[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 128 (Tuesday, September 9, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5391-S5398]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  ISIS

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the situation that 
the United States is facing regarding the new terrorist threat from the 
new caliphate--so-called caliphate state of ISIS.
  The President has announced that tomorrow he will address the 
American people and explain what he proposes to do about this new 
situation that faces us, this Islamic state of Iraq and Syria, 
otherwise called ISIS or IS.
  We are at a critical moment facing a serious danger, and now is the 
time to act together. For action to be effective, it needs our united 
support. That is why the President's address tomorrow is so important.
  I was alarmed by his admission in a press conference 10 days ago that 
he had no strategic policy in mind. So I welcome this opportunity now 
to learn what this strategy is, and I truly hope that it will be 
articulated fully and completely with clarity so that not only the 
American people but their representatives here in the House and the 
Senate know exactly what the President intends on doing and proposing.
  The unspeakable depravities committed by ISIS seem to have no limits. 
The alarm bells have become louder as ISIS henchmen continue their 
beheadings and their brutality and their barbarism. One of the most 
acute dangers ISIS poses is the wide scope of their ambitions.
  First Syria, then Iraq, now Lebanon, later possibly Jordan, Saudi 
Arabia, and others are in their target sites.
  ISIS is now widely and correctly judged to be the largest, best 
organized, best financed, most capable, and most ambitious terrorist 
organization in history.
  So when the President explains his plan to degrade and defeat ISIS, I 
plan to carefully examine it and look through what I believe are the 
essential elements and hallmarks necessary for us to succeed: its 
determination, its courage, its resources to enact the plan, its vision 
for where we want to

[[Page S5392]]

go, a clearly outlined goal that we want to achieve, and a realism that 
we can be successful.
  President Obama must outline the task of defending our Nation and 
degrading and defeating ISIS and clearly lay out before us how we will 
accomplish this.
  When I first addressed this subject last month, I outlined five areas 
in which I believed urgent action was required, and I hope the 
President's plan will include these five areas.
  First, as I have just said, I called for the Obama administration to 
articulate their own plan to confront ISIS and protect America. I trust 
this will happen tomorrow.
  Second, I called for a vigorous, concerted push with Islamic states 
and communities to stand up to the outrageous ISIS perversion of their 
religion and their culture. We haven't seen outrage in the region from 
those moderates, the leadership, the political as well as the people 
who simply see this action of ISIS as a perversion of their religion. 
As destructive and brutal as it is, where have they been? It is time 
for them to step up. I believe we must make a concerted push with 
Islamic states and communities to stand up to this outrage that is 
taking place.
  We should work with all political and religious authorities to speak 
out about how their faith and their culture is being co-opted and 
perverted by these ISIS criminals. We then must press them to take 
effective action to undercut the popular, political, and economic 
support ISIS extremists are getting. Genuine Muslim leaders--imams and 
others--need to take center stage to discredit the violent radicals and 
weaken their outreach and recruitment among Muslim youth.
  Third, last month I called for much greater security assistance for 
our potential partners in this fight against ISIS. The United States 
should move quickly to provide arms, training, and other requested 
assistance to Iraqi Kurdistan's Peshmerga forces and to other states 
that need and request support and will work with us to address this 
challenge. We need to find effective ways to support and directly arm 
the reliable, vetted Sunni tribes and Sunni leaders in Iraq who are 
essential partners in combating this ISIS extremism that ultimately are 
Sunni Islam's greatest interest and threat.
  Fourth, it is clear ISIS cannot be defeated without our 
participation. Therefore, I believe our current bombing campaign 
against ISIS targets should be continued and expanded to include ISIS 
bases in Syria.
  If we have learned anything from the wars in Vietnam, Korea and 
Serbia and our experience along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, we 
have learned the futility of attacking military forces that have safe 
haven bases just across the border or nearby leads to less than success 
and leads to potential defeat.
  Fifth, and lastly, I believe we need to address new dangers to our 
homeland by reassessing border security and determining whether it can 
be improved to address the threat of foreign fighters returning to the 
United States.
  The threat of Western, homegrown, radical, and violent jihadist 
terrorists is real and it is growing. We know that. ISIS boasts that 
they have trained and motivated fighters who are already embedded in 
many countries throughout the world and that they have their sights 
trained on the United States and Europe. There is no reason to 
disbelieve them. So we must respond to this threat to our country in 
every possible way.
  One effective step is to reevaluate our entry procedures, including 
the Visa Waiver Program. I know this is controversial. I know countries 
that have been loyal allies will raise alarms. But we have to 
understand that we need to conduct a thorough, candid assessment of how 
this Visa Waiver Program affects our national security interests and 
whether there are changes to the program that would enhance our 
security.

