in capital gains. But because I was 
young enough and stupid enough not to think, I immediately said: No, I 
oppose a cut in the capital gains tax.
  No one said anything except: Joe, lots of luck in your senior year. 
Good talking to you. So long.
  I will never forget riding down the pike with my brother Jim. My 
brother turned to me and said: I hope you really feel strongly about 
capital gains because you just blew an election.
  I truly believed--and only someone who has run for office can really 
understand this--I truly believed everything I had worked for I had 
just blown by telling the truth. I almost wanted to turn the car around 
and go back.
  I think of myself as a principled man, but I started to rationalize. 
I started to say: Isn't it better for me to get elected with 95 percent 
of my values intact, a guy who will fight to stop the war, promote the 
rights of women, fight for civil rights, a guy who will blah, blah, 
blah? Capital gains is not that big a deal.
  That is how insidious this process is. No one buys us. No one goes 
out and pays and says: If you do this, I will pay you. But it is 
insidious. It is insidious, and the only people who have a lot of money 
to be involved in campaigns, whether they are people I support such as 
labor unions or big business are people who have an interest.
  I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 2 more minutes. My friend is 
not here.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I conclude by pointing out the following: 
Last year, we spent $1.8 billion--$1.8 billion--on the elections. You 
tell me, take soft money, hard money, no money, up money, down money, 
any money--if you take it out, you take a piece of it out and you do 
not limit the amount we can spend, I promise you--I will bet my 
career--2 years from now, we are going to be standing here, and I am 
going to say: We just spent $1.9 billion, and the average cost of an 
election has gone to $7.1 million.
  Average people have no shot of getting in the deal. They have no shot 
of getting in the deal.
  Money is property. Money is not speech. I cannot believe the Founders 
sat there and said: You know, if I win the genetic pool, I am entitled 
to have a greater influence in my country and in the electoral process 
than if I am not in that genetic pool; I was born into land wealth or 
mercantile wealth. I cannot believe they believed that. I cannot 
believe that was the case.
  I conclude by saying we have the ability under a controlling 
government interest to deal with corruption in our electoral process. I 
defy anyone to look me straight in the eye and say they believe all 
this additional money in the electoral process is not polluting and 
corrupting the process. It puts honorable young women and men in the 
Republican and Democratic Parties who are getting into the process in 
the position of shaving their views very nicely before they get there. 
No one is going to pay them off, but they are not stupid. I yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Under the previous order, the Senator from Rhode Island is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. REED. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from 
Utah for graciously yielding me this time.
  I rise in strong support of the Hollings amendment. Senator Hollings 
recognizes that in the early seventies, in the wake of Watergate, this 
Congress passed what they thought was a comprehensive system of 
campaign finance reform. The two principal pillars of that reform were 
a limit on contributions by individuals to candidates and a limit on 
expenditures in the campaign by candidates. Just before the system even 
started, the Supreme Court struck down a major pillar in that 
structure, and this system has collapsed and has been falling apart 
since then.
  The evidence is clear. Every election we see a huge explosion in 
spending because there are no limits on campaign expenditures. For 
candidates, it is almost akin to the nuclear arms race: You can never 
have enough money. You can never have enough because your opponent 
might get a little more, and unless we stop this race for dollars, we 
will not have true campaign finance reform in this country. We will not 
have a system of campaign finance reform.
  Every time we pass legislation--and I commend wholeheartedly Senator 
McCain and Senator Feingold for their effort, and their effort is 
important, but we need this amendment to ensure we can create a system 
of campaign finance reform that will truly work.
  As I said, and my colleague pointed out, there has been a huge 
explosion in spending. What has this done? Again, as Senator Biden 
pointed out, it certainly has put out of reach for so many Americans 
the idea of actually running for public office, at not just the Federal 
level but all levels.
  It has done something else, something insidious: Questioning, in the 
minds of the American public, the legitimacy of what we do and for whom 
we do it. The idea of our Government is that we are servants of the 
people. Yet in the minds of so many Americans they see us as servants 
of special interests.
  I was particularly struck by a poll taken by Princeton Survey 
Research Associates immediately after the election in 1996. Special 
interest groups in

