Congressional Record, Volume 160 Issue 38 (Thursday, March 6, 2014)

[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 38 (Thursday, March 6, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H2246-H2250]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

MONEY AND POLITICS

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. SARBANES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the issue of money

[[Page H2247]]

and politics. I address it knowing that many of my constituents and
many Americans across the country are in a pretty bad mood about
Washington, about politics as usual, about Congress.
They are angry because they feel like their voice can't be heard.
They are frustrated because they feel like somebody else writes the
rules, somebody else makes the policy, and their opinions on issues
don't matter.
A big part of the reason for that frustration and that anger is they
look out and they see these super-PACs and other Big Money campaign
donors and PACs and special interests pouring money into Washington,
pouring money into our political system.
They feel like those are the folks that call the shots here in
Washington, that when it comes time for us to make public policy, too
often the institution of Congress leans in the direction of the Big
Money and the special interests and away from the priorities and the
needs and the concerns and the demands of everyday citizens.
People are pretty smart. Americans are pretty smart. If they are
feeling this way, there is probably a good reason for it. When you do
the research, when you track the numbers, when you look at the amount
of money that is pouring in here, it is no wonder that Americans have
become cynical and angry and fed up and disillusioned. It is no wonder
that the favorability rating--the approval rating of this institution
is as low as it is.
Let's look at some of those numbers. In the 2012 election cycle, Big
Energy--the big energy industry poured $140 million into Congressional
campaigns. That is in one election cycle. They spent another $380
million on lobbying expenditures here in the city of Washington, here
on Capitol Hill.
Wall Street, they were at the top of the list. Again, in one election
cycle, in the 2012 election cycle, the financial industry contributed
$660 million to Congressional campaigns and spent another $490
million--almost a half a billion dollars--on lobbying up here on
Capitol Hill.
Sometimes, we ask ourselves--and I know my constituents ask me, and I
know Americans raise this from time to time--how is it the case that an
industry like the oil and gas industry in 2011 posted profits--the top
five oil and gas companies posted profits of $132 billion?
How is it that an industry like that continues to get taxpayer
subsidies every year to the tune of $5 billion? How are they able to
preserve that loophole when they are making all those profits and they
don't need that taxpayer subsidy? How does that come to pass?
Well, I just read you the numbers. If you are pouring $140 million
into campaigns and you are spending another $380 million on lobbying,
you can keep those loopholes in place.
Why can't we close some of these loopholes that Wall Street and the
financial industry enjoys? The same answer applies. Look at how much
influence is coming from the money that pours in from those industries.
When Americans feel in their gut that somehow their voice isn't being
heard and it is the interests of Big Money that rules the roost around
here, there is a factual basis for that, and it is something that we
need to address.

{time} 1530

Whatever the priority is that Americans care about--whether it is
jobs and the budget, whether it is health care and education, whether
it is protecting our environment, whether it is reining in the
influence of Wall Street and making sure that important regulations are
in place--whatever the priority is that Americans want to see, the fact
of the matter is that Big Money gets in the way of those priorities. It
pours into campaigns; it pours into lobbying shops; and it stops often
coming out of the gate these priorities that everyday Americans put at
the top of their lists. It is no wonder that so many Americans are fed
up. In fact, when you talk to them, when you get them to start talking
about how they really feel, the fact of the matter is that many are
downright disgusted by the influence that Big Money has on our politics
and on our government.
We have got figure out what to do about this. If we want to reclaim
some of the trust of the American people, if we want Americans to have
confidence that their government is actually working for them, we have
got to address this problem. The first step to any recovery is to
recognize the problem, and the fact of the matter is that the
institution of Congress is too dependent upon Big Money and special
interests. As a result, when it comes time to make public policy, it
leans away from the public's interest and in the direction of the
special interests.
So what can we do?
A month ago, joined by 128 original cosponsors, I introduced the
Government by the People Act. This is a first step. This will not cure
all of the ills that bedevil Congress and Washington, and it is not
waving a magic wand, but it is an important first step in Americans'
being able to say: We want to take our government back from the special
interests and Big Money. We want our government to work for us.
The Government by the People Act is premised on the idea that we have
to put ordinary Americans--everyday citizens--at the center of the
funding of campaigns and take that away from the PACs and the special
interests and the Big Money campaign donors. The fact that we had so
many cosponsors on this bill at the point of introduction, I think,
shows that Members of this institution are hearing from their
constituents and understand the anger and frustration that is out there
and recognize that they need to do something about it. Let me tell you
about the Government by the People Act because it is really designed to
make sure that the voices of everyday citizens are as powerful as the
voices of the Big Money campaign donors.
The first thing it does is to provide a $25 tax credit, what we are
calling the My Voice Tax Credit--a $25 refundable tax credit--to any
American who makes a contribution to a congressional campaign in both
of the 2 years of the election cycle.
Now, why did we do that?
If you look at the numbers right now, you will see that a very small
percentage of Americans actually participates in the funding of
campaigns. The funding is dominated by a small group that tends to be
of the more wealthy citizens in society, and ordinary Americans out
there are not getting into the role of helping to power campaigns on
the funding side. We want to encourage them to do that. We want to say
to those citizens who want to support a good candidate who is turning
to them and listening to their concerns: If you are willing to put $15
or $20 or $25 behind that candidate who stands for the right thing, we
will help you do that. We will provide this tax credit to make it a
little bit easier for you to step up and be a part of the solution.
So the My Voice Tax Credit does exactly that. It gives a voice back
to everyday citizens who feel right now like their voices can't be
heard, like they are not empowered to participate in the system, to
participate in the solution. That is why we created the My Voice Tax
Credit, and that is the first important element of the Government by
the People Act.
The second is that we want to make sure that the voice of the
everyday citizen can be loud enough to compete with the big money out
there, so we created something called the Freedom From Influence
Matching Fund. This would provide matching dollars that would come in
behind those grassroots donations and boost them up--amplify the voice
of the grassroots--so that now those everyday citizens can get the
attention of candidates or of Members of Congress who might otherwise
be inclined to go spend their time on K Street or on raising money from
Big Money campaign donors. Now they have an incentive to go do a house
party back in their districts and raise small donations, knowing that
those matching funds will come in behind it, and they will be able to
raise sufficient dollars to run competitive campaigns.
So we combine those two elements to try to change the way campaigns
are funded--the My Voice Tax Credit to promote those small donations,
those grassroots donations, and the Freedom From Influence Matching
Funds to come in behind it and amplify it so the voices of everyday
people can actually be heard, can actually compete with the megaphone
that Big Money has and special interests have. That is what the
Government by the People Act is designed to do--to empower everyday