  Similar reviews of our refugee and asylum policies are also 
necessary. As the ranking member of the Appropriations Homeland 
Security Subcommittee and a member of the Select Committee on 
Intelligence, I will seek such an assessment and pursue legislation 
that is responsive to the new danger we face.
  In conclusion, when President Obama unveils his strategy to defeat 
ISIS--not manage ISIS, not contain ISIS, but to defeat ISIS--I am 
hopeful his presentation will include at least the essential elements I 
talked about: clarity and coherence, sound diplomacy to bring Muslim 
nations and communities into firm opposition to ISIS extremism, 
appropriate expanded security assistance to partners in the struggle, 
enhanced military action to include Syria, and greater attention to 
border security.
  If what the President says tomorrow includes these elements, and 
hopefully more, then I will look very carefully as to how I can support 
the President and the strategy and encourage my colleagues to do the 
same, because I believe it is essential that to succeed against this 
threat, we need to speak with one voice.
  We need to be united as Americans--as a Congress and Americans 
throughout the country in terms of the nature of the threat, what we 
need to do to address it, and the plan and strategy to successfully 
achieve that goal.
  If it falls short, then I hope the Congress can work with the 
President to bring about the necessary steps to give us every 
opportunity to succeed in this challenging task. I hope we don't come 
to that point. I hope we can unite. I look forward to carefully 
examining the proposal. I trust we will be receiving at last leadership 
from the President of the United States and his team in terms of 
addressing what I think is a major crisis that cannot wait, cannot be 
managed. It cannot be classified as hoping something will work out.
  The world is yearning for leadership. On matters of foreign policy, 
it looks to the United States and it looks to the leader of the United 
States. We need to restore their confidence that we are taking this 
threat seriously and that we are engaging in an effort to address this 
successfully.
  So we wait with great anticipation for the remarks of the President 
that will occur tomorrow.
  I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, during the past month, two American 
journalists were murdered by a fanatical Islamic terrorist group, the 
Islamic State, known as ISIL. The murder of these two journalists is 
part of a campaign of horrific brutality that has included 
crucifixions, rape, the slaughter of civilians, and prosecution of 
religious minorities, including Christians and Yazidis.
  Currently ISIL holds large sections of land in both Iraq and Syria, 
and the group has made clear that its ambitions extend even further. 
Meanwhile, Iran continues its efforts to enrich uranium, Ukraine is 
struggling to prevent further Russian incursions, and the Islamic 
militants in Libya recently seized the U.S. Embassy compound after 
Americans were forced to evacuate the war-torn country.
  Here at home we are facing a crisis on our southern border thanks to 
the President's policies which have encouraged thousands of 
unaccompanied children to undertake the dangerous journey to the United 
States.
  On the economic front, millions of middle-class families are being 
squeezed by the Obama economy and Obamacare. Job growth last month was 
a disappointing 142,000 jobs, the worst report this year, and far from 
the numbers we need to get the economy going again. Unemployment 
remains high, and the unemployment rate would be even higher if 
millions of Americans hadn't gotten so discouraged by the lack of job 
prospects that they gave up looking for work altogether.
  Meanwhile, ObamaCare has not only failed to fix the problems in our 
health care system, it has made them worse. American families are 
facing higher health care premiums and fewer health care choices. In 
short, our country is facing serious challenges both at home and 
abroad.
  What are Democrats doing about all these challenges? Well, this week 
they are taking up legislation that limits

[[Page S5393]]

Americans' First Amendment rights. That is right; instead of taking up 
any of the 40 House-passed jobs bills, addressing our border crisis, or 
focusing on the international challenges we are facing, Democrats have 
decided to spend the first part of a brief 2-week session rewriting the 
First Amendment. It is no wonder a George Washington University 
Battleground poll found that 70 percent of Americans think the country 
is on the wrong track.
  Our First Amendment right to freedom of speech is one of our most 
fundamental rights. It is the right that helps protect all of our other 
rights by keeping government accountable and ensuring that all 
Americans, not just those whose party is in power, get to make their 
voices heard.
  The Democrats' proposed constitutional amendment would severely 
curtail this freedom by giving Congress and State governments the 
authority to regulate political speech. That means Congress will get to 
decide how much of a voice Americans are allowed in the political 
process. And that is bad news for Americans of every political 
affiliation. Under the Democrats' legislation, the party in power could 
effectively silence the voices of those who disagree with them.
  Democrats are unhappy about recent decisions by the Supreme Court 
that rolled back some of the restrictions on free speech and increased 
individuals' voices in the political process. So their solution is a 
constitutional amendment to shut down the voices of those who disagree 
with them. Apparently they don't realize that is not the way the 
American system works.
  In America, if you don't like what your opponents are saying, you 
have the freedom to persuade your opponents to adopt your position or 
you persuade the American people to vote against them. You don't try to 
revoke their right to speak. That is what they do in totalitarian 
societies. It is not what we do here in America.
  In the United States your political power is supposed to exist in 
proportion to the strength of your ideas, not in proportion to your 
ability to silence your critics. Fortunately for Americans of every 
political persuasion, the Democrats' amendment is unlikely to go 
anywhere in Congress--as Democrats well know.
  So why are they taking up this legislation this week when there are 
so many problems, foreign and domestic, that need to be addressed? The 
answer is simple. Democrats are worried about reelection, and they 
think this legislation somehow will help them get reelected. They have 
passed this amendment to appeal to members in the far-left base who 
want restrictions on political speech or at least on political speech 
with which they disagree. Democrats are betting that seeing this 
amendment defeated in Congress will encourage members of their 
political base to come to the polls in November. That, of course, has 
been Democrats' legislative strategy all year.
  The New York Times reported back in March that Democrats plan to 
spend the spring and summer on messaging votes, ``timed''--and I quote, 
``to coincide with campaign-style trips by President Obama.''

