[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 166 (Monday, November 17, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14965-S14967]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

      By Mr. DASCHLE (for Mr. Kerry):
  S. 1873. A bill to require employees at a call center who either 
initiate or receive telephone calls to disclose the physical location 
of such employees, and for other purposes; to the Committee on 
Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
  (At the request of Mr. Daschle, the following statement was ordered 
to be printed in the Record.)
 Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce today the 
``Call Center Consumer's Right to Know Act.'' This legislation is in 
response to the mounting evidence showing that U.S. corporations are 
rapidly shifting hundreds of thousands high-tech and service sector 
jobs abroad. Labor officials, business leaders, economists, elected 
officials and ordinary Americans are concerned that this bleeding

[[Page S14966]]

of American jobs will further slow our economy. In addition to the more 
than 2 million manufacturing jobs that have been lost since 2000, some 
have indicated that we may also be witnessing the largest out-sourcing 
of non-manufacturing jobs in the history of the U.S. economy. The 
statistics are staggering. In the month of July 2003 alone, between 
25,000 and 30,000 jobs were outsourced to India. According to the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics, roughly one in ten jobs held by Americans 
in 2001 are now at risk to be outsourced abroad.
  These jobs are not specific to one sector or a select few companies, 
but span a broad array of services, including customer call service 
centers, payroll and other back-office related activities, stock market 
research for financial firms, medical transcription services, legal 
online database research and data analysis for consulting firms. In 
addition, firms involved with software services and business process 
outsourcing are rapidly expanding to a host of different countries, 
including India, the Philippines, Malaysia, China, Russia, Israel, and 
Ireland.
  In addition to rapid service sector job losses, consumers are 
concerned with the growing threat of identity theft. So far, efforts to 
stem this tide and keep up with the technological advancements that 
enable these crimes have done little to allay concerns. This trend 
becomes all the more alarming when millions of calls involving personal 
financial transactions are routed beyond our borders, where they are 
not protected by our laws and law enforcement. Aside from the very 
serious concerns related to identify theft, there is also a consumer 
awareness element of this problem, as very few Americans are aware that 
the person on the other end of the telephone line is in another 
country. Americans should have full information about the outsourcing 
of call center jobs when they decide who they will purchase their 
products and services from.
  The ``Call Center Consumer's Right to Know Act'' is a simple and 
straightforward answer to the challenges posed by these unprecedented 
service sector job losses and growing risks of identity theft. The bill 
simply requires call center representatives to disclose their physical 
location at the beginning of each phone call. Consumers will therefore 
have important information about who is providing the services in 
question and the level of risk involved in proceeding with their 
transaction by phone. This legislation will help American consumers 
make informed choices about who is providing the services they 
purchase, and at the same time, addresses the growing problem of U.S. 
corporations moving hundreds of thousands of service sector jobs 
abroad. Furthermore, my bill will go a long way to restoring consumer 
confidence in the booming call center market and help provide a measure 
of security for telephone and Internet consumer transactions.
  There can be no doubt that the outsourcing of these important 
American service sector jobs abroad has played a part in the jobless, 
or what some call the ``job-loss'' economic recovery of 2003. It is 
predicted that future outsourcing of service sector jobs may provide 
more costly to the US. economy than the loss of American manufacturing 
jobs we are witnessing today. Unfortunately, the economics that 
produced this trend are unlikely to change without a concerted effort 
to both provide companies with an incentive to keep their jobs in 
American and promote consumer awareness of the services they 
unknowingly purchase from other countries. This is precisely what the 
Call Center Consumer's Right to Know Act seeks to accomplish.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 1873

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Call Center Consumer's Right 
     to Know Act of 2003''.

     SEC. 2. CALL CENTER REQUIREMENTS.

