[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 25410-25446]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



            BIPARTISAN CAMPAIGN REFORM ACT OF 1999--Resumed

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time on H.R. 2561 having been yielded 
back, the Senate will now return to the pending business, which the 
clerk will report.
  The legislative assistant read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1593) to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act 
     of 1971 to provide bipartisan campaign finance reform.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, we now begin debate again on an issue 
which is important to the American people. Before I begin my opening 
statement, it is my understanding that the Senator from Kentucky will 
manage on his side and I will manage on this side, along with the 
Senator from Wisconsin; is that correct?
  Mr. REID. What is the request? Our side will be managed by the 
ranking member of the Rules Committee.
  Mr. McCAIN. In support or opposition?
  Mr. REID. We have the bill up and we are going to be managing for the 
minority, the ranking member of the Rules Committee.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, it is customary with a piece of 
legislation when the sponsors of the bill are on the floor they manage 
the conduct of the legislation and the opposition manages the other. If 
the Senator from Nevada has other desires, I guess we can worry about 
it later on, but that is the way it has been in this debate.
  Before I begin my remarks, I recognize a very unusual, incredible and 
great American, a true patriot, an incredible woman who is 89 years of 
age, named Doris Haddock.
  Doris, known to all of us, and now millions of Americans, as ``Granny 
D,'' began her walk months ago, beginning in the State of California. 
She has now arrived in the State of Tennessee. I believe she represents 
all that is good in America. She, at the age of 89, has taken up this 
struggle to clean up American politics. We are honored by her presence. 
She is in the gallery today, and we thank her for her commitment to 
open, honest government of which the American people can be proud.
  So, ``Granny D,'' you exceed any small, modest contributions those of 
us who have labored in the vineyards of reform have made to this Earth. 
We are grateful for you. We ask you not to give up this struggle 
because we know that we will prevail.
  Mr. President, on December 6, 1904, Theodore Roosevelt, addressing 
the people of the United States, said:

       The power of the government to protect the integrity of the 
     elections of its own officials is inherent and has been 
     recognized and affirmed by repeated declarations of the 
     Supreme Court. There is no enemy of free government more 
     dangerous and none so insidious as the corruption of the 
     electorate. No one defends or excuses corruption, and it 
     would seem to follow that none would oppose vigorous measures 
     to eradicate it. The details of such law may be safely left 
     to the wise discretion of the Congress.

  So said President Theodore Roosevelt in his fourth annual message 
delivered from the White House on December 6, 1904.
  On August 31, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt said:

       Now this means that our government, national and State, 
     must be freed from the sinister influence or control of 
     special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton 
     and

[[Page 25411]]

     slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil 
     War, so now the great special business interests too often 
     control and corrupt the men and methods of government for 
     their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of 
     politics.

  That is one of our tasks today.
  And he goes on.
  Some things obviously never change, such as the cycles of American 
politics. In 1907, thanks to the efforts of Theodore Roosevelt, a law 
was passed in Congress that banned corporate contributions to American 
political campaigns. I do not pretend to be as eloquent as Theodore 
Roosevelt was in that campaign against the influences of special 
interests on American politics. Suffice it to say, he succeeded. He 
succeeded in getting through Congress a law, which still remains on the 
statutes, that outlaws corporate contributions to American political 
campaigns.
  In 1947, the Republican-controlled Congress of the United States 
outlawed union contributions to American political campaigns. And after 
the Watergate scandal of 1974, further limitations were placed on the 
influence of special interests in American political campaigns.
  It is now legal in America for a People's Liberation Army-owned 
corporation in China, with a subsidiary in the United States of 
America, to give unlimited amounts of money to an American political 
campaign. That is wrong. It is wrong and it needs to be fixed.
  The pending legislation is very simple. It does only two things: 
first, it bans Federal soft money and, second, it codifies the Beck 
decision. Soft money is the unlimited 6- and 7-figure contributions 
that now go into American political campaigns.
  In the past, my colleague from Wisconsin and I have offered 
comprehensive campaign finance legislation. That measure was widely 
debated and many on this side of the aisle expressed criticism of 
certain provisions in the bill. As a result, we have taken a new 
approach, a simpler approach. We only seek to ban soft money, those big 
checks of ten thousand, one hundred thousand, and even one million 
dollars that powerful special interests use like clubs to make their 
narrow voices heard so loudly in the great chamber, and to codify the 
Beck decision. We leave all other issues off the table and instead 
would hope such matters could be dealt with in the amending process. 
And as such I implore my colleagues to come down to the floor, debate 
and offer amendments, and let us move forward on this simple, common 
sense and urgently needed reform.
  I want to express my sincere hope that before this debate is over 
that we will have either passed this measure or will have come to 
agreement on how to move forward constructively on this very important 
subject.
  Before I go on, I want to assure the Senator from Kentucky that I 
respect his opposition. I neither question his motives nor his 
integrity. He is a man who is willing to stand up and fight for what he 
believes in. The conduct of the debate in previous years has been 
characterized by mutual respect for the ideas and proposals of either 
side. I know I speak for the Senator from Wisconsin. I think it is 
important we maintain this debate on that level. I know we will do so 
as we have in the past.
  Mr. President, will the banning of soft money clean up our elections 
completely? Of course not. But it is an important first step. Should 
more be done? Absolutely. For that reason, I hope we can engage in a 
constructive debate that addresses the concerns of senators from both 
parties who are sincerely interested in achieving genuine reform. We 
have an obligation--a duty--to at least close the most politically 
pernicious loophole in campaign finance law.
  Let me stress at the outset, before reform opponents falsely charge 
proponents with an assault on the first amendment, that this 
legislation does not ban political speech, it is in truth about saving 
it. I want to protect the hard earned $100 contribution given by the 
small town business owner or union machinist to his or her Congressman. 
I want to protect the contribution of the local supporter, the little 
guy. The hard earned contribution given to a candidate by a voter, with 
a firm handshake and an honest look right in the eye and the 
expectation of good government, not a special corporate tax loophole or 
million dollar IOU to a union boss.
  What this fight is all about is taking the $100,000 check out of 
American politics for good. It's about putting the little guy back in 
charge, and freeing our system from the corrupting power of the special 
interests bottomless wallet. It's about forcing our government to pay 
attention to the little guy, those people who actually cast votes to 
elect us, and not just to the richest in corporate America or the 
powerful union bosses.
  We are blessed to be Americans, not just in times of prosperity, but 
at all times. We are a part of something noble; a great experiment to 
prove to the world that democracy is not only the most effective form 
of government, but the only moral government. And, at least in years 
past, we felt more than lucky to be Americans. We felt proud.
  But, today , we confront a very serious challenge to our political 
system, as dangerous in its debasing effect on our democracy as war and 
depression have been in the past. And it will take the best efforts of 
every public-spirited American to defeat it.
  The threat that concerns me is the pervasive public cynicism that is 
debilitating our democracy. When the people come to believe that 
government is so corrupt that it no longer serves their ends, basic 
civil consensus will deteriorate as people seek substitutes for the 
unifying values of patriotism.
  A poll taken this July found that more than twice a many Americans--
64 percent--feel disconnected from government as compared to those who 
feel connected to it. More than half of Americans--55 percent--refer to 
``the government'' rather than ``our government.'' Mr. President, as 
elected officials, we should find this trend alarming.
  We are a prosperous country, but many Americans, particularly the 
young, can't see beyond the veil of their cynicism and indifference to 
imagine themselves as part of a cause greater than their self-interest. 
This cynicism in younger Americans is particularly acute. Among younger 
Americans--those 18-34--69 percent feel disconnected from the 
government with one in three of that 69 percent feeling ``very 
disconnected.''
  This country has survived many difficult challenges: a civil war, 
world war, depression, the civil rights struggle, a cold war. All were 
just causes. They were good fights. They were patriotic challenges.
  We have a new patriotic challenge for a new century: declaring war on 
the cynicism that threatens our public institutions, our culture, and, 
ultimately, our private happiness. It is a great and just cause, worthy 
of our best service. It should not, and neither I nor my friend from 
Wisconsin will allow it to, be casually dismissed with parliamentary 
tactics.
  Those of us privileged to hold public office have ourselves to blame 
for the sickness in American public life today. It is we who have 
squandered the public trust. We who have, time and again, in full 
public view placed our personal and partisan interests before the 
national interest, earning the public's contempt for our poll-driven 
policies, our phony posturing, the lies we call spin and the damage 
control we substitute for progress. It is we who are the defenders of a 
campaign finance system that is nothing less than an elaborate 
influence peddling scheme in which both parties conspire to stay in 
office by selling the country to the highest bidder.
  All of us are tainted by this system, myself included. I do not make 
any claims of piety. I have personally experienced the pull from 
campaign staff alerting me to a call from a large donor. I do not 
believe that any of us privileged enough to serve in this body would 
ever automatically do the bidding of those who give. I do not believe 
that contributions are corrupting in that manner. But I do believe they 
buy access. I do believe they distort the system. And I do believe, as 
I noted,

[[Page 25412]]

that all of us, including myself, have been affected by this system.
  The opponents of campaign finance reform will tell you the voters do 
not care. They are wrong. Most Americans care very much that it is now 
legal for a subsidiary of a corporation owned by the Chinese Army to 
give unlimited amounts of money to American political campaigns. Most 
Americans care very much when the Lincoln bedroom is rented out to the 
highest bidder. Most Americans care very much when impoverished Indian 
tribes must pay large sums of money to have their voice heard in 
Washington. If their outrage seems muted, it is only because they have 
resigned themselves to the sad conclusion that this cancer on the body 
politic is incurable.
  I think most Americans understand that soft money--the enormous sums 
of money given to both parties by just about every special interest in 
the country--corrupts both politics and government whether it comes 
from big business or from labor bosses and trial lawyers. It seizes the 
attention of elected officials who then neglect problems that directly 
affect the lives of every American. That is something about which each 
of us should care deeply.
  Americans care deeply about reforming our Tax Code, improving 
education, reducing the size of Government, about improving our 
national security, and many other pressing national issues. But, 
fundamental reform is not possible when soft money and special 
interests demand a higher return on their political investments.
  Most Americans believe we conspire to hold on to every political 
advantage we have, lest we jeopardize our incumbency by a single lost 
vote. Most Americans believe we would pay any price, bear any burden to 
ensure the success of our personal ambitions--no matter how injurious 
the effect might be to the national interest. And who can blame them 
when the wealthiest Americans and richest organized interests can make 
six figure donations to political parties and gain the special access 
to power such generosity confers on the donor.
  The special interests will tell you that the fight to limit soft 
money is an attack on the first amendment. They are wrong. They are 
entirely wrong. The courts have long held that Congress may 
constitutionally limit contributions to campaigns and political 
parties.
  In the 1976 Supreme Court case Buckley versus Valeo the Justices 
affirmed Congress' right to uphold contribution limits in the name of 
preventing, and I quote, ``corruption and the appearance of corruption 
spawned by the real or imagined coercive influence of large financial 
contributions on candidates' positions and their actions.''
  The Roger Tamrazes of the world, big tobacco, the labor unions, the 
trial lawyers, the corporate giants, and the endless number of special 
interests that grease their agenda with soft money know precisely what 
the court was saying.
  Stopping corruption and the appearance of corruption was why in 1907, 
under the leadership of Republican President Teddy Roosevelt, 
corporations were barred from giving directly to political campaigns. 
Labor unions were similarly bound in 1947. Both of these bans have 
survived all court challenges and remain the law of the land--which is 
why claims that corporate and labor soft money is constitutionally 
protected are so absurd.
  Stopping corruption and the appearance of corruption was why, in 
1974, individual political action committee donations were limited. 
Should these amounts--and those limits on individual donors--be raised 
25 years after they were enacted? Yes, they probably should. But that 
is reason for us not to engage in filibuster and obstruction and 
instead engage in constructive dialogue and the normal amendment 
process.
  Stopping corruption and the appearance of corruption is why we must 
now close the loophole that allows unlimited amounts of soft money to 
overflow political coffers. Without the big dollar ``quid'' of soft 
money in the electoral process, there can be no legislative ``pro quo'' 
that neglects the national interest in favor of big donors. That is 
precisely what the Supreme Court had in mind in Buckley versus Valeo.
  Some of my fellow Republicans have criticized my campaign finance 
reform proposals because they believe it leaves unaddressed the problem 
of union dues being used for political purposes against the wish of 
individual workers. I agree this is a problem that should be addressed, 
just as we should address the issue of corporate money being used for 
political purposes against the wish of stockholders. This legislation 
does seek to address that issue. First, as I have noted, the 
legislation codifies the Beck decision. And second, when we ban soft 
money, we are also banning union soft money. Let me emphasize this 
point. When we ban soft money, we are also banning union soft money 
spending which will have a dramatic effect on union influence in 
elections. Unions spend a great deal of soft money, most of it directed 
to elect Democrats and defeat Republicans. This bill will reduce that 
spending.
  I have advocated codifying the Supreme Court's landmark Beck decision 
in which the court affirmed the right of nonunion workers to bar union 
dues they are forced to pay from being used for political purposes and 
to have that money returned to them. The Clinton administration has 
issued regulations that emasculate this rule. I believe it should be 
codified and enforced.
  What could be more un-American, what could be more antithetical to 
the tenets of free political speech, than forcing workers to pay dues 
for election and political activities they oppose. The Beck decision 
should be codified, enforced, and even expanded. I would strongly 
support a commonsense expansion of Beck. And at the same time, we 
should find some mechanism to ensure that corporate contributions 
reflect the wishes of individual stockholders in a manner that mirrors 
what we do for unions.
  If we can come to an agreement regarding the consideration of 
campaign finance reform in a fair manner, I am confident we could do 
much more to address the problems associated with labor union 
involvement in the political process.
  If my colleagues believe more needs to be done, I would be pleased to 
entertain any legitimate ideas. However, to be clear, I will oppose any 
ideas that are meant merely to poison--or kill--any real possibility of 
enacting into law election reforms.
  The sponsors of this legislation claim no exclusive right to propose 
campaign finance reform. We have offered good, fair, necessary reform 
but certainly not a perfect remedy. We welcome good faith amendments 
intended to improve the legislation.
  But I beg my colleagues not to propose amendments designed to kill 
this bill by provoking a filibuster from one party or the other. If we 
cannot agree on every aspect of reform; if we have differences about 
what constitutes genuine reform, and we hold those differences 
honestly--so be it. Let us try to come to terms with those differences 
fairly. Let us find common ground and work together to adopt those 
basic reforms we can all agree on. That is what the sponsors of this 
legislation have attempted to do, and we welcome anyone's help to 
improve upon our proposal as long as that help is sincere and intended 
to reach the common goal of genuine campaign finance reform.
  In closing, I reiterate that I believe we can work together. I 
believe the majority of the Members of this body realize that reform is 
necessary. I think we now have an opportunity to amend, to debate, and 
to come together. I hope we can achieve that goal.
  In closing, I again thank my friend from the State of Wisconsin. My 
friend from the State of Wisconsin recently has felt a certain sense of 
loneliness because he has attempted to move this process forward in a 
fair, equitable, and reasonable fashion. The Senator from Wisconsin has 
shown his political courage. It has been a great honor and privilege 
for me to have the opportunity of working with him, and many others, in 
the cause of campaign reform.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allard). The Senator from Wisconsin.

