[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 42 (Tuesday, March 27, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2943-S2972]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          BIPARTISAN CAMPAIGN REFORM ACT OF 2001--(continued)

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair, in his capacity as a Senator from 
the State of Oklahoma, suggests the absence of a quorum. The clerk will 
call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCAIN. 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the quorum call be rescinded.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. McCAIN. Mr. President, I am very pleased at the progress we have 
made. We have disposed of a number of amendments. I think we have had a 
level of debate with which Americans are pleased, as are certain 
Members of the Senate, by the significant participation that has taken 
place.
  We really only have two major issues remaining. One is the issue of 
severability, which is, if there is a constitutional challenge to this 
legislation, if one part falls, whether or not all of it falls. The 
other is the hard money issue, with lots of negotiations and 
discussions going on as I speak.
  It was agreed at the beginning we would spend 2 weeks on this issue, 
and that was my understanding. It is now my understanding that there 
are some Members who think perhaps we would not move to final passage. 
I am committed to moving to final passage.
  As I have said before, it is not the 2 weeks that counts; it is the 
final disposition of this legislation which I think not only I but the 
American people deserve.
  As I say, we have disposed of the major issues with the exception of 
two. Therefore, in regard to further consideration of the bill before 
the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that first-degree amendments be 
limited to 10 each for the proponents and opponents of the bill; that 
relevant second-degree amendments be in order, with 1 hour for debate 
per second-degree amendment; and after all amendments are offered, the 
bill be immediately advanced to third reading for final passage, with 
no intervening action or debate.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Reserving the right to object, and I will object, let 
me say to my friend from Arizona, he knows, and we worked on it 
together, the consent agreement under which we took up this legislation 
scripted the beginning of the bill. It did not script the end.
  The Senator from Arizona made very plain from the beginning he wanted 
this debate to end in an up-or-down vote. It may well end in an up-or-
down vote, but the consent agreement did not determine that, and it 
would not be possible to get consent to structure the end at this time.
  Let me say this to my friend from Arizona. I agree with him the only 
big issues left are the hard money limits and the nonseverability 
question. I do not think it is likely we would go beyond Thursday 
night, in any event.
  However, Mr. President, to the unanimous consent request, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I appreciate the thoughts of the Senator 
from Kentucky. It is hard for me to understand now, with just 2 full 
days, 2\1/2\ days, why we wouldn't, as is our practice around here once 
we have considered a lot of amendments and a lot of proposals, as we 
reach the end, narrow down amendments. One, then, has to wonder what 
the intentions are.
  I don't perhaps disagree with the Senator from Kentucky about the 
language of the unanimous consent agreement. I believe everyone was 
laboring under the impression that we would reach final resolution of 
this issue with an up-or-down vote. There are some Senators who now 
question that.
  So I will be back with another unanimous consent request, and if that 
is not agreeable, then one can only draw the conclusion that there is 
an objection to a final disposition of this issue and that, obviously, 
would be something we would have to then consider.
  I want to make perfectly clear again what I said at the very 
beginning, and I will be glad to read the Congressional Record when the 
unanimous

[[Page S2944]]

consent was entered into with this distinguished majority leader. No 
matter how long it takes, as long as I can maintain 51 votes, we will 
not move to other legislation until we dispose of this legislation. For 
years we were blocked. For years we were not allowed to have this 
process which we now all agree has been valuable and helpful. But we 
need to take it to a final vote. I will be back with further unanimous 
consent requests so that we can fully bring this issue to closure.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I join in the remarks of the Senator 
from Arizona. I am pleased to see the distinguished majority leader on 
the floor, whom I have heard say on a number of occasions with regard 
to this process that he would not support a filibuster or an approach 
that would involve preventing us from getting to final passage on this 
bill. I appreciated those assurances, and I assume they still hold.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Let me make it clear once again, there would have been 
no consent agreement at all had the end been dictated by the agreement. 
I fully understood from the beginning that it was the desire of the 
Senator from Arizona to press for an up-or-down vote at the end of this 
debate. No one has been more aggressive than he has. Had it not been 
for the Senator from Arizona, we would not have been on this issue at 
all, at this point, which would have been my preference given the fact 
we have an energy crisis in the country, we have a stock market that is 
in trouble, and I, frankly, am somewhat stunned that we have spent 2 
weeks on this issue.
  Having said that, we have been on this issue because of the tenacity 
of the Senator from Arizona. The consent agreement was entered into 
because of the tenacity of the Senator from Arizona. But let me assure 
the Senate it was not just the Senator from Kentucky who would not have 
agreed to a consent agreement that dictated how this debate ends. So 
that is why I objected, not just for myself but for others.
  It could well be that in the next day or so I will have a different 
view of that. But there are important votes yet to be cast, and I am 
sure we will be consulting--the Senator from Arizona and I--on the end 
game as we move along.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, Senator Dodd has worked tirelessly with the 
Senator from Kentucky. He spent long hours here. I think we are 
arriving at a point where perhaps this evening or tomorrow sometime we 
can get a finite list of amendments. We have been working on that. We 
have a number of people on both sides who believe very strongly in 
their amendments and would not want to be told they are not important.
  I have virtually been with my friend from Wisconsin on every vote we 
have taken this past 10 days. I think the leadership from Senator 
Feingold, with his partner, the Senator from Arizona, has been 
exemplary. But the fact is, we have spent a lot of time on this bill. I 
do not expect at this time we should rush on some program to suddenly 
end it. As I said, there are a number of people who have submitted 
requests to Senator Dodd about amendments that need to be offered. We 
expect to offer those amendments. I think we should move along as 
quickly as we can, and we certainly have tried to do that.
  As I said, I think one way we can expedite things is to come up on 
both sides with a finite list of amendments and have that locked in. I 
hope to have that, after conferring with the leader and Senator Dodd, 
at the earliest possible date.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, let me just comment before I introduce an 
amendment and start the process of the clock.
  With respect to the question of how this issue finishes, I hope the 
leader on the other side, and those who oppose this, will not move back 
from what I think was an understanding by most people who entered into 
that agreement that we were in fact going to have an opportunity to 
come to final resolution on this bill.

  Obviously, if we are deprived of that, then I suspect many of us are 
going to try to find every opportunity the Senate presents us over the 
course of the next months. There is a long schedule yet ahead of us. It 
would be a waste of the time of the Senate and an insult to the process 
to somehow try to sidestep an appropriate, complete, and total 
resolution, having invested the time we have in the last days. I think 
everybody has moved in good faith in an effort to present the 
amendments that represent bona fide efforts to improve campaign 
finance. But I certainly will join with a number of other colleagues, I 
am confident, if there is some sidestepping procedural effort to 
deprive us of the appropriate voting conclusion. We will tie up the 
Senate, I am confident, for some period of time in an effort to try to 
resolve it.


                           Amendment No. 148

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf 
of myself, Senator Biden, Senator Wellstone, and Senator Cantwell. I 
ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry] for himself, Mr. 
     Biden, Mr. Wellstone, and Ms. Cantwell, proposes an amendment 
     numbered 148.

  Mr. KERRY. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The text of the amendment is printed in today's Record under 
``Amendments Submitted.''
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, this amendment is one that I think Senator 
Biden, Senator Cantwell, Senator Wellstone, and I understand is not 
going to pass today. I hate to say that. I regret to say that. But it 
is a vote that we ought to have in the Senate. It is a vote that, in 
our judgment, represents the best of what could be achieved in the 
context of campaign finance reform. It is steps beyond Senator McCain 
and Senator Feingold, both of whom, I might add, have great sympathy 
for it notwithstanding the fact that they know, if it were to pass, you 
would have a very different mix in terms of what they began with as 
sort of a legislative agreement, if you will. I know Senator Feingold 
is a strong supporter nevertheless.
  What we are proposing is something the Senate has visited before. We 
have voted on this before. In fact, the Senate in 1994 passed, by a 
vote of 52-46, a campaign reform bill. It never got out of the Senate 
in 1994. This particular one fell victim to the House of 
Representatives and to the delay of the schedule. Nevertheless, it 
reflected the willingness of colleagues in the Senate to embrace a 
partial funding by the public, a partial match funding in order to 
reduce the dependency of politicians on going out and becoming 
supplicants in their search for funds.
  This is, in effect, translating to the Senate races the same 
principle that has been in place and has been used, even through the 
current election for President of the United States, in our national 
elections. It is a partial funding, a match, if you will, that seeks to 
address the extraordinary amounts of money that are in our campaigns 
today.
  We bring this particular amendment because this effort of campaign 
finance reform is not just to create a regulation on how much money you 
can raise in a particular request from a particular person, not just an 
effort to put limits on. There is a larger purpose that brings us here. 
That purpose is to undo the appearance of impropriety that comes with 
the linkage of money to the fact of getting elected, the act of getting 
elected. Most people in the Senate who have been here for awhile have 
watched colleagues sometimes squirm with discomfort because questions 
have been raised about those linkages.
  We have had investigations, both of the Senate, of the Ethics 
Committee, and of outside groups, that have often been pointed at the 
way in which we are forced to raise money. I think most people in any 
honest assessment would be prepared to say when somebody sitting on a 
particular committee has to

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go out and raise money from people who have business before that 
committee, or when someone in the Senate has to ask for money from 
people who have legislative interests in front of them on which they 
will vote, there is almost an automatic cloud. It is not something we 
define for ourselves, it is something that is defined by the system 
itself. It is there whether we like it or not.
  I do not think there is one of us in the Senate who has not been 
asked at one time or another: Gee, did those people who contributed to 
you somehow have an influence on the way you voted? For most people in 
the public, it is a natural connection. If people see the milk 
industry, or the insurance industry, or the banking industry, or the 
farmers, or the truckers--you could name any group. I am not being 
pejorative in naming any of those I named. Name any interest in America 
that conglomerates its money, and then look at the people who are 
elected, and you have an automatic connection, like it or not, of the 
money and the election process.
  When you measure the fact that most of America does not contribute, 
most of America does not have the money to contribute--we have one-half 
of 1 percent of the people in this country who give the $1,000 
donations. I think all of the soft money in this country was given by 
about 800 people in the last election cycle. Think of that--800 
Americans out of 280 million giving tens of millions of dollars to 
affect the political process.
  Most of the average citizens sit there and say: I can only afford 
$10, or maybe I can afford $15 or $20 or $50. But they know; they sort 
of say to themselves: Boy, my $50 is not going to do much to alter the 
impact of $50,000 from some big, large interest, et cetera. They feel 
powerless and they turn off the system. They go away. They look at the 
system and they say: It doesn't represent me.
  I don't know how many of my colleagues have stopped to ask, but why 
is it that a majority of the Senate is made up of millionaires? Are we 
representative of the United States of America as a group? The answer 
is no. But most people cannot afford to run for office, particularly 
for the Senate. So the question is, Do we have the guts, do we have the 
courage to come here and fight for real campaign finance reform that 
affords a more even playing field?
  Is it a perfect playing field? The answer is no. We do not do that. 
And I understand that. But we can try to make it fair so a lot of 
people can get involved in the process.
  Let me share with my colleagues this idea that we are submitting to 
the Senate today comes from a group of business leaders. This is not an 
idea that has been created by some sort of interest group that might 
arouse the normal suspicions of those who oppose campaign finance 
reform. This idea has been put together by a group called the Committee 
for Economic Development. Over 300 business leaders have endorsed this 
proposal. They include top executives of Sara Lee, Nortel Networks, 
State Farm, Motorola, Bear Stearns, American Management Systems, 
Hasbro, MGM Mirage, Guardsmark, Kaiser Permanente, Prudential, Saloman 
Smith Barney. They also include retired chairs or CEOs of AlliedSignal, 
Bank of America, GTE, International Paper, Union Pacific, General 
Foods, Monsanto, Time, CBS, Fannie Mae, Dow Chemical, and B.F. 
Goodrich.
  I suppose the question might be asked, Why would past CEOs, why would 
corporate chieftains, why would corporations themselves be so 
interested in supporting a campaign finance mechanism that includes 
some public funding?
  The reason is, these are the corporate entities that keep getting 
asked to contribute and contribute and contribute, that keep feeling as 
if they are dragged into a process that they themselves know is not in 
the best interests of the democracy of our country.
  We are supposed to be, as Senator Byrd reminded us in our caucus a 
few minutes ago, a republic. A republic means we are people who 
represent the people who elect us--not the money that puts us here, the 
people who elect us.
  The question is, Are we prepared to pass a campaign finance reform 
regime that distances us, to the maximum degree possible, from the 
fundraising and connects us, to the maximum degree possible, to the 
people who elect us? That is the purpose of this particular amendment.
  This amendment is voluntary. I emphasize, it is voluntary. There is 
no mandate that anybody in the country has to follow this particular 
way of campaign financing. So there is no constitutional challenge 
here. You can choose to go in and live by a limit that you are given as 
a matching amount of money.

  I want to explain exactly how it works. We want to encourage the 
small donor to participate in America again. We want to emphasize that 
it is the smaller contribution that is the most important contribution. 
So what we do is provide a matching amount of money doubled by the 
Federal Treasury for those small contributions up to $200. That means 
if somebody contributes anywhere up to $200 to a candidate, they would 
get up to $400 in a matching amount of money. And they would agree to 
live by a specific formula limit for each State in the country. That 
formula is: $1 million, plus 50 cents, times the number of voters in 
that particular State.
  We did an analysis of the last two election cycles. When you compare 
the amounts that would be provided to candidates under this formula, it 
demonstrates that in only three races in the last cycle would you not 
have had enough money under this formula to be able to meet what 
happened in those races. The spending limit formula in 23 States would 
have provided candidates with more money than they had to go out and 
hock the system in order to be able to run. In an additional seven 
States, the formula would have brought candidates within $500,000 of 
the average amount that was spent in the last Senate election in that 
State.
  Given what we have already passed in McCain-Feingold with respect to 
lowest unit charges, in effect, this formula would allow people to be 
able to spend more, if not the same, because they would be able to get 
more media buy for the dollars spent; and that result would be that 
they would be, in fact, greatly advantaged by this kind of formula.
  What they also allow them to do is: If a candidate is not able to 
raise up to their limit, we allow the parties, through their hard money 
contributions, to be able to make up the difference to that candidate, 
much as they do today through the section 441(a)(d) contributions.
  The virtue of this particular approach is that it does the most that 
we believe we can do to separate candidates from the fundraising 
process, to reduce the capacity of people to question the large 
contributions. We would still allow contributions up to the amounts of 
McCain-Feingold. So if that amount remains $1,000 in the primary and 
$1,000 in the general election, you can still raise it, but you only 
get credit for the first $200 toward your match. That means you would 
be encouraged to go out and bring people into the system for low-donor-
amounts of contributions.
  In every other regard we stay with McCain-Feingold. We want to see 
the ban on the soft money. We want to see the increased scrutiny, 
increased transparency, but we are trying to provide people with an 
ability to avoid the extraordinary arms race of fundraising that takes 
place in this country and to begin to restore every American's 
confidence that we are not in hock to the interests that support the 
campaigns.
  There is a reason for having to do that. I remember when I was 
chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1988. As 
Chairman, I refused to take soft money back in 1988. We did not take 
any soft money in the committee. That was the last year the campaign 
committee did not take soft money because they could not in order to 
compete. From that time until now, we have seen this extraordinary 
growth in the amount of soft money being raised, so that there was 
almost $\1/2\ billion of soft money in last year's campaigns. Think 
about that--an extraordinary amount.
  But for 1992, the Republican Party raised $164 million in hard money, 
$45 million in soft money. In 1996, the $164 million jumped to $278 
million in hard money; and it went from $45 million to $120 million in 
soft money. And this year, it went from the $278 million to

[[Page S2946]]

$447 million in hard money; and the $120 million went up to $244 
million in soft money. This is so far outside of inflation or any 
legitimate costs with respect to campaigning, it is insulting. The only 
way we are going to end that is to put in place a system where we bring 
Americans back into the process of contributing smaller amounts of 
money.

  It is interesting that corporate contributions outnumbered the amount 
of small and union contributions by 15 to 1. Americans are currently 
looking at a political system that is effectively a corporately 
subsidized, corporately supported system. If you were the leader of any 
corporation in America--there are a few who are making a different 
decision--some of them have decided spontaneously they are simply not 
going to contribute, but unfortunately, an awful lot of them still 
decide: I can't be left behind, I can't suffer the vagaries of the 
system unless I can weigh in, unless I get sufficient access. So most 
of them, answerable to their board of directors and their shareholders, 
as a result, play the system as hard as they can.
  Most of them will also tell you privately, they pray and hope the 
Senate will have the courage to change that system because they don't 
like it any more than many of us do.
  The one thing we are going to hear from the opponents--and you can 
hear it right now--we have politics that are really good right now in 
using little phrases: ``It is not the Government's money; it is your 
money. You deserve a refund.'' That is a quick, easy hit. People get 
applause. Everybody feels good and they forget about the fact that 
there are a whole lot of other issues.
  We are going to hear them say: Gee whiz, politicians shouldn't depend 
on the public treasury to run for office. They are going to say this is 
welfare for politicians, ``welfare for politicians'' because somehow 
the Federal Government contributes. Ronald Reagan was elected using 
this Federal money. George Bush, in 1988, was elected using this money. 
Even the current President Bush was elected using Federal money. Bob 
Dole ran for President using Federal money. Countless numbers of 
candidates have run using Federal money.
  It is not welfare for politicians. What it is is protection for 
politicians. That is what they want. They are afraid of a system that 
allows the average American to have a full voice. They are afraid of a 
system which requires them to go out and do anything except play 
sweetheart with a whole bunch of givers who give them big amounts of 
money so they can just swamp the average person who wants to run for 
office.
  The fact is, if you analyze the amount of Federal dollars that are 
wasted and spent only because those interests are able to get the laws 
they want and ride roughshod over a broader consumer interest, there 
are billions upon billions of dollars that are spent as a result of the 
current system.
  What this represents is liberty money for people in this country, 
freedom, the ability to be able to cut the cord of the system we have 
today and free themselves to be able to go out and have a fair system 
in which Americans can have confidence. Most Americans, if they were 
presented with that argument fair and square, would say: That is 
precisely what I want. I am willing to pay a $400, $500 amount to cover 
the cost of elections in this country in order to guarantee that people 
are free from the kind of special interest process today.
  Moreover, you might see a lot more of your Senator and your 
Congressman because they wouldn't have to travel all around the country 
on weekends and weeknights to raise money from fundraisers in States 
everywhere other than their own.
  It doesn't make sense. That is what this is an effort to try to 
achieve. I hope my colleagues will think hard about it. Fifty-two 
Members of the Senate in 1994 voted for a bill that had a partial 
component of public funding in it. Many people have acknowledged that 
ultimately this is the only way for us to free ourselves from the 
current system. While we can't deal with the primaries, that is too 
expensive and it doesn't work. What we do is set up a structure where 
in the general election, there is a clear ability of people to spend a 
limited amount of money, commensurate with the amounts of money and in 
some cases more than even the amounts they spend today.
  I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from Delaware.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. It seems as though the Senator from Massachusetts and I 
have been doing this a long time. We lost one of the musketeers in 
Senator Bradley. I don't know how many times we have come to the floor 
to talk about this issue. What is discouraging is, we seem to be moving 
backwards now instead of forward.
  I have a reputation that doesn't always serve me well of being 
relatively blunt. I am going to continue to exacerbate that a little 
bit today and depart from my prepared remarks at the outset and speak 
to the last point the Senator from Massachusetts was talking about.
  Our friends who oppose this will say to any idea of any public 
financing: Why should the public pay for bumper stickers and billboards 
and the like? I will bet you if you sat down with every American, and 
were able to do it one on one, and said: Here is the deal: Do you want 
me taking money from a checkoff system on your income tax, as the 
Presidential campaign is run, or from a direct appropriation that may 
cost you a couple bucks a year? Would you feel better about me and my 
independence if you did that and I had a limited amount of money if I 
were the nominee that I could spend, a limited amount of money based on 
the size of my State? Or would you rather have me hanging around in 
Hollywood, New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, the 
major money centers of the world, sitting down with investment bankers 
and with corporate heads and union leaders and listening to them 
telling me what they think is important for the future of America and 
my knowing full well if I disagree with what they think is important 
for the future of America, that they are not likely to contribute to me 
and, therefore, if I have to rely totally on the people with the big 
money, that I may very well find myself rationalizing that, well, maybe 
it is not such a bad idea to be for that idea because it is better for 
me to get elected intact with most of my views in place than it is for 
me to be pure about this and not be able to run. I think the American 
people understand.
  I may be mistaken, but I believe Dick Clark, a former Senator from 
Iowa, and I, were the first two to introduce public financing as an 
idea back in 1974, in the middle of the Watergate scandal, to try to 
take polluting influence out of the system--I don't think there is an 
American out there who thinks if they get a chance to come up and lobby 
me on a particular issue and say, Senator, I sure hope you will vote 
for this tax cut or that tax cut or vote for or against something, that 
they have as much influence on me as somebody who walks in having 
contributed $10,000 to my campaign through two PAC contributions. I 
wonder what the American people think. I wonder do they think their 
voice is as easily heard as the rest of those folks.
  The thing that has surprised me over the years that I have been 
pushing this idea, along with others, is that we who hold public office 
aren't tired of this, aren't worried, why it doesn't bother us, whether 
we are lily pure or not, why it doesn't bother us being associated with 
the notion that what we do is a consequence of the financial influence 
placed upon us.
  For example, I don't think there is anything morally wrong, per se, 
about PAC money. That is an organization getting together and 
representing a particular interest--whether it is a labor organization, 
business organization, social organization--and giving a candidate 
$5,000 at a crack. I admit that is no more debilitating, no more 
immoral, no more unsavory than five people getting together in one 
family and coming up with $1,000 apiece to give $5,000. But I don't 
accept PAC money, and I haven't accepted PAC money--not because I think 
it is immoral or wrong, and I don't question the morality or judgment 
of those who accept it. I think I am one of the few people who don't 
accept it, and maybe one of the few in the whole Congress.
  The reason I don't accept it is that I like the fact that no one 
can--and I am a pro-labor Senator--question my pro-

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labor votes because labor gives me any money. They don't. I can stand 
up and say I like the feeling at home that when I am for something that 
maybe not all my constituents like, but labor likes, nobody can use the 
argument that Biden has been bought off by labor because the following 
labor groups got together and contributed to him X amount of dollars.
  A lot of Senators who talk about being lily white and pure accept PAC 
money. That is OK. But the only reason I don't is I don't like looking 
at my constituents and them thinking that I have taken a position 
because somebody contributed to me. That just bothers me. That just 
bothers my independence. There may come a day I have to take PAC money. 
I may run against somebody who raises $5 million in PAC money and I 
can't raise the money, so I have to take it to compete. But I don't 
accept it simply for my own gratification. I love walking into a 
meeting with a businessperson, or a business organization, or labor 
organization, and deciding for or against them based on the merits and 
never having to talk about money. I feel liberated. It is my sort of 
self-imposed, tiny victory against this system that I rail against all 
the time.
  What has surprised me is why people of this body would not want 
limits on spending. Do you think the majority of us like traveling two-
thirds of the way across the country to sit down at a fundraiser in the 
home of somebody who is going to ask us stupid questions, who may be an 
absolute idiot, and is going to raise us $20,000, and we have to sit 
there and listen. Now I'll have everybody who has ever done a 
fundraiser for me saying, ``Is he talking about me?'' If anybody likes 
that, you probably should be doing something else because you can't be 
that bright.
  So I don't get this. I don't get it. I don't get why we haven't 
gotten to the point that just for our own living standard, so that we 
don't have to get on planes at 7:30 at night and sit in an airport, and 
then miss it, and 47 thank-you notes why we could not be there and 
apologize and set a new date, and you miss your kid's first communion, 
or you miss your daughter-in-law's birthday, or something because you 
are out raising money. I don't think anybody sitting in here has any 
idea how much of our time is spent raising money. The more scrupulous 
you are about how you raise it, the more hurdles you place in your way 
to make sure everybody knows that you are clean and you are not like 
what people think you are, the harder it is--the harder it is.
  We all do it. We all sit here and say, wait a minute now; we just 
voted on a bill that will affect some of the people who are going to be 
there. I can't go to that fundraiser now. It will look like I did it 
for the wrong reason. I don't want them thinking that is why I did that 
because that is not why I did that. All Members here are moral, decent 
people. The irony is, this place, in terms of personal rectitude is 
probably squeakier than any Congress in the last 200 years because of 
all the disclosure rules. That is the irony. You used to have a person 
standing at a desk right over there--one of the leading Senators in 
history--who would write letters to the railroad company saying, ``By 
the way, I just defeated a thing that would have hurt you. Send more 
money or I won't do it next time.'' The money that was being sent was 
in his pocket.