[[Page S2878]]

politics were rated a major threat to the future of this country. It 
was second only to international terrorism. In the minds of so many 
Americans, special interest politics is just as threatening to the 
future of this country as international terrorism.
  We have to do something. We have to, I believe, support Senator 
Hollings in this amendment. He recognized that until we have the 
ability to truly create a system of campaign finance, we will always 
have this escalation of spending, this escalation of continued distrust 
by the American public of their political system.
  The Court, in Buckley v. Valeo, made the presumption or the 
assumption that speech equals money or money equals speech. Frankly, 
that is not always the strain of constitutional theory that the Court 
has presented. For example, in 1966, in Harper v. Virginia Board of 
Elections, the Court struck down a poll tax of $1.50 in Virginia, 
declaring, ``Voter qualifications have no relation to wealth. . . .''
  Later, in 1972, in Bullock v. Carter, they struck down candidate 
filing fees ranging from $150 to $8,900 for local office in Texas 
because the theory was that one should not have to pay to be a 
candidate, one should not have to have his or her test of 
qualification, even to vote or to run, based upon money.
  The reality today is that to be a candidate, you have to have money. 
We spend a great deal of time trying to get that money.
  The Court in Buckley v. Valeo erred dramatically. I do not think--and 
I am shared in this view by my colleague from Delaware--that money 
equals speech. In fact, I am a bit confused on constitutional theory 
why a contribution to a candidate can be limited, even though I might 
be making that my form of speech, yet we cannot limit the overall 
spending of a candidate in an election.
  The Court in Buckley v. Valeo was wrong. The only way we get out is 
to pass the Hollings amendment and give them a way clear so they will, 
under the Constitution, recognize that not only should we but we can 
craft a comprehensive system of campaign finance reform.
  This view is not particularly radical. In the 25 years since Buckley, 
more and more people have come to the conclusion that it was wrongly 
decided and that, in fact, we can and should impose limits on 
expenditures. Constitutional scholars, public officials at every level, 
State attorneys general, secretaries of state, all have suggested we 
can and should put a limit on expenditures. The States have acted. They 
have created legislatively a limit on expenditures. It was challenged 
in court, but for the first time a judge looked seriously at the 
record, a district court judge, and conditioned that perhaps there was 
a justification for this limit but, being a district court judge bound 
by the opinion in Buckley v. Valeo, struck down the provision.

  Similar provisions are being litigated and have been litigated in 
Ohio, and they are being litigated today in the context of an 
Albuquerque, NM, city ordinance which provides for a limit.
  We can give our colleagues and the Court the benefit of this 
amendment. We can give them the rationale to go ahead and do what I 
think should be done, to be able to limit expenditures so that every 
candidate has the right to spend a certain amount, but the spending 
will not overwhelm the true test of a race, which is the quality of 
their ideas and positions.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Wisconsin is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I know we are not debating the 
bankruptcy bill when I am in agreement with the Senator from Utah and 
the Senator from Alabama. We clearly moved not only to campaign finance 
reform but today to a very worthy discussion about the advisability of 
adopting an amendment to the U.S. Constitution concerning campaign 
financing.
  I oppose Senate Joint Resolution 4, but I do so with some reluctance, 
given the tremendous respect I have for the Senator from South 
Carolina. I appreciate the sincerity in which he offers this 
resolution. But more importantly, he has been passionate on the issue 
of campaign finance reform for a very long time--long before I came to 
this body--and I have always looked up to him on this issue.
  I understand the frustration and realities he is looking at that lead 
him to propose a constitutional amendment, and I know both the Senator 
from South Carolina and the Senator from Pennsylvania, who also 
supports this resolution, are strong supporters of campaign finance 
reform. I thank them for that, and I thank them specifically for their 
help on this bill, and I appreciate the comments of the Senator from 
South Carolina, who, of course, is concerned about what the U.S. 
Supreme Court will do with the McCain-Feingold bill if they get it but 
who at least left open the possibility that they may look upon it 
favorably.
  There are just two reasons I am uncomfortable voting for this 
constitutional amendment. The first has to do with my belief that it 
does actually amend the Bill of Rights for the first time in our 
Nation's history. I understand the arguments that this is such a 
serious problem it is justified. When I first came to the Senate, I 
actually voted for the Hollings amendment the first time. Then in 1994, 
a group of Congressmen and Senators were elected in what was known as 
the Contract With America Congress, and they proposed so many 
amendments to the U.S. Constitution, it made your head spin. In fact, a 
lot of them were going to amend the Bill of Rights.

