[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 12 (Tuesday, February 12, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H270-H273]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  IN SUPPORT OF THE SHAYS-MEEHAN BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Lucas) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. LUCAS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, this evening the Blue Dog 
Coalition is pleased to take this opportunity on the eve of debate 
regarding the Shays-Meehan campaign finance reform legislation to stand 
in strong support of this important reform.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight as chairman of the Blue Dog Caucus on 
Campaign Finance Reform to voice my support for the Shays-Meehan bill. 
This bill represent real reform, and I strongly encourage my colleagues 
to support it.

                              {time}  2000

  The Shays-Meehan bill is the only campaign finance reform bill that 
effectively deals with soft money and the sham issue ads.
  In 1996, $262 million of unregulated soft money was spent on 
campaigns. Estimates of the 2000 election place that amount of money, 
soft money, at about one-half billion dollars. That is billion with a 
B.
  This money from unrevealed sources has the effect of drowning out the 
voice of the average citizen, and it is often used to run the so-called 
issue ads funded by the wealthy interest groups which oftentimes flood 
a candidate's district just days before an election. These ads are put 
together by unknown, unaccountable sources and are often misleading or 
sometimes simply untrue. Of course, no one knows where the ad came 
from, so no one is called to task for these misleading, sham issue ads.
  As the recent Enron debacle shows, Congress must avoid even the 
appearance of impropriety. I cannot say whether or not the executives 
at Enron broke the law or received special interest as a result of the 
$1,671,000 of soft money they gave in the 2000 election cycle campaign. 
They do, after all, deserve a fair hearing, and we are about that 
process now, but I know that the mere suspicion by the public that 
Enron did receive special treatment erodes public confidence in our 
government.
  There is no question that the campaign finance system is not working 
well for the American people. An individual or corporation can 
literally pour thousands of dollars into the system without identifying 
themselves or what they represent. I believe we can reform the system 
to shift the balance back to the people and emphasize the voices of 
average citizens, not special interest groups, reforming a system that 
will enable us to focus more attention on the needs of all of our 
citizens, educating our children, passing a real Patients' Bill of 
Rights and protecting Social Security and Medicare.
  Campaign finance reform is the right thing to do. While it is not the 
be-all, end-all in government reform, it is a major step in the right 
direction. The confidence of the American people is at stake. We must 
return our government to the people.
  Mr. Speaker, tonight I have several fellow members of my Blue Dog 
coalition who are here to speak. The first speaker we have in the 
coalition to join us this evening, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Boyd), a strong supporter of campaign finance reform since the 105th 
Congress and the Blue Dog communications chairman. I am happy to yield 
time to him so he can speak on this subject tonight.
  Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from 
Kentucky (Mr. Lucas), who has been a strong advocate and leader for 
campaign finance reform since his election to this Congress, to this 
U.S. House, in 1998. I also want to recognize the efforts of the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner), who came into this body in the 1996 
election, as did I, for his strong leadership, and of course we all, 
Mr. Speaker, recognize the leaders in this body, the bipartisan 
leadership that is provided by the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. 
Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan), who have been 
strong and long and tireless advocates for campaign finance reform.
  Mr. Speaker, I came to this body after the 1996 election, and our 
freshman class spent some time together developing what we thought was 
the most important issues that we could work on together. This freshman 
class was made up of both parties, members of both parties that came in 
that 1996 election, which chose together in a bipartisan way the issue 
of campaign finance reform to work on, and so we have been working, 
trying to get the campaign finance system of this Nation reformed since 
that 1996 election.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleagues know that our democratic system of 
government works best when the our individual constituents participate 
in the largest numbers. We have had diminished participation in our 
government election systems over the last 20 or 30 years, and I think 
that diminished participation is due in large part to cynicism. The 
public has become very cynical about campaigns and how they are 
financed and who controls them and so on.
  I think they are cynical because the public believes that the current 
system is skewed to give the wealthiest people in this country and the 
largest special interest groups a greater say in shaping our public 
policy.
  The largest culprit in that cynicism, that causes that cynicism, I 
believe, is a soft money loophole. Closing this soft money loophole 
will restore public confidence into our campaign financing system in 
our elections. Grassroots and personal participation, which we all 
know, the more personal individual participation we have in the 
electoral process, the better our democratic system works. If we can 
improve personal participation and grassroots efforts, then we will go 
a long way toward improving our system and the participation in that 
system, and our democracy will work much better.