       (a) In General.--A United States corporation or its 
     subsidiaries that utilizes a call center to initiate 
     telephone calls to, or receive telephone calls from, 
     individuals located in the United States, shall require each 
     employee in the call center to disclose the physical location 
     of such employee at the beginning of each telephone call so 
     initiated or received.
       (b) Certification Requirement.--A corporation or subsidiary 
     described in subsection (a) shall annually certify to the 
     Federal Trade Commission whether or not the corporation or 
     subsidiary, and the employees of the corporation or 
     subsidiary at its call centers, have complied with that 
     subsection.
       (c) Noncompliance.--A corporation or subsidiary that 
     violates subsection (a) shall be subject to such civil 
     penalties as the Federal Trade Commission prescribes under 
     section 3.
       (d) Call Center Defined.--In this section, the term ``call 
     center'' means a location that provides customer-based 
     service and sales assistance or technical assistance and 
     expertise to individuals located in the United States via 
     telephone, the Internet, or other telecommunications and 
     information technology.

     SEC. 3. FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION RULES.

       Not later than 9 months after the date of enactment of this 
     Act, the Federal Trade Commission shall prescribe rules to 
     provide for effective monitoring and compliance with this 
     Act. The Federal Trade Commission's rulemaking shall include 
     appropriate civil penalties for noncompliance with this Act.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. FEINGOLD (for himself and Mr. McCain):
  S. 1874. A bill to require Senate candidates to file designations, 
statements, and reports in electronic form; to the Committee on Rules 
and Administration.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, today I will introduce with the Senator 
from Arizona, Mr. McCain, a bill to bring Senate campaigns into the 
21st century by requiring that Senate candidates file their campaign 
finance disclosure reports electronically and that those reports be 
promptly made available to the public. This step is long overdue, and I 
hope the Senate will act quickly on this legislation.
  A recent report by the Campaign Finance Institute highlighted the 
anomaly in the election laws that makes it nearly impossible for the 
public to get access to Senate campaign finance reports while most 
other reports are available on the Internet within 24 hours of their 
filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The Campaign Finance 
Institute report opened with a rhetorical question: ``What makes the 
Senate so special that it exempts itself from a key requirement of 
campaign finance disclosure that applies to everyone else, including 
candidates for the House of Representatives and Political Action 
Committees?''
  The answer, of course, is nothing. The United States Senate is 
special in many ways. I am proud to serve here. But there is no 
justification for not making our campaign finance information as 
readily accessible to the public as the information filed by House 
candidates or others.
  My bill amends the section of the election laws dealing with 
electronic filing to require reports filed with the Secretary of the 
Senate to be filed electronically and forwarded to the FEC within 24 
hours. The FEC is required to make available on the Internet within 24 
hours any filing it receives electronically. So if this bill is 
enacted, electronic versions of Senate reports should be available to 
the public within 48 hours of their filing. That will be a vast 
improvement over the current situation, which, according to CFI, 
requires journalists and interested members of the public to review 
computer images of paper-filed copies of reports, and involves a 
completely wasteful expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars to 
re-enter information into databases that almost every campaign has 
available in electronic format.
  The current filing system also means that the detailed coding that 
the FEC does, which allows for more sophisticated searches and 
analysis, is completed over a week later for Senate reports than for 
House reports. This means that the final disclosure reports covering 
the first 2 weeks of October are not susceptible to detailed scrutiny 
before the election.
  It is time for the Senate to relinquish its Luddite attitude toward 
campaign finance disclosure. I urge the enactment of this simple bill 
that will make our reports subject to the same prompt, public scrutiny 
as those filed by PACs and candidates for the other body.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the 
Record.

[[Page S14967]]

  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 1874

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Senate Campaign Disclosure 
     Parity Act''.

     SEC. 2. SENATE CANDIDATES REQUIRED TO FILE ELECTION REPORTS 
                   IN ELECTRONIC FORM.