  ``Democrats concede,'' the Times reported, ``that making new laws is 
not really the point. Rather, they are trying to force Republicans to 
vote against them.''
  Let me repeat that. Despite the economic challenges facing American 
families and steadily growing international unrest, the Democrats have 
spent the past several months pursuing a legislative strategy in which 
``making new laws is really not the point.''
  We have seen that time and time again here over the past several 
months on the floor of the Senate where we come here on a daily basis 
casting political show votes, knowing they are not going anywhere, 
designed to appeal to a political constituency that they hope will come 
out and support them during the November elections. Instead of pursuing 
political consensus--the only way to actually accomplish anything in a 
divided Congress--Senate Democrats have brought up bill after bill to 
pander to their political base. It is disappointing that the Democrats 
have put their electoral prospects over Americans' freedom of speech 
this week. And it is disappointing that Democrats have spent this 
entire year on political show votes instead of substantial legislation 
to address the many challenges that are facing American families. The 
President has been no help. Instead of urging Democrats in Congress to 
work with Republicans on Senate legislation to deal with our country's 
most serious problems, he has been focused on campaigning. It wouldn't 
be a stretch to say that campaigning has been the President's main 
concern for the majority of his Presidency, whether it is involved in 
delaying Obama regulations to protect Democrats in the 2012 elections 
or his decision last week to defer his executive action on immigration 
until after the election in what White House officials essentially 
admitted was an attempt to protect Democrats in November.
  There is a place for campaigning--we all know that. We all do it--but 
it is not in the halls of Congress or in the Oval Office. We were 
elected to govern, and that means we should be spending our time on 
legislation to meet our Nation's challenges. We should be taking up 
legislation to support job creation. We should be fighting to give 
middle-class families a break from ObamaCare's high premiums and 
reduced choices. We should be taking up measures to advance energy 
independence in this country and make energy more affordable for 
working families. We should be focused on what we need to do to address 
the crises abroad and America's security here at home.
  Republicans are working to create jobs; Democrats are trying to save 
their own. It is not too late for Democrats to join Republicans to come 
up with bipartisan solutions to the challenges facing our country. The 
House of Representatives passed somewhere on the order of 350 bills, 
all of which are collecting dust here in the Senate, 40 of which 
specifically deal with the issues of the economy and job creation which 
every poll says is the American people's No. 1 priority. Yet here we 
are again in a shortened work period where we have a couple of weeks to 
actually do some things that would bend the curve in the direction of 
lowering the unemployment rate, growing the economy, creating more 
jobs. We have a whole series of bills that have been passed by the 
other Chamber, the House of Representatives, that have been sent here 
which specifically deal with the issue of jobs and the economy that are 
sitting at the desk collecting dust because the majority leader has 
chosen instead to try to bring to the floor a whole bunch of things he 
thinks are additive in terms of getting the vote out for Democrats in 
November elections but frankly do absolutely nothing to address the 
serious concerns and challenges that are facing middle-class families 
all across this country. The people's representatives can do better. 
The people's representatives should do better. Whenever Democrats here 
decide they are ready to stop campaigning and start governing, 
Republicans are ready to go to work.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Madam President, I will just come out and say it. 
Citizens United was one of the worst decisions in the history of the 
Supreme Court. It was a disaster, a radical exercise of pro-corporate 
judicial activism. It was seriously flawed both legally and factually.
  Legally, the Court trampled its own precedence--cases such as Austin 
v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and McConnell v. Federal Elections 
Commission, which had been on the books for years and stood for the 
obvious proposition that the people can enact reasonable limits on 
money and politics.
  Factually, the Court rested its conclusions on the faultiest of 
premises--that unlimited campaign expenditures by outside groups, 
including corporations, do not give rise to corruption or even the 
appearance of corruption. That assessment is disconnected from reality 
and is horribly out of touch with the sentiments of most Americans. For 
example, the Minnesota

[[Page S5394]]

League of Women Voters issued a report in which it concluded that ``the 
influence of money in politics represents a dangerous threat to the 
health of our democracy in Minnesota and nationally.'' I think if you 
asked most people whether unlimited spending on campaigns has a 
corrupting effect, they would agree and say, yes, of course it does, 
and I think they would be right. But the decision in Citizens United 
was based on this unfounded and unbelievable idea that we have no 
reason to be concerned about the effects of unlimited campaign 
spending.
  So we have this 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision that ignores the law, 
ignores precedent, invents facts, and as a result we ended up with a 
campaign finance system in tatters--one in which deep-pocketed 
corporations, superwealthy individuals, and well-funded special 
interests can flood our elections with money, thereby drowning out the 
voices of middle-class Americans who don't have the luxury of spending 
hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars or hundreds of 
millions of dollars to influence the political process.
  This is real. Spending by outside groups more than tripled from the 
2008 Presidential campaign to the 2012 Presidential campaign when it 
topped $1 billion. Outside spending went from $330 million in 2008 to 
over $1 billion in 2012. What happened in the interim? Well, it was 
Citizens United in 2010 and the floodgates were opened.
  The middle class is not just being flooded, it is being blindfolded 
too, because these wealthy special interest groups can often spend the 
money anonymously, so voters have no idea who is behind the endless 
attack ads that fill the airwaves.
  Here is how it works: If you have millions of dollars you want to 
spend, you can funnel it through back channels so that it ends up in 
the hands of a group--typically one with a generic and benign-sounding 
name.
  I was trying to invent a name, such as ``Americans for More America'' 
and ``American America.'' I was kind of joking around, and it turns out 
there is group that has that name. They use this money to buy ads and 
very often without disclosing the source of their funds. To me, this 
whole thing looks a lot like money laundering, except now it is 
perfectly legal.
  Again, this is real. A study just came out which showed that in the 
current election cycle alone there have already been over 150,000 ads 
run by groups that don't have to disclose the source of their funding, 
and things are just getting worse. Earlier this year, in a case called 
McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court was at it 
again, recklessly doing away with a law that prohibited people from 
giving more than $123,000 in the aggregate directly to candidates in an 
election cycle. The limit had been $123,000. Who has that kind of 
money? Who has that kind of money lying around to spend on elections? 
Well, I guess the super-rich have that kind of money, but the middle 
class certainly doesn't. The folks I meet with in Minnesota are trying 
to make ends meet, pay off their student loans, train for a new job, or 
save some money to start a family. They sure don't have that kind of 
money just lying around, and they are the folks who need a voice here 
in Washington.
  In June the Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the subject, and we 
heard from a witness whose presentation I found particularly persuasive 
and compelling. I suggest that my colleagues read his testimony. He was 
a State senator from North Carolina. He said:

       Suddenly, no matter what the race was, money came flooding 
     in. Even elected officials who had been in office for decades 
     told me they'd never seen anything like it. We were barraged 
     by television ads that were uglier and less honest than I 
     would have thought possible. And they all seemed to be coming 
     from groups with names we had never heard of. But it was 
     clear that corporations and individuals who could write giant 
     checks had a new level of power in the state.