  The political parties will once again, Mr. Speaker, become a resource 
for manpower and strategy rather than a conduit for unregulated money, 
which they, over the last 30 years since our last major campaign 
finance reform has happened, and these parties simply in the most part 
now have become a conduit for large sums of unregulated soft money. The 
national parties were healthy and vigorous before the onslaught of soft 
money, and they can be healthy and vigorous again once we eliminate 
soft money. In fact, many of us believe that soft money has broken down 
the effectiveness of our national parties because it dilutes the 
influence to outside organizations.
  Mr. Speaker, the time is now to fix this problem. We need to pass a 
clean bill that fixes our broken campaign finance system. We passed 
this bill, this U.S. House passed this bill in the 105th Congress, and 
it passed the bill in the 106th Congress, under the leadership of the 
people that I have mentioned earlier, but in both cases the other body 
failed to take up and pass campaign finance reform.
  It is time now, Mr. Speaker, that Congress takes the big money out of 
the elections process and make sure that everyone has equal access to 
their government. Mr. Speaker, the President has promised if we will 
send him a reasonable bill, he will sign it, and it is time now that 
the Congress produce that bill that the President will look favorably 
upon and restore confidence to the public in our electoral system.
  I want to thank the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Lucas) for allowing 
me to speak.
  Mr. LUCAS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Boyd) for his remarks.

[[Page H271]]

  Mr. Speaker, the newest member of the Blue Dog coalition and a 
valuable advocate of campaign finance reform, the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Israel). I am pleased to yield him time.
  Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. 
Lucas) for yielding, and I want to thank him also for his leadership of 
the Blue Dog and his leadership on behalf of campaign finance reform.
  Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman just alluded to, I am a proud new 
member of the Blue Dog. I am the only Blue Dog with this New York 
accent, but certainly no less committed to the vital principles that 
the Blue Dogs have been fighting for in this House, and that is fiscal 
responsibility and a strong defense and campaign finance reform.
  Mr. Speaker, last summer I stood on the steps of the New York City 
birthplace of one of the greatest Presidents that our Nation has ever 
had. He happened to be a Republican. He happened to be from Long 
Island. He was Theodore Roosevelt, and his greatest distinction was 
being a crusader for our environment and a crusader for reform.
  I stood on those steps, Mr. Speaker, with our colleagues from the 
other body, Senator McCain and Senator Feingold, and with the sponsors 
of campaign reform in this House, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. 
Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan), and we chose 
the birthplace of Theodore Roosevelt because he understood the 
corrupting influence of special interests on our system of government.
  Even in the dawn of the 20th century before Enron, before the S&L 
scandal, before Watergate, Theodore Roosevelt was somebody who 
understood the corrosive influence of groups who can spend any amount 
of money they want and say whatever they want, however they want, 
wherever they want in these unregulated soft money ads.
  Theodore Roosevelt said one of the fundamental necessities in a 
representative government such as ours is to make certain that the men 
to whom the people delegate their power shall serve the people by whom 
they are elected and not the special interests. We stood on the steps 
of his birthplace in defense of that principle, and the best way to 
deliver on that principle is to pass Shays-Meehan in this House this 
week.
  I cosponsored Shays-Meehan. I signed the discharge petition that is 
compelling a vote on Shays-Meehan, and we are at a crossroads, and, Mr. 
Speaker, if anyone needs any evidence of the need for campaign finance 
reform, let me share with them a conversation I had yesterday in my 
district in Deer Park with some of the senior citizens I represent.
  We were talking about the critical need for a prescription drug 
benefit for America's seniors, for Long Island seniors. One hundred 
thousand Long Island seniors have been kicked out of their Medicare 
HMOs. A million American seniors have lost their prescription drug 
benefit. And we were talking about that problem, and I was hearing 
stories from senior citizens who said, I either cut my food bill in 
half, or I cut my prescription tablets in half because I cannot afford 
both, and one of the points I made is I have introduced with my 
colleagues on a bipartisan basis several different resolutions that 
would provide for Medicare HMO stability, that would answer the crying 
need of our senior citizens. Some of the people said, well, why cannot 
we get these things passed; we appreciate your work, but why is not the 
House of Representatives passing these bills? One woman said to me, her 
name is Shirley Beja, lives in West Islip, she said, you know, why we 
do not have campaign finance reform; when we pass campaign finance 
reform, those other things will become possible.