[[Page 25413]]


  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am very pleased the Senate is once 
again going to consider campaign finance reform.
  I thank the senior Senator from Arizona. We have been at this effort 
now for almost 5 years. He has done so much, particularly in the last 
year, to raise this issue, not only within this body but throughout 
America. It has made an incredible difference in terms of the public's 
understanding, particularly of the problem soft money causes.
  I also take note of one other Senator. There are many who have worked 
so hard on this, but I simply have to note the extreme dedication, hard 
work, and effectiveness of the Senator from Maine, Susan Collins, who 
has devoted herself to this cause as well.
  This is not only a crucial issue to the health and future of the 
Congress but also for our democracy itself. My colleagues know it is my 
strong belief that this issue affects virtually everything we do in 
this Chamber.
  I have spoken about the need for reform numerous times this year--15 
times. Today is the 16th--on the Department of Defense appropriations 
bill. I call this the ``calling of the bankroll'' on specific campaign 
contributors with an interest in the bills we have considered.
  Now the Senate has finally a chance to act. I am hopeful, as we begin 
this debate, that we can reach a consensus during the next few days and 
pass a campaign finance reform bill the House can accept and the 
President can sign.
  This debate will undoubtedly be difficult and unpredictable. Unlike 
in past years, though, I hope this will not be a scripted debate where 
everyone basically knows the outcome in advance. We do not know exactly 
what is going to happen. We apparently are going to have the 
opportunity to offer and vote on amendments. We are going to legislate, 
not just make speeches for a couple of days and use parliamentary 
tactics to block reform. We are going to actually try to pass a bill.
  I urge my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, to keep an open 
mind and remember that what we are doing here will affect all 
Americans. Every one of our constituents, every citizen in this 
country, has an interest in the health of our democracy. We have a 
great responsibility here, and I hope we are up to it.
  There are many things wrong with our current campaign financing 
system. I hope this body will grapple with that system in a 
comprehensive way at some point--sooner rather than later.
  For me--and I do not speak for anyone else--I believe ultimately we 
should move to a system of public financing of elections to free 
candidates from the demands of fundraising and free the legislative 
process from the influence of special interests.
  I favor giving candidates more access to the airwaves at reduced cost 
so they can get their messages out to the public without having to 
spend all this time raising money. I believe the groups that run ads 
that attack candidates within a month or even a few days of an election 
should have to report their contributors and their expenditures, just 
as a campaign committee has to do.
  This is the key point: It is clear that this Senate--I emphasize, 
this Senate--will not pass a comprehensive bill to deal with all or 
even most of the problems with the current system. We have known this 
for some time. In fact, the bill we considered in the last Congress was 
even significantly narrower than the comprehensive bill Senator McCain 
and I first introduced in 1995. But during our 5-year effort, it has 
become more and more clear that soft money is the biggest loophole in 
this system and perhaps the most corrupting aspect of the system.
  Soft money has exploded during those 5 years to the point where many 
Americans believe--and I share their belief--that the loophole has 
swallowed the election laws. In fact, the best statement I have heard 
on this was by the third cosponsor of the original McCain-Feingold 
bill, the Senator from Tennessee, the chairman of the Governmental 
Affairs Committee, Fred Thompson, who said plainly, without any legal 
jargon and all the other language we tend to use out here: Mr. 
President, we really don't have a campaign finance system anymore. That 
said it all. That captured the impact of soft money on our system.
  So the bill that Senator McCain and I have introduced and that we 
consider today essentially asks a very simple question: Will the Senate 
ban political party soft money or not? It is that simple.
  This bill is a soft money ban, pure and simple. At this point it says 
nothing--nothing--about issue ads, nothing about disclosure or even 
enforcement. It does codify the Beck decision on union dues. It has 
minor changes with regard to certain aggregate limits on hard money 
contributions. But otherwise it leaves the status quo intact, except 
for one simple and crucial reform: This bill prohibits the political 
parties from accepting unlimited contributions from corporations, 
unions, and wealthy individuals.
  This is what it says to the political parties: Stop the charade. 
Forget about the loophole that has swallowed the law. Live under the 
law Congress passed in 1974. Raise your money primarily from 
individuals, not corporations or unions, in amounts of $20,000 per year 
or less.
  It is soft money that brought us the scandals of 1996--the selling of 
access and influence in the White House and the Congress, the use of 
the Lincoln Bedroom and Air Force One to reward contributors, the White 
House coffees. All of this came from soft money because, without soft 
money, the parties would not have been tempted to come up with ever 
more enticing offers to get the big contributors to open their 
checkbooks. It just would not be worth it to do all of that under the 
hard money limits. It is only the unlimited opportunity for the 
unlimited check that creates that kind of a temptation.
  But today, both parties aggressively engage in this big money 
auction. It is an arms race where the losers are the American people. 
Soft money causes Americans, time and time again, to question the 
integrity and impartiality of the legislative process. Everything we do 
is under scrutiny and subject to suspicion because major industries and 
labor organizations are giving our political parties such big piles of 
money. Whether it is the telecommunications legislation, Y2K liability, 
the bankruptcy bill, defense spending, or health care, someone out 
there is telling the public, often with justification, in my view, that 
the Congress cannot be trusted to do what is best for the public 
interest because the major affected industries are giving us money 
while those bills are pending in committee or debated on the floor. I 
have tried, over the past few months, to highlight the influence of 
money on the legislative process through the calling of the bankroll. 
Time and time again, I have found that increasingly, the really big 
money, the money that many believe now has the biggest influence here, 
is soft money.
  We have to clean our campaign finance house, and the best way to 
start is to get rid of soft money. Let us make rules that protect the 
people again in this country. With soft money, there are essentially no 
rules and no limits. With this bill, we can begin to restore some 
sanity to our campaign finance system.
  To be candid--I don't like to admit it--when I came to the Senate, I 
wasn't even sure what soft money was, or at least I didn't know 
everything that could be done with it. After a tough race in 1992 
against a well-financed incumbent opponent who spent twice as much as I 
did, I was mostly concerned with the difficulties of people who are not 
wealthy in running for office. My commitment to campaign finance reform 
was honestly forged from that experience.
  But something has happened since I got here. Soft money has exploded, 
with far-reaching consequences for our elections and the functioning of 
Congress. I truly believe--and I didn't necessarily feel this way 3 or 
4 years ago--if we can do nothing else on campaign finance reform in 
this Congress, we must stop the cancerous growth of soft money before 
it consumes us and ultimately the remaining credibility of our system.
  I want to take a few minutes to describe to my colleagues in concrete

[[Page 25414]]

terms, instead of talking about large sums of money in general, the 
growth of soft money over the past 6 years, all since I first came to 
the Senate not so long ago. It is a frightening story. I hope my 
colleagues, staff, and people watching will listen to these numbers 
because they are staggering.
  As this chart shows, soft money first arrived on the scene of our 
national elections in the 1980 election, after a 1978 FEC ruling opened 
the door for parties to accept contributions from corporations and 
unions that are barred from contributing to Federal elections. The best 
available estimate is that parties raised, in that 1980 cycle, that 
first cycle, under $20 million in soft money. By the 1992 election, the 
year I was elected to this body, soft money fundraising by the parties 
had gone from under $20 million to $86 million.
  Obviously, $86 million already was a lot of money. It was nearly as 
much as the $110 million the two Presidential candidates were given in 
1992 in public financing from the U.S. Treasury. There was already real 
concern about how that money was spent. Despite the FEC decision that 
soft money could be used for activities such as get-out-the-vote and 
voter registration campaigns without violating the Federal election 
law's prohibition on corporate and union contributions in connection 
with Federal elections, the parties sent much of their soft money to be 
spent in States where the Presidential election between George Bush and 
Bill Clinton was close or where there were key contested Senate races, 
not necessarily connected to the purposes for which that money was 
supposedly allowed to be used.
  Still, soft money, in 1992, was far from the central issue in our 
debate over campaign finance reform in 1993 and 1994. Then in 1995, 
when Senator McCain and I first introduced the McCain-Feingold bill, 
our bill did include a ban on soft money, but it wasn't even close to 
being the most controversial or important provision of our bill. As far 
as we knew, no one paid any attention to it. I have my own original 
summary of our first bill. It is numbered 9 out of 12 items. We 
mentioned all other kinds of things first. It is just above ``ban on 
personal use of campaign funds,'' which was already essentially 
required by the FEC anyway. I am saying, I didn't realize, when I 
introduced this bill with Senator McCain, what was about to happen.
  Indeed, the Republican campaign finance bill introduced in the Senate 
in 1993, cosponsored by the Senator from Kentucky and many other 
opponents of reform on the Republican side, actually contained a ban on 
soft money. In 1993, they were very comfortable with the implications, 
constitutional issues and others, connected with stopping soft money. 
Apparently not today.
  Then came the 1996 election and the enormous explosion of soft money 
fueled by the parties' decision to use the money on phony issue ads 
supporting their Presidential candidates. Remember those ads that 
everybody thought were Clinton and Dole ads but were really run by the 
parties? I remember seeing them for the first time in the Cloakroom. 
That was the moment when soft money began to achieve its full 
corrupting potential on the national scene.
  As you can see on this chart, again, total soft money fundraising 
skyrocketed as a result. Three times as much soft money was raised in 
1996 as in 1992. Let me say that again. Soft money tripled in one 
Presidential election cycle. What was the effect of this explosion of 
soft money, other than millions of dollars available for ads supporting 
Presidential candidates who had agreed to run their campaign on equal 
and limited grants from Federal taxpayers? The total dollars raised, as 
shown on this chart, don't tell the whole story. This talks about the 
total amounts. This talks about the campaign side of this problem of 
soft money. There is a whole other story, and that is the impact of 
these contributions on what we do here.
  Soft money is raised primarily from corporate interests that have a 
legislative ax to grind. So the explosion of soft money brought another 
explosion--an explosion of influence and access in this Congress and in 
this administration. Consider these statistics on this chart. I hope 
people will note these figures. They amaze me. As long as I have been 
involved with this issue, they have amazed me.
  In 1992, there were a total of 52 donors who gave over a total of 
$200,000 to political parties. In 1996, just 4 years later, 219 donors 
gave that much soft money. Over 20 donors gave over $300,000 in soft 
money contributions during the 1992 cycle. But in 1996, 120 donors gave 
contributions totaling $300,000 or more. What about over 400,000? In 
1992, 13 donors gave that much soft money. But in 1996, it was all the 
way up to 79 donors giving $400,000 per person or interest. Whereas 
only 9 donors in 1992 gave $500,000--a half million dollars, Mr. 
President; people giving a half million dollars--by 1996, 50 donors 
gave a half million dollars.
  Does anyone think those donors expect nothing for this act of 
generosity? Does anyone think those donors get nothing for their 
generosity? Does anyone think the principle of one person/one vote 
means anything to anyone anymore if somebody can give a half million 
dollars?
  Here is another amazing statistic: This is even worse, to me. In 
1992, only 7 companies gave over $150,000 to each of the political 
parties--double givers, we call them, who made contributions to both 
parties. In 1996, the number of these double givers was up to 43: 
Forty-three companies or associations gave $150,000 or more to both the 
Democrat and the Republican Party. I would suggest there is no 
ideological motive. This is not about their passion for good 
government. These donors are playing both sides of the fence. They 
don't care about who is in power. They want to get their hooks into 
whoever is controlling the legislative agenda.
  Here are some of the companies in this rather exclusive group. We 
know they have a big interest in what Congress does: Philip Morris, 
Joseph Seagram & Sons, RJR Nabisco, Walt Disney, Atlantic Richfield, 
AT&T, Federal Express, MCI, the Association of Trial Lawyers, the 
National Education Association, Lazard Freres & Co., Anheuser Busch, 
Eli Lilly, Time Warner, Chevron Corp., Archer Daniel's Midland, NYNEX, 
Textron Inc., Northwest Airlines. Mr. President, it is a who's who of 
corporate America. These are the big investors in the U.S. Congress, 
and no one can convince the American people that these companies get no 
return on their investment. So we have an ever-increasing number of 
companies that are participating in this system, trying to make sure 
their interests are protected and their lobbyists' calls returned.
  There is another effect of this explosion of soft money, and that is 
the increasing participation of Members of this body in raising it.
  I do not know how many of my colleagues are actually picking up the 
phones across the street in our party committee headquarters to ask 
corporate CEOs for soft money contributions. But no one here can deny 
that our parties are asking us to do this. It is now simply expected 
that United States Senators will be soft money fundraisers.
  Consider the soft money raised in recent off-year elections. In 1994, 
the parties raised a total of $101.7 million dollars. Only about $18.5 
million of that amount was raised by the congressional and senatorial 
campaign committees. In 1998, the most recent election, soft money 
fundraising more than doubled to $224.4 million. And $107 million of 
that total was raised by the congressional and senatorial campaign 
committees. That's nearly half of the total soft money raised by the 
parties.
  Half the soft money that the parties raised in the last election went 
to the several party campaign committees for members of Congress, as 
opposed to the national party committees.
  When you hear all this talk about how the parties need this money 
generally, that is why they need soft money, and an awful of lot is not 
going to the parties generally. And I and many of my colleagues know 
from painful experience that much of that money ended up being spent on 
phony issue ads in Senate races. The direct