  He went on to explain that the vast majority of outside money that 
was spent on State races, including the Governor's race, came from one 
man--just one man--who reportedly poured hundreds of thousands of 
dollars into State politics. Before the Governor was even sworn into 
office, he announced who would write the State's budget. Yes, it was 
that same donor. Apparently, the donor got his money's worth. The 
budget he drafted was loaded with goodies for corporate interests and 
the super-rich, provided at the expense of middle-class and working 
folks.
  I find this whole thing incredibly disturbing, this idea that a 
handful of superwealthy corporate interests in effect can buy our 
democracy--or in this case one guy. That is not how it is supposed to 
work. Everyone is supposed to have an equal say in our democracy 
regardless of his or her wealth. The guy in the assembly line gets as 
many votes as the CEO--one. You don't get extra influence just because 
you have extra money--or you shouldn't. The government should be 
responsive to everyone and not just the wealthiest among us.
  The way I see it is we can go two ways from here. On the one hand, we 
can continue to let Citizens United be the law of the land. We can 
perpetuate the fallacy that corporations have the constitutional right 
to flood our elections with undisclosed money. We can let deep-pocketed 
special interests buy influence and access and then set the agenda for 
the rest of the country or we can say enough is enough. We can restore 
the law to what it was before Citizens United was decided. More to the 
point, we can restore the voice to millions upon millions of everyday 
Americans who want nothing more than to see their government represent 
them. That is the choice we have before us this week. For those of us 
who believe the measure of democracy's strength is in votes cast, not 
dollars spent--for us, I think it is an easy choice.

  I am going to vote to reverse Citizens United, and I urge my 
colleagues to do the same.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 
25 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, the proceedings on the amendment 
before us show just how broken the Senate is under the current 
leadership.
  Yesterday the majority leader stated:

       We're going to have a cloture vote to stop debate on this. 
     [Republicans] say, well, great, we'll go ahead and support 
     that because we can stall.

  He also said:

       There will be no amendments. Either you're for campaign 
     spending reform or not. So my Republican colleagues, they can 
     stall for time here.

  This is an ``Alice in Wonderland,'' upside-down world the majority 
leader is describing. You can bet that if Republicans were blocking 
Democrats from describing this amendment, we would be accused of 
obstruction. But when we vote to proceed to this amendment, as we did 
yesterday, we are also accused of obstruction. It goes to show that 
whatever Republicans do, we will be accused of obstruction. That is a 
catch-22. That is the majority's game plan--bring up partisan measures 
for political posturing, avoid working together to solve problems, and 
blame the other side no matter what the other side does. That is why 
the Senate is broken.
  The amendment before us would amend the Bill of Rights and do it for 
the first time. It would amend one of the most important of those 
rights--the right of free speech. The First Amendment provides that 
Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech. The proposed 
amendment would give Congress and States the power to abridge that 
freedom of free speech. According to the amendment, it would allow them 
to impose reasonable limits, whatever those reasonable limits might be, 
on contributions and expenditures--in other words, limiting speech that 
influences elections. It would allow speech by corporations that would 
influence elections to be banned altogether.
  This amendment is as dangerous as anything Congress could pass. 
Passing for the first time an amendment to the Constitution amending 
the Bill of Rights is a slippery slope. Were it to be adopted--and I 
believe it will not be--the damage done could be reversed only if two-
thirds of both Houses of Congress voted to repeal it through a new 
constitutional amendment, with three-fourths of the States ratifying 
that new amendment.
  So let's start with first principles. The Declaration of Independence 
states

[[Page S5395]]

that everyone is endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights that 
governments are created to protect. Those preexisting rights include 
the right to liberty.
  The Constitution was adopted to secure the blessings of liberty to 
Americans. Americans rejected the view that the structural limits on 
governmental power contained in the original Constitution would 
adequately protect the liberties they had fought in that revolution to 
preserve. So before the Colonies would approve the Constitution, the 
Colonies--or then the States under the Articles of Confederation--
insisted on the adoption--or the addition to the original 
Constitution--of the Bill of Rights.
  The Bill of Rights protects individual rights regardless of whether 
the government or a majority approves of their use. The First Amendment 
in the Bill of Rights protects the freedom of speech. That freedom is 
basic to self-government. Other parts of the Constitution foster 
equality or justice or representative government, but the Bill of 
Rights is only about individual freedom.
  Free speech creates a marketplace of ideas in which citizens can 
learn, debate, and persuade fellow citizens on the issues of the day. 
At its core, it enables our citizenry to be educated, to cast votes, to 
elect their leaders.
  Today freedom of speech is threatened as it has not been in many 
decades. Too many people do not seem to want to listen and debate and 
persuade. Instead, they want to punish, intimidate, and silence those 
with whom they disagree. For instance, a corporate executive who 
opposed same-sex marriage--the same position President Obama held at 
that very time--is to be fired. Universities that are supposed to be 
fostering academic freedom cancel graduation speeches by speakers some 
students find offensive. Government officials order other government 
officials not to deviate from the party line concerning proposed 
legislation.
  The resolution before us--the proposed constitutional amendment cut 
from the same cloth--would amend the Constitution for the first time to 
diminish an important right of Americans that is contained in the Bill 
of Rights. In fact, it will cut back on one of the most important of 
those rights--core free speech about who should be elected to govern.