  When we stop the special interests, when people have as much of a 
voice in this House as the special interests do by flooding our 
airwaves with unregulated soft money, negative attack ads, that is when 
people will be put first. When people, regular people, working people 
have as much influence in this House as the special interests who flood 
campaign treasuries with unregulated soft money special interests 
contributions, that is when we will put people first. Maybe that is 
when we will get a prescription drug benefit.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to close by observing some of the debate that I 
have heard on both sides of the aisle about who Shays-Meehan really 
helps and who it really hurts. There are some Democrats who believe 
that Shays-Meehan will help the Republicans, and there are some 
Republicans who argue adamantly that Shays-Meehan will help the 
Democrats. Well, Mr. Speaker, how about helping the American people? 
How about helping America's senior citizens? How about leveling the 
playing field here on Capitol Hill?
  I thank the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Lucas) again for his 
leadership.
  Mr. LUCAS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Israel) for his comments.
  It is my pleasure to recognize my colleague and a fellow Member from 
the 106th Congress freshman class, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Phelps).
  Mr. PHELPS. I want to thank, Mr. Speaker, my good friend and 
colleague the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Lucas) and the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Turner) and Shays-Meehan and for all those who have 
done so much work in regards to getting this issue this far where it 
should be out in the light of day. We thank them for their leadership.
  I join my fellow Blue Dogs in supporting sensible campaign finance 
reform. I have supported campaign finance reform throughout my entire 
political career, 14 years in the Illinois State Legislature and now a 
second term in Congress, and I will continue to do so until laws 
regarding this issue finally are enacted.

                              {time}  2015

  I would like to start off by commending all my colleagues for working 
hard to bring this issue back to the House floor in such a timely 
manner, especially, as we mentioned, the gentleman from Connecticut 
(Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan), as well 
as everyone who signed the discharge petition.
  Remember, the discharge petition is going to extreme efforts to force 
the leadership to just allow this body, the greatest deliberative body 
in the world, to do what we are sent here to do: to be able to put 
these issues out for everyone to understand them, to educate the public 
of what is going on here, as they compensate our activity. To have to 
go to the extreme of having the discharge petition in motion reflects 
that there is a hard, heavy hand on the process that is trying to 
control true debate, which is really at the base of this issue anyway. 
So I am glad we are at this particular point.
  This is an issue that is important to many of my constituents, so I 
am pleased that the opportunity has come once again to pass meaningful 
campaign finance reform legislation. I firmly believe we must reduce 
the overwhelming influence of money in our political campaigns and 
return to a system based on healthy debate over candidates' positions 
on issues.
  This means abolishing soft-money contributions to national parties, 
which includes unregulated, undisclosed contributions by corporations, 
foreign nationals, labor unions, and wealthy citizens, and restricting 
soft-money expenditures by State parties in Federal elections. This 
also means putting a cap on hard-money contributions to national 
parties by allowing individuals to contribute no more than $57,500 per 
cycle.
  I strongly oppose increasing individual contribution limits, due to 
the fact that these limits enhance the influence of wealthy individuals 
at the expense of ordinary citizens. As someone who represents a 
district in rural southern Illinois, where the per capita income is a 
little over $11,000 per individual and $22,000 per household, it is 
extremely important to me that my constituents' concerns are not 
overshadowed by the large wallets of big business. It is crucial for 
these people to have a voice in American politics, something I am 
fighting every day as we face reapportionment, just to have an area 
down State Illinois, to have a voice in Congress, to speak out on their 
behalf, even if the majority of them cannot provide a monetary voice, 
which so often happens with working people.
  I have received numerous letters and calls from constituents thanking 
me for signing the discharge petition and