[[Page H2248]]

citizens to really have a voice again in their own democracy.
The third piece is just as critical. Over the last two election
cycles, Americans have seen the spending by super-PACs and by outside
groups go through the roof, and they have been turned off by it. They
know that there are good candidates who run for office who make a
strong case on issues that matter to the public but that they get into
those last 60 days--the home stretch of a campaign--and suddenly a
super-PAC comes in and pours money into negative advertising, and
before you know it that candidate's voice is wiped off the playing
field. So we said that, in that home stretch--in those 60 days--we
wanted to make sure, of a candidate who chooses to participate in this
system, who chooses to reach out to everyday citizens and lift their
voices up, that that candidate's own voice would be able to stay in the
mix, because that candidate's voice represents the voices of thousands
of small donors and other supporters who have stepped up behind him.
So, in the last 60 days, candidates who choose to participate in this
system would get the benefit of some additional dollars to help them
stay in the game, to help keep their voices in the mix, up to Election
Day.
There is evidence, Mr. Speaker, to show that, of candidates who work
hard to reach out and build relationships with their constituents, if
they can get enough dollars in that final stage to stay in the game--to
keep their voices there, to keep representing the interests of everyday
citizens--then even if a super-PAC or some outside group comes in and
throws a lot of money at them, they can still prevail. That is the way
it ought to be. Candidates who are doing the right thing--Members of
Congress who are trying to serve their constituents and lift up the
voices of their constituents--ought to be able to survive the process
where some outside group is coming in and trying to wipe them off the
face of the map.
So those are the three pieces of the Government by the People Act--
the My Voice Tax Credit to encourage and help everyday citizens
participate on the funding side of campaigns, a Freedom From Influence
Matching Fund that will come in behind that and provide matching
dollars to amplify the voices of the grassroots and everyday citizens,
and then some extra dollars in that final stretch for participating
candidates who suddenly face an attack from a super-PAC or from some
other outside group so that their voices and the voices of the people
they represent, who have invested in them, can still be heard.