  The proposed constitutional amendment would enable governments to 
limit funds contributed to candidates and funds spent to influence 
elections. That would give the government the ability to limit speech. 
The amendment would allow the government to set the limit at low 
levels. There could be little in the way of contributions or election 
spending. There would be restrictions on public debate on who should be 
elected. For sure, incumbents--those of us who sit in this body--would 
find that outcome to be acceptable because it would weaken possible 
opposition. They would know no challenger could run an effective 
campaign against them.
  What precedent would this amendment create? Suppose Congress passed 
limits on what people could spend on abortion or what doctors or 
hospitals could spend to perform them. What if Congress limited the 
amount of money people can spend on guns or limited how much people 
could spend of their own money on health care? Under this amendment 
Congress could do what the Citizens United decision rightfully said it 
could not; example: Make it a criminal offense for the Sierra Club to 
run an ad urging the public to defeat a Congressman who favors logging 
in the national forests; another example: Prohibiting the National 
Rifle Association from publishing a book seeking public support for a 
challenger to a Senator who favors a handgun ban or for the ACLU to 
post on its Web site a plea for voters to support a Presidential 
candidate because of his stance on free speech. Nobody wants a 
government that powerful which could enforce those examples I just gave 
as well as other examples.
  Don't take my word for it. In fact, at oral argument in Citizens 
United, the Obama administration told the Court it would be legal for a 
corporation to be prosecuted for publishing a book that expressly 
advocated for or against the election of a candidate. Sounds 
impossible, but that is what was said. Consequently, the Obama 
administration and the Democratic leadership support banning books they 
don't agree with. Consequently, that should be a frightening prospect 
for all of us.
  Under this amendment, Congress and the States could limit campaign 
contributions and expenditures without complying with existing 
constitutional provisions. Congress could pass a law limiting 
expenditures by Democrats but not by Republicans, by opponents of 
ObamaCare but not by its supporters.
  What does the amendment mean when it says Congress can limit funds 
spent to influence elections? If an elected official says he or she 
plans to run again, long before any election, Congress under this 
amendment could criminalize criticism of that official as spending to 
influence elections. A Senator on the Senate floor, as I am right now, 
appearing on C-SPAN free of charge, could, with constitutional 
immunity, defame a private citizen. The Member could say the citizen 
was buying elections. If the citizen spent what Congress said was too 
much money to rebut that charge, he could possibly go to jail. We would 
be back to the days when criticism of elected officials was a criminal 
offense. If people think that cannot happen, it did happen in 1798 when 
the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed--and that is since our country 
was formed and since our Constitution has been governing our 
relationships.
  Yet the supporters of this constitutional amendment say this 
amendment is necessary for democracy. That is outrageous. The only 
existing right the amendment says it will not harm is freedom of the 
press. So Congress and the States could limit the speech of anyone 
except the corporations that control the media. In other words, under 
this amendment, some corporations are OK and other corporations are not 
OK. That would produce an Orwellian world in which every speaker is 
equal, but some speakers are more equal than others. Freedom of the 
press has never been understood to give the media special 
constitutional rights denied to others.
  Even though the amendment by its terms would not affect freedom of 
the press, I was heartened to read that the largest newspaper in my 
State, the Des Moines Register, editorialized against this proposed 
constitutional amendment. They cited testimony from the Judiciary 
Committee hearing, and they recognized the threat the proposed 
amendment poses to freedom.
  But in light of recent Supreme Court decisions, an amendment soon may 
not be needed at all. Four Justices right now would allow core 
political speech to be restricted. Were a fifth Justice with this same 
view to be appointed, there would be no need to amend the Constitution 
to cut back on this political freedom.
  Justice Breyer's dissent for these four Justices in the McCutcheon 
decision does not view freedom of speech as an end in itself, as was so 
important to our Founding Fathers. He thinks free political speech is 
about advancing, in his words, ``the public's interest in preserving a 
democratic order in which collective speech matters.''
  To be sure, individual rights often do advance socially desirable 
goals, but our constitutional rights do not depend on whether unelected 
judges believe they advance democracy as they conceive it. Our 
constitutional rights are individual. They are not ``collective''--the 
word the Justice used. Never in 225 years has any Supreme Court opinion 
described our rights as collective. Our rights come from God and not 
from the government or from the public, and if they did, they could be 
taken away from us at any time. So I don't put much stock in the 
comment from one Justice quoted on the floor today that the Court's 
campaign finance decisions are wrong.

  Consider the history of the last 100 years. Freedom has flourished 
where rights belonged to individuals that governments were bound to 
respect. Where rights were collective and existed only at the whim of a 
government that determines when they serve socially desirable purposes, 
the results in those countries have been literally horrific.
  We should not move even 1 inch in the direction the liberal Justices 
and this amendment would take us. The stakes could not be higher for 
all Americans who value their rights and their freedoms.
  Speech concerning who the people's elected representatives should be,

[[Page S5396]]