[[Page H272]]

making an effort to get meaningful campaign finance reform legislation 
back to this House floor. With the 2000 elections using over $450 
million in unregulated soft-money contributions, there is no question 
that the campaign finance system has gotten way out of hand. We need to 
pass this much-needed campaign finance reform legislation before these 
record amounts have a chance to once again be broken, if you can 
imagine that.
  Back home in southern Illinois, people just want the issues to be 
genuinely, fairly debated; and they want to hear from the candidates, 
where they stand on issues and policies that affect them. They do not 
like disguised, sneaky methods of advertising, ways that promote 
negative, name-calling, character destruction and remarks that are 
hidden behind some technicality or strategy to smear some candidate 
without even knowing who is paying for the ads or who has designed them 
or who is responsible for them.
  It is time we passed this legislation, and I urge Congress to join me 
and my Blue Dog colleagues as we make this effort tomorrow.
  Mr. LUCAS of Kentucky. I thank the gentleman from Illinois for those 
comments.
  Now it is my pleasure to introduce a committed promoter of campaign 
finance reform, the only Member of the House from the State of Kansas 
to sign the discharge petition, a friend of mine, the gentleman from 
Kansas (Mr. Moore).
  Mr. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Kentucky 
for his leadership, and I want to thank the gentleman from Connecticut 
(Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) for their 
leadership in fighting the long fight here in the House for campaign 
finance reform. I think we also need to extend our sincere thanks to 
people in the other body, Senator John McCain and Senator Russ 
Feingold, for their long fight and leadership on behalf of campaign 
finance reform in this country.
  On July 30, the Blue Dog coalition, of which I am a member, initiated 
a discharge petition to force a vote on the bipartisan Shays-Meehan 
campaign finance reform bill. I wish the House leadership would have 
provided Members a fair opportunity to vote on Shays-Meehan without 
that discharge petition last July. But we finally got 218 signatures, 
which is the magic number, that requires the leadership to bring this 
to a vote on the House floor. Now we will have our chance for that 
vote. Now we will have our chance for campaign finance reform.
  Mr. Speaker, there is in this country a national crisis of confidence 
in our election system as a result of the huge sums of money in Federal 
campaigns. This Shays-Meehan campaign finance bill is nothing more than 
a reasonable attempt to clean up our campaign system.
  There is in this country a widely held belief that special interests 
and the very wealthiest campaign contributors have way too much 
influence in our political system. This belief discourages citizen 
participation in our democracy. A ban on soft money and limitations on 
issue ads, together with new disclosure requirements, will make our 
campaigns and elections more open and, hopefully, will counter a 
growing cynicism in our country towards politics and political 
candidates. I also hope, Mr. Speaker, that full disclosure and banning 
huge sums of soft money will increase participation in the political 
process. At a time when nearly half of all eligible voters do not vote, 
we need desperately to find new ways to encourage citizen 
participation. I believe passage of Shays-Meehan will do just that.
  There are people, Mr. Speaker, in our country's history who fought 
and died for the opportunity to vote for the people who would represent 
them in their government. There are people, Mr. Speaker, around the 
world who would give anything they could and would fight and die for 
the opportunity to be able to elect their leaders, to be able to 
criticize their leaders. We have that opportunity in this country; and 
yet only about half of the people vote because of the cynicism, because 
they are so discouraged about our political process, because of all the 
unregulated soft money in our political process.
  During the 106th Congress, Mr. Speaker, I sponsored legislation to 
require so-called section 527, political organizations, to disclose the 
names of contributors and expenditures. Full disclosure should be the 
rule. Passage of Shays-Meehan will continue the important process of 
implementing disclosure requirements that will expose political 
donations to the light of day.
  The negative impact of huge sums of money on our political system can 
be seen in the rapid expansion of so-called issue ads, Mr. Speaker. 
During the 1999-2000 election cycle, about 130 groups ran issue ads at 
a cost of more than $500 million. What are they getting for that money? 
Did Enron get more influence than they were entitled to in our 
political system because of all their contributions? Hearings will 
answer that question, hopefully.
  The amount of money spent on issue ads, which can be paid for with 
unlimited amounts of money not subject to disclosure amounts, increased 
by nearly 500 percent between the 1995-1996 and 1999-2000 election 
cycles. There is no telling, Mr. Speaker, how far spending on issue ads 
will spin out of control in the years to come.
  Television viewers in the third district of Kansas, which I 
represent, in the Kansas City media market, were subject to more issue 
ads, a total of 12,028, than any other media market in the country, 
with the exception of Detroit. These issue ads, run by organizations 
with innocent sounding names, like Citizens for Better Medicare, 
presented themselves to voters across the country as disinterested 
advocates of sound public policy. They are not.
  In fact, these and other groups are funded by special interest money, 
and viewers at home often have no way of telling who paid for these 
issue ads. The American people have a right to make an informed 
decision; and the only way that can happen, Mr. Speaker, is by full 
disclosure, and special interests should not be afraid to disclose 
their funding of issue ad groups.