[[Page 25415]]

contribution of corporate money to federal candidates has been banned 
in federal elections since 1907, but that money is now being raised by 
Senators as soft money and spent to try to influence the election of 
Senators. It is spent to try to influence the election of Senators. To 
me, this is a complete obliteration of the spirit of the law. It is 
wrong. It must be stopped.
  The growth of soft money has made a mockery of our campaign finance 
laws. It has turned Senators into panhandlers for huge contributions 
from corporate patrons. And it has multiplied the number of corporate 
interests that have a claim on the attention of members and the work of 
this institution.
  Mr. President, there is broad and bipartisan support for banning soft 
money. Former Presidents Bush, Carter, and Ford believe that soft money 
must be eliminated, as does a large and distinguished bipartisan group 
of former Members of Congress, organized last year by former Senator 
and Vice President Walter Mondale, a Democrat, and former Senator Nancy 
Kassebaum Baker, a Republican. Their effort has been joined at last 
count by 216 former members of the House and Senate. Senators Mondale 
and Kassebaum published an opinion piece in the Washington Post that 
eloquently spells out the rationale and the critical need to enact this 
reform.
  They state that a ban on soft money would ``restore a sound principle 
long held to be essential. That bedrock principle, developed step by 
step through measures signed into law by presidents from Theodore 
Roosevelt to Gerald Ford, is that federal elections campaigns should be 
financed by limited contributions from individuals and not by either 
corporate or union treasuries. Neither candidates for federal office, 
nor the national political party committees whose primary mission is to 
elect them, should be dependent on the treasuries of corporations or 
unions that have strong economic interests in the decisions of the 
federal government.''
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full article by these 
two very distinguished former members of this body be printed in the 
Record at the conclusion of my statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 1.)
  Mr. FEINGOLD. As I mentioned, Mr. President, Senators Mondale and 
Kassebaum Baker put together a group of former members 216 strong who 
want to end soft money. One of those is former Senator Bill Brock, who 
also served as Chairman of the Republican Party. In an op-ed last year, 
Senator Brock dispelled the myth that the parties cannot survive 
without soft money. He stated: ``In truth, the parties were stronger 
and closer to their roots before the advent of this loophole than they 
are today.'' He adds: ``Far from reinvigorating the parties themselves, 
soft money has simply strengthened certain specific candidates and the 
few donors who can make huge contributions while distracting parties 
from traditional grassroots work.''
  Those are not just my sentiments; they are the sentiments of former 
Senator Brock, and he has it exactly right.
  Our national political parties should be the engines of democracy, 
the organizers of individual donors and volunteers who care about big 
ideas and are willing to work for them. Instead they have become 
fundraising behemoths, obsessed with extorting the biggest chunks of 
cash that they can from corporate and wealthy donors. This is not what 
the two great political parties should be about Mr. President. Soft 
money has changed our politics for the worse Mr. President. And I think 
everyone in this body knows that.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a statement from Senators 
Mondale and Kassebaum-Baker that contains excerpts from a number of 
articles written by former Members of Congress on the topic of banning 
soft money be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See Exhibit 2.)
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, the bill the Senate is now considering 
accomplishes a ban on soft money in four simple ways. First, and most 
important, it prohibits the national political parties from raising or 
spending money that is not subject to the limits of the federal 
election laws. Second, it prohibits federal officeholders and 
candidates from raising money that is not subject to the election laws, 
except for appearing as a speaker at a fundraising event sponsored by a 
state or local political party. Third, to prevent soft money from being 
laundered through state parties and making its way back into federal 
elections, it requires state and local parties that spend money on 
certain federal election activities to use only money that is subject 
to the federal election laws. And finally, it prohibits the parties 
from soliciting money for or contributing money to outside 
organizations.
  The amendment also makes some changes in the contribution limits of 
current law in a recognition of the new difficulties that parties may 
face as they are forced to go ``cold turkey'' in giving up soft money. 
It increases the amount that individuals can legally give to state 
party committees from $5,000 per year to $10,000 per year. And it 
increases the amount that an individual can give to all parties, PACs, 
and candidates combined in a year from $25,000 to $30,000.
  This provision is tough, but it is fair. It allows federal candidates 
to continue to help raise money for their state parties by appearing at 
fundraisers. It permits the state parties until four months before an 
election to use non-federal money to conduct voter registration drives 
that will obviously benefit federal candidates as well.
  Mr. President, I truly believe that we must do much more than ban 
soft money to fix our campaign finance system. But if there is one 
thing more than any other that must be done now it is to ban soft 
money. Otherwise the soft money loophole will completely obliterate the 
Presidential public funding system, and lead to scandals that will make 
what we saw in 1996 seem quaint. And the number of investors in this 
body will continue to skyrocket, with untold consequences on the work 
of this body and the confidence of the American people in their 
government.
  Mr. President, we have some momentum. I was delighted this week to 
have us get another cosponsor on this bill, the Senator from Kansas, 
Sam Brownback, and to also have the endorsement of one of the leaders 
from the other body, Congressman Asa Hutchinson. So we have had good 
momentum this week. I am pleased with that. I especially felt the 
momentum when last Friday I had a chance to go to Nashville, Tennessee, 
and I had the good fortune to meet an extraordinary woman, who is in 
Washington today. I'm speaking of Doris Haddock, from Dublin, New 
Hampshire. Doris has become known to many people throughout the country 
and around the world as ``Granny D.''
  She is 89 years old. On January 1st of this year, she set out to walk 
across this country to call attention to the need for campaign finance 
reform and call on this body to pass the McCain-Feingold bill. As she 
said last week, voting for McCain-Feingold is something our mothers and 
grandmothers would want us to do. And coming from Granny D, this is not 
just a polite request--it is a challenge and a demand from one of the 
toughest and bravest advocates of reform I have ever had the pleasure 
to know.
  I joined Granny D on the road last week, and as we walked together 
through the streets of Nashville, shouts of ``Go Granny Go'' came from 
every corner--from drivers in their cars, pedestrians on the sidewalk 
and construction workers on the job.
  The response she got that day, and the support she gets every day on 
her walk across America, speak volumes about where the American people 
stand on this issue. They are fed up with a campaign finance system so 
clogged with cash that it has essentially ceased to function; they are 
frustrated by a Congress that has stood by and watched our democracy 
deteriorate; and today they are demanding that the U.S. Senate join 
Granny D on the road to reform by passing the McCain-Feingold bill.

[[Page 25416]]

  Granny D and countless Americans like her are demanding, here and 
now, that this body act to ban soft money and begin to clean up our 
campaign finance mess. Granny has been walking across this country for 
more than nine months now--from California to Tennessee, in the 
sweltering heat and now in the growing cold, over mountains and across 
a desert. At age 89, she has braved all of this. And all she is asking 
U.S. Senators to do in return one simple thing.
  What she's asking is not anywhere near as strenuous, and it won't 
take anywhere near as much time as what she has endured.
  All she is asking the members of this body to do is lift their arm to 
cast one vote--a vote to ban soft money.
  That's what she's asking, and I urge my colleagues not let her down. 
The time has past for the excuses, equivocations and evasions that 
members of this body have employed time and again to avoid passing 
campaign finance reform legislation. The time has come to put 
partisanship aside, to put our own ideal reform bills aside and finally 
put our democracy first--let's join Granny D on the road to reform.
  I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

               [From the Washington Post, Aug. 17, 1998]

                    Campaign Reform: Finish the Job

            (By Nancy Kassebaum Baker and Walter F. Mondale)

       The House's finest moment of this Congress will soon become 
     the Senate's great opportunity. The House's action on 
     campaign finance reform is a demonstration of courage, 
     conviction and bipartisanship. It shows that clear majorities 
     of both houses, when permitted to vote, want to remove the 
     blight of soft money from our national politics. Now it's up 
     to the Senate to complete the job.
       Soft money, the flood of corporate and union treasury funds 
     and unlimited donations from individuals to national 
     political committees that swamped the 1991 elections with a 
     quarter-billion dollars, undermines protections built by the 
     Congress over the course of a century. Each major safeguard 
     skirted by soft money, beginning with the 1907 ban on 
     corporate treasury donations, resulted from efforts to 
     protect the integrity of American elections.
       No less is at stake now. The significant House vote cannot 
     be allowed to become just a gesture. The Senate's task--
     supported by principle and an appreciation of experience, 
     priority and responsibility, is to ensure that this singular 
     achievement of the House becomes a large stride toward 
     enactment of campaign finance reform in this Congress.
       Principle. A ban on soft money would not introduce any new 
     principle into the law. It would, instead, restore sound 
     principle, long held to be essential. That bedrock principle, 
     developed step by step through measures signed into law by 
     presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Gerald Ford, is that 
     federal election campaigns should be financed by limited 
     contributions from individuals and not by either corporate or 
     union treasuries. Neither candidates for federal office nor 
     the national political party committees whose primary mission 
     is to elect them, should be dependent on the treasuries of 
     corporations or unions that have strong economic interests in 
     the decisions of the federal government. As for individuals, 
     who should always be the center piece of our national 
     politics, the law should encourage the broadest participation 
     possible, while establishing reasonable limits to avoid 
     disproportionate power by those who can write the biggest 
     checks.
       Experience. Nearly every major controversy and excess of 
     the last election was related to soft money. If earlier 
     Congresses were unaware of the full consequences of the soft-
     money loophole, our experience in 1996 and the investigations 
     by this Congress have removed ignorance as a defense for 
     inaction. Legislators are often challenged by the uncertainty 
     of future developments. But to see the future of American 
     elections, one only needs to look at the present and 
     multiply. Soft money in the first year after the 1996 
     election was raised at twice the rate it was raised four 
     years ago. We are on the way to a half-billion dollars or 
     more in soft money in the 2000 elections.
       Priority. The urgency of action is clear. Congress should 
     use the shrinking window of time this year to safeguard the 
     next presidential election. In response to the trauma of a 
     president's fall in Watergate, this country struck a bargain 
     with its presidential candidates. Accept public funding in 
     the general election and forgo private fund-raising. Three 
     presidential elections--in 1976, 1980 and 1984--were faithful 
     to that bargain. Now the American taxpayer provides public 
     funding while presidential candidates and their parties 
     engage in an unlimited soft-money arms race. No matter who 
     wins, the country will be diminished if this continues to be 
     the way our presidents are elected.
       Responsibility. Without authorization by Congress, the 
     Federal Election Commission cracked open the door through 
     which corporate, union and unlimited individual soft-money 
     contributions have poured. But Congress can no longer avoid 
     the responsibility for making the fundamental choice about 
     the basic rules that should govern the financing of federal 
     election campaigns. It should vote to either approve the 
     soft-money system or end it. Either way, to borrow Harry 
     Truman's phrase, Congress must know that the public 
     understands that the buck, literally, stops on Capitol Hill.
       In sum, this is a time for the Senate to recognize the 
     force of the observation of one of its noted leaders, Everett 
     McKinley Dirksen, who opened the path to enactment of the 
     Civil Rights Act of 1964 by reminding senators of the 
     strength of an idea whose time has come. The time has come--
     as former presidents Ford, Carter and Bush, hundreds of 
     former members of both parties and majorities in both Houses 
     firmly believe--for Congress to protect the integrity of our 
     national elections. Our common purpose should be no less than 
     to allow the nation to look forward with pride to the 
     character of the new century's first presidential election.