speech setting the agenda for public discourse, speech designed to open 
and change the minds of our fellow citizens, speech criticizing 
politicians, speech challenging government policies--all of these forms 
of speech are vital rights. This amendment puts all of those examples 
in jeopardy upon penalty of imprisonment.
  It would make America no longer America.
  Contrary to the arguments of its supporters, the amendment would not 
advance self-government against corruption and the drowning out of 
voices of ordinary citizens. Quite the opposite. It would harm the 
rights of ordinary citizens, individually and in free association, to 
advance their political views and to elect candidates who support their 
views. By limiting campaign speech, it would limit the information 
voters receive in deciding how to vote, and it would limit the amount 
people can spend on advancing what they consider to be the best 
political ideas.
  Its restrictions on speech apply to individuals. Politicians could 
apply the same rules to individuals who govern corporations. Perhaps 
individuals cannot be totally prohibited from speaking, but the word 
``reasonable'' is in this amendment. Reasonable limits can mean almost 
anything. Incumbents likely would set a low limit on how much an 
individual can spend to criticize him. Then the individual will have to 
risk criminal prosecution in deciding whether to speak, hoping a court 
would later find the limit he or she exceeded was unreasonable. That 
would create not a chilling effect on speech but a freezing effect.
  This does not further democratic self-government like we are used to 
in this country.
  When supporters such as the Senator from Illinois say that those who 
spend money in campaigns silence their critics, they have it exactly 
backwards. One person speaking does not silence anyone, but the 
government prosecuting people for speaking does.
  My friend says that candidates, unlike individual groups, ``abide by 
strict rules on . . . how much is being spent.'' This is simply not so. 
That Senator is factually wrong. The rules are the same. The First 
Amendment requires that candidates be able to spend as much as they 
want. That is true for individuals, corporations, and unions as well. 
Individuals are limited in current law on how much they can contribute 
to candidates. Corporations cannot contribute to candidates at all.
  The rules for expenditures are different. Candidate expenditures are 
expenditures by others independent of the candidate and are unlimited 
because they are simply free expression. Individuals and corporations 
cannot and, in fact, do not make unlimited campaign contributions under 
current law.
  My friend also discussed fraud in voting, which he says does not 
exist, and opposed voter ID laws. The amendment before us has nothing 
to do with voting. Even if it did, polls consistently show that about 
75 percent of Americans support a requirement that voters produce photo 
ID.
  Prevention of fraud is common sense. Voter fraud exists, despite the 
tactic of voter ID opponents repeating over and over that it does not. 
In my State of Iowa, there have been successful prosecutions for in-
person voter fraud.
  In North Carolina recently, 765 registered voters appeared, based on 
their names, birth dates, and last four digits of their Social Security 
numbers, to have voted in another State. That certainly warrants 
investigation. We would have more evidence of voter fraud if this 
administration did not block efforts to prosecute its existence.
  When Florida sought from the Department of Homeland Security a list 
of noncitizens it could compare against its voter rolls, the Department 
refused to supply it.
  Let's turn back to the amendment before us, which affects only free 
speech rights, not voting rights. Keep our eye on the ball. The 
amendment would apply to some campaign speech that could not give rise 
to corruption.
  As my friend from Illinois stated, under current law an individual 
could spend any amount of his or her own money to run for office, but 
an individual could not corrupt himself by his own money and could not 
be bought by others if he or she did not rely on outside money.
  Yet the amendment would allow Congress and the States to strictly 
limit what an individual could contribute to or spend on his or her own 
campaign. That would make beating the incumbents who would benefit from 
the new powers to restrict speech much more difficult.
  In practice, individuals seeking to elect candidates in the 
democratic process must exercise their First Amendment freedom of 
association in order to work together with others for a common 
political purpose. This amendment could prohibit that altogether. It 
would permit Congress and the States to prohibit ``corporations or 
artificial entities . . . from spending money to influence elections.''
  That means labor unions. That means nonprofit corporations such as 
the NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund, Inc. That means political 
parties.
  The amendment would allow Congress to prohibit political parties from 
spending money to influence the elections. If they can't spend money on 
elections, then these political parties would be rendered as mere 
social clubs.
  The prohibition on political spending by for-profit corporations also 
does not advance democracy. Were this amendment to take effect, a 
company that wanted to advertise beer or deodorant would be given more 
constitutional protection than a corporation of any kind that wanted to 
influence an election.
  The philosophy of the amendment, as you can see, is very elitist. It 
says the ordinary citizen cannot be trusted to listen, to understand 
political arguments, and evaluate which ones are persuasive. Instead, 
incumbent politicians interested in securing their own reelection are 
trusted to be high-minded. Surely they would not use this new power to 
develop rules that could silence not only their actual opposing 
candidate but associations of ordinary citizens who have the nerve to 
want to vote them out of office.
  As First Amendment luminary Floyd Abrams told the Judiciary 
Committee:

       [P]ermitting unlimited expenditures from virtually all 
     parties leads to more speech from more candidates for longer 
     time periods, and ultimately to more competitive elections.

  Why would anybody want to destroy that political environment--more 
speech, more candidates, longer time periods, and ultimately 
competitive elections? Incumbents are unlikely to use this new power to 
welcome competition.
  In fact, the committee report indicates that State and Federal 
legislators are not the only people who would have the ability to 
limit campaign speech under the amendment. It says States and the 
Federal Government can promulgate regulations to enforce the amendment. 
So unelected State and Federal bureaucrats who do not answer to anyone 
would be empowered to regulate what is now the freedom of speech for 
individuals and entities that has been protected for 227 years by our 
Bill of Rights. That would make a mockery of the idea that this 
proposed amendment advances democracy.

  Another argument for the amendment--some voices should not drown out 
others--also runs counter to free speech, and it is also very elitist. 
It assumes voters will be manipulated into voting against their 
interests because large sums will produce so much speech as to drown 
out others and blind them to the voters' true interests.
  We had a perfect example very recently in Virginia's Seventh 
Congressional District. The incumbent Congressman outspent his opponent 
26 to 1. Newspaper reports state that large sums were spent on 
independent expenditures on the incumbent's behalf, many by 
corporations. No independent expenditures were made for his opponent. 
His opponent won. That sounds like really drowning out a political 
point of view.
  That appears to be undue influence? No. The winner of that primary 
spent just over $200,000 to win 55 percent of the vote.
  Since a limit that allowed a challenger to win would presumably be 
``reasonable'' under the amendment, Congress or the States could limit 
spending on House primaries to as little as $200,000, all by the 
candidate, with no obviously unnecessary outside spending allowed.
  The second set of unpersuasive arguments used by the proponents 
concerns

[[Page S5397]]