  The House has passed the bipartisan Shays-Meehan bill twice before. I 
urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass this bipartisan 
legislation tomorrow for the third and final time. I hope and believe 
that if this goes to the President's desk, the President will sign this 
into law. If that happens, the Democrats do not win, the Republicans do 
not win. The true winners in our system, Mr. Speaker, will be the 
American people.
  As Senator John McCain has said on many occasions, it will either be 
the special interests or the people's interests that will be 
represented in Congress. We need to come down hard on the side of the 
American people.
  Mr. LUCAS of Kentucky. I thank the gentleman for those comments, my 
good friend from Kansas.
  Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to recognize the gentleman from 
Crockett, Texas (Mr. Turner), the House sponsor of the discharge 
petition and the policy Chair of the Blue Dog coalition. I am pleased 
to yield to this gentleman for his statement.
  Mr. TURNER. I thank the gentleman from Kentucky.
  We are at a historic moment in the House of Representatives because 
we have the opportunity once and for all to end the contributions of 
large sums of soft money to the political process, a practice which was 
never intended by those who sought to reform the campaign finance 
system in the early 1970s. But smart lawyers figured out how to get 
around those reforms; and we are left today awash in soft money pouring 
in, $25,000, $50,000, and $100,000 at a time, from special interests.
  The connection between those who give hundreds of thousands of 
dollars to the political process and the shaping of public policy 
should be apparent to every American. Those of us who have fought for 
campaign finance reform do so because we believe that the current 
system is destroying the public's faith and confidence in the 
legislative process and because we believe that it is time to end the 
hundreds of thousands of dollar contributions that are polluting this 
political process.
  Enron, we know, contributed over $1.6 million in the last election 
cycle. We do not know for sure what all they got for that $1.6 million, 
but we certainly know from our own experience of common sense that they 
expected something if they were contributing money in the sums of $1.6 
million. The American people understand that those with the big bucks 
speak louder in these halls than the ordinary citizen. That is 
inconsistent with representative democracy. That is inconsistent

[[Page H273]]

