[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 13 (Wednesday, February 13, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S699-S700]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM
Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. President, the Congress may now be closer to
comprehensive campaign finance reform than at any time in 30 years. It
holds the promise of restoring public confidence by reducing the amount
of money flowing into American politics while simultaneously reducing
the costs of campaigns themselves. It gives a fair chance to
challengers, an opportunity for people to bring different ideas and a
broader national debate because we end the dominance of special
interests money.
This can be an extraordinary, even historic week in the life of the
Congress. But the well-crafted balance reached in the Senate is now in
jeopardy. Campaign finance reform has meant a change in various
institutions within our political culture. One of those institutions is
resisting the change. I am speaking of the network broadcast industry.
Just as political candidates would be challenged under the law to raise
less money under stricter limits, and the political parties would
operate under different rules, and the American people would operate
under more restrictions to assure that money did not dominate the
process, the broadcast industry, operating under Federal license in the
use of the public airways, would be challenged to reduce the costs of
advertising for Federal campaigns.
The Congress could have insisted on free air time. We could have
insisted that time be made available for public debate as in many of
the great democracies of Western Europe. Our request was much more
modest. Indeed, our request was to put into law that which we believe
we had done 30 years ago anyway. In 1971, Congress required that the
networks provide advertising rates at the lowest unit rate. Through
evasion, by finding loopholes in the law, the television networks have
evaded their responsibility under the law.
Senators Corzine, Durbin, Enzi, and many of my colleagues offered an
amendment on the floor of the Senate, adopted 69 to 31, on a bipartisan
basis, requiring once again that the networks provide television
advertising at the lowest unit rate in the period immediately before a
primary and general election. We did this because a 1990 audit by the
FCC found that 80 percent of network television affiliates were failing
to make time available as required by law at the lowest unit rate,
meaning that a typical candidate ad sold for 65 percent more than what
should have been charged--65 percent higher costs than should have been
required had the law been followed.
If in this debate on campaign finance reform we lower the amount of
money raised without lowering the costs of the campaigns themselves, we
will have achieved very little. The best funded incumbents will always
find the resources to advertise. The question is, What about those
candidates for Federal office who do not represent popular ideas or
powerful interests? And what of the challengers who would challenge the
status quo, represent new ideas or sometimes unpopular ideas? They will
never have the resources to enter into the national political debate.
The goal of campaign finance reform is not to lessen the national
debate. It is not to bring less political discussion to the country. It
is to have a more vibrant debate, of more varied ideas, less
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represented by the requirement of political fundraising.
If, indeed, the national broadcasters, represented by millions of
dollars' worth of lobbying--and, ironically, the use of their own
political contributions--succeed in removing this provision from
campaign finance reform, not only have we achieved very little but we
add a new distortion to the national political debate.
In the New York metropolitan area, it is not uncommon to charge
$30,000, $40,000, and $50,000 for a 30-second ad. How will these ads be
purchased? This applies in Chicago or Los Angeles or Miami or Boston.
We have eliminated soft money; we are adding restrictions to reduce the
amount of money. The simple truth is, most candidates will not be able
to afford them at all.
The costs have not stopped rising. Since 1996, the cost of political
advertising in some jurisdictions has increased another 30 percent, and
it will keep rising as candidates compete not with each other for time
but with General Motors or Ford or General Foods or Procter & Gamble.
What have we done to our political system when candidates have to
raise money in obscene amounts, from hundreds of thousands of
Americans, to buy the public air time on federally licensed stations,
air time that belongs to the American people, in order to communicate
in the middle of a Federal campaign public policy issues? There is no
other Western democracy that has such a system because no one else
would tolerate it--and neither should we.
How is it that American politics has deteriorated into this endless
spiral of campaign finance, where candidates should be spending their
time thinking of new ideas, challenging each other for the Nation's
future, where Members of Congress should spend their time legislating,
spend time with the American people who have problems--not just the
American people who have money?
