[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 77 (Tuesday, May 19, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H3382-H3385]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CAMPAIGN SPENDING
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Poliquin). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 2015, the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney)
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. McNERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I am going to talk a little bit about
spending today, like my friend and colleague from Arizona, but I am
going to talk about spending of a different kind. I am going to talk
about campaign spending.
Campaign spending is quite an issue, and I want to spend about an
hour or less talking about its effect, and I want to talk about some of
the solutions that we have out there that might make a big difference.
First, I want to say I truly believe in my heart of hearts that the
United States of America is the greatest country in the world, probably
the greatest country that the world has ever seen and may see in the
future. You can just see that by some of the markers.
The notions of freedom that this country has had in the past have
inspired nations; they have inspired individuals around the world. Our
economic strength is unrivaled. Our cultural influence reaches every
corner of the world. Our military power is absolutely unrivaled.
However, again, I truly believe that we can do better, and I will
tell you some of the big challenges that we are facing right now, that
if we take on these challenges, we will even be a greater Nation.
First of all, we need massive investments in our Nation's
infrastructure, our highways, our bridges, our ports, our airports. We
need it in our broadband. We just need a massive amount of investment
in our Nation's infrastructure.
Our Nation's education is falling behind. Yes, we have some of the
greatest schools, some of the greatest universities in the entire
world, some of our public schools, some of our charter schools and
private schools unrivaled; but there are a lot of schools that are
struggling and producing students that really can't compete in today's
world.
We need to do immigration reform. We have 12, 15 million people in
this country that are undocumented that live in the shadows that may or
may not pay taxes that contribute to our economy but are always afraid
of being deported.
We have climate change. Climate change is here; it is progressing; it
is going to get worse. We need to do something about it as soon as
possible.
We have a vanishing middle class. There is a huge disparity in
incomes between the richest and the poorest in this country, and it is
increasing. Our middle class is vanishing. They are feeling more and
more insecure. They are unable to send their kids to college. We have a
huge challenge in that regard.
We have a need to establish background checks for purchase of weapons
and to close the gun show loopholes.
We need to create a sustainable economy.
These are huge challenges that we need to attend from the Congress,
from this body, from the House of Representatives, from the United
States Senate, from the State legislatures, from local governments; but
we are unable to attack these problems, in a large part, because of the
way campaigns are financed.
Now, we see a growing perversion of Presidential campaigns. We have
super-PACs. We have dark donors, and they are having meetings with
Presidential candidates, which are allowed by the laws because the
candidates are not official candidates.
No one knows what is legal and enforceable right now in Presidential
candidate financing; and worse than that, foreign money is probably
coming into all of these campaigns now.
I just want to say elections up and down the ballot are being more
and more perverted each election. All Americans should be concerned.
While I was waiting to speak this evening, I just read an article in
the National Journal Daily today that stated: ``According to data
gathered in 21 states by the National Institute on Money in State
Politics, $175 million was spent by them in 2006''--that is local
politics; that is city council and school boards--``a number that
ballooned to $245 million four years later.''
That is a delta of $70 million increases in local campaign financing
in just 4 years, and that is a fraction of the total expected to be
spent in future local races.
Before I go further, what I would like to do is take a break and
yield to my friend and colleague from North Carolina (Mr. Jones). He
wants to say a few words.
Mr. JONES. Mr. McNerney, thank you very much, and I want to thank you
for taking the lead tonight to be on the floor. I know you have other
Members of Congress to join you in your hour, but I have been here for
20 years, and I must tell you that, since I have been here, I have
never seen as much influence by the special interests as I do now, and
that is because of money.
Actually, both parties--and that is why you are a Democrat, I am a
Republican--but both parties seem to succumb to the influence of money
to get bills to the floor.
I am a strong supporter of John Sarbanes, who is from Maryland. You
have your bill that I have joined today, by the way, to sign my name to
your resolution, and I am on John Sarbanes' bill, which is H.R. 20. The
title is the Government By the People Act.
I will touch on four quick points. One is building a government of,
by, and for the people. The second part of the bill says empower the
Americans to participate. The third part is amplify the voice of the
people and then fight back against Big Money special interests.
In my few minutes, Mr. McNerney, what I would like to talk about is
the influence of money. I am a Republican and proud to be one; you are
a Democrat and proud to be one, but I will tell you that I have seen so
many bills this year get to the floor of the House because, in my
opinion, it is because of the influence of special interests.