with building the kind of government that every American can be proud 
of and have confidence that when we meet in these halls we work for the 
public interest rather than the special interest.
  Yesterday, I had the opportunity to be a part of a press event hosted 
by a group called Committee for Economic Development, CED for short.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. Speaker, this is a group who came to Washington to fight for 
campaign finance reform. No, it was not a group of reformers, those who 
are on the outside looking in wanting the system to change. These were 
people who had been on the inside, who had seen the system work. They 
were a group representing over 300 business leaders who have advocated 
forcefully for the abolishment of soft money and for the passage of 
sound campaign finance reform legislation.
  The business leaders that came yesterday included a wide range of 
very well-respected leaders from across our country. We had people like 
Ed Kangas, the former CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, an accounting 
firm, a man who stated very forcefully that he has seen the system 
work. He stated, ``When government is too intertwined with money, 
Americans will view it as suspect, and at worst corrupt. Businesses 
should not have to pay a toll to have their case heard in Washington. 
There are many times when CEOs feel like the pressure to contribute 
soft money is nothing less than a shakedown.''
  That is from a former CEO of a major accounting firm who has made the 
contributions in soft money, and he is ready to see the system changed.
  Other business leaders who gathered here in the Capitol yesterday to 
speak out in favor of campaign finance reform, including people like 
Frank Doyle, CED chairman; and Warren Buffett, the chairman of the 
board of Berkshire Hathaway, Incorporated. We had George Rupp, 
President of Columbia University and cochair of the CED subcommittee 
that wrote their report on campaign finance reform. We had Harry 
Freeman, the former executive vice president of American Express, and 
dozens of other business leaders speaking out in favor of campaign 
finance reform.
  On the list of supporters of campaign finance reform as published by 
the Committee for Economic Development, we had a former Vice President; 
former Republican Secretaries of Defense, Treasury and Labor; a former 
United States Senator and Republican National Committee chairman; and a 
former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman. These men and women 
understand the way that this system has come to work, and they believe 
it is corrupt and that it is time for a change.
  Charles Cobb, the president of the Committee for Economic 
Development, had this to say: ``The old canard that the business 
community supports the status quo and fears reform has been demolished. 
Business leaders know that the current broken system is not good for 
them or for our democracy. It gives politicians and corporate America a 
black eye, and it skews the decision-making process. More importantly, 
it damages our democratic system, and that is not good for our economy, 
American business or our Nation's future.''
  That is what America's business leaders had to say about the current 
system. It is broken. It must change, and tomorrow on the floor of this 
House we have an historic opportunity to bring about that change.
  The bill to be introduced, the Shays-Meehan legislation, has already 
passed the United States Senate in the form of legislation sponsored by 
Senator John McCain and Senator Russ Feingold. Senator McCain was 
present at the press event yesterday joining with these business 
leaders for passage of the Shays-Meehan, McCain-Feingold legislation.
  All of us who have been involved in the political process understand 
the difficulty that we all face in raising money for political 
campaigns, but we have a set of rules that were adopted in the early 
1970s that will work quite well. They specify that there are limits, 
caps, on the amount that individuals can give to political campaigns. 
We have in the law caps that special interest groups can give to 
political campaigns. This legislation is designed to make those limits 
real again by taking away the loopholes that have been created over 
time by smart lawyers who have told their clients and politicians that 
you can get around the rules simply by being sure that you are not 
contributing in a way that could be perceived as coordinating that with 
a political candidate.
  As a consequence, the American people watch during each election 
cycle a slew of political ads on television paid for by the political 
parties and special interest groups that are paid for not with 
regulated contributions, the source of which can be clearly ascertained 
by anyone who wants to examine the report of a political candidate, but 
which are hidden from public view by a system that has evolved over 
time, allowing contributions of soft money in unlimited amounts.
  This is a system that we want to change tomorrow on the floor of this 
House. Let there be no mistake about it, one of the alternatives being 
offered, the so-called Ney-Wynn substitute, does not clean up the 
current system. It does not ban soft money from the political process. 
In fact, Enron could have given 80 percent of the money they gave if 
the Ney-Wynn substitute becomes law tomorrow.

  The only true reform legislation on this floor tomorrow is the Shays-
Meehan bill. This is the right bill for America. It is the right bill 
for this Congress, and it will return political power to the people of 
this country, to the average citizen who does not have the thousands of 
dollars to pour in in campaign contributions and special interest money 
to this process.
  When those who are leaned on to give this money in the business 
community are willing to stand up and tell this Congress they are ready 
for the system to change, and when many of us who joined together 
signing the discharge petition which allows us to have this debate when 
the leadership of this House refused to bring a fair rule to this 
floor, when the politicians and the business leaders are joining 
together and saying the system ought to be changed, it seems to me that 
the system certainly deserves to be changed.
  Those who take the money and those who give the money are saying the 
system is wrong, corrupt, and it is destroying the public's confidence 
in the political process. We hope every Member of this House will join 
us tomorrow.
  There are many reasons for Members of this House to have questions 
about this change in campaign finance because many on both sides of the 
aisle have become addicted to this soft money. They raise it, and by 
raising it, they secure their positions of power and influence. They 
know that those that they call to make those big contributions 
understand that even though maybe unspoken, there is an understanding 
that those who give the money have the access to the front door of this 
Congress.
  We believe that is wrong. We believe the American people believe it 
is wrong. We believe it is time to change the system. We look forward 
tomorrow to having a victory for the American people on the floor of 
this House.
  Mr. LUCAS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, in closing this body will have a 
unique opportunity to restore a voice to our constituents tomorrow when 
it takes up this campaign finance reform bill. The American system of 
government is too precious to allow soft money to limit the power of 
ideas.
  In the 2000 election cycle, 980 companies and individuals gave over 
$100,000 of soft money into that process. The type of reform that we 
are talking about will protect the ability of individuals and 
grassroots organizations to build on the power of their ideas and not 
be overwhelmed by this big money. I believe that is the way our 
forefathers intended our system to work.
  As one of our friends in the other body often says, because of the 
lack of reform, the big money sits in the front row, and the average 
citizen sits in the back. We need campaign finance reform, and we need 
it now.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues here in this House will do the 
right thing, stand up for their constituents and pass the Shays-Meehan 
campaign finance bill.




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