                               Exhibit 2

   Campaign Finance Reform--A Statement by Nancy Kassebaum Baker and 
                             Walter Mondale

                             June 15, 1998

       A year ago, we released an open letter to the President and 
     Congress calling on the Executive and Legislative Branches to 
     debate and act on meaningful campaign finance reform. We 
     included in the open letter our initial recommendation for 
     several reforms--beginning with an end to ``soft money'' 
     contributions to the national parties and their campaign 
     organizations--on which agreement, in our view, could be 
     attained.
       Now, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of supporters of 
     reform within and outside of the Congress, the House stands 
     at the threshold of an important opportunity. And no one 
     should underestimate how important and urgent its task is.
       The issue of reform goes to the very heart of American 
     democracy--to the trust and respect citizens can have in 
     elections. Removing soft money will help restore the letter 
     and spirit of existing campaign laws and reassure voters that 
     they can again be the most important participants in 
     elections.
       Without action by this Congress on soft money, at the 
     current fundraising rate, the 2000 presidential election will 
     have more than a half billion dollars in soft money, double 
     the amount of 1996.
       Since our June 1997 open letter, we have been joined by 
     hundreds of distinguished Americans who have helped to bring 
     us all to this juncture. Foremost among them are former 
     Presidents Bush, Carter and Ford, and also the 216 former 
     Members of Congress who have signed a joint statement calling 
     for reform.
       Beyond lending their names to this effort, the former 
     Presidents and former Members, in letters, guest editorials, 
     and statements, have convincingly set forth the urgency and 
     case for reform. The following brings together some of the 
     main ideas that we and others have shared over the last year.


  The Primacy of Individual Voters and Their Confidence in Government

       As we wrote in the Los Angeles Times (September 22, 1997), 
     ``Progress on reform is perhaps the most important step that 
     can be taken to restore voter confidence in the ability of 
     all citizens, regardless of wealth, to participate fully in 
     elections. The failure of Congress to act will only deepen 
     voter despair about politics.''
       In a letter last June, former President Bush said, ``We 
     must encourage the broadest possible participation by 
     individuals in financing elections.'' Former Presidents 
     Carter and Ford, in a joint article in The Washington Post 
     (October 5, 1997) said, ``We must redouble our efforts to 
     assure voters that public policy is determined by the checks 
     on their ballots, rather than the checks from powerful 
     interests.''
       Former Senator and Republican National Committee Chairman 
     Bill Brock underscored that point in a guest editorial in the 
     Hill (April 29, 1998). ``The basic intent of the campaign 
     finance laws that Congress enacted in the past is quite 
     clear,'' he wrote, ``It is that campaigns should be funded by 
     individuals (not corporations and unions). . . . Because 
     Americans have long believed in individual responsibility as 
     the best antidote to the threats of excesses of wealth and 
     institutional power.'' And, as former Republican Senator Mark 
     Hatfield wrote in the Washington Times (March 26, 1998). 
     ``These prohibitions on corporate and union contributions 
     reflect a basic idea: Individuals should be the dominant 
     force in our political process.''
       Writing in the Chicago Sun-Times (March 24, 1998), former 
     House Republican Leader Bob Michel and former Representative, 
     Judge, and White House Counsel Abner Mikya, made the point 
     that ``[t]he cost to confidence in government of this 
     breakdown in campaign finance regulation is high.'' Raising 
     soft money, they explained, ``requires the sustained effort 
     of elected and party officials, often one-on-one with donors,

[[Page 25417]]

     to raise--indeed, wrest--the large sums involved in soft 
     money contributions. The entities and people from whom soft 
     money is sought often have enormous economic stakes in 
     government decisions. Corporate and other soft money donors 
     frankly say they feel shaken down.''
       Former Presidents Ford and Carter forcefully noted that 
     soft money ``is one of the most corrupting influences in 
     modern elections because there is no limit on the size of 
     donations--thus giving disproportionate influence to those 
     with the deepest pockets.''


                        Impact on the Presidency

       As former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter 
     expressed, it is vital for Congress ``to seize this 
     opportunity for reform now so it can improve the next 
     presidential election.''
       Writing last week in the San Francisco Chronicle (June 3, 
     1998), former Representative and White House Chief of Staff 
     Leon Panetta described the bargain the nation struck with its 
     presidential candidates in 1974: in return for public 
     financing of presidential elections, candidates would forego 
     fundraising in general elections. ``. . . the elections of 
     1976, 1980 and 1984 elections showed that national elections 
     could be run with fidelity to that bargain.''
       Time is of the essence. As Leon Panetta observed, ``As 
     difficult as the chances may seem, this Congress remains the 
     best hope for enabling the nation to begin the new century 
     with a presidential election of which it can be proud.''
       As former Reps. Bob Michel and Abner Mikva observed about 
     the coming House debate, ``Either [the House] will act to end 
     the scourge of soft money'' or it ``will do nothing about 
     letting the next presidential election become the biggest 
     auction the country ever has know.''


                     Restoring Congressional Intent

       ``Congress never authorized soft money. ``Bill Brock wrote 
     as he called on Congress to ``restore the spirit and the 
     letter of election laws dating back decades,'' Reps. Michel 
     and Mikva said, ``Congress never agreed to the creation of 
     soft money. The loophole is a product of exceptions allowed 
     by the Federal Election Commission that were expanded by 
     aggressive fund-raising by both parties.''
       Congress should decide whether it supports reforms dating 
     back to the beginning of the Century. ``It's time for 
     lawmakers to say whether soft money is good or bad for the 
     system,'' Brock said.


                         strengthening parties

       Bill Brock, writing from the perspective of a former party 
     chairman, dispelled the myth that soft money strengthens 
     parties. ``In truth, parties were strongest and closer to 
     their roots before the advent of this loophole than they are 
     today.'' Far from reinvigorating the parties themselves,'' he 
     observed, ``soft money has simply strengthened certain 
     specific candidates and the few donors who can make huge 
     contributions, while distracting parties from traditional 
     grassroots work.''
       Or, as we wrote in Roll Call (February 26, 1998), ``no one 
     can seriously say more people vote or participate because of 
     soft money. In fact, as soft money has skyrocketed, voter 
     turnout has continued to decline.''
       ``Without soft money,'' we continued, ``the parties will 
     have to work harder to raise money. But the benefits gained--
     by increasing the public's faith in democracy and reducing 
     the arms race for cash--will far outweigh the cost.''


                         focusing on priorities

       A consistent theme of our efforts, together with the former 
     Presidents and other former Members, is that it is essential 
     to take a first step toward reform, even while recognizing 
     that further steps will need to be taken in the years ahead. 
     Thus, as we wrote last July in The Washington Post (July 18, 
     1997), Congress ``should not delay action on those measures 
     that can pass now.'' Or, as former Senator Al Simpson wrote 
     in The Boston Globe (February 24, 1998), ``[Banning soft 
     money] won't solve all the problems, but it sure will be a 
     start, and it may even provide a sensible and responsible 
     foundation on which many additional thoughtful reforms can be 
     built. . . .''
       And as the statement of more than 200 former members 
     elaborates, ``we believe it is time to test the merits of 
     different or competing ideas through debate and votes, but 
     that any disagreement over further reforms should not delay 
     enactment of essential measures, beginning with a ban on soft 
     money, where agreement is within reach.''

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, here we are again. I think it is 
appropriate to say that campaign finance is a clinical term for 
``constitutional freedom.''
  Make no mistake, the essence of this debate is indeed freedom--
fundamental first amendment freedom of speech and association 
guaranteed to every American, citizen group, candidate, and party. That 
is the view of the U.S. Supreme Court, the view of the American Civil 
Liberties Union, and the view of most Republicans. Soft money, issue 
advocacy, express advocacy, PACs, and all the rest are nothing more 
than euphemisms for first-amendment-protected political speech and 
association means of amplifying one's voice in this vast Nation of 270 
million people.
  It is important to remember that Dan Rather and Peter Jennings have a 
lot of speech, and the editorial page of the New York Times has a big 
audience. But the typical American citizen and the typical candidate, 
unless he or she can amass the resources to project their voices to a 
larger audience, just simply doesn't have as much speech as the press. 
So the means to amplify one's voice in this vast Nation of 270 million 
people is critical and constitutionally protected. It is no more 
complicated than that and no less vital to our democracy than the 
freedom of the press, which has taken a great interest in this issue.
  Just thinking of the New York Times editorial page, for example, I 
think they have had 113 editorials on this subject since the beginning 
of 1997. That is an average of about one every nine days--issue 
advocacy, if you will, paid for by corporate soft money, expressing 
their view, which they have a right to do, on this important issue 
before us.
  But as we look at this long odyssey of campaign finance reform, we 
have come a long way in the last decade, those of us who see through 
the reform patina--from the push 10 years ago for taxpayer financing of 
congressional campaigns and spending limits, and even such lunacy as 
taxpayer-financed entitlement programs for candidates to counteract 
independent expenditures, a truly bizarre scheme long gone from the 
congressional proposals but now echoed, interestingly enough, in the 
campaign reform platform of Presidential candidate Bill Bradley, who 
advocates a 100-percent tax--a 100-percent tax on issue advocacy. So if 
you were so audacious as to go out and want to express yourself on an 
issue, the Government would levy a 100-percent tax on your expression 
and give the money to whoever the Government thought was entitled to 
respond to it--a truly loony idea.
  That was actually in the campaign finance bills we used to debate in 
the late 1980s and early 1990s and now is in the platform of one of the 
candidates for President of the United States, believe it or not.
  So it was just 2 years ago that spending limits were thrown overboard 
from the McCain-Feingold bill and that the PAC and bundling bans were 
thrown overboard as well. Now the focus becomes solely directed at 
citizens groups and parties, which is the form McCain-Feingold took 
last year. Now, this month, the McCain-Feingold odyssey has arrived at 
the point that if it were whittled down any further, only the effective 
date would remain. As it is, McCain-Feingold now amounts to an 
effective date on an ineffectual provision.
  Obviously, it is not surprising that that is my view. But it is also 
the view of the League of Women Voters, which opposes the current 
version of McCain-Feingold.
  To achieve what proponents of this legislation profess to want to 
achieve--a reduction of special interest influence--if you want to do 
that, I think that is not a good idea at all, it is blatantly 
unconstitutional and the wrong thing to do. But if you wanted to do it, 
you would certainly have to deal with all the avenues of participation, 
not just political parties. Nonparty soft money as well as party soft 
money, independent expenditures, candidate spending--all of the 
gimmicks advanced through the years in the guise of reform--all would 
have to be treated, if you truly wanted to quiet the voices of all of 
these citizens, which is what the reformers initially sought to do.
  The latest and leanest version of McCain-Feingold falls far short of 
that which would be needed if you were inclined to want to do this sort 
of thing to limit special interest influence. As the League of Women 
Voters contends--mind you, there is the first time I have ever agreed 
with them on anything--as they contend, you would have to treat all of 
the special interests if you were truly interested in quieting the 
voices of all of these Americans who belong to groups.

