[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 127 (Monday, September 8, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5349-S5351]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 
     RELATING TO CONTRIBUTIONS AND EXPENDITURES INTENDED TO AFFECT 
                      ELECTIONS--MOTION TO PROCEED

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 471.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to calendar No. 471, S.J. Res. 19, a 
     joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution 
     of the United States relating to contributions and 
     expenditures intended to affect elections.


                                Schedule

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, following my remarks and those of the 
Republican leader, the Senate will be in a period of morning business 
until 5:30 p.m. this evening. During that period of time until 5:30 
p.m. Senators will be permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each, 
with the time equally divided and controlled by the two leaders or 
their designees.
  At 5:30 p.m. the Senate will proceed to a rollcall vote and 
confirmation of a nomination to fill the vacancy in the Eleventh 
Circuit--Jill Pryor. Following the disposition of the Pryor nomination, 
there will be a rollcall vote on the nomination of Henry J. Aaron to be 
a member of the Social Security Advisory Board, followed by three voice 
votes in relation to Aaron, Cohen, and Chen.
  Following disposition of these nominations, the Senate will proceed 
to a rollcall vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to the 
constitutional amendment.
  Therefore, Senators should expect up to three rollcall votes after 
5:30 p.m.


                            Senator Hollings

  The President pro tempore and I served for a long time with the 
distinguished Senator from South Carolina, Fritz Hollings, who retired. 
Dealing with the constitutional amendment was his issue, and I can 
remember seeing this dignified, handsome, very articulate Senator 
talking about its importance. Before he left he spoke on this on many 
occasions. So it brings back memories--all very positive--about the 
good work that this man did before he left. By the way, he is still 
strong and vibrant, 90 years old or thereabouts, still playing tennis 
and as strong as we knew him when he was here.


        Measures Placed on the Calendar--H.R. 5230 and H.R. 5272

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, there are two bills at the desk due for a 
second reading.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will read the bills by title for the 
second time.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 5230) making supplemental appropriations for 
     the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014, and for other 
     purposes.
       A bill (H.R. 5272) to prohibit certain actions with respect 
     to deferred action for aliens not lawfully present in the 
     United States, and for other purposes.

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I object to any further proceedings as to 
both of these bills.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kaine). The bills will be placed on the 
calendar.


                         Must Pass Legislation

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, as the Senate returns from the State work 
period, we have a number of vitally important matters that require our 
attention. I only mention a few of them. There is a lot more than this. 
The matters coming out of the Judiciary Committee alone would fill this 
whole page and more, but we have been stopped from doing virtually 
everything for the last two Congresses, and so we are not getting much 
done. But I will mention a few of them.
  We need to pass appropriations legislation to keep the government 
from shutting down as it has in the past because of the obstruction of 
the Republicans. We need to pass the extension of the Internet Tax 
Freedom Act; we need

[[Page S5350]]