  When I ran for the Senate in 1972 and won, there were no limits on 
what you could spend or what could be given to you. My goodness, you 
would think by now the irony of all ironies is that I would be 
dumbfounded if any Member of this body was taking money under the table 
or doing anything illegal. They are the cleanest bunch I have dealt 
with. Yet we are viewed as being among the dirtiest bunch. Why? Because 
we are associated with all this money.
  My mom had an expression when I was a kid. I would say, ``Mom, can I 
go hang out on the corner by Buffington's with the rest of the guys?'' 
She would say, ``Those guys get in trouble.'' And I would say, ``But I 
won't.'' She would look at me and say, ``Joe, if it walks like a duck 
and quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is a duck.'' I used to 
say, ``What does that have to do with anything?'' She would say, 
``Those boys down there are not good boys. When you hang with them, 
even if you are not doing anything wrong, you are going to be presumed 
to be.''
  What happens now when anybody within earshot, not holding public 
office, hears your child say, ``Mom, I want to be a politician.'' I am 
not allowed to reference the gallery, but I bet if I looked at their 
expressions right now, they would all have the same expression: Oh, no, 
no, you don't want to do that. Why, when in fact they have more honest 
men and women in the business now than have ever have been in it? The 
likelihood of people doing untoward things relative to financial gain 
is almost unheard of now. When you have a billion plus dollars spent on 
elections, the conclusion to the American people is that if it looks 
like it is corruption, sounds like it is corrupt, it appears to be 
corruption, then it is probably corrupt.
  So this has always amazed me. I would have thought by now that we 
would be so afraid of being burned by our association, unintentionally, 
with unsavory notions, causes, or people, through contributions, that 
we would say let's get out of this. I will tell you right now. I don't 
think anybody here would disagree. I would rather be beholden, or 
thought to be, to 280 million Americans than to 200 contributors. I 
would think they would want me to be beholden to them, not only in fact 
but in perception.
  So what have we done? As my friend from Massachusetts has said--and 
we have been allies in this for a long time, and I am a great admirer 
of his--just since 1976, the total congressional campaign spending has 
gone up eightfold. In 1976, the average race for the House of 
Representatives cost $87,000. Today, it cost $816,000. Where are you 
going to get that money? Where are you going to go for that money? Do 
you think there is $816,000 worth of folks out there saying: Just 
because I love this system, I don't care what your positions are on any 
issues. I just want honorable men and women like you involved, so here 
is a contribution.
  What do you think? Do you think that is how it happens? You know what 
it is for Senate races? In 1976, the average cost of a Senate race was 
$609,000. Now it is $7 million.
  So I have gotten to the point where I am even more concerned about 
the amount than I am about the source--more about the amount than I am 
about the source. Let me explain that. If, in fact, we are going to 
ever do anything about the influence of money and the ability of people 
like me to be able to get involved in politics--I say people like me. 
No one who ever held State office, no one with any personal fortune or 
money, and who has a dubious distinction along with one other Senator 
on the floor being listed as one of the poorest men in the Senate.
  How can a guy like me get involved today knowing that for me to get 
out of the box, I am going to have to raise, even in a tiny State such 
as mine, potentially $4 million to $5 million? How does one start that? 
Where does one go?
  Why are we surprised with a lot of millionaires? Do you know what a 
lot of us Democrats do, as Dale Bumpers, one of the best speakers I 
heard on the Senate floor in past years, used to say, in the bosom of 
the lodge here? Because we cannot match their money, do you know what 
we do? When we recruit candidates, whom do we look for, I say to the 
Senator from Connecticut? We try to find millionaire Democrats. We try 
to find Democrats who are millionaires to front their own campaigns 
because we do not have enough money around to front all the campaigns. 
We try to find people who are millionaires.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. BIDEN. I ask for 5 minutes more.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, how much time remains on our side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Fifty-four minutes.
  Mr. KERRY. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the fact of the matter is, we are never 
going to make any really fundamental change in the system until we 
adopt the position of setting limits on the total amount of money that 
can be spent in a single State on a single election.
  Our approach provides the candidates with partial public financing 
when they commit to voluntary limits, and if the other person does not 
commit to

[[Page S2948]]

those voluntary limits, then we allow that funding to go up so that 
person can keep in parity with the person against whom they are 
running.
  It is a simple, basic proposition. By the way, it is complementary to 
the so-called soft money ban. It is not contrary to, it does not 
undermine it; it is complementary to the ban on soft money.
  The spending limits for the Senate candidates are different in each 
State based on a rather simple formula that my friend from 
Massachusetts pointed out: A million bucks to start and then, on top of 
that, 50 cents for each person of voting age in that State. In my State 
of Delaware, that means one could not spend more than $1.3 million. In 
a State such as Illinois, where there are 9 million potential voters, 
one could spend $5.5 million.
  I will not go through all the detail beyond that except to say that 
our amendment also includes a provision to counter those last-minute 
sham ads that have become all too common in the closing weeks of 
campaigns. Our amendment says if your campaign is a victim of one of 
those drive-by sham ads, you will receive additional public funding to 
enable you to respond to keep you in the game.
  I have been calling for public financing for congressional campaigns 
for a very long time, since 1973, my first year in this body. I thought 
Watergate would have been enough to take us to the brink of trying to 
do something serious about campaigns. We did make some initial progress 
until the Supreme Court ruling in Buckley v. Valeo which set everything 
on its head, and now here we are back again.
  The time has come, as my old math teacher would say, to work the 
problem and to stand at the blackboard until we come up with an answer 
that will pass the test of public confidence. The amendment we are 
offering today I think passes that test, and I urge all of my 
colleagues, for once and for all, do something that really will impact 
upon who can run, their ability to stay in the game, the ability to 
compete and reengender some confidence in the American people.
  My closing remark is this: We have gotten to the point, as my friend 
from Massachusetts pointed out, of businesspeople dreading this funding 
process because they get held up for contributions. Beyond that, we 
have reached a point where, because we have had to become so brazen in 
the way in which we raise money, those who used to contribute to us who 
never were brazen in return are now equally brazen, suggesting they 
want to know more about what we will do before they give us the money.
  It is a bad system. This could go a long way to changing it. I have 
no hope that it is likely to be adopted this time, but someday--
someday--it will, and I suspect only after some additional major 
scandal occurs. I want to make sure for my own safety's sake I am 
recorded on the right side of this argument again so no one 
misunderstands what I think we should be doing.
  I thank my friend for his leadership, and I thank him for yielding 
the time he has. I yield back whatever time is remaining.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Delaware for his 
comments. As he said, he started this crusade back when he was elected 
in 1972. We had a high water mark in the Senate when we actually passed 
it. We also had 49 votes at one point in time. We know we are not at 
that high water mark today for a lot of different reasons.
  It is very interesting what the Senator just said about 
businesspeople. I cited the types of businesspeople who support this--
major executives of major companies in the country. Here is what they 
said when they announced it:

       As business leaders, we are . . . concerned about the 
     effects of the campaign finance system on the economy and 
     business. . . . A vibrant economy and well functioning 
     business system will not remain viable in an environment of 
     real or perceived corruption, which will corrode confidence 
     in government and business. . . . In addition, the pressures 
     on businesses to contribute to campaigns because their 
     competitors do so will increase. We wish to compete in the 
     marketplace, not in the political arena.

  I applaud these business leaders for recognizing the truth that a lot 
of the opponents of reform refuse to acknowledge.
  The fact is that even the Supreme Court in the cases we so often 
cite--Buckley v. Valeo, Colorado, and others, all of those cases--talks 
about the legitimate right of Congress to try to curb the perception of 
corruption which they acknowledge on the Supreme Court is a component 
of trying to have good campaign finance reform.
  What they have deemed to be constitutional, they have deemed to be 
constitutional partly making the judgment that it was necessary to 
combat that concept of corruption.
  Moreover, I point out to my colleagues, sometimes we all know 
Congress does not do what the American people think it should do or 
want it to do, but the American people want us to put together a better 
system. A national survey conducted by the Mellman Group in April last 
year found that by a margin of 68 percent to 19 percent, voters favored 
a proposal that eliminates private contributions, sets spending limits, 
and gives qualifying candidates a grant from a publicly financed 
election fund.
  In other words, every time the Congress votes against public funding, 
the Congress is explicitly denying what the majority of the American 
people want, which is the capacity to separate the people they elect 
from the fundraising process.
  That same survey found that 59 percent of voters agree that we need 
to make major changes to the way we finance elections. But perhaps the 
most telling statistic was the fact that overwhelming majorities think 
special interest contributions affect the voting behavior of Members of 
Congress.
  Eighty-seven percent of voters believe that money impacts Members of 
Congress, with 56 percent expressing the belief that it affects Members 
a lot. We ought to want to do something to eliminate that perception 
and to restore people's confidence in this institution.
  Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, assuming all the time is used on both 
sides, when would the vote occur?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. At 5:55 p.m.
  Mr. McCONNELL. This should be such an easy vote that I don't think I 
will need all my time. I will withhold it for the moment to see how 
many speakers there are on the other side. Suffice it to say, that 
taxpayer funding of elections is about as unpopular as voting to raise 
congressional pay.
  We have the most complete poll ever taken on any subject, every April 
15, when taxpayers get an opportunity to check off on their tax return 
the diversion of $3 to the Presidential campaigns and to help subsidize 
the conventions. It doesn't add to their tax bill. It is just diverting 
$3 of their tax money to politics.
  The high water mark of the checkoff was back in 1980 when 29 percent 
of taxpayers checked off. Last year it was 12 percent. In fact, the 
lack of taxpayer interest in checking off some of the tax dollars 
already owed to this cause, the drop off was so alarming that in the 
early 1990s when the opposition party controlled the House, the Senate, 
and the Presidency, they upped the checkoff from $1 to $3, so fewer and 
fewer people could check off more money.
  Clearly, this is an idea that is overwhelmingly unpopular with the 
American people. We had a vote the other day on the Wellstone 
amendment. The Wellstone amendment gave States the option of having 
taxpayer funding of elections of congressional races. It was defeated 
64-36. Maybe you could have argued on that vote that it wasn't really a 
vote for taxpayer funding of elections because it only gave to States 
the option--the option--to have taxpayer funding of elections, yet only 
36 Members of the Senate supported that.
  This is the real thing before the Senate now. This is not giving any 
State the option to have a taxpayer-funded system. This is the real 
thing, taxpayer-funded elections for Senate races.
  I have been somewhat chagrined and mystified that we have spent 2 
weeks on the whole subject we have been on when the stock market is 
tanking, we have an energy crisis in this country. What are we doing in 
the Senate? We

[[Page S2949]]

are talking about campaign finance reform. At the very least, the 
underlying bill didn't have taxpayer funding of elections in it, but 
there have been first one, and now the second effort to add that to 
this underlying bill.
  So I don't think the American people would be particularly amused if 
they were paying any attention to this debate, which they are not--I 
don't think they would be particularly amused to find out what we are 
doing while we have these emerging problems in our country of energy 
and the stock market.
  The argument over taxpayer funding of elections is a blast from the 
past. This debate over taxpayer financing is an idea whose time has 
come and gone. One of the huge victories on my side of this debate that 
we can savor is that reformers gave up on the horrible notion of 
taxpayer funding of elections some years ago. That is, most of them. We 
still have some people offering these amendments, and that is what is 
before the Senate at the moment.
  It may surprise some of the people who are watching C-SPAN that we 
actually have had taxpayer financing of Presidential elections since 
1976. This system has squandered over 1 billion tax dollars. In the 
2000 Presidential race alone, taxpayers kicked in $238 million; 30 
million of those dollars went toward the conventions in Philadelphia 
and Los Angeles. Fun weeks for those of us who were privileged to 
attend, but most taxpayers could surely come up with a better use of 
their tax dollars than underwriting political conventions.
  Proponents of using taxpayer money for political campaigns get very 
creative in devising their polling questions so they can get results 
suggestive of some reservoir of support for this notion.
  First off, they never refer to the money as the ``taxpayers money.'' 
You will never see that in a polling question asked by a proponent of 
using tax money for buttons and balloons and TV commercials. They 
always call it ``public funding,'' sort of like a public beach, public 
park, or public parking, leaving out the fact that the money started 
out in the taxpayers' private pockets.
  Then they link the concept of public financing of campaigns to 
reducing special interest influence. Gee, that sounds like a bargain, 
except they can still get their numbers over 50 percent when they call 
it public funding and when they say it is for the purpose of reducing 
the nasty special interest. We all know the definition of a special 
interest. That is somebody against what I am trying to do. Those groups 
on my side are great Americans pursuing a wonderful cause. Those nasty 
special interests are the guys on the other side.
  When someone such as myself frames a polling question in a more 
straightforward fashion, such as, do you support using taxpayer dollars 
for political campaigns--very straightforward and very truthful--
respondents are decidedly less receptive than in the gimmicky polls 
that I suspect we have heard cited on the other side of this debate.
  A reform group study in 1994 concluded that Americans remain 
skeptical of public funding for congressional campaigns. Remember, they 
were using that good word ``public.'' Moreover, a careful examination 
of the core coalitions both in favor and against leads us to conclude 
that this proposal tends to be a hot button for a group that is not 
exactly a microcosm of America. Who is interested in this issue of 
taxpayer funding of elections when you call it ``public funding''? It 
is a hot-button issue for liberals who are postgraduates, people who 
went to graduate schools. Liberals who graduated from graduate school 
think this is a great issue, that is, about 2 percent of the public--
not, I submit, a microcosm of America or anywhere near the average 
American.
  When we look at the biggest poll of all that I referred to earlier, 
the checkoff on the 1040 tax forms which allows filers to divert $3 
from the U.S. Treasury to the Presidential election campaign funds--
remember, this is money they already owe; if you ever change the law to 
make people actually cough up an additional $3, this fund would 
disappear entirely. It would be gone with the wind. It would be out of 
here. We would have to appropriate dollars to make up for the zero 
balance in this fund--nearly 90 percent of Americans choose not to 
check yes to the use of taxpayer dollars for Presidential elections. 
Last year's forms, 11.8 percent checked ``yes.''
  As I said earlier, at its peak popularity in 1980, less than 30 
percent checked yes. Imagine the results if the checkoff was for a 
congressional election campaign fund, which is what this amendment is 
about. Imagine the question on the tax form if it were crafted 
``congressional election campaign fund.'' People would not confine 
themselves to checking no. They would no doubt be compelled to include 
commentary in the margins on their tax returns. Such is the disdain for 
taxpayer funding of elections.
  We haven't even gotten to another essential part of this whole issue. 
The Supreme Court does not allow us to just provide tax funding to the 
good guys, the Republicans and the Democrats. No, no. If you are going 
to provide tax dollars for campaigns, you can't constitutionally limit 
those taxpayer-funded schemes to the Republicans and to the Democrats--
which is all of us in here. No, the Reform Party, Ralph Nader's Green 
Party, and for that matter, any individual eager for some name 
identification paid for by the taxpayers would be eligible to qualify.
  Let me give a couple of examples. That great American, Lenora Fulani, 
of many parties over the years, and most recently the Reform Party, has 
collected 3.5 million of our tax dollars for her in 1984, 1988, and 
1992 Presidential campaigns. The taxpayers of America have given Lenora 
Fulani $3.5 million to run for President of the United States.

  In 1992, in fact, Ms. Fulani was the first in line to receive 
matching funds, even beating Bill Clinton to the funds.
  Lyndon LaRouche got taxpayer funds for the 1992 Presidential 
campaign. It was a little difficult for him to function that year 
because he was in jail. It was something of an inconvenience. But the 
fact that he was in jail did not prevent him from getting tax dollars 
to run for President. He was in the middle of serving a 15-year 
sentence for fraud. But, by golly, we got him some tax money to run for 
President of the United States.
  Imagine, if we extend this great idea to congressional races, we are 
going to have Lenora Fulanis and Lyndon LaRouches running in every 
House and Senate race in America. Every crackpot who got up in the 
morning, looked in the mirror, and said, ``By golly, I think I see a 
Congressman,'' is going to get a subsidy from the taxpayers to go out 
and see if he can pull this thing off.
  LaRouche has received over $2 million for his 1980, 1984, 1988, and 
1992 Presidential campaigns. If you take out the 2 percent of Americans 
who are liberal postgraduates, there is not a lot of enthusiasm out in 
the hinterlands for this kind of reform. Indeed, there is disdain for 
this kind of reform. I suspect there is not a whole lot of support in 
the Senate.
  Looking at the Wellstone amendment the other day, which got 36 votes, 
maybe I will be surprised, but I will be surprised if there are 36 
votes there to have this proposal replace the current system of 
electing Members of Congress.
  Let me say again, I can't think of anything that would frost the 
average taxpayer more than the idea of fringe candidates, maybe even in 
jail, running for Congress, running for the House and Senate.
  I do not know how this amendment is crafted, but I can tell you, you 
cannot constitutionally restrict public funds, taxpayer funds, to just 
the people we would like to get it, which is people such as us who are 
Republicans or Democrats. We can't do that. It has to be crafted in 
such a way that these funds are not unreasonably denied to people who 
aspire, regardless of their ideas or present circumstance, such as 
being in jail--their present circumstance--you cannot unreasonably deny 
them their opportunity to have their say with our tax money.
  I do not know how much more debate is needed on this idea from the 
past. But, not knowing yet, I will just retain the remainder of my time 
for the moment. How much is that?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 76 minutes.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.

[[Page S2950]]

  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I listened with interest to my colleague 
from Kentucky. I listened to him label this as an idea from the past. I 
am interested in that because it always struck me that the idea of the 
past was the perception of corruption of the Congress. The idea that 
ought to be passed is the notion that unlimited funds and unlimited 
amounts of money in our system corrupt and corrode the system.
  If you were to ask the American people what they would like to see be 
the idea of the past, they would resoundingly, overwhelmingly tell you, 
as they have in every indication in the country, that they want us 
separated from these large sums of money.
  It is no surprise my opponent comes to the floor and derides the 
concept of public funding as some sort of thing from the past which 
doesn't command a lot of votes. I understand that. I know we are not 
coming to the floor from a great position of strength. But we have to 
start from somewhere again on this effort.
  We once passed it in the Senate, and we passed it once because it was 
the right thing to do and it was a good idea. I believe that the 
judgment made by those Senators who were then here is not now out of 
date; it is not now outmoded; it is not a judgment of the past. It was 
sound thinking. Once again, this body will one day come to understand 
that we need to separate ourselves from this money.
  Senator McCain above all set a standard for making clear that this is 
an idea of now, not of the past. My colleague does not even support 
campaign finance reform. He doesn't think McCain-Feingold ought to 
pass, let alone this amendment. It is no surprise he comes to the floor 
derisive about the concept of some level of public money being used to 
separate the politicians from the perceptions that cloud this 
institution.
  My colleague from Kentucky brought an amendment a few years ago, with 
other people, I believe, to terminate the funding process of the 
Presidential races. Guess what. He lost. The Senate said we want to 
continue to have our Presidential races funded the way they are, even 
if it means that a fringe candidate such as a Lyndon LaRouche may get a 
couple of million dollars to run for office. That is the price in 
America of having a system that is free from special interests. That is 
the price.
  The fact is, none of us can choose and pick who the candidates are. 
My colleague from Kentucky just acknowledged he does not know how this 
bill is structured. Maybe it would help him if he understood to some 
degree that it is structured in a way that not just anybody can run 
under this bill. You do not get the public funding unless you raise 
some money, and you can only raise some money if you have some kind of 
base of support. You only get some funding for the larger numbers of 
people you can entice to support you. So presumably there is a 
reflection in how much money you would ultimately get that is a 
reflection of what kind of candidate you are--whether you come with 
legitimacy or you do not come with legitimacy; otherwise, you are not 
going to get much.
  Second, contrary to what my friend from Kentucky said, we do not 
mandate this on anybody. If you do not want to do this, you do not have 
to do this. If you are more content to go out and raise millions of 
dollars from all the interests, go do it. This system is only for those 
who choose to live by the limits. But the one differential would be 
involved if some multimillionaire is running against you, or someone 
wants to go out and court all the other interests and get $50,000, 
$150,000 at a whack, and have ads run that are completely outside of 
what even the 1974 election reforms tried to achieve. We are driving 
through the largest loophole we have ever seen in this process. I 
regret to say that began in 1996--not before. But the fact is, we have 
ads run under the guise of being issue ads that everybody knows are 
directed to either tear down someone's character or argue against their 
election. They are completely outside the mainstream of the election, 
except to the degree that they have a profound impact on it.

  What we are really talking about is whether or not you want to have a 
voluntary system where, if somebody is spending those extraordinary 
amounts of money, you get to raise an additional amount by virtue of 
the public system.
  I do not expect somebody who does not believe in any kind of campaign 
finance reform, who thinks we ought to have more money in the system, 
not less, and who equates money exclusively with the determination of 
elections and power--I do not expect that person to support or like 
this amendment.
  I guarantee that over a period of time, as Americans continue to be 
disenchanted, as Senator McCain's campaign so aptly showed--and the 
reason Senator McCain's so aptly showed it is that what he did was he 
connected the dots for people. People want prescription drugs in 
Medicare. People want health maintenance organizations to be 
accountable to them. They want to know a doctor will make a medical 
decision about their potential illness or real illness if they have 
one. What Senator McCain did was show them the reason they do not get a 
lot of these things that they want is that the money manages to 
completely cloud the issues and real choices.
  Americans are subjected to this cacophony of funding which, frankly, 
crowds out even the voices of the candidates themselves in many cases. 
That is what this is about, a voluntary system giving people choice, 
allowing them to make up their own minds.
  What are my colleagues so afraid of? What are they afraid of? That 
another candidate might have the voluntary choice to decide to do this? 
They don't have to do it. What are they afraid of? There is far more 
taxpayers' dollars spent and wasted as a result of the campaign system 
we have today than this system would cost any American.
  Senator McCain always talks about an aircraft carrier being built 
that the Navy did not ask for. That aircraft carrier alone would fund 
10 years of election cycles under this bill--that one alone. How many 
different examples are there of things that get passed because of the 
money in politics, not because the voice of the American people asked 
for it?
  He talks about the $3 checkoff. Yes, he is right. The $3 checkoff has 
diminished. But has anybody in America seen an advertisement asking 
them to participate? Has anyone in America had any kind of public input 
suggesting to them that if they were to check off, they could have a 
system that is perception-corruption free? The answer is no. We do not 
advertise. We do not ask accountants to suggest to their clients that 
they ought to check it off. There has been no effort whatsoever to try 
to bring Americans into the process of participation.
  I will tell you, for most Americans who look at the system the way it 
is today, it is no wonder they do not check it off because they have no 
sense of the connection of that system to the potential that they would 
be participating in something that actually works and that is free and 
clear from the kind of cloud they see today.
  I know the Senator from Washington wants to speak. How much time 
would the Senator like?
  Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Washington.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brownback). The Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I will be short.
  I am in support of my colleagues and in support of the Kerry-Biden-
Wellstone-Cantwell amendment. I want to make three points today about 
this amendment.
  First, as you have heard earlier in the debate, it is an addition to 
McCain-Feingold. We are trying to ban soft money, limit out of control 
issue ads, and increase disclosure on independent expenditures. But we 
also want to give candidates the opportunity to try a system that will 
free them, their time and their energy, to focus on the issues of the 
people.
  Second, counter to some of the things that have been said on the 
floor today, this is a system that is supported by whom? Not just a few 
Members of the Senate; it is supported by business.
  You have heard some of the CEO's and officials of the businesses that 
are part of this Committee for Economic Development, the CED. Why are 
they supporting such an amendment? Because they understand the world

[[Page S2951]]

around us is changing, that they live in an information age, and that 
as they make better decisions, with more information and a more-
informed public, they would like to see a better decision making 
process in the Senate.
  Those businesses that have joined this effort to try to reform our 
political system, and to have a better decision making process, include 
Nortel, State Farm, Bear Stearns, the Frank Russell Company, the Vista 
Corporation of Spokane, Allied Signal, GTE, Dow Chemical--a variety of 
people who are not just a bunch of Members of the Senate.
  This is a movement grabbing hold in businesses across America because 
they know our decisionmaking process is flawed. And this will only grow 
if this amendment is defeated, and we will see this organization and 
its supporters back again.