You and I recently had a bill on the floor that basically said that
we would change the law that would allow the mobile home companies that
sell mobile homes--many people in my district, 45,000 people own mobile
homes, and there will be others buying mobile homes--but they will
change the contract to say that it would go from 8 to 12 percent.
Well, who did it benefit? It was Warren Buffett. I don't deny Warren
Buffett his success. He is a very successful man, and I am happy for
him. What this bill did was to say to the average person that maybe in
California or North Carolina that needs to buy a mobile home, because
that is the best they can do: we are going to let you pay more in
interest.
I was the only Republican to vote ``no'' on that bill. I said this
back in my district, and quite frankly, I was pleased that the majority
of people agree with me that we should be considerate of those people
who cannot afford to buy better than a mobile home; but there, again,
that special interest influence, that is what you just said a moment
ago.
I am of the firm belief that if we do not change the system--you have
an H.J. Res. that you have introduced. I talk about John Sarbanes' H.R.
20. That will create an alternative to the system that we have.
You and I both know that Citizens United that said that a corporation
is an individual has created a lot of the problems that we face today.
I will say that the American people need to get behind what you are
trying to do, what Mr. Sarbanes is trying to do--and I, in a lesser
way--to return the power of the people to the people because, too
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many times, decisions here in Washington are made because special
interests, whether it be a Democrat or Republican leadership, puts it
on the floor.
I believe that the people, as you believe, have a right to let this
be the people's House and not the special interests House.
I am delighted to be on the floor with you tonight. I will stay just
a few minutes, if you want to call back on me in a couple of minutes. I
will be here until a little bit after 8, but I wanted to thank you for
getting on the floor tonight to speak about this issue because, if we
are going to let the people own the government, then we must give the
power back to the people.
Mr. McNERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Jones.
I just want to point out, again, that this is bipartisan. Mr. Jones
is a Republican; I am a Democrat. We both see the corrosive influence
of money here in Washington, and we want to do something about it.
A lot of our colleagues agree with us wholeheartedly but are actually
afraid to say it. They are afraid to get up here because they know, if
they do, they are going to be targeted by this special interest money,
by super-PAC money, by dark money.
The sad thing is that you don't know that it is coming. You could be
running a good, solid, healthy campaign arguing the issues and, all of
a sudden, see a $2 million television ad against you, and they would be
going after you for very personal misleading ads, which could destroy
you and your family, for no reason other than you don't want to see so
much money in campaign spending.
{time} 1945
Let me look at some of the specific risks and problems that we see
today because of the way campaigns are financed.
First of all, campaign financing makes elected officials less
effective in their jobs because of the time you have to spend raising
money.
Here in Congress, it is not unusual to see a Member of Congress spend
2, 4, 6 hours a day on the phone, begging people for money. That
lessens your effectiveness. You can't spend the time you should be
spending on studying legislation, in talking to colleagues, in finding
ways to compromise on issues.
The second item is negative campaign ads turn off voters and suppress
votes.
Boy, we saw in this last election a turnout of 40 percent, 35
percent, and 30 percent in some districts, and a lot of that has to do
with the negativity that people see on TV. They don't know what to
believe. They think they are both bums, and they just close their noses
and vote for the least worse or they don't vote at all. That is the
second.
The effect of campaign financing makes for wasteful government
spending.
This is an issue that, I think, folks like my predecessor here
tonight was talking about. The Tea Party folks should be interested in
this issue because the way campaigns are financed causes wasteful
government spending. Boy, I will tell you that I sympathize with the
Tea Party objectives. Government seems big. It seems wasteful. It seems
loaded. It seems ineffective. There is wasteful spending. There are
projects that shouldn't be funded. A lot of that has to do with the way
campaigns are financed.
The next one is a big one. This is important. It is kind of what I
mentioned before. It is the threat of negative campaign ads causes
elected officials to avoid important and controversial issues:
Now, I do not care if you are a Republican or a Democrat. If you are
a Republican, you have risk in your primary elections. If you are a
Democrat, it is of big money coming in and trying to trash you
personally in election campaigns. If you are a Democrat, you have more
risk coming in in general elections. So it doesn't matter what party
you are in. It doesn't matter whether you are conservative or liberal.
The way campaigns are financed is causing our government to be
wasteful, and it is causing it to be ineffective. I think that needs to
be improved.
There is another problem that I mentioned earlier. Foreign money is
coming into these campaigns now. Do you want to see foreigners, do you
want to see folks from Russia or from China or from any country besides
the United States having an influence on our elections?