to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank; we need to pass the Travel 
Promotion, Enhancement, and Modernization Act, which was overwhelmingly 
passed by the House a short time ago; and we need to reconsider the 
issues of college affordability and equal pay for women.
  But the bill before us today is Senator Udall's and Senator Bennet's 
constitutional amendment. The good Senators from New Mexico and 
Colorado have joined together on a very important issue and we are 
going to consider that. The first vote will be tonight.
  We have had in this country a flood of very dark money coming into 
this Nation's political system which is threatening to tear apart the 
fabric of American democracy. During the 2012 Presidential campaign, 
outside groups spent about $1 billion. That is about as much spending 
as took place in the previous 10 elections combined.
  Last year was a Presidential election, so the money this year is 
focused on the Senate and House races. They will again break all 
records. This spike in the amount of money being pumped into elections 
is not surprising, as alarming as it is. Recent decisions rendered by 
the U.S. Supreme Court in the Citizens United and McCutcheon cases have 
destroyed our campaign finance laws and have left the American people 
with the status quo in which radical billionaires are attempting to buy 
our democracy.
  Meanwhile, hard-working families who don't have endless funds to dump 
into political campaigns are expected to sit on the sidelines and watch 
as two brothers try to fix every election in America to their liking. 
And when I say every election--they are involved in elections in the 
State of Virginia--not for the Senate, but they are involved in that, I 
am sure, too--but for secretaries of State, and State legislative races 
in Vermont. All over the country they are spending money as if there is 
no end to it, and I guess with them there is no end to it.
  Hard-working families, though, don't have those endless funds to dump 
into political campaigns. So they just sit on the sidelines and watch. 
When I say that Americans are watching the Koch brothers trying to 
influence November elections, I mean that literally.
  Last week it was reported that Charles and David Koch and their 
political empire have funded 44,000 political ads for television so far 
during this election cycle--44,000. But that doesn't count money they 
hide in other organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce and other 
organizations' ads they helped fund. But we can identify directly 
Charles and David Koch with 44,000 separate 30-second TV spots.
  Putting that in perspective, if for 16 days there was nothing else on 
television except their 44,000 ads, the 30-second ads would run for 16 
consecutive days, 24 hours a day. That is 16 consecutive days, around-
the-clock, 30-second political ads, and that is just from them. 
Imagine--16 consecutive days of nonstop political ads, no 24-hour news 
coverage, no ESPN, no football games, no baseball games, no 
SportsCenter, no reality television, no anything--just the Koch 
brothers' paid ads and deceitful messaging all day, everyday for more 
than 2 weeks. This is the political environment that the Citizens 
United decision has hatched. It is a society inundated by the wrath of 
political misgivings and I guess some of the musings of the two 
billionaire brothers. They are multibillionaires.
  While the Kochs and other special interests are using their vast 
resources to make their voices heard, Americans are being 
systematically disenfranchised from our democracy. To say that is wrong 
is a gross understatement. I don't know how else to say it. Our 
involvement with the government should not be dependent on somebody's 
checkbook. The American people reject the notion that money gives 
billionaires, corporations or special interests a greater voice in the 
government than our own voice, the voice of the voters. The American 
voter believes, as I do, that the Constitution doesn't give 
corporations a vote, and it doesn't give them--because of the dollars 
they have--extra votes.
  The only people who don't see it that way are the Republicans here in 
Congress. They see money as speech. In fact, the Republican leader has 
said: ``In our society spending is speech.''
  If spending is speech, where does that leave the rest of the American 
people? Should their role in democracy be diminished because they are 
paying a mortgage and sending kids to college? Should a family hard hit 
by a recession--let's say they are out of work--does that mean they 
shouldn't have any say at the ballot box? Should families hard hit by 
the recession take a back seat in our government to a couple of 
billionaires? Right now the answer is yes.
  How could everyday American families afford to have their voices 
heard if spending money is speech? Families cannot compete with 
billionaires. Rich families can't, poor families can't, working 
families can't. The only people that would have a vote are these 
megabillionaires who are trying to buy our country.
  They are trying to buy America at every level of government. Why? 
Because they want to make more money. They control vast amounts of tar 
sands, oil, gas, coal, chemicals, and on and on. They want to make more 
money. What they have now is not enough.
  So we are faced with a choice: We can keep the status quo or we can 
change the system and restore the fundamental principle of one 
American, one vote.
  When I was in law school one of the classes I had sent us over to the 
Supreme Court to listen to an argument--Baker v. Carr. The decision was 
on one man, one vote; one woman, one vote. I didn't realize that when I 
was there listening. Frankly, I didn't really understand a lot of the 
talk that went on before the Supreme Court, but I came to learn later. 
I have been in public office now for a few years, and I can remember 
the first time I ran for the State legislature in Nevada. Clark County, 
where Las Vegas is, was really growing at the time, but they had not 
totally reapportioned the State. They had done a little. Clark County 
is only 1 of 17 counties. They had 9 incumbent assemblymen. So I ran 
against those 9 incumbent assemblymen. Now the assemblymen run in 
single districts because reapportionment has taken place because of 
Baker v. Carr. When I was elected in the legislature one person, one 
vote did not apply. They hadn't completed that work yet. So I do 
believe that we should be a society where one vote equals one person.
  Corporations should not have a vote and dollar bills should not have 
a vote. But that is where we are now. We are faced with a choice: Keep 
the status quo or change it. Senators Udall of New Mexico and Bennet of 
Colorado want to change this system. Their constitutional amendment is 
about restoring freedom of speech for everyone in America. Whether you 
are a billionaire, a millionaire, upper middle class, middle class, 
lower middle class, poor, homeless--that is for whom we are fighting. 
It grants Congress the authority to regulate and limit the raising and 
spending of money for Federal political campaigns.
  Senators Udall and Bennet's amendment will rein in the massive 
spending of super PACs, which has grown exponentially since the Supreme 
Court's misguided decision in Citizens United. It also provides States 
with the authority to institute campaign spending limits at the State 
level, which they should have a right to do. This is common sense. It 
is a solution to an issue that is plaguing our political system. Yet, 
instead of joining with us to expel the undue influence of special 
interests from our government, Senate Republicans are doing their best 
to keep the status quo. What they are going to do, Mr. President--we 
are going to have a cloture vote tonight to stop debate on this, and 
they say: Well, great. We will go ahead and support that because we can 
stall.
  They want us to not be able to do anything here. Remember, their 
whole political mantra is this: We have a Democratic President; we have 
a Democratic Senate. And they have done their best for the 6 years of 
the Obama administration to stop everything. That is what they agreed 
to do--stop everything. They have two goals: not allow the President to 
be reelected--they failed there miserably. During the first Congress of 
his Presidency, we had a lot of Democratic Senators so we were able to 
get a lot done during that time, but in the last two