  The third point that I would like to make is that this is in the best 
interest of the taxpayers. Do not be fooled. The discussion has been 
that if you vote for public financing, that is a vote for the public's 
paying for this process. That somehow it is going to cost them in their 
pocketbook.
  We have heard a lot about the Presidential system and the checkoff. 
But I would ask you to think for a minute, how much is this system 
costing us when we do not get a prescription drug bill? How much does 
it cost senior citizens who live on a fixed income, who have to pay 
thousands of dollars a year for prescription drugs? Because we have 
been smart enough to figure out the new technologies for new drug 
therapies--smart enough to figure that out in a new information age--
but not smart enough to make prescription drugs affordable.
  Why is that? Because our campaign system does not reward that kind of 
thinking. It rewards a very short-term decision making process that 
does not discuss the fact that prescription drugs have become 30 
percent of our overall health care costs, not 5 percent as they were 10 
or 15 years ago. That is what is wrong with the decision making 
process.
  The fact that we do not have a Patients' Bill of Rights, the fact 
that we do not spend the time and energy debating a real Patients' Bill 
of Rights and getting that issue before the Congress in a more 
aggressive way, and coming to terms and bringing the amendments and 
alternatives to the floor. That failure costs citizens of our country 
real personal and great hardships. This issue of whether it involves 
the public, I can tell you, it is costing us by not reforming our 
system.
  What this amendment does today is to try to curb the amount of 
spending in our political campaigns and set limits. And it does so in a 
very reasonable way, while at the same time giving people the 
opportunity to get their message out and to participate in the system 
as they so wish.
  I have learned a lot in the last weeks about how deep the cynicism in 
Washington is when it comes to discussing campaign finance reform. I am 
deeply committed to overcoming that cynicism and getting a whole 
generation of young people to take up this torch and change this system 
as opposed to thinking that government today is not as efficient in 
dealing with its issues.
  But until we craft a campaign system with a shorter, more intensive 
campaign period, funded with finite and equal resources available to 
candidates, we will not govern well. Instead, the American public will 
be subject to the kind of campaigning, the kind of special interest ads 
deluging them in their living rooms with the discussions, not by the 
candidates, but by these interest groups of what your choices in 
America should be.
  I am saying, follow the money back to the citizens of this country. 
Not until we have freed candidates from the time and energy drained 
from dialing for dollars will we improve the political discourse, play 
down the dominance of polls, and render the attack-driven, negative 30-
second spots ineffective.
  I think that day will come. I hate to wait until we have Internet 
voting, and an information age where citizens will look at all this 
information and find out exactly, in great detail, what their Senators 
and Members have been working on. I hope we can get it done sooner than 
that.
  I commend Senator Kerry and the other sponsors--Senators Biden and 
Wellstone for their long-term vision on this issue because it is a 
vision that is headed in the right direction and it has articulated a 
better vision for campaign finance reform.

  This amendment would make a real difference in how campaigns in this 
country are conducted. I hope, as the CED and Members join in this 
effort, we can reach a bipartisan consensus to take a step forward in 
curbing the spending and improving the participation in our campaign 
system in America.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KERRY. I yield myself a moment that I need, and then I will yield 
to my colleague.
  Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Washington for her support 
and for her comments and her understanding of the implications of this 
debate.
  Let me point out to colleagues--and I emphasize--this does not change 
McCain-Feingold at all, No. 1. It embraces everything that is in 
McCain-Feingold. No. 2, it is purely voluntary. But, importantly, 
colleagues should note, 23 States in this country already have some 
form of public funding.
  In the last few years, several States--Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, 
I think Arizona--have moved to embrace something called Clean 
Elections, which have an even lower threshold than what I am supporting 
today.
  I support the Clean Elections. Senator Wellstone and I have been 
advocates of it. But what we are coming in with is something that has 
broader bipartisan support, where businesses across the country--350 
major business leaders and corporations--say: We have had enough of 
this other system. Here is a way we think is fair that encourages small 
contributions, encourages citizen participation, and provides some 
measure of public funding.
  So I think the trend with the public in America is to move in this 
direction. I think that further counters the idea that this is somehow 
an old idea.
  This is passing in States, and inevitably it is going to continue as 
a grassroots State movement where, once again, Washington, unless we 
change, is going to be not leading but following the American people.
  How much time would the Senator from Connecticut like?
  Mr. DODD. Ten minutes.
  Mr. KERRY. I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished manager of the 
bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized for 
up to 10 minutes.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be added as a 
cosponsor to this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I commend my colleague from Massachusetts, 
Senator Biden, Senator Wellstone, and our new Member, Senator Cantwell. 
I didn't hear all of the statements, but I listened to several of them. 
I was impressed with their astuteness and their level of articulation 
in support of this proposal.
  This amendment, as my colleague from Kentucky knows, is not going to 
pass. We don't have the votes for this amendment. The Senator from 
Massachusetts was fully aware of that the moment he stood up and 
offered the amendment. Unfortunately, that is the case. It doesn't 
diminish the rationale or reason for offering the amendment and asking 
our colleagues to consider it and informing the American public about 
the value this amendment offers.
  Let me step back a little and make two points. The details of this 
amendment have already been discussed. I think my colleagues and others 
may be aware of specifically how the amendment would work. It is a 
partial public financing program. As the Senator from Massachusetts has 
pointed out, some 23 States--almost half of the States--now have 
adopted some variation of this approach. The trend lines are clearly in 
this direction.
  We are not alone in the world. Most sophisticated allies of ours, the 
most sophisticated democracies, industrialized nations around the 
globe, have also adopted partial public financing, not asking people to 
contribute more in taxation but a part of what they have contributed to 
support the underlying efforts of sustaining democratic institutions.

[[Page S2952]]

  Let me make two points that have some value. One is, the reason this 
is necessary is that the Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech. 
Justice Stevens argued in a minority opinion back in 1974 that money 
was property, not speech. I agree with Justice Stevens. But he was of 
the minority view when the Court ruled on Buckley v. Valeo. For that 
simple conclusion that money is speech, we have been running this 
process out over the years where our ability to have some limitations 
on the amount of dollars that are spent and raised in seeking Federal 
office is significantly jeopardized because of the constitutionality of 
such provisions.
  In the absence of having some public financing, we have had now for 
some 25 years public financing of our Presidential elections. Every 
single candidate for the Presidency, every prevailing candidate for the 
Presidency--beginning with Gerald Ford through Ronald Reagan, through 
George Bush 1 and 2, Bill Clinton--has taken public money. No greater 
conservative than Ronald Reagan took public money to run for the 
Presidency because, under that scheme, we could limit to some degree 
the amount that would be spent.
  I know we have spent a lot of money on races. I hate to think of what 
the cost would have been in the absence of the public financing 
arrangement which every candidate has accepted, almost without 
exception, since 1976.
  What the Senator from Massachusetts and those of us who are 
supporting his efforts are suggesting is that if it has worked fairly 
well in Presidential contests, if it is working fairly well in 23 
States, if it is working fairly well in major democracies around the 
world, is it such a radical idea to slow down the money chase of 
multimillion-dollar campaigns to try something along the lines the 
Senator from Massachusetts is suggesting? I think not.
  This is a modest proposal. In the absence of the constitutional 
amendment that our friend from South Carolina offered, which would say 
that money is not speech and amend the Bill of Rights--which many of 
our colleagues are reluctant to do, and I understand that; I happen to 
support him out of frustration because I don't know of any other means 
by which we can begin to try to slow down this exponentially growing 
foot race to gather the millions of dollars to run for Federal office--
in the absence of that, this is the only other way I know that we are 
really going to make some difference in what is a growing and serious 
problem in this country, where the cost of running for public office is 
going way beyond the means and reach of average citizens.

  As Senator Kerry has pointed out--I don't recall exactly the numbers, 
but roughly several hundred thousands of dollars, $300,000 to $400,000 
on an average Senate race 25 years ago to around $7 million today--the 
cost has gone from some $400,000 to $7 million in the last 25 years, 
with no end in sight. How many Americans can even think about running 
for the Senate or the House of Representatives, where the factor of 
increase is almost the same?
  This amendment is necessary. It is a reasonable one and one that is 
worthy of support.
  The second thing I will mention about this: I heard my good friend 
from Kentucky talk about the diminishing response of the public to the 
checkoff system on the 1040 forms that has gone from a high of 29 
percent down to some 12 percent. That is troubling. I believe it has 
less to do with the fact that there is a checkoff on public financing 
for Presidential races than the fact that those of us in public life 
are so devaluing public service, are so devaluing those who dedicate 
part of their lives or years of their lives to public service, that we 
demean it. We ridicule it. We attack each other every year.
  I am surprised there is any support left. If you were to transfer 
what we do to each other in the public debate in this country to the 
private sector, you would destroy most competing businesses.
  Someone once drew the analogy of comparing what would happen to 
McDonald's or Burger King if they engaged in campaigns against each 
other, competing for market share, with what we do as Democrats and 
Republicans in competing with each other for the right to represent 
them in public office. Someone suggested not only would they destroy 
each other, they would destroy franchised food.
  If you look at campaign advertising, the attacks we wage against each 
other, the personal degradation we attach to and associate with our 
political competitors, what has happened is, we have so devalued public 
service and the public life of elected office that the public has 
become understandably disgusted with the condition of politics in 
America. We have no one to blame for that but ourselves. In no small 
measure that has occurred because of the rising amount of dollars that 
are spent being convinced by political consultants that the best way to 
win office is not to convince anyone of the merits of your argument but 
if you can convince people that your opponent is somehow unworthy of 
even consideration for the office, let alone that his ideas or her 
ideas may lack substance, then you can win a seat in the Congress of 
the United States.
  Thus we see, as we did last year, where, of the 200 million eligible 
voters in America, only 50 percent voted; 100 million Americans cast 
their ballots for the Presidency of the United States, a decision that 
was made by a handful of votes in one State, and 100 million of our 
fellow citizens did not even show up on election day, where a tiny 
fraction, had they shown up in one State, would have resulted in a 
different outcome than what occurred as a result of the recounts and so 
forth that occurred in the State of Florida.
  I suspect that a good portion of that 100 million didn't show up 
because they forgot or because they had something better to do that 
day.
  I suspect a substantial portion didn't show up because they are 
disgusted with the process; they are sick and tired of coming into 
September and October after an election year and you can't turn on a 
single bit of programming without some mudslinging going on, attacking 
of one another, blistering one another. Whether it is through our own 
ads, or the ads of outside groups just trying to destroy the 
reputations of people seeking public life, I suspect that has more to 
do with the declining numbers of people checking off on the 1040 forms, 
the resource to support Presidential public financing.
  One of the reasons why McCain-Feingold deserves support, in my view, 
is because there is some hope that this will put the brakes on, slow 
this down enough so we don't have an unending exponential growth of 
dollars pouring into the coffers of candidates and groups out there 
year in and year out, destroying not only the candidates, but the 
public's confidence in a political system that has contributed greatly 
to this great Nation over 200 years.
  For those reasons, I applaud what the Senator from Massachusetts has 
offered. It is a worthwhile effort. I regret that he has to even go 
this route, but in the absence of it there is not much hope that we can 
do anything else in terms of getting the real numbers down. For those 
reasons, I support this amendment and urge its adoption.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, how much time do I have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts controls 18 
minutes 30 seconds.
  Mr. KERRY. Let me begin by thanking the Senator from Connecticut. He 
has been at this for a long time. He has a voice of enormous 
credibility on the subject, and he is well respected around the country 
for his political wisdom and abilities. I think his voice is an 
important one, and I welcome it.
  Very quickly--and then I will yield some time to the Senator from 
Minnesota--when we talk about these perceptions, I am not going to 
throw names around at all, but I mentioned earlier prescription drugs 
and some of the health care issues. If you look at what the drug 
industry spent in the last Congress--$8.7 million on political 
contributions--the result in the 106th Congress was no prescription 
drugs for seniors. But it is interesting, the industry got an extension 
of the R&D tax credit for those companies.
  Most Americans would say: That is kind of interesting; I thought I 
had an interest in getting something, but they got it. Likewise, the 
juvenile justice bill doesn't happen because the gun lobby doesn't like 
the restrictions on gun show sales. The gun lobby spent $3.9 million in 
political contributions in the last cycle. Interestingly enough, the 
juvenile justice bill died in conference.

[[Page S2953]]

  You can go down a long list of these things. They may or may not be 
connected, but the perception among the American people is very clear.
  Without using any names at all, let me point out contributions from 
the oil and gas industry. Three or four of the major proponents of oil 
and gas interests in the Senate received in the last cycle $129,921; 
one received $146,779, another $286,000. But it is very interesting. 
Other people who were not so interested in the issue got figures in the 
range of $1,500, $1,075. That kind of a range sends a message to the 
American people about the impact of money in the system.
  Mr. President, it is precisely the perceptions--leave alone 
realities--of that kind of connection that distorts our existence and 
our ability to have the confidence of the American people.

  I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Minnesota.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is recognized for 
up to 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me thank Senator Kerry and Senator 
Biden and say I am proud to be an original cosponsor on this amendment.
  My colleague has described the amendment, a 2-to-1 match for up to 
$200 worth of contributions. This is the public financing part that is 
in exchange for agreed-upon spending limits. I want to make two or 
three points in less than 5 minutes.
  First, very soon we are going to have an amendment to dramatically 
increase hard money spending limits. The argument is that we really 
need to do this. As Senator Dodd said earlier this morning, poor 
Senators, gee whiz, we need to be able to raise more money. There is 
nothing like that. When you do that, you are more beholden. It is the 
obscene money chase. You are more beholden to big money.
  Most people in the country believe big money can pay so they can 
play, but they can't pay so they can't play. This amendment Senator 
Kerry has talked about, and Senator Biden spoke about, takes us into a 
different direction. Candidates agree to spending limits, and you have 
smaller contributions. You get your support from a lot of folks, little 
folks, middle class people. What a better politics it is. It is an 
election and a politics in which people can more believe.
  The second point is, if you view this as a system--and I don't like 
saying this because I am an incumbent. But I think it is wired for 
incumbents. Most people agree that, by and large, that is true. If you 
want to move toward a more level playing field, in that direction, some 
system of voluntary, agreed-upon spending limits for public financing 
really gives the challengers and the people who aren't as well known a 
much better chance.
  It is important to have competitive elections in a representative 
democracy. I can just tell you, remembering back to 1990--and Senator 
Kerry can go back to his first race--I certainly remember when it felt 
as if when people didn't know you or think you had a chance and you 
could hardly raise any money, there was no kind of system that would 
give you a chance. We lucked out. I won because of my good looks and 
brilliance. If not for that, I would have lost.
  I got the Presiding Officer's attention on that. I am kidding.
  The third point I want to make is that I believe this amendment, if 
it were part of the McCain-Feingold bill, would be another one of those 
reform amendments. I hope colleagues will vote for it. I think it is so 
much a better way of having people believe in the process. It is so 
much a better way of making sure lots of people think they can run for 
office as opposed to only a few. It is a better way of having people 
believe that these elections belong to them and believe they are more a 
part of politics.
  I have heard my friend from Kentucky say more than once that any kind 
of public financing is ``food stamps for politicians.'' That, again, 
presupposes that elections belong to politicians. They don't. They 
belong to the people in our States, to the people in the country.
  This is a very good amendment. This is a strengthening amendment, and 
it is a very important vote. I hope we will have a strong vote for this 
Kerry amendment. I am very proud to be an original coauthor. I thank my 
colleague for allowing me to speak on this amendment.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota. He is 
one of those who doesn't just talk about these things; he really 
practices it. Everybody in the Senate respects the depth of his 
commitment to reform and the principles that guide him in politics. I 
am very pleased to have him as a cohort in this endeavor.
  Mr. President, how much time do we have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts controls 11 
minutes.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, we are nearing the end of this debate. I 
will take a couple minutes to summarize a few thoughts. I will then 
reserve the remainder of the time. I understand Senator McCain may be 
coming to the floor.
  I emphasize to my colleagues that this is voluntary. It is absolutely 
voluntary. No one is mandated to live by this or to accept it. It 
simply gives candidates an option of being able to choose a different 
way of trying to be elected to high public office. It does so in a way 
that maximizes the effort to pull our fellow citizens who have less 
amounts of income, who have less capacity to influence the system into 
participating.
  It encourages small contributions. It provides a match only for the 
contribution up to $200. Therefore, if you want to raise a large sum of 
money or even receive a large sum of money from the Federal Government, 
you have to include a lot of people in your campaign.
  What it does ultimately is end the extraordinary spiral of higher and 
higher amounts of money governing the elections in our country, the 
staggering increases of each election.
  When I first ran for office, it was about $2.5 million or $3 million. 
My last race was $13 million. That is why we see so many millionaires 
running, so many self-funded campaigns.
  What we try to do is allow an adjustment against the self-funded 
candidate. We do not preclude a millionaire who wants to run for office 
and spend his or her money from doing so. There is no restraint 
whatsoever on somebody doing that, but what we try to do is level the 
playing field a little bit for that person who does not have the 
millions of dollars so their voice can also be heard in American 
politics.
  Most Americans would like to see a Senate that is more reflective of 
America, that has more people who have varied experiences and who 
reflect more of the life and real concerns and aspirations of our 
Nation.
  It is important for us to move to reflect that Americans have a right 
to elect Senators the same way they elect the President of the United 
States: by freeing them from the extraordinary burden of having to 
raise these large sums of money from those most interested in what we 
do, when we do it, and how we do it.
  I do not know one colleague who had an advertisement run against them 
or who lost an election because they voted for this in 1994 or because 
they voted for this in 1986. I do not ever recall it being raised in 
campaigns in this country.
  The notion of voting for a voluntary system for people to participate 
in an election, the same way we elect the President of the United 
States, that that would somehow trip them up in their reelection, is 
absurd and completely unproven in the process. I reserve the remainder 
of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks time?
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask 
that the time be charged against both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk 
will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, there is no particular need to prolong 
this debate. I want to make a couple observations.
  It has been suggested that because Republican candidates accepted 
taxpayer funds to run for President, that is somehow an endorsement. It 
is noteworthy that President Reagan always

[[Page S2954]]

checked ``no'' proudly on his tax return on the notion of using 
taxpayer funding for Presidential elections. The reason he accepted the 
money is because he really did not have a choice, as a practical 
matter, since the contribution limit was set at $1,000. All of his 
advisers told him there was simply no way, not enough time to pool 
together enough funds at $1,000 per person to opt out of the 
Presidential system.

  President Reagan, were he able to observe the last election, would 
have been proud that our now President, George W. Bush, was able, 
during the primary season where there is enough time to reach large 
numbers of $1,000-and-under donors, to refuse to accept the spending 
limits and the taxpayer funding prior to the convention.
  Knowing the President as I do, if there had been enough time between 
the convention and the general election to have avoided taking taxpayer 
funds, I am confident he would then, too.
  The problem is, when you have a contribution limit of $1,000 a 
person, and your convention ends around August 1, there is just not 
enough time to pool together enough resources to run for President.
  It is not appropriate to suggest that the Republican Presidents, at 
least the two I have mentioned, endorse the idea of taxpayer funding of 
elections; certainly not for House and Senate races.
  The other point I want to make is there was some suggestion that 
large segments of the business community--there was some discussion 
about the underlying bill--that large segments of the business 
community were supporting McCain-Feingold. That is clearly not the 
case. I am only aware of one fringe group that supports the underlying 
bill. All the major business organizations oppose the bill: the Chamber 
of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National 
Association of Business PACs, and BIPAC, which is widely known. All the 
mainline business organizations oppose McCain-Feingold, and any 
suggestion to the contrary is not accurate.
  I do not know who else may want to speak against the amendment. I 
know Senator Feingold probably supports the principle but opposes the 
amendment and wants to speak.
  I see Senator Thompson is here. We have not had a lot of speakers on 
this side. I think it is because just about everybody on this side has 
made up their mind on this amendment. Does the Senator from Tennessee 
want to speak against the amendment?
  Mr. THOMPSON. No.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, is Senator Feingold going to speak 
against the amendment? How much time does he need?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Ten minutes.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Wisconsin.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin is recognized for 
up to 10 minutes.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I was candid with the Senator that I 
would be opposing the amendment even though I agree with the 
principles, and I will use some of my time to speak about the bill 
generally.
  I think the amendment offered by the Senator from Massachusetts is 
absolutely the right policy. I have always believed completely in 
public financing, and the mechanism proposed in this amendment is the 
way we should go.
  I have also taken note of the enormous amount of interest around the 
country in moving toward public financing in a number of States. 
Senator Kerry is right; this is a new beginning on this issue. It is 
not an old issue that has died. It is a rebirth that is occurring 
across the country, and the Kerry-Biden amendment is an important step 
in that direction.
  When Senator McCain and I began this process, coming to the final 
stages of trying to debate this bill, we agreed we would vote together 
on all amendments to make sure we show we are unified and that this 
will continue to be a bipartisan issue. So it is particularly painful 
for me to have to vote against this amendment, but it is not because I 
do not think it is the wave of the future and the ultimate solution to 
this problem.
  All the McCain-Feingold bill does is close an enormous loophole that 
has made a mockery of our campaign finance system. It is the idea and 
principle behind the Kerry amendment that is ultimately the direction 
we have to go as a country in campaign finance reform. I hope we can 
get started on it the day after we get this bill through.
  I want to talk about one other issue to which the Senator from 
Washington, Ms. Cantwell, alluded. The time has come to talk about 
commonsense and conventional wisdom in the business community. It is 
common sense to declare our campaign finance system is broken and needs 
to be fixed. It is conventional wisdom, however, to say members of the 
business community must surely and monolithically oppose changes to the 
campaign finance reform system that has made influence available to 
them.
  The common sense is right, but the conventional wisdom is wrong. Let 
us take a look at three items in last week's news.
  First, we see the release of a list of names of 307 of our most 
prominent business leaders who have pledged their support for the 
campaign finance proposals of the Committee for Economic Development, 
CED. CED is an organization of prominent business leaders which has 
endorsed the McCain-Feingold bill and issued its own proposal that 
includes a soft money ban. This list of business leaders is a who's who 
of America's commerce. It includes CEOs and current or former top 
executives from Dow Chemical, Sara Lee, Motorola, Goldman Sachs, FMC, 
Prudential, and dozens of others.
  Here is what CED President Charles Kolb had to say:

       As reform nears, the inside-the-beltway cottage industry is 
     scrambling to oppose action, but this list provides real 
     evidence that a growing number of business leaders want 
     reform. They don't fear reform, but think it's desperately 
     needed. They are the leading funders of campaigns, and 
     they're tired of being hit-up for ever-increasing amounts of 
     cash. They know the system--or lack of one--is hurting the 
     business community and our democracy.

  I ask unanimous consent that this list of business leaders and the 
accompanying release be printed in the Record following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1.)
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Business leaders have common sense and they are 
changing the conventional wisdom about the need for real campaign 
finance reform.
  Look at the second item, the results of a poll of hundreds of senior 
executives conducted for CED. In the poll leaders of companies with 
annual revenues of $500 million or more overwhelmingly supported the 
provisions of our bill, including strong support for a soft money ban.
  The poll, conducted for CED by the respected Tarrance Group included 
these findings: three in five top business executives back a soft money 
ban; 74 percent say business leaders are pressured to make big 
contributions. Half said they ``fear adverse consequences'' if they 
refuse to contribute; more than 80 percent said that corporations give 
soft money for the purpose of influencing the legislative process. And 
75 percent say that their contributions work--it gives them an edge in 
shaping legislation; 78 percent of business leaders agreed that the 
current system is ``an arms race for cash that continues to get more 
and more out of control''; and 71 percent of executives in big 
companies say that all of these big dollar contributions are hurting 
their corporate image.
  Business leaders believe that they are victims of a system that 
allows them to be shaken down. When asked why their companies give, the 
most frequent answer, from 31 percent, was ``To avoid adverse 
legislative consequences''. Twenty three percent say it is to buy 
access to the legislative process.''
  As a result, a full three-fifths of senior business executives said 
that they support a complete ban on soft money. That number was about 
the same, 57 percent, even in those companies that have been recent 
soft money givers.