I have talked about why this is so important in terms of changing the
perception that Americans have of Washington and Congress, the notion
that if everyday citizens feel that Members of Congress can continue to
represent them because they are the ones who powered their campaigns
instead of the special interests and Big Money being the ones to
underwrite their campaigns that that can begin to restore some
confidence. It won't change it overnight--it won't cure all the ills of
this place--but it will begin to restore some confidence on the part of
everyday citizens that their voices can actually be heard here, that
when the campaign is over and governing begins, this institution will
continue to listen to them because they are the ones who helped to lift
that candidate up on his shoulders.
I want to come at it from another angle for a moment. If you have a
system like this that allows a good, strong candidate who knows how to
reach out and network in his district to be competitive, you will see a
different kind of person coming to Washington. Right now, more than
half of the people who serve in Congress are millionaires. That is not
surprising because, to run for office, you need a lot of money, and you
need to know a lot of people who have a lot of money--that is the
reality--but if you have a system where small donors and matching funds
can lift up a candidate and power his campaign, you will get people
running for Congress and being competitive who in the past would never
have had a chance.
I was recently in Maine or in New Hampshire, and I sat on a panel
with a legislator from Maine. In Maine, they have a system that helps
candidates who reach out to the grassroots be able to assemble the
funds to be competitive. This legislator said, but for that system, she
would not be a member of the Maine State Legislature because she
wouldn't have been able to raise the dollars she needed to run for
office and represent the people in her district, but because a system
like that existed, she is now in the Maine State Legislature.
I believe that we would see people competing for Congress and
succeeding and being elected who right now have no way to access this
place, and those are the kinds of people who represent the broad
American constituency. Another way to begin restoring people's faith in
this institution is if they look here and they say: Do you know what?
There is somebody who is a community activist in my district. There is
somebody who volunteered at my church who decided to get into politics,
who decided to put his name in the ring. Because there is a system for
funding campaigns now that combines small donations with matching
funds, that person was able to run and compete and be elected. I think
that that will lift up many Americans and make them believe that their
voices actually make a difference here, that their voices can be heard.
I want to put this in another context as well. There are many things
that we can do to try to address the influence of Big Money in our
politics. We need more disclosure and transparency in terms of where
these independent expenditures are coming from. I support the DISCLOSE
Act, which is sponsored by my colleague, Representative Chris Van
Hollen of Maryland, because Americans deserve to know where this big
money comes from and who is spending it so they can make a judgment
about whether that is fair and whether the people to whom that money is
going ought to be representing them here in Washington. We need that
transparency and we need that disclosure. That is an important reform.
It is important also, I believe, to try to address the decisions of
this Supreme Court, in particular the Citizens United decision, which
basically took the lid off of outside campaign spending and
expenditures by these super-PACs and other independent groups, and has
resulted in this flood of negative campaign commercials and advertising
to come in in the final weeks and months of the campaign cycle.

{time} 1545

So we need to address that.
There are proposals that have been introduced in this body for a
constitutional amendment that would rein in the spending of these
outside groups. I think we need to address that, too. Those are
important measures that we need to undertake. I also think it is
critically important that there be something that is part of the reform
agenda that has to do with empowering everyday citizens.
If you think about it, disclosure and putting limits on the spending
of these outside groups and super PACs is about reining in the conduct
and the behavior of the bad actors out there--the people who have kind
of gone too far, but we also have to do something to empower and lift
up the good actors--everyday citizens who just want to see their
government do the right thing and who have commonsense solutions and
want the people they elect to Congress to reflect that commonsense
perspective.
That is why we need the Government by the People Act. It would create
a system that would empower everyday citizens. It would allow them to
feel that their voice is being heard and that they are not just
standing back as observers watching the titans, the Big Money players,
the super PACs sort of duking it out in the ring like two professional
wrestlers, but that they can participate.
Everyday citizens could step in the ring and say, You know what? My
voice is just as important as the voice of that big donor, and I demand
to be heard. That is what that everyday citizen is saying. They want
their voice to be heard, but we have got to give them a system that
will allow for that.
We called this bill the Government by the People Act because when I,
and others, listen to Americans across the country, we hear them
saying, We are tired of a government that appears to be of, by, and for
the special interests

[[Page H2249]]

and the Big Money. Put very simply, we want our government back. We
want it back.
The Government by the People Act is an attempt to begin to change
business as usual and to create a system that will give government back
to the people that it is supposed to represent. That is our only path
back to relevancy, in the eyes of the general public. That is our only
path back to restoring a trust and confidence that we need as an
institution in order to get things done, and let me tell you something:
when it comes to relevancy and trust and confidence, we are hanging on
by a thread right now.
When you look at the polls and the surveys in terms of what people
think about Washington, and they feel that the priorities of this place
have become Big Money and special interests, in the minds of most
Americans, our relevancy is hanging by a thread.
We need to do something. The Government by the People Act is a reform
that can begin to reclaim government and democracy and the political
system back for everyday citizens out there that are so frustrated with
what is going on.
So, Mr. Speaker, I am optimistic. I am optimistic by nature. I think
we can get this reform. When we introduced the bill, we had 128
cosponsors at the point of introduction. We have 140 as of today.
I think Members of this body themselves are at a point where they
want to see something different. A lot of Members of Congress are
exhausted by the current system. They wish they could raise money a
different way. They wish they could run their campaigns and fund their
campaigns by turning to the people they represent instead of having to
chase the PAC money and the Big Money and the special interests all the
time.
There is something wrong with an equation where people go into the
voting booth, they pull the lever for you and send you to Washington to
represent them, and the day you get to Washington, you have to start
representing the Big Money and the special interests because that is
the only way you can raise money to fund your campaign.
Let's think about it in those terms. What happens to the franchise
when somebody gets here and they have to turn their back on the people
who elected them because they have got to go raise the money from
someplace else?
What if the place you went to power your campaigns was back to your
constituents--everyday citizens--because you had a system that would
match their small donations and be able to lift a candidate up and
power them forward? That would change the way things operate around
here.
I invite people listening to this to go back through the
Congressional Record and read the statements of Members of the House
and the Senate who announce their retirement and--sometimes within 24
hours--go to the floor of the Senate or the House and talk about the
problem of money and politics and how corrosive it has become.
Liberated finally from the current system by the fact that they have
decided to move on, they are able to stand back and in a clear-eyed and
candid way talk about this problem of influence that comes from Big
Money and special interests and what it is doing to this place.
I want to read you a quote because I think this really goes right to
the heart of the matter. People are fed up with the gridlock and
dysfunction here. We can connect a lot of that to this issue of money
and politics.
Let me read you a quote from 1982:

When political action committees give money, they expect
something in return other than good government. It is making
it much more difficult to legislate. We may reach a point
where if everybody is buying something with PAC money, we
can't get anything done.

Do you know who said that in 1982? Robert Dole, the minority leader
at that time and a Republican Member of the U.S. Senate. That was in
1982.
The influence of Big Money on our politics and on our governing has
metastasized since then, but even then, on the front edge of this
trend, Bob Dole could see what it would do to the institution, and he
was lamenting it.
So a public that is upset about gridlock and dysfunction of this
place needs a solution that will address the influence Big Money has
here. Because that will help, I think, change the whole way in which we
operate. Other Members have made similar comments, as I mentioned a
moment ago.
So, Mr. Speaker, as I said, I am optimistic. I think we have a good
piece of legislation. I think it goes to the heart and tries to address
a lot of the cynicism that so many Americans have out there that their
voice can't be heard.
I want to mention that we have at this stage over 40 national
organizations who have gotten behind this legislation. This is a new
development. We have had reform bills in the past--good ones--but they
didn't have that kind of broad support from grassroots organizations
across the country--civil rights groups like the NAACP; environmental
groups like the Sierra Club and Green Peace; labor groups who have been
out there trying to address the issues of working families, like CWA
and others.
Why are they coming to this? Because they figured out what the
American people have figured out. The good things they want to see when
it comes to the environment or to creating jobs or to making sure
people are treated fairly in this society, all those good things are
being thwarted by the influence that Big Money has over the way this
institution operates.
So they are coming to this fight now, saying, If we care about the
environment, if we care about jobs, if we care about economic justice,
we have to adopt reforming the way campaigns are funded as part of our
own efforts.
Already, within the first 3 or 4 weeks since we introduced the bill,
over 400,000 citizen cosponsors from across the country have signed
petitions supporting the Government by the People Act because they
understand that this reform is meaningful and will make a difference.
So I am optimistic that we can get this done. We are not going to get
it done tomorrow. We are not going to get it done next week. But with
the opportunity to channel in a constructive way some of this anger and
cynicism and frustration that the American people are feeling right now
that their voice is not heard, if we have a vehicle to channel that and
organize it into a strong momentum, then when the opportunity presents
itself to actually achieve this reform, I think we can do it.
I think that if we don't do it, Americans will finally turn away
completely from this place and say, You can't help us any more.
That is what is at stake here: the relevancy of this institution and
the relevancy of this, the people's House, to the people, and until we
address the problem of the influence of Big Money over our system, we
are not going to be able to reclaim the confidence and the trust of the
American people.
So, Mr. Speaker, as I close, I wanted to tell the story of a person
in my district. A couple of years ago, he came to one of my house
parties. He is a longtime supporter of mine. He came up to me after the
House party was over and said, Look, I would like to contribute $25 to
your campaign.
He said, I can't do more than that. I can't afford more than that,
but I would like to do it. I would be proud to do it. I just don't know
if it will make a difference. Will it matter?
He was, I think, saying what many Americans are saying, which is, Do
our voices count? Can we really compete with the Big Money out there?
Is anybody listening to us?
That is what he was saying to me.
If we can pass legislation like the Government by the People Act and
create a new way of funding our campaign that puts everyday citizens in
the middle of the equation, make them the ones to sort of solve this
problem for us, and empower them, then I will be able to say to
constituents like that person who came up to me and was feeling
marginalized by the current system, Not only are you relevant, not only
is your voice important, your voice is the most important part of the
way we power campaigns in this country.
That is the message we need to send. That is the outreach we need to
do.
So we can move with this legislation from a system of politics, a
democracy that is too often of, by, and for the Big

[[Page H2250]]

Money campaign donors and the special interests, to a government that
truly is of, by, and for the people.
I yield back the balance of my time.

____________________