[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 119 (Thursday, September 19, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1627-E1628]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 FINISH WORK ON CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JAMES A. LEACH

                                of iowa

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 19, 2002

  Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I rise to invite the attention of my 
colleagues to a sea change that is taking place in our political life, 
a change uncontemplated by our founders: the nationalization of 
campaigns for the U.S. House of Representatives.
  Our founders envisioned a Congress made up of members obligated to 
represent the interests and views of widely diverse constituencies. But 
as money has become the lever of influence and as that money now comes 
from national sources, candidates are finding themselves indebted more 
to those who play the slot machines of influence than those they 
attempt to influence--i.e., the voter.
  Many active in American politics may take this money game development 
for granted and may even welcome it, but this change has profound 
ramifications for our experiment in self government that deserve 
careful consideration.
  As we all know, the Constitution sketches the outlines of the House 
in Section 2 of Article 1. What the founders had in mind for the

[[Page E1628]]

body is perhaps summed up best by Madison in Number 57 of The 
Federalist Papers: ``The House of Representatives is so constituted as 
to support in the members an habitual recollection of their dependence 
on the people.''
  The late Speaker Tip O'Neill's dictum ``all politics is local'' and 
our referral to this place as ``the people's body'' symbolize this 
fundamental understanding of the nature and purpose of the House.
  Modern campaigning, with its emphasis on image and short, simple 
messages, and its use of television to project these images and 
messages, combined with the role of special interest money in financing 
increasingly expensive House contests, is in danger of severing this 
defining relationship between Members and their constituents. At risk 
is the disenfranchisement of the American voter. In 2002 several 
factors have combined to make my home state of Iowa a microcosm of this 
troubling development.
  This is the first election following the Constitutionally-mandated 
decennial census and resulting reapportionment of the House. In Iowa, 
re-Districting properly is not the incumbent protection process it is 
in most states. Rather, the state's constitution requires that Iowa's 
ninety-nine counties be grouped together in a configuration that 
distributes the population most evenly among the five Congressional 
Districts without dividing a single county. This approach should and 
has in the past meant a renewal of political life in the state, with a 
new alignment of districts revitalizing the state's body politic.
  This year the district realignment process worked well. The question 
now is whether the outside interest groups involvement has mushroomed 
to such an extent that the nature of our state's congressional 
elections have changed in such ways as to incentivize negativity and 
reward the kind of campaigning designed to appeal to the lower 
instincts of human nature.
  The slim margins of control in both bodies of the national 
legislature, the protection extended to incumbents and therefore the 
status quo in other states, a close gubernatorial contest and a hotly 
contested Senate seat, the closeness of the last presidential election 
in the state and the pivotal role the Iowa caucuses will play in the 
2004 race for the White House, have all combined to make Iowa a 
principal battleground on which this year's political fight is being 
waged.
  As a consequence, money has been pouring into the state from national 
special interest PACs. Our airwaves have been jammed with radio and 
television ads, both positive and now increasingly negative in nature, 
purchased at already exorbitant and rapidly escalating cost. Mailings 
from campaigns and parties cram the state's mailboxes and politicians 
from across the country flock in droves to the Iowa, ostensibly to 
assist this or that candidate, but certainly to boost their own 
ambitions for leadership positions in Congress or on the broader 
national stage.
  In addition, interest groups from across the political spectrum are 
making ``independent expenditures'' on behalf of Iowa candidates in 
unprecedented numbers. These efforts, whether positive of negative 
nature, in the form of newspaper, radio or television ads, mailings or 
the sending in of workers to forward a candidate or cause, are by law 
without the knowledge, much less the control, of the campaigns effected 
by them.
  What is being lost in this cacophonous war of political words and 
images is the voice of individual Iowans, that to which Members and 
candidates for the House are charged principally to attend.
  As many of you know, I have been an advocate of radical campaign 
finance reform throughout my tenure in the House. Since first seeking 
public office, I have refused contributions from special interest PACs 
and accepted support only from individual Iowans, limiting that to half 
what is allowed by law. I have regularly offered to enter into 
agreements with my opponents to limit campaign spending and just as 
regularly been rebuffed, as I was this year.
  Moreover, I also have consistently requested that outside groups not 
make independent expenditures in my races. I have done so this year and 
would like to reiterate and underscore that request now. Outside 
interest groups should stay out of what are intended by the 
Constitution and ought to remain instate voter choices.
  But as important as it is to me, the shifting nature of modern 
campaigns is about much more than House races in Iowa. If the trend 
toward more expensive races and thus heavier financial obligations for 
candidates is not curbed, Congress will become a legislative body where 
the small businessman or woman, the farmer, the worker, and the 
ordinary citizen are only secondarily represented.
  Whatever the makeup of the 108th Congress, I would hope that it will 
give a high priority to finishing the work of campaign finance reform 
that this Congress so imperfectly began.

                          ____________________