  Those findings are grim but they shouldn't surprise anyone who has 
thought about the political environment businesses in America now face. 
Business leaders have had enough. They have abandoned the conventional 
wisdom about the benefits of this corrupt system, and they are 
beginning to

[[Page S2955]]

lead the call for reform. I ask unanimous consent that a release 
summarizing the results of this poll be printed in the Record following 
my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 2.)
  Mr. FEINGOLD. A piece on the op-ed page of Monday's Washington Post 
entitled ``Why this Lobbyist Backs McCain-Feingold.'' It was written by 
Wright Andrews, a long-time lobbyist, and a successful lobbyist, who 
has used this system to the advantage of his clients, but has finally 
said: ``enough is enough.'' According to the conventional wisdom, Mr. 
Andrews is an unlikely advocate for reform. Not long ago, he was the 
president of the American League of Lobbyists, so it is fair to say 
that he was the lobbyists' lobbyist, but he seems to be a man of common 
sense as well, and there is what he had to say. He writes:

       [A]s a Washington insider, I know that on the campaign 
     finance front, things have mushroomed out of control. . . . I 
     know that lobbyists, legislators and the interests 
     represented increasingly operate in a legislative environment 
     dominated by the campaign finance process, and its excesses 
     are like a cancer eating away at our democratic system. . . . 
     [M]illions of Americans are convinced that lobbyists and the 
     interests we represent are unprincipled sleazeballs who, in 
     effect use great sums of money to bribe a corrupt Congress.

  Mr. Andrews has put his finger on something. This system, especially 
soft money, taints everybody who is involved with it. Big money changes 
hands, things get done in Washington, and the American people think it 
is only common sense to conclude that corruption abounds. Mr. Andrews 
seems to understand, as the American business community now 
understands, that the appearance of corruption is just as bad for our 
democracy as actual corruption, because the American people don't see 
the difference. Mr. Andrews candidly admits that he and his clients 
have used money, within the system, to get legislative results. He 
continues:

       Campaign-related contributions, and expenditures at today's 
     excessive levels increasingly have a disproportionate 
     influence on certain legislative actions. Unlimited 
     ``soft'' money donations and ``issue ad'' expenditures in 
     particular are making a joke of contribution limits and 
     are allowing some of the wealthiest interests far too much 
     power and influence.

  I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Andrews' op-ed be printed in the 
Record following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 3.)
  Mr. FEINGOLD. This last quote from a Washington lobbyist is common 
sense and the new, emerging conventional wisdom. These three items make 
a few things clear. The old conventional wisdom about the opposition of 
the business community to real reform is wrong, and it is giving way to 
the common sense of the movement for reform. To those who will strive 
on this floor to beat back the reform America demands, I say, listen to 
these business leaders who are saying that they realize that the 
corrupt system in place does not serve their interests, or our 
country's. Listen to the corporate executives who say they are tired of 
the constant fund-raising and the feeling that they are being shaken 
down. Listen to this veteran lobbyist, and others like him, who are at 
the center of the current system and can't stand its rotten influence 
any longer. And if you oppose reform, listen to the common sense of the 
American people who today can take heart that the old conventional 
wisdom about the chances for reform is passing away, along with your 
remaining allies in this fight.
  I can't think of anything more illustrative of the very issue that 
the U.S. Supreme Court asked us to consider in these situations. Is 
there an appearance of corruption? When the business leaders and the 
CEOs of this country believe they are being shaken down and that they 
are being intimidated into giving these contributions, at a bare 
minimum, this is the appearance of corruption that the U.S. Supreme 
Court has identified as the basis for legislative action in this area.

                               Exhibit 1

Top Executives and Civic Leaders Back Plan That Includes Soft-Money Ban

       As the Senate begins to debate campaign finance reform, the 
     Committee for Economic Development (CED) today sent every 
     Senator the names of 307 prominent business and civic leaders 
     who have endorsed its sweeping reform plan, which includes a 
     soft-money ban. About 100 new executives have joined the 
     effort since the Senate last considered reform in October 
     1999.
       ``As reform nears, the inside-the-beltway cottage industry 
     is scrambling to oppose action,'' said CED President Charles 
     Kolb. ``But this list provides real evidence that a growing 
     number of business leaders want reform. They don't fear 
     reform, but think it's desperately needed. They are the 
     leading funders of campaigns, and they're tired of being hit 
     up for ever-increasing amounts of cash. They know the sysem--
     or lack of one--is hurting the business community and our 
     democracy.''
       The endorsers include top executives of Sara Lee, John 
     Hancock Mutual Life Insurance, State Farm, Prudential, H&R 
     Block, ITT Industries, Motorola, Nortel Networks, Hasbro, the 
     MONY Group, Chubb, Goldman Sachs, Boston Properties, and 
     Saloman Smith Barney. They also include the retired chairmen 
     or CEOs of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, AlliedSignal, Bank of 
     America, GTE, International Paper, Union Pacific, General 
     Foods, Monsanto, Time, CBS, Fannie Mae, Dow Chemical, Texaco, 
     FMC, and BFGoodrich.
       Other prominent Americans on the list include a former vice 
     President, former Republican Secretaries of Defense, 
     Treasury, and Labor, a former Senator and Republican National 
     Committee Chairman, and a former Securities and Exchange 
     Commission Chairman.
       CED, the leading business group advocating reform, has 
     officially endorsed the legislation offered by Senators John 
     McCain and Russ Feingold, which the Senate will debate next 
     week. The CED proposal calls for a ban on soft-money 
     contributions, increased individual contribution limits (to 
     $3,000), partial public financing for congressional races, 
     and voluntary spending limits.
       ``Business executives support reform in roughly the same 
     numbers as the rest of the nation's voters,'' Kolb said, 
     pointing to a poll of top corporate executives of the 
     nation's largest corporations that The Tarrance Group 
     conducted on behalf of CED last year. According to the 
     survey, 78 percent support reform, and 60 percent back a 
     soft-money ban. (Importantly, 57 percent of those from 
     companies that recently made soft-money contributions support 
     a soft-money ban.) Many business leaders have called the 
     current system a ``shakedown'' and half of the poll 
     respondents said they fear adverse legislative consequences 
     if they don't give.
                                  ____


                               Exhibit 2

  First-Ever Corporate Poll Results--Senior Business Executives Back 
                        Campaign Finance Reform


 Poll of Big-Business Leaders Shows Support for Soft-money Ban, Other 
Reforms Say Fear and Buying Access are Top Reasons for Corporate Giving

       Senior executives of the nation's largest businesses 
     overwhelmingly say the nation's campaign finance system is 
     ``broken and should be reformed,'' and three-in-five back a 
     soft-money ban, according to the first-ever survey of 
     business leaders' views on political fundraising, which was 
     released today. The main reasons corporate America makes 
     political contributions, the executives said, is fear of 
     retribution and to buy access to lawmakers.
       Nearly three-quarters (74 percent) say pressure is placed 
     on business leaders to make large political donations. Half 
     of the executives said their colleagues ``fear adverse 
     consequences for themselves or their industry if they turn 
     down requests'' for contributions.
       The survey provides new evidence to demolish the myth that 
     corporations support the current campaign finance system. It 
     was conducted by The Terrance Group for the Committee, for 
     Economic Development (CED) a non-partisan research and policy 
     group that has emerged as the business community's leading 
     voice for campaign finance reform.
       By a more than four-to-one margin, respondents said 
     corporations make soft-money contributions to influence the 
     legislative process rather than for more altruistic reasons. 
     And 75 percent say political donations give them an advantage 
     in shaping legislation.
       Nearly four-in-five executives (78 percent) called the 
     system ``an arms race for cash that continues to get more and 
     more out of control,'' with 43 percent strongly agreeing with 
     that statement. Two-thirds (66 percent) said fundraising 
     burdens are reducing competition in congressional races and 
     the pool of good candidates. And 71 percent say stories about 
     big-dollar contributions are hurting corporate America's 
     image.
       ``As the chase for political dollars has exploded, the 
     business community has increasingly called for reform,'' said 
     Charles E.M. Kolb, the President of CED. ``More executives 
     are saying they're tired of the `shakedown' and the 
     unrelenting pressure to give ever-increasing amounts--
     something some say feels like `extortion.' ''
       ``This poll demonstrates conclusively that these are not 
     just anecdotal accounts or minority opinions, but rather the 
     widely held views in the top echelons of major 
     corporations,'' Kolb said. ``The business community sees a 
     campaign finance system that's evolved into an influence- and 
     access-buying system that damages our democracy and the way 
     public policy decisions are made. And

[[Page S2956]]

     they increasingly feel trapped in a system that doesn't work 
     for anyone.''
       When asked why corporate America contributes, the most 
     frequently given answer (31 percent) was to ``avoid adverse 
     legislative consequences,'' and nearly a quarter (23 percent) 
     said it was ``to buy access to influence the legislative 
     process.'' Another 22 percent said the business community 
     gives ``to promote a certain ideological position,'' and 12 
     percent said it does so ``to support the electoral process.''
       ``The numbers are compelling because the margins are so 
     wide. The poll leaves no doubt that corporate leaders support 
     significant reforms,'' said William Stewart, Vice President 
     of Corporate & International Research for The Tarrance Group, 
     a polling firm that specializing in working for corporations 
     and Republican candidates. ``In nearly all cases, a clear 
     consensus exists, and it exists across all demographic 
     subgroups. These executives feel the system is an escalating 
     arms race, they fear retribution for not giving, and they 
     describe contributions as being tied to legislative outcomes; 
     all of which helps explain why executives overwhelmingly 
     favor reform.''
       Perhaps some of the most surprising results of the survey 
     are the levels of support for various reform proposals. Not 
     only do three-in-five executives support banning soft money 
     (the unlimited contributions from corporations, unions, and 
     wealthy individuals), but 42 percent expressed strong support 
     for the move. Even 57 percent of the executives who work for 
     companies that have made soft-money contributions over the 
     last three years, favor a ban.
       In addition, the business leaders said they favored 
     voluntary spending limits (66 percent), a publicly financed 
     matching system for donations below $200 (53 percent), and an 
     increase in the current $1,000 individual-contributions limit 
     (63 percent).
       ``When so many senior executives support spending limits 
     and a partial public-financing system, you know it's time for 
     reform,'' said Kolb. ``This is not a group that casually 
     supports government rules and spending, but they clearly see 
     that it is now vital to fix this broken system.'' 
     Additionally, nearly nine-in-ten (88 percent) said they were 
     concerned about the decline in voter participation, with 53 
     percent saying they were ``very'' or ``extremely'' concerned 
     about it.
       The Tarrance Group surveyed 300 randomly chosen senior 
     corporate executives (vice presidents or above) from firms 
     that had annual revenues of approximately $500 million or 
     more. The telephone survey was conducted between September 12 
     and October 10. It has a margin or error or plus or minus 5.8 
     percent.
       Of those surveyed, 42 percent work for firms that have made 
     soft-money contributions since 1997. The vast majority (86 
     percent) had made personal political contributions. A much 
     larger share identified themselves as Republicans (59 
     percent) than Democrats (19 percent).
       In March 1999, CED unveiled a reform proposal that would 
     ban soft money, institute public matching funds for small-
     dollar donations and voluntary spending limits, and increase 
     individual contribution limit (to $3,000).
       Founded 1942, CED is an independent, nonpartisan research 
     and public policy organization. Its Subcommittee on Campaign 
     Finance Reform was co-chaired by Edward A. Kangas, Chairman, 
     Global Board of Directors of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, and 
     George Rupp, President of Columbia University. CED's campaign 
     finance program is funded by grants from The Pew Charitable 
     Trusts and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
                                  ____


                               Exhibit 3

               [From the Washington Post, Mar. 19, 2001]

                Why This Lobbyist Backs McCain-Feingold

                         (By Wright H. Andrews)

       As a Washington lobbyist for more than 25 years, I urge 
     Congress to make a meaningful start on campaign finance 
     reform and pass the McCain-Feingold bill. While many 
     lobbyists privately express dismay and disgust with today's 
     campaign finance process and are in favor of reforms, most 
     have not expressed their views publicly. I hope more 
     lobbyists will do so after reading this ``true confession'' 
     by one of their own.
       I am not an ivory-tower liberal, nor do I naively believe 
     we can or should seek to end the influence of money on 
     politics. I have engaged in many activities most reformers 
     abhor, including: (1) making thousands of dollars in personal 
     political contributions over the years, (2) raising hundreds 
     of thousands of dollars, including ``soft money,'' for both 
     political parties and (3) counseling clients on how to use 
     their money and ``Issue ads'' legally to influence elections 
     and legislative decisions.
       Why, then, does someone like me now openly call for new 
     campaign finance restraints, at least on ``soft'' money and 
     ``issue'' advertising? Quite simply because, as a Washington 
     insider, I know that on the campaign finance front things 
     have mushroomed out of control. In the years I have been in 
     this business I have seen our federal campaign finance system 
     and its effect on the legislative process change 
     dramatically--and not for the better.
       I believe that individuals and interests generally have a 
     right to use their money to influence legislative decisions. 
     Nevertheless, I know that lobbyists, legislators and the 
     interests represented increasingly operate in a legislative 
     environment dominated by the campaign finance process, and 
     its excesses are like a cancer eating away at our democratic 
     system.
       There is no realistic hope of change until Congress 
     legislates. I readily admit that I will continue, and expand, 
     my own campaign finance activities--just as will most of my 
     colleagues--until the rules are changed.
       Right now there is an ever-increasing and seemingly 
     insatiable bipartisan demand for more contributions, both 
     ``hard'' and ``soft'' dollars. The Federal Election 
     Commission has reported that overall Senate and House 
     candidates raised a record $908.3 million during the 1999-
     2000 election cycle, up 37 percent from the 1997-1998 cycle. 
     The Republican and Democratic parties also raised at least 
     $1.2 billion in hard and soft money, double what they raised 
     in the prior cycle. Soft-money donations from wealthy 
     individuals, corporations, labor groups, trade associations 
     and other interests have shown explosive growth. In addition, 
     millions of dollars in unregulated ``non-contribution'' 
     contributions are being plowed into the system through 
     ``issue ads.''
       Today's levels of political contributions and expenditures 
     are undercutting the integrity of our legislative process.
       Ironically, congressional lobbyists in general are better, 
     more professional, more ethical and represent more diverse 
     interests than in the past. Our elected officials today also 
     are generally honest, hard-working and well-meaning. But 
     millions of Americans are convinced that lobbyists and the 
     interests we represent are unprincipled sleazeballs who, 
     in effect, use great sums of money to bribe a corrupt 
     Congress.
       Many citizens believe that using money to try to influence 
     decisions is inherently wrong, unethical and unfair. While 
     supporting reforms and recognizing citizens' concerns, I 
     disagree; I find little problem with political interests 
     seeking to influence elected officials through contributions 
     and expenditures at moderate levels, provided this is 
     publicly disclosed and not done on a quid-pro-quo basis. The 
     First Amendment allows every individual and interest to use 
     its money to try, within reason, to influence Congress. And 
     influence comes not just from political contributions; it 
     also comes from using money, for example, to hire lobbyists, 
     purchase newspaper ads and retain firms to generate ``grass-
     roots'' support.
       I nonetheless think the time has come to temper this right. 
     We have reached the point at which other interests and rights 
     must come into play. Campaign related contributions and 
     expenditures at today's excessive levels increasingly have a 
     disproportionate influence on certain legislative actions. 
     Unlimited ``soft'' money donations and ``issue ad'' 
     expenditures in particular are making a joke of contribution 
     limits and are allowing some of the wealthiest interests far 
     too much power and influence.
       Moreover, the ability of legislators to do their work is 
     being reduced by the demands of today's campaign finance 
     system. Many, especially senators, now must devote enormous 
     amounts of time to fundraising.
       Any significant new campaign finance limits that Congress 
     adopts will have to survive certain challenges in the Supreme 
     Court. If Congress carefully crafts legislative restrictions, 
     the court will, I believe, uphold responsable limits by 
     following reasoning such as it used in the Nixon v. Shrink 
     Missouri Government PAC case, in which it noted that ``the 
     prevention of corruption and the appearance of corruption'' 
     is an important interest that can offset the interest of 
     unfettered free speech.
       Some lobbyists continue to support the present campaign 
     finance system because their own abilities to influence 
     decisions, and their economic livelihoods, are far more 
     dependent on using political contributions and expenditures 
     than on the merits of their causes. Others feel strongly that 
     virtually no campaign contribution and expenditure limits are 
     permissible because of the First Amendment's protections. And 
     some, like me, believe additional restraints on campaign 
     finance are required and allowable if properly drafted.
       As to those in the last category, I invite and encourage 
     them to work with me in Lobbyists for Campaign Reform, a 
     coalition to urge Congress to pass meaningful campaign 
     finance reforms, starting with the basic McCain-Feingold 
     provisions.

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I am not aware of any more speakers on this side.
  Mr. KERRY. I will be brief and then I will yield back my time.
  I thank the Senator from Wisconsin notwithstanding that he has to 
oppose my amendment. I understand why. I appreciate the gentle and 
sensitive opposition that he made, and I particularly appreciate the 
remarks he made about the CED and the business leaders who support what 
I am attempting to do this afternoon.
  I will answer quickly. I always enjoy my exchanges with the Senator 
from Kentucky. He is very good at what he does. He certainly is one of 
the best in this body at making arguments. However, I must say I am a 
bit taken aback by the notion that President Bush made a judgment not 
to take the Federal money, or to take the Federal

[[Page S2957]]

money because he didn't have time to raise the other money. He raised 
$100 million in $1,000 contributions and Senator McCain suspended his 
campaign in March.
  The notion that President Bush, between March and the August 
convention, did not have an opportunity through his rather formidable 
fundraising machine to reask everybody for $1,000 who gave almost $100 
million in order to find the $46 million necessary for the general 
election or some larger amount if he wanted to live by it is absolutely 
without merit. Everybody in this country who raises money knows he has 
the ability to raise $1,000 contributions a second time from those same 
$100 million worth of people who had invested in his nomination and who 
would not have quit on him and who would have wanted him elected 
President.
  Likewise with President Reagan, the exact same circumstances existed. 
He took the money because the money was there, but also because 
Americans knew that is the way they expect to elect their President in 
the general election. I don't think you could have sustained the 
arguments that would have been made in the face of campaign finance 
reform advocates across the country who believe they don't want a 
President who, during the general election, has to raise that kind of 
money and be subjected to what we are subjected to here on an annual 
basis. There is an enormous distinction here and it needs to be made.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I sum it up, this is an amendment about 
the taxpayer funding of congressional elections, about as unpopular 
with the American people as voting for congressional pay raises. We 
have the most extensive poll ever taken on any issue on this subject 
every April 15 when our taxpayers in this country get an opportunity to 
divert $3 of the taxes they already owe into a fund to pay for the 
Presidential election and for the conventions. The resounding number, 
88 percent, choose not to divert money, although it doesn't add to the 
tax bill. They choose not to divert tax dollars into this discredited 
system during which one out of four of the tax dollars have been spent 
on lawyers and accountants trying to comply with the act and, of 
course, in recent years, more money spent by outside groups and the 
political parties in issue ads than the amount of money spent in the 
course of the campaign.
  Finally, let me say at the risk of being redundant, you can't 
restrict tax dollars to the Republicans and the Democrats, as we have 
learned in the Presidential system which has provided millions of 
dollars to Lenora Fulani and to Lyndon LaRouche who got tax dollars to 
run for President while in jail. This is going to provide funding for 
fringe candidates for Congress and for the Senate all over America. Any 
crackpot who wakes up in the morning and looks in the mirror and says, 
``Gee, I think I see a Congressman,'' is going to have hope under this 
that he will receive tax dollars to help finance his campaign.

  Let me just say for the information of all Senators, the next 
amendment will be offered on our side of the aisle by the Senator from 
Tennessee, Mr. Thompson, who is present and prepared to offer his 
amendment as soon as this vote is concluded.
  Am I correct that when I yield back my time, the vote will occur on 
the Kerry amendment?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, at this point I yield back the 
remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question then is on agreeing to the 
amendment.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a 
sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Smith of Oregon). Are there any other 
Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 30, nays 70, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 52 Leg.]

                                YEAS--30

     Akaka
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Clinton
     Corzine
     Daschle
     Dayton
     Dodd
     Graham
     Harkin
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Stabenow
     Torricelli
     Wellstone

                                NAYS--70

     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Bond
     Breaux
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Campbell
     Carnahan
     Chafee
     Cleland
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeWine
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Gramm
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Helms
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Miller
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Nickles
     Roberts
     Santorum
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith (NH)
     Smith (OR)
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden
  The amendment (No. 148) was rejected.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. BIDEN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. 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. LOTT. Mr. President, I just consulted with Senator Daschle, the 
managers of the legislation, and all interested parties. We believe the 
best way to proceed tonight is to go ahead and have the next amendment 
laid down, which is the Thompson-Collins amendment, and that be debated 
tonight for whatever time is necessary, 2, 2\1/2\ hours.
  We will come in in the morning at 9:15, have 30 minutes of debate 
equally divided, and have the next recorded vote about 9:45 a.m.
  I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the Thompson-
Collins amendment and, following the debate tonight, there be 30 
minutes equally divided for closing remarks tomorrow beginning at 9:15 
a.m., to be followed by a vote on or in relation to the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. McCAIN. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I do not disagree except to say it is the 
intention to have a Feinstein second-degree amendment immediately 
following the vote which will be to table the Thompson amendment. It is 
my understanding that is perfectly agreeable with the author of the 
amendment to have that vote on a second-degree amendment as well.
  I ask to amend the unanimous consent request that, following that 
vote, a Feinstein second-degree amendment be in order.
  Mr. DODD. I object to that. Let me explain if the leader will yield. 
We are going to debate the Thompson amendment, and there will be a vote 
on the Thompson amendment. There has been no decision whether it will 
be a vote up or down or to table.
  Mr. McCAIN. I amend my unanimous consent request that in the event 
the Thompson amendment is not tabled, a second-degree Feinstein----
  Mr. DODD. I do not even want to agree with that. I understand where 
the Senator is coming from. At this point, I think we ought to go to 
the Thompson amendment, debate the Thompson amendment, and tomorrow get 
a better sense rather than push beyond that.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from Arizona, I hope he 
will do that because it will give everybody a chance to talk through 
everything tonight. In the morning, a whole new strategy may exist on 
the Senator's behalf or somebody else's behalf.
  If we can withhold that now, I assume that is the direction we are 
going to go, but I think the managers want

[[Page S2958]]

to have some further discussion about it.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I have to say that will be our intention 
in the event the Thompson amendment is not tabled, and I have discussed 
this with the author of the amendment and many others, and unless there 
is some reason for not doing so, I hope that will be agreeable.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the unanimous consent 
request?
  Mr. DODD. Reserving the right to object, the only request before the 
Chair is that posed by the majority leader?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object, I ask the majority leader 
to give us a general overview, those who have been waiting patiently to 
offer amendments, as we are going into Wednesday and Thursday of the 
second week. Are we going to continue on this bill as long as there are 
amendments to be offered?
  Mr. LOTT. There are some additional amendments I understand Senators 
would want to offer. I don't have a finite list. I don't know whether 
there are 2 or 3 or 10. The Senator may want to consult with the 
manager on that side. I don't know that there are more than a couple--I 
just don't know.
  Mr. DODD. We have 21 amendments.
  Mr. DURBIN. My inquiry is, there is no understanding that we are 
going to end this debate on Thursday night or Friday; we are going to 
continue until we finish the job?
  Mr. LOTT. We are enjoying this immensely and we don't want to rush to 
finish this at a reasonable hour tomorrow. But if that is the will of 
the Senate, we may want to consider that.
  Mr. DURBIN. I do not object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LOTT. In light of the agreement, the next vote is at 9:45 a.m. on 
Wednesday.
  I yield the floor.


                           Amendment No. 149

  Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Voinovich). The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Tennessee [Mr. Thompson], for himself, Mr. 
     Torricelli, and Mr. Nickles, proposes an amendment numbered 
     149.

  Mr. THOMPSON. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

           (Purpose: To modify and index contribution limits)

       On page 37, between lines 14 and 15, insert the following

     SEC. ____. MODIFICATION OF CONTRIBUTION LIMITS.

