[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 33 (Wednesday, March 20, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2174-S2175]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I know the hour is late, but I want to take 
just a couple of additional minutes to talk about the campaign finance 
legislation that passed today. I very much appreciate the indulgence of 
the Presiding Officer. I just have a few minutes I want to use to 
discuss the landmark bill that passed today.
  First, as so many colleagues, I salute Senators McCain and Feingold. 
They are a model of what it takes to get a tough proposal through the 
Congress. They simply would not take no, literally. From the time I 
came to the Senate, both of them double-teamed me and made it clear 
they were going to stay at it until I had come around to the value of 
supporting their legislation. In fact, I went on record in support of 
the legislation as soon as I came to the Senate, and I wanted to talk 
to them about some additional ways to strengthen the bill.
  One of those additional proposals has become a part of the 
legislation that passed the Senate today. I want to touch on it 
briefly.
  I offered this proposal with our friend and colleague, Senator Susan 
Collins of Maine. It is called the stand-by-your-ad requirement. It is 
a significant step forward in promoting accountability in the political 
process. It will provide a meaningful step to slow the corrosion of the 
political process and essentially the corrosion that springs from a 
lack of Federal responsibility when Federal candidates take to the 
airwaves to win elections but do not want to be held accountable.
  The stand-by-your-ad proposal that was included in the legislation we 
voted on today is straightforward. It says simply that to qualify for 
the special advertising discount given to candidates now for Federal 
office, those candidates have to personally stand by any mention of an 
opponent in a radio or television ad by placing a photo on the screen 
and stating he or she personally approved the broadcast or personally 
identify themselves in a radio ad and reading a statement saying they 
have approved the ad.
  First amendment rights are protected under this proposal. Candidates 
can say anything they please. They just have to personally stand by 
their remarks to get the discount. They can say anything they want, 
however farfetched and however extreme. As long as it is allowed under 
Federal law, they can still say it. To get the discount, if they are 
going to attack their opponent--of course, that is almost invariably 
what happens when you mention an opponent in an ad--they have to stand 
by that ad and personally be held accountable.
  If a candidate chooses not to stand by a reference to an opponent, 
they will buy their ad time at a rate comparable to that charged a 
commercial user at the station.
  Take Nebraska, Oregon, or any part of the country. What happens now, 
in effect, is the local car dealer or restaurant or other private 
sector firm has to pay more for various ads because there are subsidies 
that are given for political campaigns. We are saying that to get those 
subsidies, to get those discounts, you have to stand by your ad. A 
candidate who is going to say something positive or negative about an 
opponent has to own up to it, not just edit together a bunch of shadowy 
pictures to cover up the fact he or she is the one making the 
statement.
  What this means is that if you want to get the discount with respect 
to your campaign, you are not going to be able to hide anymore behind 
those grainy pictures and bloodcurdling music. You are not going to be 
able to paint your opponent as somebody who looks like they just came 
out of prison and has not had a chance to get cleaned up and has had 
every possible dastardly act impugned to them. You are not going to be 
able to do that any longer. You are going to have to own up to what you 
say and not just run these grainy pictures and frighten kids and 
families with bloodcurdling music in an effort to score points at your 
opponent's expense.

  As the Chair knows, we are all campaign veterans in this body and 
know a little bit about how in a campaign the sucker punches happen. 
They are not made on the stump while the candidate stands there with 
the band and bunting all around. They are made on TV; they are made on 
radio when the announcer's voice comes on in the most sinister way and 
shadowy pictures appear saying a vote for your opponent is pretty much 
a vote to end Western civilization. That is what happens in a campaign. 
You have again and again portrayed your opponent not as somebody with 
whom you disagree on the issues but someone who is going to be a threat 
to the American way of life, and

[[Page S2175]]

the accusing candidate's face and voice are nowhere to be found, and it 
is easy for folks to forget--conveniently to forget--who is doing the 
attacking.
  I bring a special awareness to this issue because in the Senate 
special election with Senator Smith, with whom I work on a great many 
issues and publish a bipartisan agenda at the start of each Congress, 
meeting me more than halfway as a colleague and friend in the Senate, 
he and I were in a campaign that was completely and totally out of 
hand, and many Oregonians simply did not want to vote. They got to the 
point where they said: The stench in this debate on both sides is so 
great, we are turned off the political process altogether.
  I made the judgment in that race that I was going to take all the ads 
off the air about Senator Smith. I said: This is not what I went into 
public service for--to attack somebody else. The reason I got involved 
with the Gray Panthers--and I was codirector of the senior citizens 
group for 7 years before I was elected to the House--is because I was 
interested in ideas, the best ideas. I did not care if they were 
Democratic or Republican ideas. Oregon on a bipartisan basis came up 
with breakthroughs in home health care and a variety of other ways to 
serve senior citizens.
  I looked at what was happening in the Senate special election and 
said: This is completely contrary to everything I have stood for since 
my days with the Gray Panthers and contrary to all the reasons for 
which I went into public service. I went into public service to offer 
ideas and creative suggestions for making my State and my country a 
better place, and all of a sudden in that Senate special election, I 
was not recognizing what was being said in my name because all of it 
was just the opposite of positive. It was just attack, attack, attack.
  My colleague, Senator Smith, to his credit, shares my view that our 
campaigns got completely out of hand.
  For about 3 weeks, the people of Oregon had balance in their hand. I 
made no reference to Senator Smith at all. I took all of the ads off 
the air that mentioned his name and talked only about the kinds of 
initiatives I wanted to pursue, issues we talked about in the Senate 
today such as the bipartisan proposal Senator Snowe and I have on 
prescription drugs.
  I admit I come to this question of attack ads colored by a truly 
searing experience I had in 1996 and it is why Senator Collins and I 
felt so strongly about trying to make this change.
  I think owning up to statements about what a candidate says about 
their opponent is going to make a difference. I think it is going to 
cause a candidate to think twice before they go forward with these 
negative blitzes on their opponents. I am going to be frank. That is 
what I wanted to see American politics be all about after 1996. That is 
why I have tried to keep it positive and to focus on areas where in the 
public policy arena people can be helped, people can be empowered, and 
they can make choices that make a difference for their lives.
  Certainly the debate on campaign finance reform has been contentious, 
but I think we can all agree that reasonable ideas can help clean up 
this process, reasonable ideas can help drain the swamp that has become 
the way political campaigns are financed and run in much of this 
country.
  I believe the stand-by-your-ad proposal, which holds candidates 
accountable, and which I was honored to have a chance to work with 
Senator Collins of Maine, is going to help clean up campaigns. It is 
going to help make candidates more accountable and make the politics 
and political discourse in this country more positive and more open.
  I yield the floor.

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