[[Page 25418]]

  It could not be more clear that this sort of McCain-Feingold-light 
that is currently before us is designed only to penalize the parties 
and to shift the influence to other avenues. That is precisely what it 
would do. It could not be more clear. Prohibiting only party soft money 
accomplishes absolutely nothing. It is only fodder for press releases 
and would make the present system worse and not better.
  That is quite aside from the matter of unconstitutionality and 
whether the parties have less first amendment rights to engage in soft 
money activities than other groups. If this were to be enacted, that 
issue would surely be settled by the Supreme Court, which is, of 
course, the Catch-22 of the reformers. The choice is between the 
ineffectual unconstitutional and the comprehensively unconstitutional. 
A younger generation would call that a choice between ``dumb and 
dumber.''
  For reality ever to square with reformer rhetoric, the Constitution 
would have to be amended and political speech specifically carved out 
of the first amendment scope of protection.
  There are those in this body who have actually proposed amending the 
Constitution. We had that debate in March of 1997. And, believe it or 
not, 38 Senators out of 100 voted to do just that--to amend the first 
amendment for the first time in 200 years to give the Government the 
power to restrict all spending, and in support of or in opposition to 
candidates. The ACLU calls that a ``recipe for repression.'' But that 
got 38 votes. You could at least give those people credit for honesty. 
They understand that in order to do what the reformers seek to do, you 
really would have to change the first amendment for the first time in 
200 years.
  So what the McCain-Feingold saga comes down to is an effort to have 
the Government control all spending by, in support of, or in opposition 
to candidates, with a little loophole carving out the media's own 
spending, of course.
  That this effort is allowed to be advanced as reform is one of the 
tragedies of our time. Fortunately, enough Senators on this side of the 
aisle have had the courage to forestall this assault on freedom for the 
past decade and have proven by example that there is a constituency for 
protecting constitutional freedom.
  Let me just say there is an excellent letter from the American Civil 
Liberties Union--a group that is an equal opportunity defender for an 
awful lot of Americans but is truly America's experts on the first 
amendment--to me, which I just got yesterday, which I ask unanimous 
consent to be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                               American Civil Liberties Union,

                                                   Washington, DC.
     Hon. Mitch McConnell,
     Senate Office Building,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator McConnell: The ACLU is writing to express its 
     opposition to the new, seemingly watered-down McCain-Feingold 
     bill. While it is true that the most obvious direct 
     legislative attacks on issue advocacy have been removed from 
     this bill, S. 1593 continues to abridge the First Amendment 
     rights of those who want to support party issue advocacy. The 
     soft money restrictions proposed in S. 1593 are just another, 
     less direct way to restrain issue advocacy and should 
     therefore be opposed.


           Concerns About Soft Money Restrictions in S. 1593

       Soft money is funding that does not support express 
     advocacy of the election or defeat of federal candidates, 
     even though it may exert an attenuated influence on the 
     outcome of a federal election. In other words, everything 
     that is not hard money (express advocacy dollars) is soft 
     money. Thus, soft money includes party funds and issue 
     advocacy dollars.
       Party soft money sustains primary political activity such 
     as candidate recruitment, get-out-the-vote drives and issue 
     advertising. While candidate-focused contributions and 
     expenditures and ``express advocacy'' can be subject to 
     various restrictions or regulations, the Supreme Court in 
     Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976) held that all speech 
     which does not ``in express terms advocate the election or 
     defeat of a clearly identified candidate'' shall remain free 
     from the same regulations that apply to hard money. ``So long 
     as persons and groups eschew expenditures that in express 
     terms advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified 
     candidate, they are free to spend as much as they want to 
     promote the candidate and his views.'' 424 U.S. at 45 
     (emphasis supplied).
       Indeed, the unrestricted use of soft money by political 
     parties and non-party organizations like labor unions has 
     been invited by Buckley and acknowledged by the Supreme 
     Court. In Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. 
     Federal Election Commission, 116 S.Ct. 2309 (1996), the Court 
     upheld unlimited ``hard money'' independent expenditures by 
     political parties on behalf of their candidates.
       In Colorado, the Brennan Center provided the Court 
     extensive charts and graphs detailing large individual and 
     corporate soft money contributions to the two major parties 
     that they asserted threatened the integrity of the FECA's 
     federal contribution restrictions. (Brief, p. 8) 
     Notwithstanding this `'evidence,'' the Court stated:
       ``We recognize that FECA permits individuals to contribute 
     more money ($20,000) to a party than to a candidate ($1,000) 
     or to other political committees ($5,000). . . . We also 
     recognize that FECA permits unregulated ``soft money'' 
     contributions to a party for certain activities, such as 
     electing candidates for state office . . . or for voter 
     registration and ``get out the vote'' drives. . . . But the 
     opportunity for corruption posed by these greater 
     opportunities for contributions is, at best, attenuated.'' 
     Id. at 2316.
       Restricting soft money contributions alone will only force 
     more dollars into other forms of speech beyond the reach of 
     campaign finance laws. Soft money restrictions also give even 
     more power to the media to influence voters' choices and to 
     characterize candidate records. If S. 1593 is adopted, less 
     money will be available to parties to assert the platform 
     embraced by candidates and non-candidate party members. A 
     soft money ban will not solve the problem that candidates now 
     have, which is the dearth of hard dollars available to run 
     competitive campaigns. Because contribution limits have 
     remained unchanged since the 1970's it is no wonder that 
     other avenues (party soft money and issue advocacy soft 
     money) have been exploited to influence the outcome of 
     elections.
       The goal of the Common Cause-type reform advocates is to 
     find all sources of money that may conceivably influence the 
     outcome of elections and place them under the control of the 
     Federal Election Commission. It is not possible within our 
     constitutional framework to limit and regulate all forms of 
     political speech. Further, it seems rather arrogant that some 
     members of Congress believe that the candidates and the press 
     alone should have unlimited power to characterize the 
     candidates and their records. The rest of us must be silent 
     bystanders denied our First Amendment rights to have our 
     voices amplified by funding issue and party speech. 
     Disclosure, rather than limitation, of large soft money 
     contributions of political parties, is the more appropriate 
     and less restrictive alternative.
       Rather than assess how the limit driven approach caused our 
     current campaign finance woes, we are asked to believe the 
     fiction that the incremental limits approach in S. 1593 is 
     the solution. The ACLU is forced to agree with the League of 
     Women Voters who wisely withdrew their support for this 
     legislation (albeit for different reasons) and asserted, ``. 
     . . the overall system may actually be made worse by this 
     bill.''


                  concerns about potential amendments

                      Issue advocacy restrictions

       Because issue ads generated from party and non-party 
     sources have provoked the consternation of many members of 
     Congress and so-called reform groups, it is likely that 
     Senators will have the opportunity to vote on amendments that 
     restrict issue advocacy. We urge the Senate to reject 
     restrictions on issue advocacy because they violate the 
     Constitution.
       The Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo well understood the 
     risks that overly broad campaign finance regulations could 
     pose to electoral democracy. The Court said, ``[discussion of 
     public issues and debate on the qualifications of candidates 
     are integral to the operation of the system of government 
     established by our Constitution.'' 424 U.S. at 14. The Court 
     recognized that ``the distinction between discussion of 
     issues and candidates and advocacy of election or defeat of 
     candidates may often dissolve in practical application. 
     Candidates, especially incumbents, are intimately tied to 
     public issues involving legislative proposals and 
     governmental actions. Not only do candidates campaign on the 
     basis of their positions on various public issues, but 
     campaigns themselves generate issues of public interest.'' 
     424 U.S. at 43. If any discussion of a candidate in the 
     context of discussion of an issue rendered the speaker 
     subject to campaign finance controls, the consequences for 
     free discussion would be intolerable and speakers would be 
     compelled ``to hedge and trim,'' Id., quoting Thomas v. 
     Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 535 (1945).
       The Court fashioned the express advocacy doctrine to 
     safeguard issue advocacy from campaign finance controls, even 
     though such discussion might influence the outcome of an 
     election. The doctrine provides a hard, bright-line, 
     objective test that protects political speech and association 
     by focusing

[[Page 25419]]

     solely on the content of the speaker's words, not the motive 
     in the speaker's mind or the impact of the speaker's 
     opinions, or the proximity to an election, or the phase of 
     the moon. The doctrine marks the boundary of permissible 
     regulation and frees issue advocacy from any permissible 
     restraint.
       The Buckley Court could not have been more clear about the 
     need for that bright line test which focuses solely on the 
     speaker's words and which is now an integral part of settled 
     First Amendment doctrine. It was designed to protect issue 
     discussion and advocacy by allowing independent groups of 
     citizens to comment on and criticize the performance of 
     elected officials without becoming ensnared in the federal 
     campaign finance laws. And it permits issue discussion to go 
     forward at the time that it is most vital in a democracy: 
     during an election season.
       Although not as sweeping as other proposals, we believe 
     that the Snowe-Jeffords amendment restricting issue advocacy 
     should be opposed for the reasons stated above.

           Specific Problems with the Shays-Meehan Substitute

       It is our understanding the Sen. Tom Daschle (D, SD) and 
     Sen. Robert Torricelli (D, NJ) will offer the House passed 
     version of Shays-Meehan, H.R. 417. We urge Senators to vote 
     against this measure. Shays-Meehan has a chilling affect on 
     issue group speech that is essential in a democracy. H.R. 417 
     contains the harshest and most unconstitutional controls on 
     issue advocacy groups.
       This bill contains a permanent year-round restriction on 
     issue advocacy achieved through redefining express advocacy 
     in an unconstitutionally vague and over-broad manner. The 
     Supreme Court has held that only express advocacy, narrowly 
     defined, can be subject to campaign finance controls. The key 
     to the existing definition of express advocacy is the 
     inclusion of an explicit directive to vote for or vote 
     against a candidate. Minus the explicit directive or so-
     called ``bright-line'' test, what will constitute express 
     advocacy will be in the eye of the beholder, in this case the 
     Federal Election Commission (FEC). Few non-profit issue 
     groups will want to risk their tax status or incur legal 
     expenses to engage in speech that could be interpreted by the 
     FEC to have an influence on the outcome of an election.
       It requires a two-month black-out on all television and 
     radio issue advertising before the primary and general 
     elections. The bill's statutory limitations on issue advocacy 
     would force groups that now engage in issue advocacy--
     501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s--to create new institutional 
     entities--PACs--in order to ``legally'' speak within 60 days 
     before an election. Groups would also be forced to disclose 
     or identify all contributors to the new PAC. For 
     organizations like the ACLU, this will mean individuals will 
     stop contributing rather than risk publicity about their 
     gift. The opportunities that donors now have to contribute 
     anonymously to our efforts to highlight issues during 
     elections would be eliminated. (This is a special concern for 
     groups that advocate unpopular or divisive causes. See NAACP 
     v. Alabama 357 U.S. 449(1958).) For many non-profits, being 
     forced to establish PACs entails a significant and costly 
     burden, one that can change the very character of the 
     organization. Separate accounting procedures, new legal 
     compliance costs and separate administrative processes would 
     be imposed on these groups--a high price to exercise their 
     First Amendment rights to comment on candidate records. It is 
     very likely that some groups will remain silent rather than 
     risk violating this new requirement or absorbing the 
     attendant cost of compliance. The only entities that will be 
     able to characterize a candidate's record on radio and 
     television during this 60-day period will be the candidates, 
     PACs and the media. Yet, the period when non-PAC issue groups 
     are locked out is the very time when everyone is paying 
     attention! Further, members of Congress need only wait until 
     the last 60 days before an election (as it often does now) to 
     vote for legislation or engage in controversial behavior, so 
     that their actions are beyond the reach of public comment 
     and, therefore, effectively immune from citizen criticism.
       Shays-Meehan contains a misleading exception for candidate 
     voting records. The voting records that would be permitted 
     under this new statute would be stripped of any advocacy-like 
     commentary. For example, depending on its wording, the ACLU 
     might be banned from distributing a voting guide that 
     highlights members of Congress who have a 100 percent ACLU 
     voting records as members of an ``ACLU Honor Role.'' Unless 
     the ACLU chose to create a PAC to publish such guides, we 
     would be barred by this statute even though we do not 
     expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate. 
     Courts have clearly held that such a result is an 
     unacceptable or unconstitutional restraint on issue-oriented 
     speech.
       It redefines ``expenditure,'' ``contribution'' and 
     ``coordination with a candidate'' so that heretofore legal 
     and constitutionally protected activities of issue advocacy 
     groups would become illegal. Let's say, for example, that the 
     ACLU decided to place an ad lauding, by name, Representatives 
     or Senators for the effective advocacy of constitutional 
     campaign finance reform. That ad would be counted as express 
     advocacy on behalf of the named Congresspersons under H.R. 
     417 and would be effectively prohibited. If the ACLU checked 
     with key congressional offices to determine when this reform 
     measure was coming to the floor so the placement of the ad 
     would be timely--that would be an ``expenditure'' counted as 
     a ``contribution'' to the named officials and it would be 
     deemed ``coordinated with the candidate.'' An expanded 
     definition of coordination chills legal and appropriate issue 
     group-candidate discussion.
       If these very same restrictions outlined above were imposed 
     on the media, we would have a national First Amendment crisis 
     of huge proportions. Yet, newspapers such as the Washington 
     Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and other 
     media outlets relentlessly editorialize in favor of Shays-
     Meehan--a proposal that blatantly chills free speech rights 
     of others, but not their own. Let's suppose Congress 
     constrained editorial boards in a similar fashion. Any time 
     news outlets ran an editorial--60 days before an election or 
     otherwise--mentioned the name of a candidate, the law now 
     required them to disclose the author of the editorial, the 
     amount of money spent to distribute the editorial and the 
     names of the owners of the newspaper of the FEC, or risk 
     prosecution. The media powerhouses would engage in a frenzy 
     of protest, and you could count on the ACLU challenging such 
     restraints on free speech. Yet, the press has as much if not 
     more influence on the outcome of elections as all issue 
     advocacy groups combined. Some voters are more likely go to 
     the polls with their newspaper's candidate endorsements 
     wrapped under their arm than carrying other issue group 
     literature into the voting booth.
       The Shays-Meehan bill contains misguided and 
     unconstitutional restrictions on issue group speech and only 
     works to further empower the media to influence the outcome 
     of elections. None of the proposals seek to regulate the 
     ability of the media--print, electronic, broadcast or cable--
     to exercise its enormous power to direct news coverage and 
     editorialize in favor or against candidates. This would be 
     clearly unconstitutional. It is equally unconstitutional to 
     effectively chill and eliminate citizen group advocacy. It is 
     scandalous that Congress would muzzle issue groups in such a 
     fashion.
       Finally, the ACLU has to be especially watchful of the 
     Federal Elections Commission because it is a federal agency 
     whose primary purpose is to monitor political speech. If 
     Congress gives the FEC the authority to decide what 
     constitutes ``true'' issue advocacy versus ``sham'' issue 
     advocacy, the FEC is then empowered to become ``Big Brother'' 
     of the worst Kind. Already, it has been, far too often, an 
     agency in the business of investigating and prosecuting 
     political speech. The FEC would have to develop a huge 
     apparatus that would be in the full-time business of 
     determining which communications are considered unlawful 
     ``electioneering'' by citizens and non-profit groups. 
     Further, Shays-Meehan contains harsh penalties for failure to 
     comply with the new laws.