       (a) Increase in Individual Limits.--Section 315(a)(1) of 
     the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 
     441a(a)(1)) is amended--
       (1) in subparagraph (A), by striking ``$1,000'' and 
     inserting ``$2,500'';
       (2) in subparagraph (B), by striking ``$20,000'' and 
     inserting ``$40,000''; and
       (3) in subparagraph (C), by striking ``$5,000'' and 
     inserting ``$7,500''.
       (b) Increase in Aggregate Individual Limit.--Section 
     315(a)(3) of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 
     U.S.C. 441a(a)(3)), as amended by section 102(b), is amended 
     by striking ``$30,000'' and inserting ``$50,000''.
       (c) Increase in Multicandidate Limits.--Section 315(a)(2) 
     of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 
     441a(a)(2)) is amended--
       (1) in subparagraph (A), by striking ``$5,000'' and 
     inserting ``$7,500'';
       (2) in subparagraph (B), by striking ``$15,000'' and 
     inserting ``$17,500''; and
       (3) in subparagraph (C), by striking ``$5,000'' and 
     inserting ``$7,500''.
       (d) Increase in Senatorial Campaign Committee Limit.--
     Section 315(h) of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 
     (2 U.S.C. 441a(h)) is amended by striking ``$17,500'' and 
     inserting ``$35,000''.
       (e) Indexing of Increased Limits.--
       (1) In general.--Section 315(c) of the Federal Election 
     Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 441a(c)) is amended--
       (A) in paragraph (1)--
       (i) by striking the second and third sentences;
       (ii) by inserting ``(A)'' before ``At the beginning''; and
       (iii) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(B) Except as provided in subparagraph (C), in any 
     calendar year after 2002--
       ``(i) a limitation established by subsection (a), (b), (d), 
     or (h) shall be increased by the percent difference 
     determined under subparagraph (A); and
       ``(ii) each amount so increased shall remain in effect for 
     the calendar year.
     If any amount after adjustment under the preceding sentence 
     is not a multiple of $500, such amount shall be rounded to 
     the next nearest multiple of $500 (or if such amount is a 
     multiple of $250 (and not a multiple of $500), such amount 
     shall be rounded to the next highest multiple of $500).
       ``(C) In the case of limitations under subsection (a), each 
     amount increased under subparagraph (B) shall remain in 
     effect for the 2-year period beginning on the first day 
     following the date of the last general election in the year 
     preceding the year in which the amount is increased and 
     ending on the date of the next general election.''; and
       (B) in paragraph (2)(B), by striking ``means the calendar 
     year 1974'' and inserting ``means--
       ``(i) for purposes of subsections (b) and (d), calendar 
     year 1974; and
       ``(ii) for purposes of subsections (a) and (h), calendar 
     year 2001''.
       (2) Effective date.--The amendments made by subsection (e) 
     shall apply to calendar years after 2002.

  Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I think it would be appropriate at this 
time to remind ourselves why we are here and to remind ourselves of the 
need for changing the current system under which we operate in terms of 
financing campaigns for Federal elections. It has to do with large 
amounts of money going to small amounts of people.
  We have seen over the centuries problems with large amounts of money 
going to elected officials or people who would be elected officials. 
That is the basis behind the effort to ban soft money from our system.
  We have gone from basically a small donor system in this country 
where the average person believed they had a stake, believed they had a 
voice, to one of extremely large amounts of money, where you are not a 
player unless you are in the $100,000 or $200,000 range, many 
contributions in the $500,000 range, occasionally you get a $1 million 
contribution. That is not what we had in mind when we created this 
system. It has grown up around us without Congress really doing 
anything to promote it or to stop it.
  I think we are on the eve of maybe doing something to rectify that 
situation. Many Members are tired of picking up the paper every day and 
reading about an important issue we are going to be considering, one in 
which many interests have large sums at stake and then the second part 
of the story reading about the large amounts of money that are being 
poured into Washington on one side or the other of the issue--the 
implication, of course being clear, that money talks and large amounts 
of money talk the loudest.
  Of course, that is a reflection on us. It is a reflection on us as a 
body. As the money goes up, the cynicism goes up, and the number of 
people who vote in this country goes down. That is not a system of 
which we are proud. That is not a system that many want to continue.
  I read a few days ago about the problems our friends in France are 
having with their own big money scandal. I read in the newspaper where 
the French are saying their politics have become Americanized--meaning 
it is now a system of tremendously large amounts of money.
  We learned in 1996 that the President of the United States can sit in 
the Oval Office and coordinate these large amounts of money on behalf 
of his own campaign. So the issue of whether or not making these large 
contributions of the State party ever reaches the benefit of the 
candidate is a moot issue. We know certainly that it does.
  If we are able to do something about this soft money situation, where 
is this money that is in the system now going to go? I suggest we have 
seen the beginning of the phenomenon in electoral politics that will 
continue unabated, and that is the proliferation of independent groups, 
nonprofit groups, what have you, buying television ads in our system. I 
think it is protected almost totally by the first amendment. There are 
some modest restrictions one can make, but basically it is protected by 
the first amendment and it will continue and there is nothing we can do 
about it even if we wanted to. I am not sure we ought to. We ought to 
be subject to discussion and criticism and robust debate.
  Having said that, if we get rid of the soft money, it is going to go 
somewhere--a good deal of it, anyway. Are we going to fuel that 
independent sector out there even more or are we

[[Page S2959]]

going to allow the candidate, himself or herself, to have some voice in 
their own campaign? It will go to all these outside groups unless we do 
something about the hard money limits. Of course, we all know what we 
are talking about, but I hope the American people understand we created 
a system of so-called hard money, which is the legitimate money that we 
decided people ought to be able to contribute to Federal candidates for 
campaigns.

  Everybody knows it takes money. It takes large amounts of money, it 
takes more and more money, and we will see in a few minutes how much it 
really takes.
  We said for an individual in one cycle or in one campaign, $1,000 
individual limit. That was back in 1974 when we passed that law. We had 
other limits for other activities. Individual contributions to parties 
we capped at $20,000; individual contributions to PACs, $5,000; 
aggregate individual limit of $25,000 a year. That has been the system 
we operated under since 1974. The soft money phenomena was very small 
until the mid-1990s and the system worked pretty well.
  It has all changed now. The soft money is there in droves. The 
independent groups are out there energized on both sides, all sides, 
and we are still back here at these hard money $1,000 limitations that 
we created in 1974--a limitation of $1,000 that would be worth $3,500 a 
day if adjusted for inflation.
  That is the nature of the problem. All the other areas have increased 
exponentially, and these legitimate, the most legitimate, the most 
disclosed, the most controlled, the area where nobody says there will 
be any corruption involved because the amounts are so low, has not 
changed. Inflation has tripled. It has more than tripled since 1974. 
The costs of campaigns have gone up 10 times.
  I have a chart showing the average cost of winning a Senate seat in 
this country back to 1976. I wish we had 1974 numbers because it would 
probably be $400,000 or $500,000. We know in 1976 it was $600,000. In 
1978, it came up to $1.2 million. The cost in the last election cycle 
that we had in 2000, the average cost of winning a Senate seat was over 
$7 million.
  That includes one or two very expensive seats and that boosts the 
number up, but they count, too.
  The last cycle, in 1998, was about $4.5 million. So about any way you 
cut it, you can see the dramatic increase, about a tenfold increase 
since 1974, of the cost of the election. That is the cost of 
everything: consultants, television is the biggest part of it, 
personnel--everything from stamps to the paper that you write on, the 
material that you send out. Everything has skyrocketed, has increased 
greatly with regard to campaigns since 1974--10 times. Inflation has 
increased over 3 times. And we are back at a $1,000 limit pretending we 
are doing something good by keeping the limit that low.
  What has been the effect of that? What has been the effect of 
everything else running wild and our keeping this low cap on the most 
legitimate money in politics? It means one thing: incumbents have to 
spend an awful lot of their time running and raising money in $1,000 
increments. In that respect, we get the worst of both worlds because, 
also, once we get the money, it is an incumbent protection deal because 
the great majority of Senators who run for reelection win because of 
inherent advantages that we have.
  In the House last time, 98 percent of the sitting House Members to 
run for reelection won reelection--98 percent--attesting to the fact 
that by keeping these limits low, you are making it that much more 
difficult for challengers. You are making it that much more difficult 
for people who want to get into the system and reach that threshold of 
credibility by raising enough money to be able to say they are going to 
buy a few TV ads and such things as that, and tell their supporters: 
Yes, I am credible; I have that much money in the bank.
  It is extremely difficult under our present system to do that now. We 
have an incumbent protection system in operation now. I do not think 
that is good for our country. We have been criticized for some of these 
amendments that have been passed during this debate in the last couple 
of weeks as, once again, doing something to protect incumbents. One of 
the things we can do to answer that is to say we are not going to 
continue to stick with this antiquated hard dollar limitation.
  Others have commented upon and made note of the difficulty that 
challengers have in raising sufficient amounts of money to run. There 
was an article recently by Mr. Michael Malbin, executive director of 
the Campaign Finance Institute, a professor of political science in the 
State University of New York at Albany. In Rollcall last Monday, Mr. 
Malbin pointed out that the Campaign Finance Institute, affiliated with 
the George Washington University, analyzed past campaign finance data 
and reached surprising conclusions about the role that large 
contributions play in promoting competition in Federal elections. These 
conclusions are not arguments for or against McCain-Feingold or the 
Hagel bill.
  He points out the $1,000 limitation today would be worth $3,500 if it 
was just indexed for inflation.

       From a competitive standpoint, upping the individual 
     contribution limit would help nonincumbent Senate candidates, 
     while having little impact on the House.

  He points out in races in 1996 and 2000, 70 percent of the $1,000 
contributions went to nonincumbents. He says nonincumbents rely more on 
the $1,000 givers. He says:

       These data do not point to a single policy conclusion. But 
     they do raise a yellow flag. Large givers and parties are 
     important to non-incumbents.

  McCain-Feingold would shut off one source of soft money, the banning 
of donations, without putting anything in its place.
  I suggest we should put something in its place. That is the amendment 
that Senator Torricelli and Senator Nickles and I have submitted. We 
take that $1,000 limitation that we have operated under since 1974 and 
we increase it to $2,500. I, frankly, would prefer to raise it closer 
to what inflation would bear, which would be $3,500.
  I have been talking about rounding it off to $3,000. I do not get the 
indication that we would have the opportunity to pass that nearly as 
readily as what I am offering. Frankly, that is my primary motivation. 
I believe so strongly that we must make some meaningful increase in the 
hard money limit that I want to pare mine down to something that is 
substantially less than an inflation increase.
  So, in real dollars, if we pass my amendment, we will be dealing with 
less than the candidate dealt with back in 1974 with his $1,000, not to 
mention the fact that all of the expenses have skyrocketed.
  Individual contributions will go from $20,000 to $40,000; aggregate 
individual limits would go from $25,000 to $50,000 aggregate individual 
limits. People say $50,000, that is a lot of money. That is not $50,000 
going to one person; that is $50,000 aggregate, going to all 
candidates.
  Look at the tradeoff. Again, what I said in the very beginning about 
the reason we are here: large amounts of money, hundreds of thousands 
of dollars going to or on behalf of particular candidates. Here the 
individual candidate would only get $2,500 for an election. In terms of 
the aggregate amount, what is wrong with several $2,500 checks being 
made out to several candidates around the country, if a person wanted 
to do that? No one candidate is getting enough money to raise the 
question of corruption. I think the more the merrier. In that sense, 
more money in politics is a good thing. We have more people reach the 
threshold of credibility sooner and let them have a decent shot at 
participating in an election and not have a system where you do not 
have a chance unless you are a multimillionnaire or a professional 
politician who has been raising money all of his life and has his 
Rolodex in shape that he can move on, up, down the line.
  So I doubled most of these other categories except for the 
contributions to PACs. On individual contributions to PACs, we move 
from the current $5,000 a year to $7,500 a year. On PAC contributions 
to parties, we move from $15,000 a year to $17,500 a year; PAC 
contributions to PACs, $5,000 to $7,500.
  These are modest increments. I don't know the exact percentage--less 
than half increase.
  Some would say, I assume, that though we are not even coming close to 
keeping up with inflation, and even though these prices are 
skyrocketing for everything that we buy connected

[[Page S2960]]

with the campaign, that going from $1,000 to $2,500 is too rich for 
their blood. But I must say for those who read any of the articles, any 
of the treatments that have been out recently by scholars and 
thoughtful commentators and others, they have to see a pattern that 
must convince them that they should take a second look at taking such a 
position.
  There is an article recently by Stuart Taylor in the National 
Journal, saying that increasing these hard money limits to $2,000 or 
$3,000 is certainly an appropriate thing to do.
  There is no commentator, there is no writer, there is no reporter 
with more respect in this town and hardly in the country than David 
Broder. Mr. Broder wrote recently that raising it to $2,000 or even 
$3,000 would be an appropriate thing to do. There is no corruption 
issue there. There is no appearance issue there. That is what we need 
to keep in mind. We are not just talking about money. Money is not the 
same in one category as it is in the other. And more of it is not 
necessarily all bad, if you are giving a little bit to various 
candidates around the country. Let's not get so carried away in our 
zeal to think that all money is bad, that it doesn't take money to run 
campaigns, when that kind of attitude is going to hurt people who are 
challengers worse than anybody.
  Let's get the amount up decent enough so it will not be so high as to 
have a corrupting influence or a bad appearance problem, but high 
enough to make the candidate credible.
  Recently, I got the benefit of some legislative history on this 
matter with regard to this body and some comments that have been made 
over the years by former Senators who we all remember and we all 
respect.

  Back in August of 1971, they debated a piece of legislation. If you 
recall, it was 2 years before Watergate. Senators Mathias and Chiles 
moved to establish a $5,000 limit on a person's contribution to a 
Federal candidate. That amendment was rejected. But Senator Chiles 
said: ``to restore some public confidence on the part of the people [we 
need this amendment].''
  He said:

       The people cannot understand, today, why a candidate 
     receives $25,000 or $250,000 from one individual, and they 
     cannot understand how a candidate is not going to be 
     influenced by receiving that kind of money.

  He said what we need to do is raise the amount so that it is not so 
high that we have that kind of improper influence appearance, but raise 
it high enough to give them a decent chance; and to him, at that point, 
it was $5,000. Well, that is closer to $20,000 today.
  Before a subcommittee in March of 1973--on March 8, 1973--there was 
discussion between Senator Beall and Senator George McGovern, former 
Presidential candidate. Senator Beall said:

       [I]n Maryland, we don't have any limit on the total amount 
     that you might spend in an election but we do limit 
     contributions to $2,500.

  This is, of course, the amount I am suggesting today.
  Senator McGovern said:

       I favor that, Senator. I think there should be an 
     individual limitation. I have proposed that in no race should 
     it go beyond $3,000 by a single individual.

  So Senator McGovern was at $3,000, and in real dollars way above what 
I am proposing. Again, his $3,000 would be $10,000, $12,000 today.
  Coming on further, in the Watergate year, 1973, Senator Bentsen, 
former Senator from Texas, former Secretary of the Treasury, said:

       I believe my $3,000 limit walks that fine line between 
     controlling the pollution of our political system by favor 
     seekers with money to spend and overly limiting campaign 
     contributions to the point that a new man simply does not 
     have a chance.

  On the vote to amend the Proxmire amendment with the Bentsen 
amendment, Senator Mondale voted yes. Senator Mondale and Senator 
Bentsen voted for a $3,000 individual limit which, again, is--what?--
$10,000 or so today. On the vote which carried to adopt the amendment 
as amended, both Senator Mondale and Senator McGovern voted yes. 
Senator Cannon summarized the contribution limit provisions, as amended 
by Bentsen's amendment, and stated: The maximum of $3,000 individual 
contributions to congressional and Presidential candidates is what is 
in the bill, and the overall limit is $100,000. That is 100,000 1974 
dollars. This is in the wake of Watergate that they were having this 
discussion at these amounts.
  On March 28, 1974--after Watergate--which is the year that the last 
significant legislation in this area was passed, Senator Hathaway 
proposed an amendment to increase the amount from $3,000 to $6,000 that 
organizations may contribute.
  During the debate, Senator Hollings--our own Senator Hollings--said:

       I . . . support limiting the amount that an individual 
     can contribute to a campaign, and while I personally favor 
     a $1,000 ceiling, I would agree to a compromise that would 
     set $15,000 as the maximum contribution in Presidential 
     races and $3,000 in Senate and House races.

  Again, that is substantially above what we are talking about today.
  Senator Hathaway said:

       [T]he President [President Nixon] advocated a $15,000 
     limitation. It seems to me the $3,000 for individuals and 
     $6,000 for a group limitation, being considerably below the 
     amount recommended by the President, is realistic.

  The Hathaway amendment carried, and, again, Senator McGovern voted in 
favor. Again, it is substantially above what we are talking about 
today.
  Finally, in June of 1974, the Watergate Committee issued its final 
report. That is a committee I spent a few days and weeks assisting in 
the writing. Recommendation No. 5 of the Watergate Committee report:

       The committee recommends enactment of a statutory 
     limitation of $3,000 on political contributions by any 
     individuals to the campaign of each Presidential candidate 
     during the prenomination period and a separate $3,000 
     limitation during the post-nomination period.

  And the report also states:

       [T]he limit must not be set so low as to make private 
     financing of elections impractical.

  That had to do with Presidential elections. The Watergate Committee 
did recommend substantially above what we wound up with regard to 
Presidential elections. What would they have recommended 25 years later 
with inflation--knowing then what we know now, and that expenses were 
going to go up tenfold? The amounts would be much, much higher.
  I say all of this to make one simple point. The increase in the hard 
money limits is long overdue and very modest. By trying to be holier 
than thou--and no one has fought for McCain-Feingold harder than I have 
since I have been here. When I first ran for political office--the 
first office I ever ran for--it just seemed to me that something was 
wrong with a system that took that much money, and it was a whole lot 
easier to raise money once you got in, and once a big bill came down 
the pike that everybody was interested in.
  In private life you get a little uneasy about things such as that. I 
was not used to it. So I signed on. I became a reformer. And I have 
gone down to defeat many times because of it. So I take a back seat to 
no one in wanting to change the system so we can have some pride in it 
again.
  But I am telling you, by keeping this hard money limit so low, we are 
hurting the system. We are going to wind up with something, if we are 
not careful, worse than what we have now. That is how important I think 
the increasing of the hard money limitation is.
  There is another question that we should ask ourselves. I heard one 
of the commentators refer to this last Sunday. I had not thought about 
it, frankly, but it makes a lot of good sense. It is a good question. 
And that is, wait a minute, we just passed a so-called rich, wealthy 
candidate's amendment. I voted against it. I think it is 
unconstitutional. But the sentiment is a legitimate one. Everyone is 
fearful of the prospects of running against a multimillionaire who can 
put millions of dollars in of their own money. So what was adopted was 
an amendment that says, if the rich guy puts in money, you can raise 
your limits to $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, I believe $6,000. You 
can take $6,000 from one person, I believe is what we wound up with. 
Let me ask you, if the $2,500 that I am proposing is corrupting, what 
about the $6,000 you are going to be using against the rich guy?
  The fact that you are running against a rich guy is not going to make 
you any more or less susceptible to

[[Page S2961]]

corruption, if that is the issue. How can we pass an increase for 
ourselves based on what somebody else is spending against us, if we are 
concerned about the corruption issue, unless we acknowledge that those 
levels of dollars are not a corruption problem? It is something 
considerably lower than that, such as $2,500, I suggest.
  The amendment also has the benefit of being clearly constitutional. 
We have had a constitutional issue with regard to just about every 
aspect of this bill that has been brought up so far. We will not have a 
constitutional issue with this amendment. There is no question that we 
can increase the hard money limits. The constitutional issues have 
always been whether or not we could reduce the hard money limits.
  I urge the Senate not to be so afraid to do something that is long 
overdue, and to not try to wear the mantle of reform to the extent that 
we wind up creating more harm, to take a noble purpose and turn it into 
a terrible result and have a situation where amendments such as mine 
are defeated and we go ahead and pass McCain-Feingold and do away with 
soft money and wind up with a hollow victory, indeed, as we see the 
candidate is unable to fend for himself, candidates who want to run 
can't afford to raise the money to run on the one hand and all the 
independent groups doing whatever they want to do in triplicate from 
what we have already seen in the future--that would be worse--and 
inflation continuing to increase and seeing that $1,000 limit continue 
to dwindle, dwindle down below the $300 that it is today.
  I suggest to those who want to come in at some lower limit that we 
not simply nibble away at this problem, that we face up to it, do what 
we need to do, index these dollars, do what we need to do so we don't 
have to revisit this thing every couple of years, so that we can get on 
with our business. In a practical sense, look how long it has taken us 
to get here. It has taken us since 1974 to get here for these 2 weeks. 
A lot of blood has been spilt on the floor just to get here and get 
this debate. It may be another 25 years before we have another debate 
such as this. Let's come up with some reasonable amount, index it for 
inflation, so we don't have to go through this again because, in fact, 
we probably won't go through this again and nothing will be done about 
the proliferation of the independent ads and the independent outside 
groups as that goes on and on and on, and our puny little hard money 
limitation, the most legitimate, the most disclosed, the most limited 
part of our whole system continues to dwindle and dwindle and dwindle. 
That would be a bad result and a hollow victory indeed.
  Mr. President, I urge the adoption of the amendment and yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time in opposition?
  The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Thompson 
amendment.
  The fact is, the Senator from Tennessee was one of the very first 
persons to get involved in the McCain-Feingold effort. I am grateful 
for the years of hard work he has put into our effort to try to reform 
the campaign finance system. We have always had a disagreement about 
this issue but a polite disagreement. Now the issue is finally joined.
  I understand many Members of this body believe it is appropriate to 
raise the hard money limits. I have said many times that there must be 
some flexibility on this issue. I have said, half seriously and half 
kiddingly, that I am willing to go up as much as $1,001 per election 
for the individual limit. I prefer we not even do that.
  When I say that, of course, at this point in the difficult process of 
bringing this bill together, I don't really mean that that is as far as 
I am willing to go, as much as I regret it. This is an area that now 
has to be opened to negotiation, and there have already been several 
days of discussions about this subject. That said, I don't think a 
significant increase in the limits is warranted.
  In the 2000 election, according to Public Citizen, roughly 232,000 
people gave $1,000 or more to Federal candidates. That is just one-
ninth of 1 percent of the voting-age population. An elite group of 
donors don't just dominate the soft money system, frankly; they 
actually dominate the hard money system as well. To most Americans, 
$2,000 is still a large sum of money. That is when an individual can 
give to a single candidate $1,000 in the primary and then another 
$1,000 in the general election. If we talked about average Americans 
getting a tax cut for that amount of money, we would say $2,000 is a 
very sizable tax cut. Somehow when we talk about the same sum in the 
context of political giving, we act as if this is a small figure.
  As I have said, I understand that raising the hard money limits does 
have to be a part of a final stage of this debate, even though I am 
reluctant to do so. If we can agree on an increase that doesn't 
jeopardize the integrity of the McCain-Feingold bill as a whole, I will 
support it.
  I am afraid that this amendment, well-intentioned as it is, simply 
raises the limit too high by raising the individual limit to $2,500 and 
by doubling the other contribution limits, including the aggregate 
limit, the total amount that people give. That is why I must oppose 
this amendment and urge my colleagues to oppose it as well.
  I understand that because this bill bans soft money, those of us who 
would prefer to leave the limits at their current level may have to 
compromise. I say to all my colleagues, increasing the individual limit 
by 150 percent is just not a compromise we should make. Such a small 
number of Americans can afford to give what the limits even allow now--
quite often it is given the nickname of ``maxing out,'' giving the 
maximum--that a vote to increase the individual limit to $2,500 does 
mean putting more power in the hands of an even more concentrated group 
of citizens, and few Americans have the wherewithal to give those kinds 
of contributions.
  A recent study by Public Campaign found that Senate incumbents in 
2000 raised on average nearly three times as much as their challenges 
did from donors of $1,000 or more. It is likely that raising the hard 
money limit will give incumbents an even bigger advantage than they 
already have now. So whatever increase we might support, we need to 
consider that aspect of this very seriously. We should carefully 
consider any measure that increases an incumbent's advantage, which I 
am afraid is already so strong in our Federal elections. I am afraid 
the Thompson amendment does just that.
  On this point, the Supreme Court has said Congress may legislate in 
this area in order to address the appearance of corruption. There is 
another appearance that is important here, and that is how the bill we 
are trying to craft as a whole appears to the public at large. That is 
very important. This bill started out, with the good help of the 
Senator from Tennessee, as a straightforward effort to ban soft money 
and address the phony issue ad problem.
  We quickly added an amendment that raised individual limits when a 
candidate faces a wealthy opponent on the first day of the debate. Now 
we are looking at a doubling of most of the contribution limits for all 
campaigns. If we keep going in this direction, as others have said, 
pretty soon this bill starts to look as if it is aimed at raising 
limits and really protecting incumbents rather than addressing the 
problem of corruption. We need to pay attention to that perception 
because our goal here is to reestablish the American people's trust in 
government, not to drive people further away.
  I am afraid the Thompson amendment doesn't just increase the 
individual limit to 150 percent; it doubles every other important hard 
money limit as well. For example, the aggregate of what an individual 
can give to individual candidates would increase from $25,000 a year to 
$50,000 a year. So in the course of an election cycle, a couple--if 
there happens to be a couple involved--could give $100,000 in 
contributions. Now I was just talking about how $2,000 is a lot of 
money to most Americans. Well, $100,000 is, of course, a staggering sum 
to most people. I think it is too high to have the name ``reform.''
  This bill is about lessening the influence of money on politics. It 
is not about increasing it. If we are going to raise the limits at all, 
we must do everything we can to act in good faith with all the American 
people, not that tiny number of Americans who can afford to open up 
their checkbooks and