  I disagree with the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee 
who says the flag amendment does not amend the first amendment but this 
does. Both of them do. Both would be the first changes to our 
fundamental doctrine of the Bill of Rights in our Nation's history. I 
am uncomfortable with this approach. I understand how people get to the 
point where they don't believe we can ever deal with the problems of 
our campaign financing system and they want to do it. My belief is that 
it is better not to tamper with the Bill of Rights and to solve the 
problem legislatively.
  That leads to my second point. I am more optimistic, more sanguine 
about the possibility that we will prevail; that McCain-Feingold, if it 
gets to the U.S. Supreme Court, will be held constitutional. In fact, I 
can't really believe anyone on the floor is seriously arguing anymore 
that the most important provision of the McCain-Feingold bill, the ban 
on party soft money, will be held unconstitutional. It is not credible.
  In the Missouri Shrink PAC case in January of 2000, the Court ruled 
6-3 that even a $1,000 contribution in Missouri today is a sufficient 
figure to justify the possibility of the appearance of corruption. 
Surely a $100,000, $200,000, $500,000, or $1 million contribution would 
be regarded the same by that very strong, 6-3 majority in that Court.
  I believe, although certainly our bill doesn't solve a lot of the 
problems that have been discussed today, at least regarding the abuse 
of soft money in our society, that the U.S. Supreme Court--this U.S. 
Supreme Court--would see it our way. I believe this bill can solve some 
of the problems that have been identified in the system. For those 
reasons, I will oppose this constitutional amendment. I do not think we 
need to amend the Constitution in order to have effective campaign 
finance reform.
  Our colleague Senator Hollings has been calling for meaningful 
campaign finance reform but perhaps longer than any other Member of the 
Senate. I disagree with this particular approach. But I want to pay 
tribute to his sincerity and commitment to reform.
  This resolution was a constitutional amendment is a serious proposal, 
not casually offered, and not offered in hopes of sabotaging our bill, 
as some amendments have been. But I must oppose it.
  Back in 1993, Senator Hollings offered a sense-of-the-Senate 
amendment to take up a constitutional amendment similar to the one 
before us today. After a short debate, I voted with the Senator from 
South Carolina on that day. I did so because I believed that other than 
balancing the Federal budget, there was no more fundamental issue 
facing our country than the need to reform our campaign finance laws.
  And I was frustrated at that time with the failure of the Congress to 
pass meaningful campaign finance reform.
  But I immediately realized, even as I was walking back to my office 
after

[[Page S2879]]

voting, that I had made a mistake. I started rethinking right away 
whether I really wanted the Senate to consider amending the first 
amendment.
  Later, I was privileged to join the Senate Judiciary Committee, and 
then the 104th Congress became a teeming petri dish of proposed 
amendments to the Constitution. On the Judiciary Committee, I had a 
good seat to witness first hand the radical surgery that some wanted to 
perform on the basic governing document of our country, the U.S. 
Constitution.
  It started with a balanced budget constitutional amendment, and soon 
a term limits constitutional amendment, a flag desecration amendment, a 
school prayer amendment, a super majority tax increase amendment, and a 
victims rights amendment, and on it went. In all, over 100 
constitutional amendments were introduced in the 104th Congress. This 
casual proliferation of amendments has tapered off somewhat, but 
persists to this day.
  As I saw Members of Congress suggest that all sorts of social, 
economic, and political problems, great and small, be solved with a 
simple constitutional amendment, I chose to oppose this serious and 
earnestly considered constitutional amendment from Senator Hollings, 
along with others that have casually and sometimes recklessly 
threatened to undermine our most treasured founding principles.