Citizens United. That case has been mischaracterized as activist. As 
Mr. Abrams stated, that case continues a view of free speech rights by 
unions and corporations that was expressed by President Truman and by 
liberal Justices in the 1950s. What Citizens United overruled was the 
departure from precedent, and Citizens United did not give rise to 
unfettered campaign spending.
  The Supreme Court in 1976, in Buckley v. Valeo, ruled that 
independent expenditures could not be limited. That decision was not 
the work of supposed conservative judicial activists.
  Wealthy individuals have been able to spend unlimited amounts since 
then. And corporations and others have been able to make unlimited 
donations to 501(c)(4) corporations since then as well.
  As Mr. Abrams wrote to the Judiciary Committee in questions for the 
record, ``What Citizens United did do, however, is permit corporations 
to contribute to PACs that are required to disclose all donors and 
engage only in independent expenditures. If anything, Citizens United 
is a pro-disclosure ruling which brought corporate money further into 
the light.'' So I do not think my colleagues are correct in saying that 
this amendment is about so-called ``dark money.'' And limiting speech 
is totally separate from disclosure of speech. This amendment says 
nothing about disclosure.
  And it is the amendment, not Citizens United, that fails to respect 
precedent. It does not simply overturn one case.
  As Mr. Abrams responded, it overturns 12 cases, some of which date 
back almost 40 years. As the amendment has been redrafted, it may be 
11\1/2\ now, depending on what ``reasonable'' means.
  Justice Stevens, whom the Committee Democrats relied on at length in 
support of the amendment, voted with the majority in three of the cases 
the amendment would overturn.
  Some members of the Committee may not like the long established broad 
protections for free speech that the Supreme Court has reaffirmed. But 
that does not mean there are 5 activists on the Supreme Court. The 
Court ruled unanimously in more cases this year than it has in 60 or 75 
years, depending on whose figures you use. Its unanimity was frequently 
demonstrated in rejecting arguments of the Obama administration.
  I have made clear that this amendment abridges fundamental freedoms 
that are the birthright of Americans. The arguments made to support it 
are unconvincing. The amendment will weaken, not strengthen, democracy. 
It will not reduce corruption, but will open the door for elected 
officials to bend democracy's rules to benefit themselves.
  The fact that the Senate is considering such a dreadful amendment is 
a great testament to the wisdom of our Founding Fathers in insisting on 
and adopting a Bill of Rights in the first place.
  As Justice Jackson famously wrote, ``The very purpose of a Bill of 
Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of 
political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and 
officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by 
the courts.
  ``One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free 
press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights 
may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no 
elections.''
  We must preserve our Bill of Rights including our rights to free 
speech. We must not allow officials to diminish and ration that right. 
We must not let this proposal become the supreme law of the land.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MERKLEY. We have heard on this floor some lengthy speeches that 
brought a number of arguments to bear in an effort to appear learned, 
insightful, founded in law and founded in history, all to obscure the 
fundamental fact before this body, which is some on this floor today 
want to see a government owned and operated by the powerful, not the 
people. But that is exactly the opposite of what our Constitution was 
set up to do. The Founders of our Nation proceeded to lay out in very 
clear terms that the entire premise of our government would not be 
ruled by the few over the many. It would not be a system of government 
set up of, by, and for the powerful. They laid that vision out in the 
very first words of our Constitution.
  This premise is so well-known to citizens that when you say: What are 
the first three words of our Constitution, they will say, together: 
``We the People,'' because that is what animates our system of 
government--``We the People.'' Those who came to argue for the 
government by and for the powerful are simply trying to destroy our 
Constitution and our vision of government.
  Citizens United, a court case that absolutely ignores the fundamental 
premises on which our Nation is founded, is a dagger poised at the 
heart of our democracy. It is a decision by five Justices that this 
framework doesn't matter.
  The writers of the Constitution felt this was so important to convey 
to every citizen that this is the meaning, the core meaning of what our 
government is about, that they proceeded to write those words in a font 
that is approximately 10 times the size of everything that comes after 
``We the People of the United States. . . .'' And all that follows is 
to illuminate, expand on that vision.
  It was President Lincoln who summarized the genius of our democracy 
in his speech at Gettysburg: `` . . . of the people, by the people, and 
for the people.'' He proceeded to say that we must not let this vision 
perish from this Earth.
  Yet Citizens United, day by day, election by election, is diminishing 
and destroying the very vision that President Lincoln summarized in 
that speech on the battlefield at Gettysburg.
  What does Citizens United say? It says that entities that are not 
individuals, that have no claim to the Bill of Rights, can spend 
unlimited sums to inundate the airwaves and drown out the voice of the 
people.
  Imagine, if you will, the town square. Let's turn the clock back to 
the early phase of our democracy.
  There we are at the town square and everyone is supposed to have 
their chance to have their say in influencing the decisions that are to 
come. The town council says: Do you know what, Mr. Jones or Mrs. 
Anderson, you get 30 seconds, but now over here we are going to give 4 
hours to your opponent. Would anyone consider that an exercise in 
democracy? Oh, yes, the individuals get 30 seconds, but the powerful 
entity--maybe the big landholder--gets 4 hours to make his or her case. 
That is not democracy. That is not ``We the People.'' That is rules 
that are twisted to fix the game on behalf of the powerful against the 
people, and that is what Citizens United represents.
  Our system of government is such that it is essential that citizens 
believe that every citizen has a fair shot to participate because if 
they do not believe there is a fair shot, then, in fact, the premise of 
democracy--``We the People''--is destroyed because why participate if 
the system is rigged? That is what we are talking about--the rigging of 
the system. I think those five Justices simply have not read the 
Constitution, have not read the first three words, do not understand 
the premise, the foundation, the heart of our system of government and 
what it is intended to accomplish. It is as if they scratched out the 
first three words of the Constitution and said: We are rewriting it. We 
are going to rig the system for ``We the Powerful'' over the people. 
That is what this debate is about.
  In Citizens United, these five Justices--a one-vote majority over the 
four who protested against this bizarre effort to destroy the premises 
of our democracy--said: Unlimited sums, dark money--such sums ``do not 
give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.'' They could 
not be more wrong. Corruption in this sense is the rigging of the game 
such that citizens do not have a fair voice, and rigging the game is 
exactly what Citizens United does. It is so obvious that, of course, it 
gives rise to the appearance that the game is rigged because it is.
  Think about the situation I described where the town council says to 
Mr. Anderson or Mrs. Jones: You get 30 seconds; the opponent on the 
other side