Restrictions on the First Amendment Rights of Legal Permanent Residents 
                                 (LPRs)

       Lawful permanent residents are stakeholders in our society. 
     They send their children to our schools, pay taxes on their 
     worldwide income, and like citizens, must register for the 
     draft and serve if the draft is re-instituted. In fact, 
     nearly 20,000 lawful permanent residents now serve 
     voluntarily in the military. By no stretch of the imagination 
     is their money ``foreign money.'' Lawful permanent residents 
     must reside in the U.S. or they forfeit their green cards and 
     right to remain. Moreover, the courts have repeatedly held 
     that non-citizens in the United States have First Amendment 
     rights, and this should include the right to make campaign 
     contributions.
       The Shays-Meehan campaign finance bill was amended to bar 
     campaign contributions and expenditures from lawful permanent 
     residents. It virtually guarantees that candidates and their 
     campaign organizations will discriminate against new 
     Americans because it threatens them with substantial 
     penalties if they accept a donation they ``should have 
     known'' came from a non-citizen. We urge you to reject any 
     amendment to the McCain-Feingold bill that would bar such 
     contributions.

                 Internet Political Speech Restrictions

       We urge the Senate to support an amendment by Senator 
     Robert Bennett (R, UT) that would prohibit the FEC from 
     imposing restrictions on Internet commentary on candidates 
     and their positions on issues. Attached is an ACLU press 
     release that illustrates the draconian nature of FEC 
     restrictions on free expression on the Internet.

                         Our Proposed Solutions

       The ACLU believes that there is a less drastic and 
     constitutionally offensive way to achieve reform: public 
     financing.
       If you believe that the public policy process is distorted 
     by candidates' growing dependence on large contributions then 
     you should help qualified candidates mount competitive 
     campaigns--especially if they lack personal wealth or cannot 
     privately raise large sums of money. Difficult questions have 
     to be resolved about how to deal with

[[Page 25420]]

     soft money and independent expenditures. Some of these 
     outcomes are constrained by constitutionally based court 
     decisions.
       But notwithstanding the nay-sayers who say public financing 
     is dead on arrival, we should remember that we once had a 
     system where private citizens and political parties printed 
     their own ballots. It later became clear that to protect the 
     integrity of the electoral process ballots had to be printed 
     and paid for by the government. For the same reason the 
     public treasury pays for voting machines, polling booths and 
     registrars and the salaries of elected officials. In 
     conclusion, we take it as a fundamental premise that 
     elections are a public not a private process--a process at 
     the very heart of democracy. If we are fed up with a system 
     that allows too much private influence and personal and 
     corporate wealth to prevail then we should complete the task 
     by making public elections publicly financed.
           Sincerely
     Laura W. Murphy,
       Director, Washington Office.
     Joel Gora,
       Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School and Counsel to the 
     ACLU.
     Gregory Nojeim,
       Legislative Counsel.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Let me read some of the letter.

       The AFL-CIO is writing to express its opposition to the new 
     seemingly watered down McCain-Feingold bill. While it is true 
     that the most obvious direct legislative attacks on issue 
     advocacy have been removed from the bill, S. 1593 continues 
     to abridge the first amendment rights of those who want to 
     support party issue advocacy. The soft money restrictions 
     proposed in S. 1593 are just another less direct way to 
     restrain issue advocacy and therefore should be opposed.

  I think that, plus the balance of the letter, sums up the 
constitutional arguments against the latest version of McCain-Feingold.
  Earlier it had been my hope there would be an amendment offered by 
the other side. Seeing that is not the case, I am prepared to move 
forward and lay down the first amendment of this debate in which we are 
engaged.


                           Amendment No. 2293

    (Purpose: To require Senators to report credible information of 
corruption to the Select Committee on Ethics and amend title 18, United 
  States Code, to provide for mandatory minimum bribery penalties for 
                           public officials)

  Mr. McCONNELL. I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its 
immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A Senator from Kentucky [Mr. McConnell] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 2293.

  Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be 
dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the appropriate place, insert the following:

     SEC. __. REQUIRING SENATORS TO REPORT CREDIBLE INFORMATION OF 
                   CORRUPTION.

       The Standing Rules of the Senate are amended by adding at 
     the end the following:

                              ``RULE XLIV

   ``requiring senators to report credible information of corruption

       ``(a) A Senator shall report to the Select Committee on 
     Ethics any credible information available to him or her that 
     indicates that any Senator may have--
       ``(1) violated the Senate Code of Office Conduct;
       ``(2) violated a law; or
       ``(3) violated any rule or regulation of the Senate 
     relating to the conduct of individuals in the performance of 
     their duties as Senators.
       ``(b) Information may be reported under subsection (a) to 
     the Chairman, the Vice Chairman, a Committee member, or the 
     staff director of the Select Committee on Ethics.''.

     SEC. __. BRIBERY PENALTIES FOR PUBLIC OFFICIALS.

       Section 201(b) of title 18, United States Code, is amended 
     by inserting before the period at the end the following: ``, 
     except that, with respect to a person who violates paragraph 
     (2), the amount of the fine under this subsection shall be 
     not less than $100,000, the term of imprisonment shall be not 
     less than 1 year, and such person shall be disqualified from 
     holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the 
     United States''.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the Senator from Wisconsin is here. We 
want to talk a little bit in the course of this debate on the amendment 
that I sent to the desk about the issue of corruption. There have been 
a lot of charges of corruption both on and off the floor. I think these 
are very serious charges and I think they warrant some discussion, not 
only for our colleagues but for the members of the public who are 
interested in this issue.
  My colleague from Arizona gave a moving speech in Bedford, NH, a few 
months ago to kick off his Presidential campaign. In that speech, my 
friend from Arizona laid out his vision of America with strong, and I 
must say, compelling statements about what he firmly believes to be 
corruption in American politics. If there is one thing that is often 
said about our colleague from Arizona, it is that he is a straight 
shooter and that he calls it as he sees it. I certainly wouldn't argue 
with that.
  Based on the Senator's speech in New Hampshire and his remarks about 
his legislation, I assume I am correct in inferring that the Senator 
from Arizona believes the legislative process has been corrupted. I 
think he said that in the Wall Street Journal today. I don't believe I 
am misquoting him. I hope I am not. I see his staffer on the floor. I 
don't want to be talking about your boss in his absence, and I hope I 
am not misquoting him. I certainly hope he will come back to the floor 
for this debate.
  What I will do is run through a few of the recent statements of the 
Senator from Arizona about corruption to be sure that the Senate fully 
understands his strongly held views on this subject.
  Again, I encourage my friend from Arizona to come back to the floor 
because I certainly don't want to be talking about him in his absence, 
although I will say these quotes are quite precise and I assure him 
that I am not misquoting his observations in any way.
  The Senator from Arizona, in discussing the subject of campaign 
finance reform in Bedford, NH, on June 30 of this year said:

       I think most Republicans understand that soft money, the 
     enormous sums of money given to both parties by just about 
     every special interest in the country, corrupts our political 
     ideals, whether it comes from big business or from labor 
     bosses and trial lawyers.

  Quoting further from my friend from Arizona, he says:

       In truth, we are all shortchanged by soft money, liberal 
     and conservative alike. All of our ideals are sacrificed. We 
     are all corrupted. I know this is a harsh judgment, [says 
     Senator McCain] but it is, I'm sorry to say, a fair one.

  So the principal quote from my friend from Arizona is that ``We are 
all corrupted.''
  He goes on to say:

       Pork barrel spending is a direct result of unlimited 
     contributions from special interests.

  My friend from Arizona, also on CNN Early Edition, July 1 of this 
year, said:

       We have seen debasement of the institutions of government, 
     including the corruption of Congress because of the influence 
     of special interests.

  Further, my friend from Arizona said:

       Soft money is corrupting the process.

  Then on Fox News, Sunday, on June 27 of this year, my friend from 
Arizona said:

       I talked to Republicans all over America, including up here 
     in New Hampshire, and when I tell them about the corruption 
     that exists they nod their heads.

  My friend from Arizona goes on:

       I think that Americans don't hold us in the esteem and with 
     the respect that the profession deserves and that's because 
     the profession has become permeated with special interests, 
     which have caused corruption, which have then caused them to 
     lose confidence in government.

  And the Senator from Arizona went on:

       I'm trying to eliminate the soft money which has corrupted 
     our legislative process, and I think soft money has permeated 
     American politics. It has corrupted the process and it has to 
     be eliminated.

  And then in New Hampshire on July 3:

       Young people think politicians are corrupt. Know what? We 
     are [said the Senator from Arizona] all corrupt.

  Then on This Week on ABC, October 3, 1999, George Will said to the 
Senator from Arizona:

       Have you ever been or can you name a Republican who has 
     ever been corrupted by the Republican National Committee?


[[Page 25421]]


  The Senator from Arizona said:

       Not by the Republican National Committee, but all of us 
     have been corrupted by the process where big money and big 
     influence--and you can include me in the list where big money 
     has bought access which has bought influence. Anybody who 
     glances at the so-called 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act 
     and then looks at the results--which is an increase in cable 
     rates, phone rates, mergers, and lack of competition--clearly 
     knows that the special interests are protected in Washington 
     at the public. And the public interest is submerged.

  George Will said:

       This is soft money to parties, that itself leads to 
     corruption of Republicans?

  And the Senator from Arizona says:

       Of course it does, George, and you work there and you see 
     it.

  Now my colleague from Arizona, on the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 
said:

       During hearings for the 1996 Telecommunications Act, every 
     company affected by the legislation had purchased a seat at 
     the table with soft money.

  Now that was in a Bedford, NH, speech of June 30 of this year.
  Referring now to the web site of my colleague from Arizona, there are 
charts that list accusations and lists of projects. Let me quote from 
the web site:

       In the last several years while Republicans have controlled 
     Congress, special interest earmarks in appropriations bills 
     have dramatically increased. The rise in pork barrel spending 
     is directly related to the rise of soft money, as Republicans 
     and Democrats scramble to reward major donors to our 
     campaigns.

  Straight from the web site, ``It's Your Country.'' And then there are 
projects listed as examples of projects presumably inserted into bills 
as a result of soft money contributions.
  There is $26 million to compensate fishermen, fish processors, and 
fishing crews negatively affected by restrictions on fishing in Glacier 
Bay National Park, and $70 million for expanding a livestock assistance 
program to include reindeer, both those projects in Alaska, projects 
which--I assume the allegation is--were inserted in a bill as a result 
of a soft money contribution, which, as we all know, can only go to 
political parties.
  In the State of Utah, the site lists $2.2 million for sewer 
infrastructure associated with the 2002 winter games in Utah as an 
example of an appropriations insertion, presumably as a result of some 
soft money contribution to a political party.
  Then it lists the State of Washington, $1.3 million for the WTO 
Ministerial Meeting in Seattle, WA, and an exemption for the Crown 
Jewel Mine, in Washington, to deposit mining waste on land adjacent to 
the mine.
  Further, on September 26, 1999, the Daily Outrage from the web site 
says:

       The largest producer of ethanol, Archer-Daniels-Midland 
     Corporation, who gave lavishly to both political parties--for 
     their contribution, ADM recently received an extension of 
     ethanol subsidies totaling $75 million. It also suggested 
     that ADM also benefits from sugar support programs that keep 
     the price of corn syrup artificially high. This sweetheart 
     deal gets ADM another $200 million a year.