  The Constitution of this country was not a rough draft. We have 
sometimes lately been treating it as such, and Senator Hollings' worthy 
effort appears in that context, so I believe we should oppose it, lest 
we encourage less serious efforts.
  Even if we were to adopt this constitutional amendment, and the 
states were to ratify it, which we all know is not gong to happen, it 
will not deliver effective campaign finance reform. It would empower 
the Congress to set mandatory spending limits on congressional 
candidates that were struck down in the landmark Buckley v. Valeo 
decision.
  And if this constitutional amendment were to pass the Congress and be 
ratified by the States, would campaign finance reformers have the 
necessary 51 votes--or more likely the necessary 60 votes--to pass 
legislation that includes mandatory spending limits?
  Probably not--let's remember that it took us years to get to 60 votes 
on the McCain-Feingold bill.
  But this week we have before us a bipartisan campaign finance 
proposal that has been meticulously drafted within the guidelines 
established by the Supreme Court. We are confident that the McCain-
Feingold bill is constitutional and will be upheld by the courts.
  Our original proposal, unlike the law that was considered in Buckely 
v. Valeo, included voluntary spending limits, but the centerpiece of 
our bill is a ban on soft money, the unlimited contributions from 
corporations, unions and wealthy individuals to the political parties. 
There is near unanimity among constitutional scholars that the 
Constitution allows us to ban soft money. The Supreme Court's decision 
in the Shrink Missouri case makes it abundantly clear that the Court 
will uphold a soft money ban. We don't need to amend the Constitution 
to do what needs to be done.
  Until this year, the desire of a majority of Senators to bring a 
campaign finance reform bill to a final vote has been frustrated by a 
filibuster. So the notion that this constitutional amendment will pave 
the way for legislation that includes mandatory spending limits simply 
ignores the reality of the opposition that campaign finance reformers 
would face here in the Senate if they tried to enact those limits.

  This proposed constitutional amendment would change the scope of the 
first amendment. I find nothing more sacred and treasured in our 
Nation's history than the first amendment. It is the bedrock of the 
Bill of Rights. It has as its underpinning the notion that every 
citizen has a fundamental right to disagree with his or her government. 
I want to leave the first amendment undisturbed.
  Nothing in this constitutional amendment before the Senate today 
would prevent the sort of abuses we have witnessed in recent elections 
Allegations of illegality and improprieties, accusations of abuse, and 
charges of selling access to high-ranking Government officials would 
continue no matter what the outcome of the vote on this constitutional 
amendment. Only the enactment of legislation that bans soft money 
contributions will make a meaningful difference.
  The Senate will have another opportunity to address this issue. We 
have had many debates on campaign finance reform, and if we pass the 
McCain-Feingold bill, the general issue of campaign finance will 
reappear from time to time. But, today, in March 2001, the way to 
address the campaign finance problem is to pass constitutional 
legislation, not a constitutional amendment. We are poised to give the 
people real reform this year, not seven or more years from now.
  I urge the Members of the Senate to vote against the resolution for a 
constitutional amendment of the Senator from South Carolina. It is not 
necessary to amend the Constitution to accomplish campaign finance 
reform. I greatly admire the sincerity and commitment of the Senator 
from South Carolina, but ultimately I do not think his amendment will 
bring us any closer to achieving viable, real reform in the way that 
political campaigns are financed in the United States.
  I conclude by thanking the Senator from South Carolina for his 
leadership and knowledge on this subject.
  Mr. HATCH. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from Kentucky.

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