The amount of money coming into elections continues to grows election
by election. We had $6.2 million in 2010 versus $3 billion in 2012. I
think I have gotten a million or a billion mixed up there. Sorry about
that. Elected officials respond more to wealthy donors than they do to
nonwealthy donors. It is simply a matter of access. Someone gives you
money, and they are more likely to have access, and that means that you
are more likely to be sympathetic to their legislative goals.
Judicial races are getting more expensive and tainted as well. Do you
want to have a judge in a case that you may be bringing to court to
have gotten his seat or her seat because of the way the campaign
finance trashed his opponent? I do not think so.
In general, people have become very cynical about government because
of the negative advertising, and people lose faith in our government.
To have the greatest country in the world and the things that this
country has accomplished--the innovation, the science, the freedoms
that we have established throughout the world--and then have people
cynical about our government because of the campaign financing is more
than a tragedy. Campaign spending is a zero-sum game. Let me tell you
what I mean by that.
Consider that you are in a meeting. You have got a 1 hour, and you
have got 12 people, so everyone has 5 minutes to speak. Now, what if
somebody takes 10 minutes? Then somebody else is going to lose out.
Campaignspeak is like that too because people in this country are only
willing to listen to a certain amount of campaign rhetoric, and then
after that point, they turn off their minds. They don't want to hear
any more. The folks with the biggest money get out there. They fill the
airwaves, and they fill your mailboxes, and they have people knock on
your doors. Pretty soon, you don't want to hear any more, so the guy
with the lesser money is losing freedom of speech. So I think it is a
freedom of speech issue. Those are some of the issues I have.
With PACs and Super PACs and dark money--this is an interesting one--
campaigns are no longer going to be controlled by the candidates. You
could have a situation in which Super PACs and PACs have five times
more money than the candidate himself or herself, in which case they
are controlling all of the levers in the campaign. So those are some of
the issues that, I think, are caused by the excessive spending in our
campaigns.
I again yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) to
take up the case here.
Mr. JONES. I thank the gentleman. I appreciate listening to you, and
it reminds me of a conversation I had on the floor of the House last
week.
As you know, I have been here 20 years. I came with Newt Gingrich,
and Bill Clinton was the President. We did some good things for the
American people, so I am kind of an older man, so to speak. I vote my
conscience up here, and it gets me in trouble. I voted twice against
the Speaker of the House, and it got me in trouble, but I do what I
think is right.
I was sitting on the floor, and this gentleman--I will not say his
name or where he is from because I don't have permission to do that. He
came up to me and said, ``Walter, I am probably going to--'' He is 20
years younger than I am. I am 72 now. He said, ``I am probably going to
be like you,'' and he is a Republican. He said, ``I will probably be
like you and will never be a chairman or a ranking member of anything
because I cannot do anything that would dampen or threaten my
integrity.''
I said, ``What do you mean?''
He said, ``Well, in January, I was told that I could be a
subcommittee chairman, but I would have to raise $300,000.''
The point that you are trying to make tonight--and you are doing a
good job--with John Sarbanes' bill, H.R. 20, which I hope people look
up, as well as with your resolution, is that too oftentimes--and I will
say in both parties--we have people in leadership who say you have to
raise X amount of dollars if you want to be a chairman. What happens to
that person in eastern North Carolina, where I am from, who
[[Page H3384]]
makes $35,000 or $40,000 a year who can't buy influence in Washington?
That is what you are trying to do tonight, and that is why I wanted
to be with you, and I admire you for taking the floor tonight. Where
are their spokesmen? We are the people's House, and all of a sudden,
everything is about money, winning reelections with money--big money.
The average citizens are beginning to be turned off by the fact that
they don't have much influence, and that is why what you are doing
tonight is very special.
I was thinking about the gentleman who said to me, ``I will be like
you, Walter Jones. I will probably never be a chairman or a ranking
member because you are trying to keep your integrity in place.'' If we
had a system that you are proposing and John Sarbanes is proposing that
would have a system for those who don't want to be bought and paid for
by special interests, they would have an alternative by raising their
money in the State and in the district, and they would be rewarded for
raising their money in that State. Then their allegiance would be to
the State and the district.
Again, I am going to stay a few more minutes, but I want to
compliment you on what you are doing tonight.
Mr. McNERNEY. I thank the gentleman. I don't know of anyone who has
more integrity in this institution than you do, so I am honored that
you would come down here and talk with me tonight about this important
issue.
Now, the American people, as far as I can tell, are clearly in favor
of reducing campaign money, campaign spending. I have some Gallup Poll
numbers here that were taken by The Huffington Post from November 7
through November 9, 2014, which was during the last election or right
after the last election.