[[Page S5398]]

gets 4 hours. That is exactly what we are seeing in elections across 
the country. You may see in some elections that the average donation 
may be $50. Along come the Koch brothers, who in most States would be 
out-of-State, out-of-State oil and coal billionaires, coming in and 
maybe spending $3 million or $5 million or more through a variety of 
front groups they have set up.
  How many individual donations does it take to get the same time to 
present your case as the Koch brothers spending, say, $3 million? Well, 
it would take about 60,000 $50 donations to buy the same opportunity to 
speak. So Citizens United is very much like that town council saying: 
You, madam citizen, get 30 seconds, but you, mister rich, powerful 
individual, get 4 hours. So, of course, it is corrosive and corrupting. 
It erodes fair opportunity for all citizens to have their voice heard. 
And because it does erode the ability of all citizens to have their 
voice heard, of course, it enhances the belief, that is, the appearance 
that the system is rigged, the appearance of corruption.
  It changes the debate in this Chamber because colleagues look at 
these millions of dollars brought to bear by just a couple individuals 
and they say to themselves in the back of their head: I better not step 
on the toes of that group that can now spend millions of dollars in my 
election way down in a southern State or way out in a western State or 
way up in the northeast. I better not step on their toes. If that is 
not corrosive and corrupting to a ``We the People'' debate and 
decisionmaking, I do not know what is.
  Let's take an example. Not so long ago the party across the aisle was 
saying: We think we have a good idea on how to use a market-based 
system to control sulfur dioxide. Rather than putting a limit on each 
smokestack, we will create an overall limit and allow the market to 
allocate the most cost-effective way to reduce that sulfur dioxide 
pollution. That cap-and-trade system invented across the aisle, 
proposed across the aisle, passed across the aisle, actually worked 
pretty well. In fact, it worked spectacularly. Sulfur dioxide and acid 
rain were decreased faster, more cheaply than anyone envisioned. If the 
range of possible outcomes was considered to be 1 through 10, this was 
a 25. It was a resounding success.
  But along come two individuals who have these billions of dollars who 
are getting into elections all over the country, who are threatening to 
put millions in to those who disagree, and they say: No, no, no. Sulfur 
dioxide, hmm, do not apply this idea that worked so well for the carbon 
dioxide pollution; do not do that; no matter how well this idea worked, 
do not do that because we won't fund your election. If you are with us, 
we will fund massive amounts of campaign ads to attack your opponents. 
That is exactly what the Koch brothers have done, and they reversed the 
entire position of my colleagues across the aisle in a couple years--in 
about a 2-year period--from a market-based control of a major 
pollutant, carbon dioxide, to arguing that no, no, no, it cannot be 
controlled. That would be an energy tax.

  Well, this happens time and time again, and the people across this 
Nation do, in fact, pay attention. They are seeing the system is 
rigged. That is why in one poll 92 percent of Americans said this 
program is broken. I thought to myself: What is wrong with the other 8 
percent? Haven't they paid attention? Don't they know how much this 
system is being corrupted by Citizens United, by the decision of those 
five Justices?
  Well, in addition, there is another form of corruption that comes 
from Citizens United; and that is those individuals who have been 
elected by these vast sums are beholden to those who elected them and 
they will choose no policy that goes against those who have pulled 
their strings and gotten them elected. That is definitely a form of 
serious corruption in a democracy, where ideas are supposed to be 
debated and decided, analyzed, not where vast corporate or individual 
wealthy billionaires pull the strings. So it is destroying the 
competition between ideas on how to take a path that works for ``We the 
People'' instead of ``We the Powerful.''
  When people back home see those in this Chamber arguing to cut food 
stamps while not cutting a single egregious tax giveaway to powerful 
oil companies, they see the corrosive influence of Citizens United. 
When they see folks across the aisle arguing that you should not 
eliminate these subsidies that go to companies that ship our jobs 
overseas, and that you should oppose subsidies to bring those jobs 
home, they see the powerful influence of Citizens United. The list 
could go on and on.
  We have a particular challenge because the concentration of wealth in 
America is greater than it has been since 1920, greater than it has 
been for virtually a century. And now we have a system, thanks to our 
Supreme Court majority of five, that says wealth can be brought to bear 
to buy elections across this Nation. This is not the system that 
colonists thought about when they were trying to set up a government 
that would serve every American--not the few--that would serve humble, 
ordinary working Americans--not the most powerful--that would serve 
those in every economic level for a better vision, a better opportunity 
for employment, a better opportunity for health, a better opportunity 
to live a quality life, instead of just those who have the biggest bank 
checkbooks.
  I urge my colleagues, let's take up this issue. How could any issue 
be more important than this issue that goes to the very core of our 
democracy? Let's not try to run these lengthy, lengthy speeches with 
learned, learned quotes, to try to disguise what this is about: the 
wealthiest, the most powerful oppressing the fundamental nature of our 
democracy.
  Together we can stay the hand that holds the dagger aimed at the 
heart of democracy, and it is our responsibility to do so for this 
generation and for the generations to come.
  Thank you, Madam President.

                          ____________________