  Then today in the Wall Street Journal, the Senator from Arizona says:

       In the past several years, while Republicans controlled 
     Congress, earmarks in appropriations bills have dramatically 
     increased. The reason for this pork barrel spending is that 
     Republicans and Democrats are scrambling to reward major 
     donors to their campaigns.

  The Senator from Arizona, I see, is on the floor. I am just 
interested in engaging in some discussion here about what 
specifically--which specific Senators he believes have been engaged in 
corruption.
  I know he said from time to time the process is corrupted. But I 
think it is important to note, for there to be corruption, someone must 
be corrupt. Someone must be corrupt for there to be corruption.
  So I just ask my friend from Arizona what he has in mind here, in 
suggesting that corruption is permeating our body and listing these 
projects for the benefit of several States as examples.
  Mr. McCAIN. Does the Senator yield the floor?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Recently there was a book written by Elizabeth Drew 
called ``The Corruption of American Politics.'' I commend it to the 
reading of the Senator from Kentucky. In chapter 4 titled ``The Money 
Culture,'' she says:

       Indisputably, the greatest change in Washington over the 
     past twenty-five years--in its culture, in the way it does 
     business, and the ever-burgeoning amount of business 
     transactions that go on here--has been in the preoccupation 
     with money.
       Striving for and obtaining money has become the predominant 
     activity--and not just in electoral politics--and its effects 
     are pernicious. The culture of money dominates Washington as 
     never before; money now rivals or even exceeds power as the 
     preeminent goal. It affects the issues raised and their 
     outcome; it has changed employment patterns in Washington; it 
     has transformed politics; and it has subverted values. It has 
     led good people to do things that are morally questionable, 
     if not reprehensible. It has cut a deep gash, if not 
     inflicted a mortal wound, in the concept of public service.

  That is basically what Elizabeth Drew, who has been around this town 
for many years, said in her book. She states:

       Private interests have tried to influence legislative and 
     administrative outcomes through the use of money for a long 
     time. The great Daniel Webster was on retainer from the Bank 
     of the United States and at the same time was one of its 
     greatest defenders in the Congress. But never before in the 
     modern age has political money played the pervasive role that 
     it does now. By comparison, the Watergate period seems almost 
     quaint.
       There was a time when people came to Washington out of a 
     spirit of public service and idealism. Engendering this 
     spirit was one of John F. Kennedy's most important 
     contributions. Then Richard Nixon, picking up from George 
     Wallace, and then Ronald Reagan, in particular, derided 
     ``federal bureaucrats.'' The spirit of public service was 
     stepped on, but not entirely extinguished.
       But more than ever, Washington has become a place where 
     people come or remain in order to benefit financially from 
     their government service. (A similar thing could be said of 
     journalists--and nonjournalists fresh out of government 
     service--who package themselves as writers, television 
     performers, and highly paid speakers at conventions.)

  I have for many years had a set of criteria indicating that which I 
have said we cannot, should not, abide. Perhaps a lot of it is because 
I am a member of authorizing committees. I took the floor here just a 
couple of hours ago to talk about $6.4 billion that was added to the 
Defense appropriations bill. I will have to get the statement again to 
refresh myself with the specific numbers, but $92 million was for 
military construction projects which had not been authorized--no 
hearing, nothing whatsoever that had to do with the authorizing 
followed by the appropriating process.
  I worked with a number of organizations: Citizens Against Government 
Waste, Citizens For A Sound Economy, and other organizations in 
Washington that are watchdog organizations. We developed a set of 
criteria. Those criteria have to do with: Whether it was requested in 
the President's budget, whether there was an authorization, whether 
there was a hearing, et cetera. There are a number. They are on their 
way over, the criteria I have used for many years.
  Because when you bypass the authorizing and appropriating process, 
you obviously do not, No. 1, abide by the prescribed way we are 
supposed to do business around here; but then it opens up to improper 
procedures.
  We have 12,000 enlisted families on food stamps. Yet we will spend 
$92 million, and other funds, on programs that the Secretary of Defense 
says specifically are not of the priority on which to be spending 
money:

       I have said for 10 years I have reviewed annual 
     appropriations bills to determine whether they contain items 
     that are low priority, unnecessary, or wasteful spending. In 
     this process I have used five objective criteria to identify 
     programs and projects that have not been appropriately 
     reviewed in the normal merit-based prioritization process.
       These criteria are: Unauthorized appropriations, 
     unrequested locality-specific earmarks, research-facility-
     specific earmarks, and other earmarks that would circumvent 
     the formal competitive award process, budget add-ons that 
     would be subject to a budget point of order, transfer or 
     disposal of Federal property or items under terms that 
     circumvent existing law, and new items that were added in 
     conference that were never considered in either bill in 
     either House.


[[Page 25422]]


  The web site goes on to say:

       Senator McCain's criteria are not intended to reflect a 
     judgment on the merits of an item. They are designed to 
     identify projects that have not been considered in an 
     appropriate merit-based prioritization process.

  I do not intend to let this debate, which is about banning soft 
money, get into some kind of personal discussion here. I simply will 
not do it, except to say that Elizabeth Drew has it right. Many other 
people who judge this town have it right. The fact is, there is a 
pernicious effect of money on the legislative process.
  I refuse to, and would not in any way, say that any individual or 
person is guilty of corruption in a specific way, nor identify them, 
because that would defeat--
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. McCAIN. I would like to finish.
  That would defeat the purpose because, as I have said many times 
before, this system makes good people do bad things. It makes good 
people do bad things. That is to go around the process which is 
prescribed for the Senate--the Congress of the United States--to 
operate under.
  When I go to San Diego and I meet enlisted people who are on active 
duty who are required to stand in line for food, for charity, and we 
are spending money on projects and programs that are unwarranted, 
unnecessary, and unauthorized, I will tell my friend from Kentucky, I 
get angry.
  I do not know much about the background of the Senator from Kentucky 
or his priorities, but I have mine. One is that I am not going to stand 
by without getting very upset when young Americans who are serving this 
country are on food stamps while we are wasting $6.4 billion in pork 
barrel projects.
  All I can say to the Senator from Kentucky, if he wants to engage in 
this kind of debate, I think it will be a waste of our 5 days of time. 
But I believe, as Elizabeth Drew has said, this system is wrong, it 
needs to be fixed, and the influence of special interests has a 
pernicious effect on the legislative process.
  The Senator from Kentucky is entitled to his view that he does not 
agree with that, or obviously the Senator from Utah. That is my 
considered opinion. But I will state to the Senator from Kentucky now, 
I am not in the business of identifying individuals or attacking 
individuals. I am attacking a system. I am attacking a system that has 
to be fixed and that has caused 69 percent of young Americans between 
18 and 35 to say they are disconnected from their Government, that 
caused in the 1998 election the lowest voter turnout in history of 18- 
to 26-year-olds. Those 18- to 26-year-olds were asked: Why didn't you 
vote? And they said they believe we do not represent them anymore, 
because they have lost confidence. They say they will not run for 
public office, that they believe we are corrupt.
  It is the appearance of corruption that is causing young Americans to 
divorce themselves from the political process, refuse to run for public 
office, and there is poll after poll and data that will so reflect.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. McCAIN. I will be glad to yield for question.
  Mr. McCONNELL. By the way, I only quoted the Senator's comments and 
everything was quoted accurately. I raised the Senator's own words in 
the debate, words he has used as a justification for this bill that is 
currently before us.
  I ask the Senator from Arizona, how can it be corruption if no one is 
corrupt? That is like saying the gang is corrupt but none of the 
gangsters are. If there is corruption, someone must be corrupt.
  On the Senator's web site, he names some projects that he 
specifically says are in these bills as a result of soft money 
contributions which, of course, as we all know, cannot be received by 
anybody who votes anyway; they are given to a party.
  I repeat my question to the Senator from Arizona: Who is corrupt?
  Mr. McCAIN. First of all, I have already responded to the Senator 
that I will not get into people's names. I will, indeed, repeat, again, 
to the Senator from the web site from which he is quoting. Here it is:

       For 10 years, Senator McCain has reviewed the annual 
     appropriations bills to determine whether they contain items 
     that are low priority, unnecessary, or wasteful spending. In 
     this process, he has used five objective criteria.

  And I go on to list them. That is why----
  Mr. McCONNELL. Does that equal corruption though?
  Mr. McCAIN. If the Senator from Kentucky will not accept that answer, 
there is no point in me continuing to answer. I have already answered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I heard the answer, but the answer, I gather, deleted 
the word ``corruption.'' The suggestion is that these were inserted as 
a result of some corrupt act by someone; is that right?
  Mr. McCAIN. No, that is not right. It is a system. It is a system 
that has violated the process and has therefore caused the American 
people to lose confidence and trust in the Government.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The Senator agrees ``corruption'' may not be 
appropriate. If there is no individual he can name who is corrupt, then 
``corruption'' may not be the appropriate word; would the Senator 
agree?
  Mr. McCAIN. I would not, I say to the Senator from Kentucky. He is 
entitled to his views, his opinions, and his conclusions. I am entitled 
to mine.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I see the Senator from Utah.
  Mr. BENNETT. I ask if the Senator from Arizona will yield further for 
a question?
  Mr. McCAIN. Yes, I will be glad to.
  Mr. BENNETT. I am holding a copy of the web site in which the Senator 
from Arizona is quoted as follows:

       In the last several years, while Republicans controlled 
     Congress, special interest earmarks in appropriations bills 
     have dramatically increased. The rise in pork barrel spending 
     is directly related to the rise of soft money, as Republicans 
     and Democrats scramble to reward major donors to our 
     campaigns.

  Immediately adjacent to that statement, as an example which ``will 
give you an idea of what laced this most recent trichinosis attack,'' 
again a direct quote from the web site:

       . . . $2.2 million for sewer infrastructure needs 
     associated with the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah.

  I plead guilty. I am the Senator who approached the Appropriations 
Committee to ask for that earmark.
  I ask the Senator from Arizona if he can identify for me from the 
words he has used in the web site, ``the rise of soft money'' that came 
to me that caused me to approach the Appropriations Committee to ask 
for that money; specifically, I am going to ask the Senator from 
Arizona to identify the source of the money, the amount of the money, 
the recipient of the money that produced that which he describes on his 
web site as a direct result of, presumably, the money that was 
received.
  Mr. McCAIN. I will be glad to respond to the Senator from Utah. In 
September 19, 1997, I wrote a letter to the Senator from Utah. I never 
received an answer. A year later, I came to the Senator from Utah and 
handed him a copy of the letter. The Senator from Utah never answered.
  Let me read parts from the letter to the Senator from Utah to remind 
him because he never answered the letter:

       September 19, 1997, Honorable Robert F. Bennett, United 
     States Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Bob: I am writing about the recent efforts to add 
     funds to appropriations measure for the 2002 Winter Olympics 
     in Salt Lake City. By my count, the Senate has approved 
     earmarks in three of the appropriations bills, earmarking 
     $14.8 million for next year alone to fund various activities 
     related to planning and preparation for the Utah Olympics. 
     These funds were not included in the FY 1998 budget request, 
     and many were not considered during the Appropriations 
     Committee's review of the bills.
       Bob, you are aware of my long history of opposing location-
     specific earmarks of taxpayer dollars. We discussed several 
     of these amendments when they were offered, and I explained 
     why I was particularly opposed to earmarking funds for the 
     Olympics.
       I have to say that I am disappointed with the approach 
     being taken to earmark funding for the Utah Olympics. In 
     light of the Republicans' long-fought efforts to balance the

[[Page 25423]]

     budget and provide relief to American taxpayers, and with all 
     of the concerns about lack of federal resources to ensure 
     that our children and less fortunate citizens are not unduly 
     harmed as we reduce government spending, I am surprised that 
     you would earmark millions of dollars for a sporting event. 
     And I fear this is just the beginning--

  And those fears in 1997 were well justified.

     --if the experience of the Atlanta Olympics is any 
     indication.