How did we get here? How did it happen? It is not by chance. In the
average Senate campaign, 85 percent of the money raised is going to the
television networks. Every year, it is a larger percentage; every year,
a higher bill. Yet the broadcasters are arguing that this is
unconstitutional--we are taking their property.
For 30 years there has been a requirement that they make the lowest
unit rate available. If it was constitutional then, it is
constitutional now. They just evaded the law. Every one of them, when
they got a Federal license to broadcast, agreed to comply with Federal
law and to serve a public purpose. This is no taking. They still will
be able to charge exorbitant fees, just the same fees they are charging
other corporate customers at different times of the year. We have a
right to do it. There is a precedent to do it. And it is fair to put
these restrictions on broadcasters.
Second, they say this will lead to perpetual campaigns, reducing the
cost of advertising so there is nothing but campaigns, year to year,
year after year, all year. The legislation passed by the Senate only
makes the lowest unit rate available 45 days before a primary and 60
days before a general election. There are no perpetual campaigns. The
time limits are actually quite strict.
Then the broadcasters argue that this is such an onerous burden that
they can financially not survive, they can't deal with the cost of
making the lowest unit rate available. They are charging political
candidates $1 billion to advertise. It is estimated that this will be a
reduction of $250 million. I believe the networks, still collecting
three-quarters of a billion dollars in political advertising, are doing
quite well by this system.
Indeed, the reduction from making the lowest unit rate available
would equal less than 1 percent of the $41 billion in ad revenue. If
every other segment of our society can deal with change in order to
restore integrity in this political process--the political parties
forego soft money, Federal candidates eliminate soft money, the
American people live with these restrictions, American business accepts
these restrictions--can the broadcasters themselves under Federal
license, challenged to use the airwaves for the public good, not accept
a 1-percent reduction in ad revenue?
It is an extraordinary irony that the media, having rightfully
challenged the Congress to change the political fundraising system,
having put so much scrutiny on campaign fundraising, has played a vital
role in bringing us to this historic moment. But what an irony. While
the network anchors rail against the campaign finance system,
challenging the Congress to change it, their corporate executives pay
millions of dollars in lobbying fees, as we speak, to lobbyists who
line the Halls of the House of Representatives, and PAC directors who
use the leverage of their political contributions to attempt to
intimidate the Congress into eliminating them from this process of
change.
I hope this provision of campaign finance reform remains intact. But,
if it fails, this Senate will face a difficult moment: The specter of a
new campaign finance system in which the amount of money raised will be
dramatically reduced, but the cost of the campaigns themselves will
continue to dramatically rise.
I recognize that most Members of this Senate can adjust to the new
system. Powerful incumbents will find the means to raise the money. But
what of the young man or woman who has different ideas, one who
represents no powerful interests, who may not live in a State of great
wealth or come from a wealthy family? They, too, would like to serve in
the Senate. They, too, have contributions to make to our political
system. They, too, believe in our country. There is a chance that by
the reforms that we passed they will be silenced; for who among them,
in raising campaigns funded only by hard money, with access to no other
resources, can pay their share of the $1 billion in advertising costs
that are the modern equivalent of a gold soap box that the Founding
Fathers would have had as a restriction to the exercise of free speech?
What free speech is there, what kind of open political system do we
have, if the only means of running for public office is purchasing the
gold soap box of our time, a $1 billion price of entry to the network
television affiliates? Indeed, that is no free speech at all. That is
not an open, competitive political process.
So the next great hurdle of campaign finance reform is now. Do we
hold firm, those 69 of us on a bipartisan basis who insisted that as
fundraising is controlled, so, too, must be the costs?
I ask my colleagues to remain committed, not for themselves or their
interests but for those who would follow us and for those who believe
this political system is open and fair to all those who wish to serve
their country in the years to come.
I yield the floor and 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. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Miller). Without objection, it is so
ordered. The Chair recognizes the Senator from West Virginia.
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