[[Page S5351]]

they have been experts at stalling everything. That is what they are 
going to do again today.
  But we are going to go ahead and vote on this tonight, and we are 
going to vote on it again Wednesday. There will be no amendments. It is 
not a difficult issue. You are either for campaign spending reform or 
not. So my Republican colleagues can stall for time. We are going to be 
very patient. We are going to see if there is a single Republican who 
believes an election in America today should be determined by how much 
money you have. That is what this vote is all about.
  I am going to move this legislation forward regardless of any 
Republican obstruction because this issue is important. Simply put, 
this constitutional amendment is what we need to bring back sanity to 
elections and restore Americans' confidence in our democracy. We must 
overturn the status quo created by the Supreme Court and instead put in 
place a system that works for all Americans, not just the richest of 
the rich.
  It is such a shame what this Republican-driven tea party has done in 
Congress to try to stop everything. Virtually everything is a 
filibuster. I do not know how much longer the American people are going 
to put up with it. These are artificial numbers anyway. Should not we 
be a democracy? We are not because everything in this Senate requires 
60 votes. That is not the way of the Founding Fathers. And, of course, 
a number of the Founding Fathers were from the Presiding Officer's 
State. None from Nevada; we were not a State. But the Founding Fathers 
must be turning over in their graves. They must be looking down at this 
and saying: What in the world are they doing to our country?
  We must overturn the status quo. This is what the entire issue boils 
down to: whether our democracy, as President Lincoln said, is a 
``government of the people, by the people and for the people.'' That is 
what Lincoln said, and we know that is what he meant--or as we have it 
today: a government of the rich, by the rich, and exclusively for the 
rich.
  Is America for sale? The American people want change. They want their 
place in government to be protected. The constitutional amendment 
before the Senate protects working families. It protects Americans. It 
protects their voice and participation in government because our 
voice--not the wealth of a few--is the very essence of American 
democracy.


                       Reservation of Leader Time

  Mr. President, would the Chair announce the business of this 
afternoon.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the leadership time 
is reserved.

                          ____________________