[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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