       (a) In General.--Section 304(a)(11)(D) of the Federal 
     Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 434(a)(11)(D)) is 
     amended to read as follows:
       ``(D) As used in this paragraph, the terms `designation', 
     `statement', or `report' mean a designation, statement or 
     report, respectively, which--
       ``(i) is required by this Act to be filed with the 
     Commission, or
       ``(ii) is required under section 302(g) to be filed with 
     the Secretary of the Senate and forwarded by the Secretary to 
     the Commission.''
       (b) Conforming Amendments.--
       (1) Section 302(g)(2) of such Act (2 U.S.C. 432(g)(2)) is 
     amended by inserting ``or 1 working day in the case of a 
     designation, statement, or report filed electronically'' 
     after ``2 working days''.
       (2) Section 304(a)(11)(B) of such Act (2 U.S.C. 
     434(a)(11)(B)) is amended by inserting ``or filed with the 
     Secretary of the Senate under section 302(g)(1) and forwarded 
     to the Commission'' after ``Act''.
       (c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section 
     shall apply to any designation, statement, or report required 
     to be filed after the date of enactment of this Act.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I am proud to join Senator Russ Feingold 
as a co-sponsor of legislation that will require Senate candidates to 
file campaign finance reports in electronic form. This bill will 
finally remove the exemption the Senate has given itself from an 
important requirement of campaign finance disclosure laws that apply to 
everyone else, including candidates for the U.S. House of 
Representatives and Political Action Committees, PACs.
  Political committees active in federal elections must submit their 
quarterly financial reports for disclosure by the Federal Election 
Commission, FEC. Anyone interested can nearly instantaneously download 
the reports from the FEC website and conduct computer searches to learn 
about the contributions and expenditures of individual candidates for 
the House, non-Senate national party committees and PACs. The current 
problem is that they cannot do the same for Senate candidates and 
parties because of the Senate's insistence on paper rather than 
electronic filing. The FEC must do more processing of Senate paper 
reports than of House electronic ones. This involves printing or 
copying the Senate reports, up to 10,000 pages a day at times, hand-
coding transactions that cannot be automatically processed, and 
keypunching the data into the electronic database. House electronic 
reports do not need the same treatment. The end result is that in 
contrast to the House, information from the Senate paper reports are 
often available well after the election has occurred.
  Due to this problem, voters are not well-informed about the campaign 
finance information of their Senators and Senate candidates. For voters 
who want to consider the nature of the campaign finance support 
received by a Senate candidate and its relationship to Senate 
legislative votes as a factor in deciding for whom they will cast a 
vote, they clearly cannot.
  To address this problem, our legislation requires Senate candidates 
to file their campaign finance reports electronically with the 
Secretary of the Senate. Within 24 hours of receipt of those reports, 
the Secretary is required to forward those reports to the FEC. The FEC, 
in turn is required to make those reports available on the Internet 
within 24 hours as they do other reports. Therefore, electronic 
versions of Senate reports will be available to the public within 48 
hours of their filing.
  Electronic reports are not only transmitted instantly but are more 
accurate than paper submissions because software can easily correct 
mistakes. On the other hand, hand entering of data is always prone to 
error. Furthermore, the data in electronic reports can be rapidly 
searched via the Internet for answers to specific questions. Voters 
will no longer have to go through the time consuming process of reading 
pages and pages filed by Senate candidates or Senate party committees 
to figure out the major donors and their employers, and the major 
recipients of campaign spending. Instead, they can download a filed 
report from the FEC website onto their personal computers and quickly 
locate the information they need. This creates effective public 
disclosure.
  The Senate's current failure to provide its constituents with 
electronically disclosed, timely information is unconscionable. Senate 
filings should follow the same criteria as other campaign finance 
reports. There must not be a separate standard for the Senate. 
Ironically, while they do not currently file electronically, Senators 
and Senate candidates already use electronic software in compiling 
their paper reports. If Senators and Senate candidates can use 
technology to run their offices and websites, why can't they use it to 
better inform their own constituents about how their campaigns are 
funded? Their constituents have earned a right to that information. The 
public interest will be better served and voters' faith in their 
elected leaders will be restored.

                          ____________________