[[Page S2962]]

max out the candidate. We have to do everything we can to look out for 
the Americans who could not even dream of writing a $1,000 check to a 
candidate, no matter how much they supported what that candidate stood 
for.
  Although I know important negotiations are underway, this is why 
raising the limits has to give this body pause, because every time we 
act to empower the wealthy few in our system, we really do a disservice 
to our Nation. I believe the soft money ban in this bill does a great 
service to the Nation by ending a system that allows completely 
unlimited contributions from corporations, unions, and individuals to 
flow to the party. The soft money ban helps empower the average voter 
in this country, and that is why it is the centerpiece, the bottom 
line, the reason to be of the McCain-Feingold bill.
  With this bill, we are getting rid of hundreds of millions of 
unregulated dollars. So I am willing to consider a modest increase in 
regulated dollars. But this amendment goes too far. I oppose raising 
the hard money limit 150 percent when only one-ninth of 1 percent of 
the voting-age population gives $1,000. Increasing this figure by 150 
percent would give an unprecedented new level of access to those who 
would continue to max out under the new limit.
  I must urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. I do hope the 
Members of this body can work together to reach an increase that will 
be palatable to both sides of the aisle. I mean that sincerely. If we 
can't come to an agreement, this bill will be seriously jeopardized. 
This body has made laudable progress in the course of this debate. I 
have never been more proud to be a Member of the Senate. I say to my 
colleagues that we have come too far to let this reform debate stall, 
even over an issue as tough as this one.
  I hope we can come to an agreement on this issue that I can support. 
Until that time, I do have to oppose the Thompson amendment.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. THOMPSON. What does the Senator from Virginia need?
  Mr. ALLEN. Ten minutes.
  Mr. THOMPSON. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. President, and Members of the Senate, I rise in 
support of the Thompson amendment. I have listened to the debate on 
this issue for the last several days, and I have listened to the many 
different points of view expressed here. There is quite a spectrum of 
opinion. On one side of the spectrum, there are those--and they had 40 
votes--who want to limit First Amendment rights and, in fact, voted for 
a Constitutional amendment to do just that. I actually commend the 
Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Hollings, for at least recognizing 
that many of these proposals, including the McCain-Feingold bill, have 
the effect of restricting First Amendment rights, which is part of the 
Bill of Rights. Nevertheless, that is their view.
  On that side of the spectrum, there are also those who want the 
taxpayers to pay for elections, which would be the result if you 
actually limited First Amendment rights. They honestly believe that is 
the approach to take. I find myself on the other end of the spectrum, 
as one who believes very much in the Bill of Rights. After all, it was 
first authored by George Mason in the Virginia Declaration of Rights. I 
think the First Amendment, as well as all of the Bill of Rights, is 
very important for all Americans. My view is that what we ought to have 
is more freedom; the maximum amount of individual freedom, and the 
maximum amount of accountability and honesty in elections, and having 
contributions made voluntarily as opposed to being taken out of tax 
money.
  All the various amendments that have been offered today, and probably 
will be offered in the next few days, have as their purpose various 
restrictions or subterfuge to these two different points of view.
  I have been a candidate for statewide office in Virginia twice. Last 
year, I ran statewide for the U.S. Senate under the Federal election 
laws. I also ran for Governor statewide, obviously, under Virginia's 
laws that are based upon the principles of freedom. In my view, the 
current Federal election laws are overly restrictive. They are 
bureaucratic, antiquated, and they are contrary to the principles of 
individual freedom, accountability and, yes, contrary to the concepts 
of honesty.
  I have been working on an amendment with the Senator from Texas, Mr. 
Gramm, on what we call the Political Freedom and Accountability Act. I 
don't know if we will offer that amendment, but this looks like an 
opportunity to be in support of something that is at least going in 
that same direction. I have stood by my guiding principles on vote 
after vote during this debate. Sometimes I do not agree with the 
Senator from Kentucky on an amendment; to his and my chagrin, because I 
consider the professor someone very knowledgeable on this subject. 
Nonetheless, I am trying to advocate greater freedom and greater 
accountability.
  What I am trying to do is make sure that in this debate we are 
advancing the ideas of freedom of exchange of ideas, freedom of 
political expression and increasing participation to the maximum extent 
possible. And equally important are the concepts of accountability and 
honesty.
  First, the issue of freedom. The current laws and limits are clearly 
out of date. There is no one who can argue that these laws, the current 
restriction on direct contributions to candidates, are anything but 
completely antiquated and out of date. Let's take some examples. When 
TV reporters ask me what kind of reforms do I want, I tell them greater 
freedom, greater accountability, and to get these Federal laws up to 
date. I ask the TV reporters: Will you please, in your reporting of 
this issue, say what it cost to run a 30-second ad in 1974 when these 
laws were put into effect versus what you charge today for a TV ad.
  Well, I am never home enough to watch TV anymore since I have joined 
the Senate, so maybe they told us. Nevertheless, we did our own 
research. The average cost of just producing a 30-second commercial has 
increased seven times, from $4,000 to $28,000. The cost of stamps--
because we do send mailings out has increased. The cost of a first-
class stamp in 1974 was 10 cents. Today, it is 34 cents, and rising. So 
that is over three times as much.
  The cost of airing a 30-second television advertisement per 1,000 
homes has escalated from $2 in 1974 to $11 in 1997. That is fivefold 
increase.
  Candidates are today running in larger districts. There are more 
people in congressional districts, obviously, than before. There are 
more people in the United States of America. The voting-age population 
increased from 141 million in 1974 to over 200 million in 1998.
  The reality is that the limits in the Thompson amendment don't even 
catch up with the increase in costs.
  The Thompson amendment is a very modest approach of trying to get the 
Federal election laws more in line with what are the costs of 
campaigns.
  The accountability and honesty aspect of this amendment is important 
because I think the current situation has improper disclosure; very 
poor disclosure and subterfuge. As far as disclosure is concerned, one 
can get a contribution of $1,000 on July 2 and it is not disclosed 
until late October under the current law. I very much agree with the 
efforts of the Senator from Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu, to get more prompt 
disclosure, and that needs to be done.
  The contribution limits also force a greater use of soft money. 
People are all so upset about soft money going to political parties. 
Why is that being done? Because the cost of campaigns are increasing 
for all those demographic features and facts I just enunciated. The 
fact is, you need more money to run campaigns to get your messages out.
  If an individual desired to part with $5,000, which is right much 
money for most people, but they believe so much in a candidate that 
they want to give $5,000, right now they would have to give $1,000 to 
the candidate. That would be disclosed, maybe belatedly but it would be 
disclosed. Then they would have to give $4,000 to a political party 
that would run ads, run mailings, whatever they would do to help that 
candidate.
  The point is that $4,000, in this example, would not have the same 
accountability. It would not have the same scrutiny. Fred Smith may be 
a controversial character. It is one thing for him to give $1,000 and 
then $4,000 to the

[[Page S2963]]

party, but it is all $5,000 to candidate B and you say: Gosh, candidate 
B has gotten all this money from Fred Smith. But really it only shows 
up as $1,000 because the rest has gone to the Democratic Party or the 
Republican Party or some other organization. Therefore, you are losing 
that accountability and the true honesty in a campaign that you want to 
have and the scrutiny that a candidate should have for getting 
contributions from individuals.
  It is my view that we need to return responsibility for campaigns to 
the candidates. We are getting swamped. At least we were swamped--and I 
know this was not unique to Virginia last year--with these outside 
groups that are contributing to our campaigns. Mr. President, $5 
million, at least the best we can determine, was spent not just by the 
Democratic Party running ads contrary to my campaign or Republicans 
running ads in favor of my campaign or in opposition to my opponent, 
but these independent expenditures--handgun control, attack TV ads, 
donor undisclosed; Sierra Club running attack ads, radio ads, voter 
guides, donors undisclosed; pro-abortion groups, dirty dozen ads 
against us--all these ads and they are all undisclosed. There are 
people all upset with this. That is part of democracy. That is part of 
free expression. It would be nice if there would be a constitutional 
way to disclose those individuals, but that is apparently 
unconstitutional.
  The point is, you end up having to answer those ads. People think: 
You want to do all sorts of sordid things I will not repeat, but 
nevertheless you have to get the money to make sure you are getting 
your positive, constructive message out or setting the record straight.
  With these limits, you end up having to raise money through political 
parties to combat these ads which, as much as I did not like them, they 
have a right to do. And I will defend the rights of these groups or any 
other groups to run those ads and have their free expression and 
political participation.
  The point of the Thompson amendment is people are allowed to 
contribute more directly to a candidate. The candidate is held more 
responsible and accountable, and to the extent that you can get more 
direct contributions, it alleviates, negates, and diminishes the need 
to be using political parties as a subterfuge or a conduit to get the 
money you need to set the record straight.

  Current Federal laws in many cases--one says: Look at how wonderful 
they are. It is amazing to me people think that, but nevertheless that 
is their view. They are so unaccountable in so many ways, and by 
limiting hard dollars, so to speak, or direct contributions, you are 
back with PACs.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. ALLEN. May I have an additional 5 minutes?
  Mr. THOMPSON. I yield an additional 5 minutes to the Senator from 
Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. ALLEN. I thank the Senator from Tennessee.
  I think the contribution limits definitely create a dependency on 
soft money, thereby the corollary logically is that by increasing the 
direct contributions on hard limits, it decreases the necessity. It is 
pure commonsense logic, at least for those of us who have run under a 
system of freedom such as that in Virginia.
  The other matter is contribution limits also prohibit candidates, 
except those with personal wealth, from acquiring a stake from which to 
launch a campaign. We went through this whole debate about what happens 
when you have millionaire candidates and thereby raise the limits for 
those candidates, and so forth. Gosh, if you did not have any limits, 
you would not have to worry about this.
  Again, at least the amendment of the Senator from Tennessee addresses 
that in that we want to encourage more political participation in 
speech rather than limiting it. We ought to be promoting competition. 
We ought to be promoting freedom and a more informed electorate, which 
we would get with the amendment of the Senator from Tennessee. We want 
to enable any law-abiding American citizen to run for office.
  Had the current limits been in place in 1968, Eugene McCarthy never 
would have been able to mount his effort against President Johnson.
  Today's system has failed to make the elections more competitive. The 
current system hurts voters in our Republic by forcing more and more 
committees and contributions and political activists to operate outside 
the system where they are unaccountable and, consequently, more 
irresponsible and less honest.
  I, of course, want to repeal the hard limits, but nevertheless, by 
increasing these limits, we can open up the political system. 
Challengers need to raise a great deal of money as quickly as possible 
to have any real chance of success. The current system, with its very 
stringent limits, prevents a challenger from raising the funds he or 
she needs, and I saw that in 1993 when I was running for Governor.
  One may say: Gosh, this is all wonderful theory from the Senator from 
Virginia. You can look at Virginia as a test case of freedom and 
accountability. People say, sure, they have plenty of disagreements 
between the legislative and executive branch and between Democrats and 
Republicans, but you have honest Government in Virginia. If there is 
anybody giving large contributions, I guarantee you, boy that is 
scrutinized and there is a lot of answering to do for large 
contributions. Indeed, it may not be worth the bad press you get for 
accepting a large contribution.

  Again, if you look at Virginia--which has a system where we have no 
contribution limits and better disclosure--Virginia right now has a 
Governor whose father was a butcher. His predecessor was a son of a 
former football coach. The predecessor to that Governor was a grandson 
of slaves. Virginia's system gives equal opportunity to all. Virginia 
has a record of which we can be proud.
  The amendment of the Senator from Tennessee, while not ideal and 
exactly like Virginia, it is one that at least increases freedom--
freedom of participation, freedom of expression, and coupled with other 
amendments, such as the amendment of the Senator from Louisiana on 
disclosure, brings greater honesty.
  I urge my fellow Senators to support this amendment. It is a 
reasonable improvement, it is greater freedom, it is greater 
accountability, and it is greater honesty for the people of America. I 
yield back what moments I have remaining.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from Virginia----
  Mr. THOMPSON. I yield to the Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to the Senator from Virginia before he leaves 
the floor, I hope he adds me as a cosponsor to the Allen-Gramm freedom 
amendment and indicate my total agreement with the Senator from 
Virginia about the Virginia law.
  As I understand the situation in Virginia, and correct the Senator 
from Kentucky if he is wrong, Virginia almost never has a situation 
where candidates cannot get enough money to run.
  Mr. ALLEN. You can have that situation if you are not credible.
  Mr. McCONNELL. If you are not credible, you do not. The two parties 
are well funded. The candidates, if they are credible, are well funded. 
They are able to raise enough money to get their message across because 
they are not stuck under the 1974 contribution limit.
  In fact, as the Senator from Virginia was pointing out, it has 
produced rather robust competition with minimal or no accusations of 
corruption; is the Senator from Kentucky correct?
  Mr. ALLEN. The Senator from Kentucky is correct and there are no 
limited contributions from corporations, which I am not arguing at this 
point, but it is purely on Jeffersonian principles of freedom and 
disclosure and honesty.
  Mr. McCONNELL. In fact, what a candidate does in Virginia is weigh, 
knowing the contribution will be disclosed, the perception of whether 
or not the candidate should accept the large contribution, knowing full 
well it will be fully disclosed and people can make of it what they 
will. Is that essentially the way it works in Virginia?
  Mr. ALLEN. The Senator from Kentucky is correct. As I alluded in my 
remarks, sometimes you might as well

[[Page S2964]]

not have been receiving a large contribution because the negative 
connotations and everything wrong that person or corporation may have 
done is somehow besmirching you. You have to be careful with it in 
trying to get contributions, whether for yourself or for political 
action efforts.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to the Senator from Virginia, I know it must be 
somewhat depressing, given his philosophy, what we are doing here. But 
to make the Senator from Virginia feel better, not too far in the past 
the reform bills we were dealing with had draconian spending limits on 
candidates, taxpayer funding of elections.
  As recently as 1992 and 1993 and 1994, majorities in the Senate were 
supporting taxpayer funding of elections. It was noteworthy that only 
30 Senators in this body supported taxpayer funding of congressional 
races--the Kerry amendment earlier today. We have made some progress. 
We are now down to arguing over the impact of campaign finance reform 
on parties and outside groups. It used to be a lot worse. The whole 
universe of expression was balled together in these reform bills as 
recently as 1994.
  I say to my friend from Virginia, add me as a cosponsor to the 
freedom amendment. We have come a long way. We are not quite there yet. 
The wisdom he has imparted tonight is certainly good to hear.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I will speak for a few minutes. I thank 
my friend and colleague from Connecticut for allowing me to jump ahead.
  Mr. THOMPSON. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. NICKLES. I thank my friend and colleague from Tennessee for 
offering this amendment, which I am happy to cosponsor and also 
congratulate him for the speech he made. I hope my colleagues had a 
chance to hear what Senator Thompson was saying.
  I also compliment Senator Allen for the comments he made. I 
appreciate the impact he has had since joining the Senate, including 
his idea, based on a campaign system that has worked quite well in the 
State of Virginia, which he has shared with us. Perhaps we will have a 
chance to vote on that amendment as well.
  The pending amendment is the Thompson amendment, which I am pleased 
to cosponsor, which increases the hard money limits. It is one of the 
most important amendments we will deal with in this entire debate, in 
this Senator's opinion.
  The amendment increases the hard money limits, hard money 
representing what individuals can contribute. Every dime of hard money 
is disclosed and reported. No one has alleged, that I am aware of, that 
this is corrupt money, that this is illegal money. Every dime is out in 
the open for everybody to see. The Thompson amendment increases the 
individual level from $1,000 to $2,500. That increase, if you look back 
to 1974, doesn't even keep up with inflation.

  Senator Thompson also would increase some of the other limits that 
are in the current law. PAC limits would grow from $5,000 to $7,500. 
That is not keeping up with inflation: if we kept up with inflation 
over 25 years, we would have over a 300-percent increase. The amendment 
has a moderate increase in PACs. And the aggregate individual limit 
goes from $25,000 to $50,000. Somebody has said, isn't that too much? I 
don't think so. If somebody wants to contribute $2,500 per year, they 
can only contribute to 10 candidates currently. Under this amendment, 
you could contribute to 20.
  Is that corrupt? No, I don't think that is corrupt. What I see as 
corrupt are the joint fundraising committees where you have millions of 
dollars of soft money funneled into some races. That money is not fully 
disclosed. Who contributed that money? We had a lot of Senate races 
last year and, the Democrats received around $21 million in these 
special joint committees last year. And we would like to say, is this 
the right way to raise and spend money? Does it make sense to do it 
that way? I don't think so. But with hard money, every single dime is 
out there for everybody to see in every single instance.
  I think the Senator's amendment makes great sense. I hope my 
colleagues agree.
  Some say we need to look for a compromise on this amendment. Senator 
Thompson has already compromised. His original amendment basically kept 
everything up with inflation, growing the aggregate limit from $25,000 
to $75,000. His amendment now is at $50,000.
  The limits on giving to parties goes from $20,000 to $40,000. Don't 
we want to strengthen parties? My friend and colleague has made a good 
point: parties are healthy to the system. Senator Thompson's amendment 
allows individuals to increase contributions to parties. We should keep 
party contributions and allow parties to grow.
  If we are going to ban soft money, we should allow some increases in 
hard money. I think that is what the amendment we have before the 
Senate would do.
  I thank my friend and my colleague from Tennessee for offering this 
amendment. I think it is an important amendment. I urge my colleagues: 
Isn't this a good improvement over the existing system?
  I think it is. I urge the adoption of the amendment when we vote on 
it tomorrow morning.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I ask the Senator from Tennessee if I could have 7 or 
8 minutes.
  Mr. THOMPSON. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. DODD. Could I be heard at some point?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I will wrap it up really fast.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I want to commend the Senator from Tennessee for his 
amendment. It certainly begins to deal with what I think is the single 
biggest problem in the system today, and that was the failure to index 
the hard money contribution limit set back in 1974 when a Mustang cost 
$2,700.
  As may have been said by the Senator from Tennessee and others, the 
average cost of a 50-question poll has increased from about $5,000 to 
$13,000 over the last 25 years. The average cost of producing a 30-
second commercial has increased from $4,000 to approximately $28,000 
over the last 26 years. The cost of a first-class stamp was 10 cents in 
1974 and today it is 34 cents. The cost of airing a television 
advertisement per 1,000 homes has escalated from over $2 in 1974 to $11 
in 1997. Meanwhile, the number of voters candidates must reach has 
increased 42 percent since 1974.
  The voter population in 1974 was 140 million; today it is 200 
million. We have produced a scarcity of funds for candidates to reach 
an audience. In 1980, the average winning Senate candidate spent a 
little over $1 million; in 2000 the average winning candidate spent a 
little over $7 million, an almost sevenfold increase. An individual's 
$2,000 contribution to a $1,000,000 campaign in 1980 amounted to .17 
percent of the total. If the contribution limits were tripled for this 
last election to adjust for inflation, since 1974 an individual $6,000 
contribution to the average $7 million campaign would have been only 
0.08 percent of the total. A $60,000 contribution to an average winning 
Senate campaign in 2000 would be only .83 percent of the total.
  What this all adds into, there is no potential for corruption, none 
based on the 1974 standard, if the amendment of the Senator from 
Tennessee is adopted. If no one in 1974 thought those limits at that 
time, based upon the cost of campaign activity at that time, was 
corrupting, why in the world would the Senator's amendment, which is 
even less than the cost of living increase--why in the world would 
anybody say that this has even the appearance of corruption? Certainly 
not corruption or even the appearance of corruption in today's dollars?

  It is also important to note that these low contribution limits are 
the most tough on challengers. Challengers typically do not have as 
many friends as we incumbents. They are trying to pool resources from a 
rather limited number of supporters in order to compete with people 
such as us. The single biggest winners in the increase in contribution 
limits in hard dollars would be challengers.
  Challengers already took a beating here on this floor when we took 
away

[[Page S2965]]

all of this money from the parties earlier today. We have taken away 40 
percent of the budget of the Republican National Committee and the 
Democratic National Committee. We have taken away 35 percent of the 
budget of the Republican Senatorial Committee and the Democratic 
Senatorial Committee. Parties: The only entity out there that will 
support challengers.
  Challengers have lots of problems. Typically they have a really 
difficult time getting support from individuals and PACs. Now we have 
nailed the parties. At least under Senator Thompson's amendment we give 
these challengers an opportunity to raise more money from their friends 
to compete with people such as us.
  So this is a very worthwhile amendment. I hope we will have an 
opportunity to vote on the Thompson amendment up or down, which means a 
chance to adopt it. We will have that discussion, I gather, at greater 
length in the morning. But it is a very worthwhile amendment.
  I associate myself with the effort of the Senator from Tennessee, 
congratulate him for making this effort, and indicate my full support.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I believe I said earlier I was the only one 
here. I have been told a couple of colleagues may be on their way to 
the floor to be heard on this amendment before wrapping up debate 
tonight.
  I am very fond of my friend from Tennessee. We have gotten to know 
each other a little better over the last number of months. He is a 
wonderful addition to the Senate. He was not unfamiliar with this 
institution prior to being elected to it, having worked back in the 
1970s as a very successful and influential member of the Watergate 
Committee staff, and, having worked with Howard Baker and others, he is 
no stranger to this institution. His participation in any number of 
issues has enriched the Senate.
  So it is with some sense of--again on a personal level, I would like 
to be supporting his amendment because I am very fond of him. People 
might understand those inclinations. But, unfortunately, I disagree 
with my colleague on this amendment. I will explain why.
  I always love this story. When they asked Willy Sutton why he robbed 
banks, I always loved his answer. He said, ``That's where the money 
is.'' That is why he robbed banks. We are not robbing banks, but my 
concern about this amendment is we are going to end up gravitating to 
where the money is. That is what we do. Our staffs and consultants and 
advisers and people who help raise money will tell you: Look, we have 
so much time in a day, so much time before the reelection or election 
campaigns. So if you have an hour to spend, we are going to spend the 
time going after those large contributors. It doesn't take a whole lot 
of knowledge to know that you do not go after the ones who cannot give 
as much. Instead, you go after the ones who can give more.

