[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 115 (Wednesday, September 22, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1675]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   INTRODUCTION OF THE 527 REFORM ACT

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                         HON. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 22, 2004

  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join with Congressman Marty 
Meehan and Senators John McCain and Russ Feingold to introduce the 527 
Reform Act, which will close an election law loophole created by the 
Federal Election Commission's (FEC) failure to enforce the 1974 Federal 
Election Campaign Act (FECA).
  This failure on the part of the Commission is a long-standing 
tradition underscored by federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's 
September 18 decision in Shays v. FEC, which struck down 15 poorly-
drafted rules promulgated by the FEC that undermined, rather than 
enforced, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.
  Our legislation will require 527 groups to register as political 
committees with the FEC--as they should have been doing all along. It 
also establishes new, effective allocation rules to ensure groups 
primarily focused on impacting federal races are regulated accordingly.
  For too long, the FEC has looked the other way as 527 groups have 
channeled soft money into federal elections, clearly violating the 
letter and the spirit of the campaign finance law.
  The 527 Reform Act does the job the FEC has failed to do--it brings 
527 groups under the same set of rules as every other political 
committee.
  In doing so, it ensures all groups acting primarily to influence 
federal elections play by the rules Congress and the Supreme Court 
intended, rather then allowing some to exist in a parallel world of 
election law anarchy.
  The bottom line is, groups that are in the business of influencing 
federal elections should be regulated by federal election law, and, by 
overriding the FEC's long-standing misinterpretation of the 1974 
Federal Election Campaign Act, that is exactly what this legislation 
will accomplish.

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