The first question:
Would you support or oppose amending the Constitution to give
Congress more power to create restrictions on campaign spending?
In favor of that was 53 percent; opposed was 23 percent; and not sure
was 22 percent. So it was a very strong majority in favor of a
constitutional amendment like I am going to discuss in a little while.
The second question:
Do you think limiting contributions to political campaigns helps to
prevent corruption in politics, or does it have no impact on
corruption?
The question is will corruption be curtailed by limiting campaign
spending. The answer that it helps prevent corruption: 52 percent; no
impact on corruption: 28 percent; and not sure: 20 percent. Again,
people feel strongly about this issue.
The last question that I will read is:
Which of the following statements do you agree with more: Elections
are generally won by the candidate who raises the most money? The
answer is 59 percent of Americans believe that; 18 percent don't
believe that; and 23 percent are unsure. So I think this is a strong
issue that we should be talking about.
How do we move forward?
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court appears to have a strong bias toward
more money in politics, and it has consistently issued rulings to that
effect. The Supreme Court even sought out, they even asked for, the
infamous Citizens United case to be brought forward to them. Then,
ultimately, they ruled that corporations have the same rights--free
speech--as individual citizens do, as individual people do. The meaning
of that decision is that corporations can use their treasuries to
finance campaigns.
I can't think of anything more corrosive or destructive to our
democracy than that. The system was already bad before the Citizens
United decision, but this thing made it much worse. Unfortunately, the
Citizens United decision is just one of a series of decisions that
allows more and more money into politics, and I truly believe that this
is a threat to our cherished democratic and republican institutions.
This trend is not confined to the Supreme Court. Earlier this year,
the Republican-controlled Senate, in concurrence with the Republican-
controlled House of Representatives, passed legislation that increased
the total individuals could contribute to political parties by a factor
of 10--going from $35,000 to over $300,000.
What can we do about it?
The good news is that there are really a number of very good ideas
that have been proposed, and I think it is important for us to go over
some of those ideas. My friend Walter Jones has mentioned John
Sarbanes' idea, and I will go into that in a little bit of detail. But
there are others, and I think it is important that the American people
be aware of some of these proposals out there and what they might offer
and to let them decide, let the American people decide.
Do they want to see a legislative approach like John Sarbanes' great
approach?--I support it--or a constitutional amendment like mine and
others that I will bring up as we go forward tonight? These proposals
all have merit. They are all worth studying and thinking about, and I
would be happy to support any of the ones that I am going to talk about
this evening and to consider other ones that may not have been brought
forward yet. The proposals, again, fall into two categories--
legislative proposals and constitutional amendments.
Legislative proposals are a little bit easier to enact, but they are
subject to Supreme Court and lower court overturning. So you can work
hard, and you can get it passed and then have the Supreme Court or some
other court overturn it. The constitutional amendment has a very high
bar. It is very difficult to get a constitutional amendment passed, and
it should be. You don't want people just willy-nilly passing an
amendment to change the Constitution. It requires a two-thirds vote in
the House of Representatives, a two-thirds vote in the Senate, and
three-quarters of the State legislatures throughout the country to pass
that amendment for it to become part of the Constitution; but once it
becomes part of the Constitution, the courts can't touch it. They can
interpret it, but they can't overturn it.
There is legislation that I would like to talk about, but some of my
colleagues who were going to be here tonight couldn't be because of a
change in schedule. I think one of the important approaches, mostly
championed by Chris Van Hollen from Maryland, is the disclosure and
transparency approach, which is that people who donate ought to be
disclosed quickly and broadly so that people know where money is coming
from. That is a very important idea.
{time} 2000
Also, Government By the People, John Sarbanes' approach, which I will
talk about in a little while; and there is also legislation that would
create public finance, and I think that is a very good approach, too.
There are two constitutional amendments, one by Donna Edwards, a
colleague of mine from Maryland, that overturns Citizens United, and
there is one by Ted Deutch, a colleague of mine from Florida. Ted
Deutch from Florida would basically allow Congress to enact laws on
campaign financing that could not be overturned by the Supreme Court. I
think that is a good approach. I support that. In theory, it has got a
beauty to it.
Then there is my approach, which basically would eliminate PACs and
do other things. I would like to talk in some detail about my
resolution now, and we will get the board up to talk about it. This is
called H.J. Res. 31, and again, it is a proposed constitutional
amendment. As you can see, it has four parts.
The first part, I think, is probably the most important, and it says
basically that money that comes in to political election campaigns to
support or oppose a candidate for office can only come from individual
citizens and only go to the campaign controlled by the candidate or the
principal campaign controlled by the candidate or from a system of
public election financing.