  My concern is not so much that this number goes up and that people 
who can afford it are going to have greater access and greater 
influence. What is not being said here is very troubling to me. We are 
moving further and further in the direction of seeking the support and 
backing of those who can afford to write a check for $2,500. But, make 
no mistake about it, we should be clear with the American public, these 
numbers are somewhat misleading.
  It doesn't make any difference whose numbers you are talking about. 
Under current law, an individual may contribute a $1,000 per election 
or $2,000 with $1,000 going to the primary and another $1,000 going to 
the general election. If we are talking about amendments being offered, 
Senator Hagel's proposal contained a $3,000 per election, Senator 
Feinstein is proposing $2,000 per election, while there are still 
others talking about $1,500 per election. Those numbers are really not 
a final number. A more accurate number is a doubling of the per 
election number to reflect one limit for the primary and another for 
the general, with the potential of yet another limit for a special or 
runoff election. So every number you read, has the automatic potential 
to double with respect to the individual contribution to candidates per 
election.
  I know very few cases where Members have gone after the $1,000 
contribution and not ended up with the $2,000. That, after all, is how 
it works. Because, as a practical matter, you can give $1,000 before 
the primary and $1,000 for the general election. So when we talk about 
limits here of $1,000 or $1,500 or $2,000 or $2,500, do a quick 
calculation and double the amount. That is the general formula that an 
individual can contribute to a candidate per election.
  My friend from Tennessee proposes a $2,500 per election limit that 
individuals can give to candidates. This number may also double to 
$5,000, because that individual can write $2,500 for the primary and 
$2,500 for the general election.
  You do not have to have a primary, just as long as there was some 
potential contest within your own party for the nomination. Such a 
potential contest allows you to get that additional $2,500 limit.
  But it goes even beyond that. Frankly, people who can write a check 
for $2,500 probably can write a check for $5,000. If you can afford to 
give someone $2,500, there is a good likelihood your pockets are deep 
enough to write the check for $5,000. Under current law, each spouse 
has his or her own individual contribution limit. So that $2,500 
becomes $5,000. If your spouse is so inclined--and they usually are--
the $2,500 under the Senator proposal then becomes $5,000 per election. 
As a couple, the total they can give is now up to $10,000 per election.
  Every single Member of this Chamber knows exactly what I am speaking 
about with respect to fundraising practices because as a candidate for 
this body many have done exactly what I have described. The general 
public may not follow all of this. That is how it is done. When you get 
that person who is going to give you $2,500 contribution for the 
primary, you always say: Can't you give me $2,500 for the general as 
well? In addition you say--Wouldn't Mrs. Jones or Mr. Jones also be 
willing, as well, to write those checks reflecting the maximum 
individual contribution limit per election?
  Under this proposal, we are talking about potentially a total of 
$10,000 per couple as opposed to the current levels of $2,000 or $4,000 
per election, if you will, if both husband and wife contribute. That is 
a pretty significant total increase.
  My colleague quickly answers that his stamps have gone up, the price 
of television spots have gone up. I know that these costs have 
increased. But so has the population of the country and the number of 
people who can write $1,000 checks.
  In 1974 there were not a tremendous number of people who could write 
a check for $1,000 to a candidate. Today the pool of contributors who 
can give $1,000 has expanded considerably. Last year there were almost 
a quarter of a million people who wrote checks for $1,000. That is not 
a small amount of people: 235,000 people wrote checks for $1,000 to 
support Federal candidates for office.
  But what we are doing here by raising these amounts? We are moving 
further and further and further away from the overwhelming majority of 
Americans. I would like to see the average American participate in the 
electoral process of the country. I would like to see them contribute 
that $25 or $50 or $100, $200 to a candidate or party of their choice. 
However, given the average cost of a Senate race today or a House 
race--the numbers of my colleague from Tennessee suggests of around $7 
million, and a House race around $800,000 a congressional district, I 
do not see many campaigns that are going to bother any longer with that 
smaller donor.
  It is the de facto exclusion of more than 99 percent of the American 
adult population who could support, financially, the political process 
in this country, that worries me the most. I am worried about us 
getting overly concentrated on only those who can afford to write the 
large, maximum checks to campaigns. But I am more worried that we are 
getting ourselves further and further and further removed from the 
average citizen. The Americans who could not dream, in their wildest 
dreams, about writing a check for $2,500, let alone $10,000 to support 
a candidate for the Senate or the House of Representatives. They

[[Page S2966]]

couldn't dream about doing that. They may be making decent salaries and 
incomes so they are not impoverished. But the idea of writing out a 
$10,000 check or any such checks that we would allow if this amendment 
is adopted is beyond the average Americans' imagination.
  To some extent, it ought to be beyond ours as well. However, where we 
appear to be going is where the money is. That is what Willy Sutton 
said, and that is what we are saying. We are going to spend our time on 
that crowd because that is the most efficient use of our time with 
respect to fundraising. A phone call to Mr. and Mrs. Jones who can 
afford to make this kind of a contribution are going to get our 
attention. We are not interested in that individual who may be making 
$30,000, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, or $100,000 a year, with 
two or three kids, paying a home mortgage, trying to send kids to 
college. We are not interested, really, because they cannot even begin 
to think about contributions like this.

  That is the danger. That is the danger. I am really not overly 
concerned--although it bothers me--over this concentration of wealth 
and the access that comes with it by adopting this amendment. That 
bothers me.
  What deeply troubles me--what deeply troubles me--is that this 
institution gets further removed from the overwhelming majority of 
Americans. Their voices become less and less heard. They become more 
faint. They are harder to hear. They are harder to hear because we are 
getting further and further away from them since their ability to 
participate is being diminished.
  One of my colleagues----
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. DODD. I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I don't want to break up the rhythm of what the 
Senator is saying. It is very powerful. I do not think I can say it as 
well as you. I would like to ask you one or two questions.
  In this debate I don't believe I had really heard your formulation 
before. We talk about big money, corruption, not individual wrongdoing; 
some people have too much access. You just used the word ``exclusion.''
  There was a young African American man today with whom I spoke. He 
was talking about Fannie Lou Hamer, a great civil rights leader. By 
background, Fannie Lou Hamer was the daughter of poor sharecroppers.
  This is a question of inclusion. If you take the caps off, and you 
are relying on people who can afford to make these kinds of 
contributions, he was basically saying, this almost becomes a civil 
rights issue because it is a question of whether or not people who do 
not have the big bucks will be able to participate in the political 
process, will be able to be there at the table.
  I ask the Senator, is this part of what is concerning you, that you 
are getting away from representative democracy and many people are 
going to feel more and more excluded as we now rely on bigger and 
bigger dollars?
  I have three questions. And I will not take any more of your time. Is 
that what you are talking about?
  Mr. DODD. That is part of it. I said, we are concentrating on who can 
give and how much they can give. Every time we raise the bar on the 
limits, then we are also expanding the number of people who do not, and 
maybe cannot, contribute their financial support. We are not even 
seeking their financial support, only their votes. I think there is 
inherently a danger in that.
  I think it is a positive thing, by the way, that people write that 
check out for $5 and $10 and $20 contributions. In some ways, it can be 
more significant because sometimes that $10 or $25 check from someone 
who is trying to make ends meet. It is a greater sacrifice in some ways 
than it is for some of the people I know who write checks for $1,000 or 
$2,000 or $10,000. That $10,000 in the context of their overall wealth 
is a smaller percentage than the person making that $50 or $100 
contribution who really cannot afford to do it but believes it is in 
their interest. It is part of their responsibility of citizenship to 
support the political process of this country and to support our 
democratic institutions.

  What I am deeply troubled about--I am bothered by the raising of the 
contribution limits because of where I think it takes us, where it is 
ultimately going.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Right.
  Mr. DODD. If you take the numbers of my friend from Tennessee, I 
think it is $400,000 in 1976--Is that right?
  Mr. THOMPSON. It is $600,000.
  Mr. DODD. So $600,000 in 1976, and $7 million in the year 2000. I 
tried to do some quick math--and I could be corrected of course--but if 
you extrapolate from that and go to the next 10 years, to the year 
2010, we are buying into the notion that there is nothing we can do 
about this. It is just going to keep getting more expensive, guys.
  So we are just going to make it a little easier for you to reach the 
levels of $13 million. I think that is about where we go in 10 years if 
the trend lines are accurate and continue.
  I realize there can be changes here because it is not a perfect trend 
line. But if you take where it was 10 years ago, I think in about 1990 
it was $1.16 million----
  Mr. THOMPSON. That was 1993.
  Mr. DODD. Sorry. So that was 1993. It has doubled. It is roughly 
about the same. So we may be talking about roughly $12 or $13 million 
in 10 years.
  So as we raise the bar to make it easier for us to get up there, we 
are shrinking the pie of people who can contribute. Getting smaller and 
smaller and smaller and smaller are the number of people who can write 
these kinds of contributions. Make no mistake about it, that is where 
the money is. That is where we are going to go. You are not going to 
hold $100 fundraising events. You might do it because it is good 
politics. Maybe it will pay for the hotdogs and chips, and so forth, 
but you are not going to have a fundraiser doing that. It is a 
political event. Fundraisers have, as their minimum contribution, $500, 
$1,000, $1,500, or whatever it is as the bars go up.
  In response to the question of my friend from Minnesota, that bothers 
me. What troubles me--what deeply troubles me--is that as that pool 
shrinks of those Americans who can make those large contributions, the 
pool expands of those Americans who are excluded from the process. And 
that is a great danger. That is a peril.
  For us to enter the 21st century having inherited 200 years of 
uninterrupted democracy in this country, the only responsibility we 
have as life tenants, charged with however long we serve in this body, 
is to see to it that future generations will inherit an institution as 
sound and as credible and as filled with integrity as it was when we 
inherited it. To go in the direction we are headed here puts that, in 
my view, in peril and danger because of the very reason we are 
excluding too many Americans from having a voice to participate in our 
political process.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Will the Senator from Connecticut yield for another 
question?
  You might call it a plutocracy, but let me ask you this. To my 
understanding, our colleague from Tennessee is talking about individual 
limits that basically amount to $5,000 for the 2-year cycle. The amount 
an individual can give to a party goes from $20,000 to $40,000 to 
$80,000 per cycle. What concerns me maybe even more is that the 
aggregate limit, am I correct, goes from $30,000 to $50,000, so it is 
$100,000 per cycle?

  Mr. DODD. Yes. I did not get to that, but that is further down the 
line.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Let me ask my colleague this. I would argue that what 
we are now doing with the proposal of the Senator from Tennessee is 
actually making hard money soft money when you get to the point where 
people can now contribute up to $100,000 per cycle.
  Mr. DODD. I say to my colleague, I will regain my time a little bit 
here, and then I will yield to him.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Here is my question. Do you think that when people in 
Connecticut--and I see Congressman Shays is here--or people from 
Minnesota, or people from Rhode Island--people around the country--read 
a headline, if this amendment passes--I certainly hope it is defeated--
``The Senate Passes Reform, Brings More Big Money Into Politics,'' do 
you think people are going to view this as reform? Do you think taking 
these spending limits off and having us more dependent on the top 1 
percent of the population--do you think most people in the country in 
the coffee shops are going to view this as reform, or do you

[[Page S2967]]

think they are going to feel even more disillusioned about what we have 
done, if we support this amendment?
  Mr. DODD. I suggest more of the latter. I didn't get to that part of 
the amendment yet, but the Senator from Minnesota is correct.
  I have a hard time saying this and keeping a straight face. Today, 
and for the last number of years, you could give up to the limit of 
$25,000 per calendar year to Federal candidates. There were 1,200 
people in America last year in part of the national campaign, including 
the Presidency, the entire House of Representatives and one-third of 
the Senate, who wrote checks contributing the $25,000 limit. I think it 
was 1,238 Americans to be exact.
  But now we are saying--This is too tough. This is a real burden. 
These poor people out there, they are upset about this. We have to do 
something for these folks. This is outrageous that they have an 
aggregate limit for each individual of $25,000. We are going to double 
that cap.
  We are going to say to them--The aggregate limit is now $50,000 per 
individual per calendar year. As I have suggested, as a practical 
matter, a husband and wife have their individual limits. If you can 
write a check for $50,000, I will guarantee that the couple can write 
checks totaling $100,000 in aggregate limits.
  My colleague from Minnesota is correct. This is the softening of hard 
money. I don't know of anybody who keeps personal accounts--I am not 
talking about candidates no. I am talking about the average citizens. 
If they have a bank account at the Old Union Savings and Trust, or 
whatever it is, then they have their soft account and their hard 
account. I don't know of anybody, particularly average citizens, who 
segregates their own wealth that way. They write checks for 
politicians. They are told they have to send this to the soft money 
non-Federal account or instead, to the hard-money Federal account. But 
the average citizens do not keep money nor accounts that way. When they 
are writing checks for $100,000 and we say, ``That could be all hard 
money,'' we make the contributor dizzy. They get nervous when you start 
telling them about soft and hard money. Money is money.
  The fact is, it is too much money in the political process. The 
average citizen who hears about this throws up their hands. They shake 
their heads in utter disgust. They must think, what are these people 
thinking about. How disconnected can they be from the people of their 
States and their constituencies. It is not understandable to the 
average American if we sit here with a straight face and suggest that 
raising the maximum aggregate annual limits from $25,000 to $50,000 per 
year, which could total $100,000 per year per couple.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Will the Senator yield on that point?
  Mr. DODD. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Does the Senator realize that the $50,000 he is 
concerned about now, which is doubling the $25,000, would be about 
$75,000 in 1974 terms? In other words, when our predecessors looked at 
this problem in 1974, they decided that for an individual limit for 
that year, it ought to be $75,000, roughly, in 2001 dollars. So 
actually by doubling it, we are not keeping up with inflation.
  In terms of real purchasing power, they were higher than we are 
today. Did they miss the boat that badly back when they addressed this?
  Mr. DODD. I suggest they may have.
  I am not sure I heard my friend from Tennessee talk about statements 
made in 1971 or 1972. Prior to the adoption of the legislation after 
Watergate in 1974, people such as former distinguished colleague George 
McGovern and others who had suggested limits that were higher than even 
what we are talking about. I would be curious to know, had we said to 
them at that time, by the way, as a result of what you are doing, what 
the cost of an average Senate race would be 25 years from now, that 
even with $1,000 limits, we would be looking at a $7 million cost, when 
in 1976, the average cost was $400,000, and if you buy into this, it is 
going to rise to $7 million.

  My concern is, by doubling the limits, we are inviting those numbers 
to go up. We are doing nothing about trying to at least slow this down 
from the direction it is clearly headed in: $13 million in 10 years, an 
average cost of a Senate seat. We are going to make this the Chamber of 
the rare few who can afford to be here or have access to these kinds of 
resources.
  I accept the notion that costs have gone up. I also accept the notion 
that there are many more people today who could make that $1,000 
contribution than could in 1976. It was a relatively small number of 
people then. Of course, that law also had other limitations which the 
Court threw out after the adoption of the campaign finance reform 
measures of 1974.
  I realize the contribution limit is going to go up. I am even willing 
to accept some increase in the numbers. I am not suggesting we ought 
not to have any increase, although I could make a case for that.
  I hope my friend from Tennessee and others who care about this--I 
know a lot of Members do--that we can find some numbers here that would 
be more realistic. The stated purpose must demonstrate that we are 
trying to slow down the money chase. It should not get any more out of 
hand than it has.
  If you don't think it is out of hand--I know there are Members who 
don't--if you don't think the direction we are heading in is dangerous, 
if you don't think we are excluding more and more people every year, 
when you should look at the tiny percentage of people who actually can 
write these checks. During the 1999-2000 election cycle, the were only 
1,200 people who could write checks totaling $25,000 per year. Out of a 
Nation of 280 million people, there were 230,000 people who wrote 
$1,000 checks. Basically we disregard most of the other contributors. 
If you think we are heading in the right direction, then you ought to 
support this amendment.
  If you think this is getting us dangerously close to the point where 
fewer and fewer people are going to participate in the process, then 
you should oppose this amendment. I remind my colleagues that in the 
national Presidential race last year, one out of every two eligible 
adult voters did not show up at the polls. Despite the fact we spent 
over $1 billion in congressional races, not to mention what was spent 
on the Presidential race, one out of every two eligible adult voters of 
this country did not vote. There is a reason for this statistic.
  I suggest in part it is because people are feeling further and 
further and further removed from the body politic. If you will, the 
body politic of our own Nation is being pulled further and further by 
excluding the average American. They do not believe they have the 
ability to have some say in politics. Their voices are being drowned 
out. Average Americans are further and further removed from being 
involved in the decision making process of who will represent them. 
That worries me deeply. That is what troubles me about this amendment.
  For those reasons, I will oppose the amendment when the vote occurs. 
I urge that others see if we can't find some configuration. I am still 
hopeful, I say to the Senator from Tennessee, that maybe some 
configuration here that can be founded. There are a couple of numbers I 
didn't address, such as PAC limits, the State and local parties limit, 
the national parties limit. I don't really disagree with my colleague 
regarding where he has come out on those numbers. In fact, he could 
even move them around a little more. I accept that.

  The number I have objected to is the aggregate annual limit of 
$50,000 per calendar year. There has been another number suggested by 
our colleague from California. There is a possibility of a compromise 
in there somewhere that we might be able to reach. I am not interested 
in seeing us go through an acrimonious debate and having a series of 
amendments where I think people recognizing the realities, could come 
to some reasonable compromise.
  Our colleague from Tennessee has already reduced his original 
proposal by $500--as I think his original proposal was $3,000. He is 
now proposing $2,500 with this amendment. It is presently $1,000 per 
election under current law. It seems to me that if we are serious about 
this, we will attempt to come to a compromise. For those of us who 
support McCain-Feingold, who want to see us send a bill to the 
President that he could sign, then I would urge, between this evening 
and tomorrow, that we might try to find that ground.
  I know that there are many people here interested in doing that. I 
add my

[[Page S2968]]

voice to that. I am more than prepared to sit down with others who may 
be so inclined to see if we can't find some numbers that we can live 
with and defend. Numbers, I hope, that will both restrain the 
exponential growth of the cost of campaigns and not get us even further 
removed from the average citizens' ability to participate in the 
process financially and otherwise.
  I put that on the table for whatever value it may have. I hope there 
is something we can do. I commend my colleague. I mentioned how fond I 
am of him personally and what a contribution he has made to the Senate. 
He has made very good suggestions in this amendment. While I disagree 
with some basic points, there are elements with which I do not 
disagree. I commend him for that and want to be on record in support of 
those efforts he has made.
  My colleague from New York has arrived. I don't know what my 
colleague from Tennessee wants to do.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I will make a couple comments first. I 
thank my friend from Connecticut, who is eloquent, as usual, in his 
advocacy. Clearly, what we are trying to do is reach a balance where we 
have limits that are high enough for people to run decent campaigns, 
and allow challengers in large States such as California, Texas, and 
others to have a decent chance to get a campaign off the ground, so you 
don't have to be a multimillionaire or a professional politician in 
order to have a chance. That is what we are doing--trying to get it up 
enough so they have a fighting chance, while not getting so high that 
we have a danger of corruption, or appearance of corruption. I don't 
really detect that we are in that ballpark yet.
  There is some talk that increasing the aggregate individual limits 
from $25,000 to $50,000 is somehow outrageous. But I don't think that 
the ability to give several contributions, let's say, of $2,500 around 
the country s going to corrupt anybody. No one person is receiving all 
this money. No one person is receiving more than $2,500. So you don't 
have a corruption issue there. And why we are doing something on behalf 
of democracy by limiting the number of potential candidates out there 
who can get $2,500 kind of escapes me; plus the fact that in 1974, 
after the Watergate scandal, when everyone was rather sensitive, shall 
we say, about these issues and we addressed these issues, they came up 
with a $1,000 limitation, which would be $3,500 today. They came up 
with this $25,000, which--I am going to round it off 3 times--would be 
$75,000 today.
  My colleagues heard my reference to Senators of the past, Democratic 
Senators and Republican Senators, many of whom wanted to go higher than 
what we are talking about today. My colleague is correct that I have 
scaled mine down because I had the temerity and audacity to think there 
was a chance that we could index this to inflation and have basically 
actually a little less than inflation. But let's round it off and say 
basically we can have the same dollars they had in 1974, right after 
the scandal of the century, when people were most receptive and 
responsive to this. But I found that was not to be the case. I don't 
think that would have flown. Certainly, Senator Hagel's amendment today 
did not fly. So I came back and said: OK, let's move down from 
inflation, move down from 1974 dollars, go to $2,500. There is no 
corruption issue here. And these other limits, too, let's double some 
of them. We don't double all of them. But let's do something that will 
enhance McCain-Feingold, my friends.
  As you know, I have supported McCain-Feingold from the beginning 
through thick and thin. My colleagues talk as if McCain-Feingold has 
already passed and that the scourge of soft money has totally left us. 
That is not the case.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Will my colleague yield for a question?
  Mr. THOMPSON. Yes.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I thank my friend. I have respect for him and I know his 
commitment to reform is so real. I want to ask him a question because I 
have a concern. I would not go as high as $2,500. I can support a 
$2,000 raise. But that doesn't bother me very much. It is the aggregate 
limit that bothers me.
  A minute ago, my friend from Tennessee who, I repeat, I have such 
respect for on this issue and on so many others, said it is not going 
to one person.
  Why the aggregate limit raise gives me trouble is this. And I ask my 
friend from Tennessee a question. It is true that in 1974, when this 
law passed, the aggregate limits didn't go to one person. Now, however, 
they do--much of it. The reason is a series of Supreme Court rulings, 
as well as all of us, Democrats and Republicans, have become much more 
clever, and I know that people will donate the maximum limit to the 
national party, and the national party then gives that money to the 
candidate in their State, or the candidate they wish to see the 
national party give the money to; and given the first 1996--maybe 
1998--Colorado decision, the party and the candidate can coordinate 
completely.
  So I don't think it is correct for my good friend from Tennessee to 
say the aggregate limits don't go to one person. They didn't in 1974; 
they do now. If my friend from Tennessee had just decided to raise the 
individual limits and kept the party limits the same, I would not have 
much of an argument with him. It is silly to quibble over $500, if I 
believe $2,000 is the right amount and he has an amendment for $2,500. 
But it seems to me that under the new cases and under my friend's bill, 
somebody could donate $40,000 per year to the national party, could do 
that for 6 years, and thereby get $240,000 back to their candidate.
  One other point, and I will ask my friend to comment. If the Supreme 
Court in the second Colorado case rules that the limits that the 
national party can give to the candidate, which is now 2 cents per 
voter age person per State, or per district in the House--but if they 
rule, as many think they will, to eliminate those limits, then it would 
not just be three or four people giving $240,000. It could be unlimited 
numbers of people giving $240,000 to the national party, which then 
gives it back to the candidate, with complete coordination allowed.
  So, frankly, even though I know this was not the intent of my friend 
from Tennessee, I shudder to think that the party limits would go up. 
And unless there were provision in my friend's bill that would not 
allow that to happen--and I think with Supreme Court rulings it would 
be difficult to prevent--I think this would be a giant step backward, 
not because of simply raising the limits but because of all the new 
ways--I will be introducing tomorrow an amendment that tries to deal 
with the 441(a)(d) problem. But I say to my friend--and this is not his 
fault--that even if McCain-Feingold were to pass as is, if the Supreme 
Court rules that the 441(a)(d) limits go, then maybe we will accomplish 
a 10-percent improvement in corporate and in labor changes. True, you 
could not give more than whatever--you could not give $500,000 or a 
million, but you would not accomplish much.

  The reason I am so worried about the amendment of my friend from 
Tennessee is it makes it even easier; instead of saying $180,000 that 
somebody could give in a Senate cycle, or $50,000 in a House cycle, 
they could give $400,000 in a cycle and, again, without those limits, 
out the window everything goes.
  I just ask my colleague from Tennessee, am I wrong in thinking that 
now with the new Supreme Court decisions the aggregate limits are such 
that they do allow just what my friend from Tennessee said he didn't 
want the aggregate limits to do, which is give lots of money--call it 
hard or soft, whatever--to one campaign? I thank him for yielding and 
will give him a chance to answer.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I respond first by saying that, based on 
my recollection, I disagree with his analysis of the Colorado case. I 
do not believe the Colorado case would allow coordination. I believe 
coordination would run afoul--in the amounts we are talking about, 
would run afoul of the hard money limits. Coordination would deem it as 
a hard money contribution, and therefore that is not allowed.
  With regard to the issue of an individual contributing to a State 
party and having that earmarked for some particular candidate, again, I 
think you get into a coordination problem.
  I am somewhat amazed with this alchemy going on here. This piddling 
increase that does not even keep up with

[[Page S2969]]

inflation has doubled, tripled, quadrupled, and now we are up into the 
stratosphere. A couple is automatically doubled. Are we assuming the 
husband is going to tell the wife what to do or is the wife going to 
tell the husband what to do? I am not prepared to assume that. I do not 
think my friend from New York is either.
  Mr. SCHUMER. It depends on the family.
  Mr. THOMPSON. I think the Senator from New York might agree that we 
should not automatically double whatever the head of the household 
might want to do politically.
  Let us get back within the realm of reason. Clearly, the real world 
being what it is, there is certainly a risk of some things going on in 
terms of parties helping individual candidates at the expense of other 
candidates. I do not think you can stop that.
  My point is that the areas about which we are talking are 
infinitesimal compared to the problem we are supposed to be addressing. 
We are concentrating on the tail of the elephant instead of the 
elephant or we are concentrating on the tail of the donkey instead of 
the donkey. We are talking about hard money, incremental increases that 
do not amount to very much in terms of the increase but are very 
significant in terms of their being hard dollars instead of soft 
because it is not union money, it is not corporate money, if they are 
hard dollars to start with. I think we can agree that would be 
progress.
  Again, yes, the world has changed. Perhaps people have gotten more 
clever. They have gotten attorneys general who will give them 
interpretations they like, and things of that nature, but when the 
people addressed this back in 1974, they were talking about much more 
buying power than we are talking about today.
  Again, my colleagues are assuming they have soft money. That is the 
situation in the bank, and now we are talking about the details. I 
suggest that what my amendment will do is strengthen McCain-Feingold 
and ultimately make it something that will be more likely to pass the 
Senate, more likely to pass the House, and more likely to be signed by 
the President of the United States.
  I am trying to help my friends, as I always have, with regard to this 
issue.
  We overlook what is going to happen if we do not make some progress 
in this hard money area. I am encouraged to hear my friend from 
Connecticut say he is willing to talk about it, and obviously I am, 
too, but I have been doing all the coming down and I have not seen much 
coming up.
  If we do not make some progress with regard to this area, we are 
going to create a situation where we have eliminated soft money, and we 
have impoverished the hard money side of the equation. Both parties 
have neglected the hard money side of the equation, the side that used 
to be predominant, by far, in terms of running these campaigns.
  We are going to eliminate soft money, have an impoverished hard money 
situation and have these independent groups continue doing what they 
have been doing more and more.
  People are going to react to that. That will not work. That will not 
work in my estimation. I want to get rid of soft money. I am tired of 
reading all these stories about the money pouring in and this vote on 
this major issue is going to go one way because the Democrats got this 
money and another way because the Republicans got that money. I am 
tired of all that.

  I am telling my friends, if we do that and nothing else, we are going 
to wind up with a disfigured system that is worse than what we have 
today, and we will be back on the floor and all regulations will be 
taken off.
  There is sentiment out there that I think will be energized under a 
few years of the system I just described, and we will be back here and 
people will be making credible arguments that we tried this, we tried 
that, candidates can no longer compete, and instead of having 98-
percent reelection in the House, we will have 100 percent. They cannot 
get any higher than that. Challengers will not have a prayer, 
especially in the larger States. The independent groups will double, 
triple, and quadruple their buys in all of our States. Everybody will 
be running our campaigns except ourselves, and these are just the 
incumbents. The challengers will have no prayer at all.
  That, I say to my colleagues, will result in a reaction that none of 
us want, a reaction to take off absolutely all the limits. I say some 
of us--none of us on the reform side of this issue want. I had to stop 
and remind myself that some of my colleagues think that would be a 
jolly good idea, which makes my point, that we are not as far away from 
that possibility as we might think.
  In summary, I say to my friend from New York and to my other 
colleagues on this issue with whom I have worked side by side, it boils 
down to this: $5,000--let's say you double it to take care of the 
primary and the general election. Somebody can contribute $5,000.
  Mr. President, $5,000 is different than $100,000; $5,000 is different 
than $500,000; $5,000 is different in every way quantitatively and 
qualitatively from $1 million. That is what we ought to be 
concentrating on, but in order to get rid of those large dollars, we 
have to give a candidate an even chance of running so he is not totally 
dependent on that soft money and he is not even totally dependent on 
his party and having somebody in Washington dole out the checks and 
decide which one of the potential challengers has a chance and which 
one does not.
  Hopefully, at the end of this, we will have an opportunity to adopt 
this amendment and still be open for further discussion.
  I reiterate, this amendment strengthens the cause. This amendment 
strengthens the cause; it does not weaken the cause. The fact that 
someone cannot contribute to the limits we might raise, to that point I 
say there are plenty of people who cannot contribute to the $1,000 
limit we have today. We have diminished their freedom when we raise it 
to $1,000, recognizing you have to have some money to run.
  If somebody can give $200, do we diminish their freedom? Are we 
causing their levels of cynicism to rise because we had a $1,000 limit? 
If we have a $2,500 limit, there will be some people who can give 
$1,000 or $500 or $700. Maybe not the full amount. The fact that you 
can give the full amount does nothing to my freedom or to my 
citizenship because I cannot at the present time give as much as you 
can.
  As long as we live in a free country and I can aspire to that, there 
is no legal impediment to me doing that. I do not think we do anything 
to empower those who cannot necessarily give to the maximum of whatever 
level we raise because they cannot do it now. We are getting off the 
focus.
  The focus ought to be on the issue of corruption, which cannot be the 
case. If so, our forbears in 1974 missed the mark, if we say corruption 
kicks in in these cases or the appearance of corruption. The other side 
of the equation, of course, is making it so people can run a decent 
campaign and get their message out and especially challengers.
  I cite, again, the independent study that was done by the Campaign 
Finance Institute affiliated with George Washington University. It says 
from a competition standpoint, upping the individual contribution limit 
helps nonincumbent Senate candidates while having little impact on the 
House.

  I can understand all the positions that my friends who oppose this 
amendment take with regard to it, but one might listen to that and 
think this is something outrageous we are proposing. I cite David 
Broder, I cite Stuart Taylor, I cite almost any commentator I have read 
on the subject. I think I am paraphrasing correctly. It was certainly 
reasonable to raise the limits to $2,000 or $3,000, and of course we 
are coming in the middle of that.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be given 7 
minutes from the time of the opposition.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I reiterate a statement made in my dialog 
with the Senator from Tennessee. I did not hear him actually rebut what 
I said.
  We focus too much on the smaller individual limits which go up from 
$1,000 to $2,500. I have no problem keeping

[[Page S2970]]

them at $1,000. I have no problem raising them to $2,000. Yes, $25,000 
is pretty large but hardly worth falling on a sword in terms of the 
bill.
  There is truly an egregious problem with the amendment of my friend 
from Tennessee, and that is the raising of the aggregate limits. Under 
the new aggregate limits, there is complete coordination allowed by the 
Supreme Court when a national party contributes to the candidate. It is 
an expenditure. There is total coordination allowed. Under his 
proposal, a candidate could give to that national party $40,000 a 
year--this is not $1,000 or $2,000 but $40,000 a year. In the Senate, 
which is 6 years, that is $240,000. Assume for the sake of argument the 
spouse is of a different political persuasion, $240,000 under the 
Thompson amendment going directly to one candidate. That could be done 
over and over and over again if the 441(a)(d) limits go to candidate 
after candidate after candidate.
  There is a serious problem with the amendment of my friend from 
Tennessee. It is not the raising of $1,000 to $2,500. It is the huge 
raise of the aggregate limits. We all know right now people raise money 
for their campaigns in $20,000 bits, the maximum allowable to a party. 
It is limited by the 441(a)(d) expenditure limits, 2 cents a voter. 
Those are likely to go in a month or two. Once they go, it won't 
matter, for most contributors, the contributors of wealth, whether the 
limit is $1,000 or $2,000 or $3,000; they can give to the candidate of 
their choice $40,000; $40,000 to the national party, again, 
constitutionally protected by the United States Supreme Court. That 
national party can coordinate with the candidate.
  This is not a minor increase. That is not simply a rate of inflation 
increase. That is undoing a large part of eliminating soft money.
  My friend from Tennessee talks about it being hard money. The way I 
thought about it, a large amount of individual money that goes to a 
candidate, whether it is funneled through a party or goes directly to a 
candidate, is what we are trying to prevent. You can call it hard 
money, but $40,000 is awfully soft hard money.
  The amendment is a serious mistake under present law. But the only 
saving grace is that couldn't be done very often because there are 
limits on how much the party can give each candidate. I repeat, if the 
441(a)(d) limits are eliminated, which many think they will be, then we 
have gone amok. And we will go doubly amok with the amendment of my 
friend from Tennessee.

  This is not about raising the limits from $1,000 to $2,500. That is 
the least of it. If the Senator from Tennessee were good enough to keep 
all the other limits in place and just raise the individual limit to 
$2,500 or even raise the PAC limit to $7,500, I would have an argument. 
But it would be an argument against the current system. When he doubles 
the amount of money that can be given to national party committees from 
$20,000 to $40,000, he makes it a heck of a lot easier--call it soft, 
call it hard--for large amounts of money to be channeled directly to 
individual candidates.
  If I were a well-to-do person who wanted to aid a campaign, I 
wouldn't give $1,000 directly to the candidate. I wouldn't give $2,500 
directly to the candidate. I would give $40,000 to the Senate 
Republican committee, to the Senate Democratic committee and they, 
then, could coordinate with the candidate I liked and give them all of 
that money.
  What are we talking about? The Senator from Tennessee keeps going 
back to 1974. We are not in 1974. We have had a number of Supreme Court 
rulings. We have had all sorts of consultants who have found ways 
around the law. The aggregate limit in 1974 seemed rather benign. It 
said, OK, you can only give to 25 candidates at $1,000 a head. The 
aggregate limit in 2001 is pernicious because the combination of court 
rulings and figuring out ways around the law have allowed all of that 
money to be channeled to an individual candidate.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I simply say the issue has been joined. 
My position is my friend from New York is incorrect in terms of the 
law, his interpretation of the law in terms of a donor's legal right to 
coordinate or direct the direction of his contribution to a particular 
candidate. I do not think that is a correct interpretation of the law.
  For anyone concerned about that, perhaps the Senator from New York 
and I can get together and hash this out tonight or in the morning, but 
I did want to state that issue. We have a disagreement on that.
  I ask unanimous consent the Senator from Utah be given 10 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, as I listened to the Senator from New 
York give a hypothetical circumstance, I am reminded of the statement 
that I was taught by a lawyer. As the Chair and my colleagues know, I 
am unencumbered by a legal education, so I have to defer to those who 
have been to law school, but I am told that one of the factors in law 
school they teach is hard cases make bad law.
  The Senator from New York has described a theoretical, highly 
unlikely, hard case. If we were to legislate entirely on the basis of 
that theoretical circumstance, we would make bad law. I am interested 
to hear the Senator from Minnesota go on at great length about how few 
people give in these upper ranges. For the Senator from New York to be 
talking about many people giving $40,000 to many candidates every year 
flies in the face of the actual circumstance and experience about which 
the Senator from Minnesota talks.
  As I say, I cannot comment on the legality of the cases that have 
been cited. But as an outside observer, listening to it, I simply say 
we had a theoretical hard case which would, if we followed it, make bad 
law.
  Let me comment on why I am in favor of the Thompson amendment. As the 
Senator from Tennessee indicated earlier, I am one who would be 
delighted to see all limits disappear for a variety of reasons that I 
have stated over the years about campaign finance and its challenges.
  Let me run through a historic demonstration of why the green bars on 
the Senator's chart keep going up. I got chastised in the press the 
other day for quoting Founding Fathers and talking about the Founding 
Fathers--as if they were irrelevant.
  Quite aside from the philosophy, there is much we can learn from the 
Founding Fathers because every one of them was a very practical, very 
real politician. They had to run for election, too. They understood the 
political process. As I pointed out, George Washington won his 
elections by buying rum punch and ginger cakes for the assembled 
electorate. That is how they did it in those days. James Madison 
refused to do it and got defeated. So this issue is not new.
  But when they were writing the Constitution, George Washington, as 
the President of the Constitutional Convention, never spoke except when 
he recognized one or the other delegates to the convention--except on 
one issue and that issue was how big congressional districts should be. 
The original proposal was that a congressional district should 
represent 50,000 people. The motion was made; no, let's cut that down 
to 30,000 people.
  George Washington stepped from his chair as President of the 
Constitutional Convention to endorse the idea that it be cut down to 
30,000 because, he said, a Representative has too much to do if he has 
to represent as many as 50,000 people. That is just too big for a 
congressional district.
  So it was written into the original Constitution, 30,000, with, of 
course, the understanding that Congress could change that.
  I now come from the State that just by 800 people missed getting a 
congressional seat in the last redistricting. Our State has the largest 
congressional districts, therefore, of any in the country--roughly 
700,000 people per congressional district.
  So if you want to talk about inflation in campaigns, go for a House 
campaign that, in George Washington's day, had to go for a population 
of 30,000 people to, today, where the seat represents 700,000 people--
more than 20 times increased.
  So it is not just inflation of money; it is inflation of challenge to 
meet that many people. How do you do it? You do not do it shaking 
hands. You do not do it speaking to Rotary Clubs and Kiwanis Clubs. You 
do not do it by

[[Page S2971]]

holding town meetings. The only way you can reach 700,000 people for a 
congressional seat, and 10 times that or more in many Senate seats, is 
to buy time. That is the only way you can do it. There is no other 
physical way to let the people of your State know who you are, unless 
you are an incumbent who has already had 6 years of free publicity, a 
sports hero--and we are getting more and more of those in Congress and 
some of them are pretty good Members of Congress, but they would not be 
Members if they had not had their names emblazoned on the front pages 
of the papers, a circumstance that is worth millions.
  If somebody wants to start from scratch, run from obscurity, they 
have to raise a lot of money because they have not been on the sports 
pages and they have not been on the front pages. They have not had all 
the free exposure. If they are not wealthy, they have to raise a lot of 
money. Raising money becomes harder and harder to do if you have a 
limit on the amount you can raise that does not grow with inflation and 
does not grow with the number of people in your district.

  The days when Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas could go around 
the State of Illinois and hold debates where thousands of people would 
come and stand in the Sun for 3 hours listening to them are over. We do 
not have that kind of attention being paid to politics today.
  When I run a campaign ad, I do not have to just compete with my 
opponent. We talk as if all the campaign advertising is between two 
opponents. When I run a campaign ad, it has to compete with the 
Budweiser frogs. It has to compete with all the other ads that are out 
there that will crowd it out as far as public attention is concerned. I 
can't just say here is where I am, and put my ad up and my opponent 
says here is where I am and put his ad up because people are turning 
off the ads. They are going into the kitchen for a sandwich while the 
commercials are on. I have to have so many that I cut through the 
clutter of all the competition that has nothing to do with politics. 
And that means I have to raise a lot of money.
  It becomes harder and harder to do that if the limits do not grow, 
either with inflation in money or with inflation in the population I 
represent or with inflation in the amount of competing advertising that 
is there.
  In my first race, we bought ads on all of the network stations, and I 
thought we were reaching the public. Then my ad adviser came to me and 
said we were getting killed in the ad war. I said: What do you mean? We 
are doing fine.
  He said: You are not on cable and your opponent is on cable.
  I hadn't thought about cable. I don't have cable in my house. So we 
had to buy ads on cable.
  The number of outlets keeps increasing and the number of challenges 
to meet those outlets keeps going up. Yet we stick with a limit of the 
amount we can raise in the face of all of these increases.
  So it only makes sense to index the amount we spend, not only to 
inflation of dollars but index to the inflation of the challenge that 
we face in spending those dollars to reach the voter because you get 
less and less bang for your buck, even if the number of bucks goes up 
according to monetary inflation.
  I support this amendment. It is only common sense. It will not lead 
to the kind of theoretical disaster about which the Senator from New 
York talks. It will only make it possible, slightly easier, for 
challengers to get a little traction against incumbents. I still think 
it is not easy enough and I quote again the primary example of a 
challenger who took on an incumbent and knocked him off, which was 
Eugene McCarthy in 1968, who went to New Hampshire against an incumbent 
President and won enough votes in the New Hampshire primary to cause 
Lyndon Johnson to resign the race and announce he would not run.
  Understand how he did that; that is how McCarthy did that. He got 
five people to give him $100,000 each. So he went to New Hampshire with 
a war chest of $500,000 in 1968. In today's money, that is $2 million 
or more. Under today's rules, he could not begin to do that. Under 
today's rules, for him to raise $100,000, he would have to go to 100 
different people and do that five times over. His chances of getting 
that done would be very slim.
  So I endorse this amendment. I am happy on the occasion of campaign 
finance reform to finally be in agreement with my friend from Tennessee 
on something relating to this bill. I hope we reject all of the 
theoretical arguments and live in the real world where this amendment 
makes enormous good sense.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes in opposition.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection? Without 
objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, first, let me say I know how much Senators 
Thompson and Collins believe in campaign finance reform. They have been 
two of the real stalwarts of trying to help us get rid of the soft 
money loophole. So this is a disagreement in which I take no particular 
pleasure, to put it mildly. They have been some of the strongest 
supporters for campaign finance reform.
  I do not agree with their amendment. The limits that are created are 
way too high, and it is going to create some of the same problems that 
the soft money loophole has created in terms of the size of the 
contributions that will be permitted. It will not be through 
unregulated money, the soft money loophole, but it will be through 
regulated increases in the total aggregate amounts which are simply too 
high to create public confidence that we are doing the right thing, 
that we are not selling access to ourselves for large amounts of money, 
that we are not accepting contributions of large amounts of money from 
people who have significant business before the Congress.
  We are at an important moment in the Senate's consideration of this 
bill. It is a point where we are going to have to decide whether we are 
going to hold the line on real reform, which not only means eliminating 
the soft money loophole, which I think we are on the verge of doing, 
but also in terms of putting some reasonable, modest limits on 
contributions so we do not have aggregate contributions that are so 
large that the public will lose confidence in the electoral process. 
They could lose confidence, whether we call it soft money or hard 
money, if the amounts which flow into these campaigns, either directly 
or indirectly, are too large.
  We become addicted to large sums of money. It is easier to raise a 
large sum of money from a few people than it is to raise a small sum of 
money from many people. That is how we got started on soft money. That 
is why it is called soft money. And that is why regulated money is 
called hard money.
  It is hard to raise money with real limits. But now that we are close 
to banning soft money--hopefully--to going cold turkey on the enormous 
contributions that the soft money loophole has let us raise from a 
small number of individuals, now I am afraid we are going to be looking 
around for other opportunities to raise large sums of money.
  It is like a smoker who wants to quit who looks under the sofa 
cushions for a cigarette they may have dropped 3 months ago. We are 
looking around for someplace to still get large contributions.
  The categories for the amount of money that an individual can give to 
a party and the aggregate that an individual can give in any 1 year to 
candidates, parties, and PACs looks to be a very large pot of money. We 
have to resist the temptation--that is what it is properly called, at 
least for some of us--to raise the aggregate limits to sums which to 
the average American seem horrendously large.
  The Thompson-Collins amendment doubles the limits for parties and the 
yearly aggregate, so that one individual, under the Thompson-Collins 
proposal, can give as much as $100,000 in a cycle. That is $50,000 a 
year to the parties and candidates and PACs that the individual 
supports. So a couple could give $200,000 over 2 years, and it can be 
solicited all at one time--from you, from me, from a Member of the 
House, from the President, the Vice President, and the political 
parties--because what is before us would raise the hard money limits.
  It means that any of us can solicit the amounts of money which are 
under

[[Page S2972]]

that aggregate or within the aggregate. That would mean, if this 
amendment passes, we could call up a couple and say: Can you contribute 
$200,000 in this cycle to our party and to the candidates we are 
supporting?
  It is too big an amount. It puts us in a position which I believe we 
should not be in, which is to be competing in this arena for large 
contributions, which have undermined public confidence in the electoral 
process.

  Too often when these large contributions have been what is being 
solicited--in the past with soft money, the unregulated money, but now 
if this amendment passes up to $200,000 a cycle per couple in hard 
money, usually we have gotten into the sale of access, the open, 
blatant sale of access. Nothing hidden about that.
  Just a couple of examples--one from each party because this is a 
bipartisan problem.
  First, for a Democratic National Committee trustee, which is shown on 
the board before us--this is for a $50,000 contribution or raising 
$100,000--a contributor gets two events with the President, two annual 
events with the Vice President, an annual trade mission where the 
trustee is invited to ``join Party leadership as they travel abroad to 
examine current and developing political and economic [trends].'' And, 
by the way, this same thing was used in a Republican administration--
visiting foreign dignitaries at the highest level. So this is not, 
again, a partisan issue. It is the sale of access for huge amounts of 
money. And the larger the amount of money that we permit to be 
solicited, the worse, it seems to me, the appearance is when access is 
so openly and blatantly sold for that contribution.
  That is what the temptation is. There is nothing illegal about this. 
I think it is shocking, but it is not illegal. If we raise the hard 
money limits to this extent, this same kind of sale of access is going 
to continue for the large contribution, which I think is so totally 
disenchanting our constituents.
  On the Republican side, I have a chart in relation to a RNC annual 
gala. This is for a contributor who raises $250,000. He or she gets 
lunch with the Republican--Senate or House--committee chairman of their 
choice.
  I think that is wrong. I do not know how we can stop this kind of 
open sale of access to ourselves for large amounts of money if we are 
going to increase hard limits, hard money contributions to the same 
extent as we see on these boards, when soft money was being used at 
this level of contribution to tempt people to make contributions in 
exchange for that access.
  Another invitation to a Senatorial Campaign Committee event: This one 
promised that large contributors would be offered ``plenty of 
opportunities to share [their] personal ideas and vision with'' some of 
the top leaders and Senators. And then this invitation read the 
following: Failure to attend means ``you could lose a unique chance to 
be included in current legislative policy debates--debates that will 
affect your family and your business for many years to come.''
  So for a large amount of money--in the view of most Americans, an 
exceedingly large amount of money--people are told they can have access 
to people who will affect their family and their business for many 
years to come, and explicitly that if you do not purchase that access, 
for a large amount of money, you could lose a unique chance to 
participate in a debate which ``will affect your family and your 
business for many years to come.''
  No American should think that because he or she cannot contribute a 
huge sum of money they are then going to be unable to participate in a 
debate which affects family and business for many years to come.
  Another one: This one says: ``Trust members can expect a close 
working relationship with all [of the party's] Senators, top 
Administration officials and national leaders.''
  The greater these contribution limits are, the worse, it seems to me, 
the appearance is of impropriety, which is what we are trying to stop.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be yielded 1 additional 
minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ensign). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Supreme Court has held very explicitly, 
in Buckley v. Valeo, that large contribution limits can create the 
appearance of impropriety and that Congress has the right to stop that 
appearance of wrongdoing, that appearance of corruption, as the Court 
put it, which can be created by the solicitation of large amounts of 
money by people in power from constituents who have business before 
them. The amounts of money which we are talking about in this amendment 
are simply too large.
  We should not be tempted. It is easier to raise money in these large 
amounts--we all know that--but we should not be tempted. If we are so 
tempted, we would be on the one hand closing the soft money loophole 
but on the other hand creating the same problem by lifting hard money 
limits to such a level that the same inappropriate appearance is 
created by the solicitation of contributions of this size.
  I commend our friends and colleagues, Senators Thompson and Collins. 
They have been staunch supporters of reform. It seems awkward being on 
the other side from them on an amendment in this area, but I think it 
is a mistake to adopt this amendment. I hope we will reject it.
  Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Mr. President, this morning I was unavoidably 
detained for longer than expected at a doctor's appointment. Because of 
that appointment I was not able to vote on the motion to table the 
first division of the Hagel amendment to the McCain-Feingold bill. My 
vote would not have changed the outcome on this amendment. I would have 
voted to table.
 Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, my responsibilities to the people 
of the State of Montana require that I be in Montana during the 
President's visit to my State. However, because campaign finance reform 
is such an important issue, I would like to submit this statement on 
how I would have voted on the following had I been present in the 
Senate today.
  On the Hollings constitutional amendment. I voted for this amendment 
in the 105th Congress, and I would have voted for it again in the 
107th. This amendment would ensure that Congress had the ability to 
combat the influence of money on the voting process.
  On the Wellstone amendment, I would have voted for this amendment. I 
think it is a step in the right direction because it does not single 
out one group and reduce its ability to communicate with the voters. 
This amendment will create a more level playing field with regards to 
issue advertisements.

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