So what does that mean? That means that when money comes in, it can
only come from individual citizens. It can't come from corporations; it
can't come from any other sources. It just comes from individual
citizens, and it can only go to the campaign controlled by the
candidate. That means that it can't go to political action committees,
PACs; it can't go to super-PACs; it can't be dark money. The only money
that can influence elections directly or indirectly to support or
oppose a candidate has to come from individual
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citizens. It has to go only to the candidate, to the campaign
controlled by the candidate. That is a very strong requirement. It is
probably the strongest requirement out there right now, but I think it
is important.
By the way, the first requirement applies to elections for individual
candidates at all levels of government, from the President on down to
the Congress, the Senate, State governments, city governments, and so
on.
The second measure is similar to the first. This requirement, money
to support or oppose a State ballot initiative to change a State
constitution or for other purposes can only come from individuals who
are able to vote for the measure or from a system of public election
financing. I think that is important because you have ballot
initiatives in my home State of California, for example, and you see
millions of dollars coming in from out of State. Why would somebody
from out of State have an opportunity to influence a State ballot
initiative in California? I think it is wrong, and I think that this
would take care of that problem.
The third requirement is that Congress, the States, and the local
jurisdictions must establish limits that an individual can contribute
to any one election campaign, including limits on the amount a
candidate may contribute to his or her own campaign. Now, for that
particular requirement, we already have that in the U.S. House and U.S.
Senate. The limit at this point in time is $2,700 per election. So
every time your voters can go to the booth for you, people can
contribute, individuals can contribute $2,700, so the primary election
and the general election. In the House of Representatives elections are
every 2 years, so you can collect an amount of $5,400 over the election
cycle for your campaign.
Now, if you collect $5,400 before the primary and you lose the
primary, then you are going to have to give back the money that was
donated for the general election. So that would be you would have to
give $2,700 back to the donors that gave that to you.
Also, it is important that it requires governments to limit the
amount a candidate can spend on their own campaign. Some of our
candidates are extremely wealthy. They have millions or hundreds of
millions or more. They can buy their seat in Congress easily, and this
would limit that. I think, again, this is very, very important.
The last is probably one of the more controversial of the four, but
it says that the total of contributions to a candidate's campaign from
individuals who are not able to vote for the candidate cannot be
greater than the total of contributions from individuals who can vote
for the candidate. Now, geographically what that would mean is that
money coming from outside of your congressional district, or from your
State if you are a Senator, can't exceed money that comes from inside
your district if you are a congressional candidate or State if you are
a Senator. It wouldn't affect the Presidential race as much because
everybody in the United States is in the President's district, but it
would also affect local districts as well. With that, that wraps up the
discussion of my proposed constitutional amendment.
I want to talk a little bit about John Sarbanes' bill, and I think it
is a fine bill. It is not a constitutional amendment. What it does is
it gives you a tax credit for money that you can contribute to a
campaign. So if you can contribute $50 to a campaign, then you get a
tax credit of $50, which means money back on your income tax return;
the same amount that you contribute, you get back. But also it matches
that contribution by 6 to 1. So you will end up giving the candidate
quite a bit more than you are actually contributing. It is a good
measure. It is a good proposal. It would sort of even out the effect of
PACs. I find myself supporting that.
Again, my colleague, Ted Deutch, has a couple of constitutional
amendments in the 114th Congress. One of them is called Democracies for
All, H.J. Res. 119, and also H.J. Res. 22 that creates funding limits
and creates a distinction between individuals and corporations, but
what it really does is allows Congress to limit, to enact laws that
will be enforceable and not overturned by the Supreme Court.
We have Van Hollen in the 114th Congress, H.R. 430, and what this
does is it requires disclosure so that when campaign contributions are
made, we can determine who made those contributions--very important. I
think it would make a big difference.
Then we have a number of proposals to create public financing. My
colleague from Kentucky, John Yarmuth, had one in the 113th Congress,
Fair Elections Now Act. In the 114th Congress, which is this Congress,
David Price has H.R. 424, which establishes a system of public
financing.
These are all good. I think I would be supportive of any of these
kinds of approaches. I think the American public needs to be protected.
I think our cherished Democratic and Republican institutions are a
threat here, whether it is because candidates are bombarded by negative
ads, whether it is because candidates are influenced by big donors,
whether it is because more and more money is coming in to these
elections every single cycle. There is a lot of reasons why we need to
look at campaign financing and select one of these approaches and go
with it and change the system that we have to a system that really does
respond to the American public.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________