       Of course, I understand your desire, and that of your 
     constituents, to ensure that transportation, security, 
     communications, and other support for the 2002 Olympics is 
     completed in an efficient and cost-effective manner. However, 
     I find it disturbing that adding money for the Olympics would 
     be your highest priority, at least according to your staff.
       Randomly adding millions of dollars to the appropriations 
     bills, without benefit of appropriate Administration or 
     Congressional review, is not the way business is done in the 
     Senate, nor is it an appropriate way to ensure we spend the 
     taxpayers' dollars wisely. That is why I have opposed 
     unauthorized and location-specific earmarks in an 
     appropriations bill, whether for the Olympics or for any 
     other defense or domestic expenditure.
       If this process, to which I am unalterably opposed, 
     continues and these funds do not go through the normal 
     authorizing and appropriating process, then I will have to 
     use whatever parliamentary means are available to me to 
     prevent further unauthorized expenditures of taxpayer 
     dollars, for whatever purposes.
       Again, Bob, I recognize that proper preparation for the 
     Olympics is vital to the success of the games. It seems to 
     me, though, that the best course of action would be to 
     require the U.S. Olympic Committee, in coordination with the 
     Administration and Congress, to prepare and submit a 
     comprehensive plan detailing, in particular, the funding 
     anticipated to be required from the taxpayers for this event. 
     As you may know, the Commerce Committee, which I chair, has 
     jurisdiction over the activities of the U.S. Olympic 
     Committee. I am willing to work with you, the Administration, 
     and the Olympic Committee to devise such a plan, and I will 
     hold hearings in the Committee as expeditiously as possible 
     to review the plan and provide appropriate authorization for 
     appropriations in support of an approved plan.
       Please call me so that we can start work immediately to 
     establish some predictability and rationality in the process 
     of preparing for Olympics events in our country.
           Sincerely,
                                                      John McCain.

  That was written to you in September of 1997, a little over 2 years 
ago. Since I received no response whatsoever, a year later I handed you 
a copy of this letter asking for a response. I know how busy you are, 
but I never got an answer.
  But what I did see was exactly what I was warning about in 1997; that 
is, these unauthorized, unappropriated moneys going into an 
enterprise--which since then we have found out has maybe had some other 
problems associated with it, which my committee is going to have 
hearings about.
  So my answer to you, sir, is that even in light of the fact that I 
wrote you a letter and then personally handed you a copy and beseeched 
you to go through the normal process of authorization and appropriation 
as prescribed by the rules of the Congress of the United States, you 
refused to do so; therefore, I identified it on my web site as not 
meeting the criteria that I mentioned before.
  Now, I will repeat again what Elizabeth Drew wrote in her book that 
this process of money has done great damage to all of us and has had a 
pernicious and corrupting effect on the process.
  But for you to say that this clearly unauthorized, unacceptable 
procedure, at least as far as my taxpayers are concerned, because the 
people of Arizona would at least like to have a hearing before their 
tax dollars go to the State of Utah--this is, in my view, something 
that we have to obviously fix.
  I do not know if we will ever stop this practice of earmarking and 
pork barreling, but I will never stop resisting it. And I will never 
stop trying to see that the taxpayers of America receive an open and 
fair hearing before--I have forgotten. We will total it up for the 
Record later on how much you stuffed into the appropriations bills 
without a single hearing. We will total it up. In fact, I think it 
was--oh, yes, the GAO estimates that the Federal funding and support 
plan for the 2002 Olympics and Paralympics in Salt Lake City totals 
more than $1.9 billion in Federal funding.
  I am on the oversight committee. We have never had a hearing on that 
oversight because it has never been requested. It has been stuffed into 
an appropriations bill, sometimes even in a conference report. I would 
think that the Senator from Utah might think that is not a good way to 
do business in the Congress of the United States, and it then gives 
rise--then gives rise--to the suspicion that young Americans have about 
the way we do business and whether they are well represented.
  I go to schools in Arizona. I say to the schoolchildren, Do you know 
that $1.9 billion of your money and your parents' money is going to 
support the 2002 Olympics and Paralympics, without a hearing, without a 
decision as to whether it is needed or not, without any kind of 
scrutiny; that there is a Senator who goes through the appropriations 
process, puts it in an appropriations bill, and it is a line item that 
we read about?
  Then maybe you can understand a little better why there is this 
suspicion, I would say to the Senator from Utah. In fact, I would hope 
the Senator from Utah would, as a result of this dialogue, understand 
why people to whom I talk all over America are so upset about the way 
we are doing business here in Washington.
  Mr. BENNETT. May I respond?
  Mr. McCAIN. I yield the floor.
  Mr. BENNETT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah is recognized.
  Mr. BENNETT. At some future point, Mr. President, I shall be happy to 
debate the appropriateness of Olympic appropriations with the Senator 
from Arizona. That was not my question.
  The Senator from Arizona has not answered my question. And Elizabeth 
Drew is not capable of answering my question because Elizabeth Drew did 
not make the accusation.
  The accusation is made on the web site ``It's YOUR Country.com'': 
``The rise in pork barrel spending is directly related to the rise of 
soft money.'' And one example of that is the $2.2 million appropriation 
for sewer and infrastructure associated with the Winter Olympics.
  My question to the Senator from Arizona was--and remains--not, is the 
appropriation for the Olympics appropriate or not? My question for the 
Senator from Arizona is, who gave the soft money? How much was it? And 
where did it go that resulted in my actions being taken?
  Now, let me point out that it is possible to answer those questions 
with respect to corruption. I sat as a member of the Governmental 
Affairs Committee that examined what happened in the 1996 election.
  I will give you three examples that I want to apply to this context. 
Then if the Senator from Arizona will give me an answer, I will yield 
to him for an answer to my question.
  Example No. 1: Who gave the money? is the question. The answer is: 
Roger Tamraz, a fugitive from justice from many countries in the world.
  Second question: How much? $300,000.
  Third question: To whom? The Democratic National Committee.
  Fourth question: What did he get for it? The answer is he got invited 
to the White House, a dinner with the President and a conversation with 
the President, that which is facetiously referred to as ``face time,'' 
despite the fact that the National Security Council told the White 
House that Roger Tamraz should not be allowed in the White House 
because of his background.
  There are the four elements: Who gave the money? How much was it? 
Where did it go? And what was the quid pro quo? All four are 
identifiable. I would be willing to say that constitutes corruption.
  Roger Tamraz gave $300,000 to the Democratic National Committee to 
earn entry into the White House and ``face time'' with the President, 
in spite of the warning by the National Security Council that he should 
not do that.
  Example No. 2. The Riady family. Who gave the money? The Riady 
family. They were the largest single contributor to the Clinton 
campaign in the 1992 election. How much? I don't have

[[Page 25424]]

that total. It was in the millions. To whom was it given? Soft money. 
It went to the Democratic National Committee.
  What was the quid pro quo? The quid pro quo was the placing of John 
Huang in the Commerce Department where he could become, in the words of 
the Riadys--of James Riady--``My man in the U.S. Government.''
  There are the four elements: Who gave the money? The Riadys. How much 
was it? In the millions. Where did it go? The Democratic National 
Committee. And what did they get? An appointment of their individual 
buried inside the administration.
  No. 3, not quite as clear, but nonetheless the four elements are 
there. The Indian tribe that was approached by the Democratic National 
Committee, an Indian tribe that was one of the most impoverished in the 
United States.
  What did they want? They wanted the return of what they considered to 
be ancestral lands. They were told, if they gave hundreds of thousands 
of dollars to the Democratic National Committee, they would receive the 
lands that had been taken away from them decades prior. They raised the 
money.
  Where did the money come from? It came from the Indian tribes. How 
much was it? It was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Where did 
it go? It went to the Democratic National Committee. What did they get 
for it? In fact, they got nothing because the administration was unable 
to return the lands. That was the case of a scam, in my opinion, that 
is corrupt.
  So I come back to this question to the Senator from Arizona, or 
anyone else who can answer it: With respect to the $2 million that was 
appropriated for sewer infrastructure in Utah, I want to know, who gave 
the money? How much was it? Where did it go? And where was the quid pro 
quo that I delivered on?
  I am unaware of any money that was given by anybody in any amounts 
that influenced my action here. But I have been accused on a web site, 
for the entire world to see, of caving into soft money. I have been 
accused of being corrupt. I have been accused of doing something in 
this body solely because--and I quote--``The rise in pork barrel 
spending is directly related to the rise of soft money.'' As I say, I 
will engage in a debate over the wisdom of Federal support for the 
Olympics in another time and in another venue. The issue has nothing to 
do with that question. The issue is whether or not a Member of the 
Senate, when he is accused of corruption, has a right to know the 
details of the corruption; whether a Member of the Senate has the right 
to know, when his young people are told by one of his colleagues that 
he is corrupt and, therefore, the young people in his State may be 
discouraged from running for public office or may feel ill about the 
system, because they are told their Senator is corrupt, he has the 
right to know the details of that corruption accusation. I believe that 
is a fundamental right of every Member of this body.
  I am asking the Senator from Arizona to answer those questions: Who 
gave the money? How much was it? Where did it go? How did it affect my 
actions with respect to the Appropriations Committee?
  I am prepared to yield to the Senator from Arizona for an answer to 
that, if he wants to do it now, or I will give him a chance to research 
it, if he prefers. It has nothing to do, in my view, with Elizabeth 
Drew or with actions within the Appropriations Committee so much as it 
has to do with the accusation that has been made about me personally, 
to which I take personal offense.
  Mr. McCONNELL. If the Senator will yield for one observation before 
Senator McCain responds, Senate rule XLIII seems to be the rule that 
applies here. It says: The decision to provide assistance may not be 
made on the basis of contributions or services, or on promises of 
contributions or services, to the Member's political campaigns or to 
other organizations in which the Member has a political, personal, or 
financial interest. That is Senate rule XLIII relating to constituent 
service, which appears to be the applicable Senate rule in this 
situation.
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I am prepared to yield to the Senator 
from Arizona to respond if he wishes.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Will the Senator from Utah yield for a question?
  Mr. BENNETT. I am happy to yield to the Senator from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the Senator from Utah for yielding and I 
understand his anger and anguish about this specific allegation. I do 
not wish to comment on the details other than to say I have complete 
respect for the integrity of the Senator from Utah and have witnessed 
it in my time here.
  My question is this: Given all of the examples he has mentioned, some 
of which he thinks are conclusive cases--first I think it was three, 
and then he said the fourth was maybe a little less conclusive
  Mr. BENNETT. Two and then three.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Excuse me. The two he said were conclusive and the third 
possibly conclusive. The allegations that he feels, at least in my 
judgment, correctly, wounded about, don't all of these questions and 
particularly the cases that the Senator has laid out--and I am not 
commenting on whether I agree with his cause and effect--make as strong 
a case as we have seen for passing some campaign finance reform? 
Doesn't it importune the gentleman from Utah, and so many others in 
this Chamber, that we pass something because all of these allegations 
fly around? And in fairness to the Senator from Arizona, when I heard 
his response, he was talking about appearances as opposed to realities, 
but appearances that are damaging to the body politic, whether there is 
reality or not.
  My question to the good Senator from Utah is, once again, don't the 
instances that he has outlined, the ones not referring to himself but 
the ones he believes fervently about the Democratic National Committee, 
motivate him to fight very hard that we pass something, not allow a 
filibuster to prevent us from passing it, and do something good for 
campaign finance reform? It seems to me the logic is sort of 
inexorable, as inexorable as the logic of the Senator's piercing 
questions about his specific case.
  I thank the Senator for yielding and ask him to respond.
  Mr. BENNETT. I am happy to respond. If I were convinced the 
legislation before us would achieve the result that is claimed for it, 
I would vote for it happily. My concern with the legislation before us 
is that it, in fact, would make things worse rather than better. We can 
discuss that and those details at an appropriate point in the debate.
  I don't want to dodge it because I think the point the Senator from 
New York is making is a legitimate one, and his logic is, indeed, 
inexorable. The one hole I see in it is his assumption that this bill 
before us would work. My conviction, after reading it carefully, is 
that it not only would not work but would do serious damage to our 
first amendment rights.
  I come back to the fundamental question we are dealing with in terms 
of the spirit of this debate and the spirit in which it is cast. This 
debate is being cast in the national press and over the Internet and, 
indeed, in the Presidential campaign as a debate between the incorrupt 
and the corrupt. I have been labeled as being on the side of the 
corrupt, and I don't like it.
  If I am, I want to be identified in such a way that makes it clear 
that I am, instead of in a broad brush kind of way. One of the things 
we all try to avoid is tarring people with broad brushes. This is not a 
broad brush. This is a specific charge that then is drawn over into the 
broad brush of ``we are all corrupt.'' I want to know from whom did the 
money come, how much was it, and to what organization did it go that 
caused me to take the action I took.
  In the absence of being able to produce those statistics, I think the 
charge that I am corrupt should be withdrawn. That is what I am saying. 
That is what I am going to continue to say as a matter of personal 
privilege until we get this thing resolved. It has nothing whatever to 
do with the merits or demerits of funding for the Olympics on the 
Federal level. It is a question of

[[Page 25425]]

my position, of personal integrity, that, in my view, has been impugned 
on a web site available to the entire country.
  Mr. McCAIN. Does the Senator yield the floor?
  Mr. BENNETT. I will yield for a response to my question. If it means 
yielding the floor, I am happy to yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I don't want to keep the Senator from Arizona from 
responding, if he is ready to.
  Mr. McCAIN. I would like the floor to respond.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, first of all, the Senator is incorrect. I 
did not accuse him of being corrupt. No apology or withdrawal is 
warranted.
  Secondly, the Senator engaged in a continuous practice of violating 
the rules of the Senate, which require authorization and then 
appropriation, for several years now. I hope that the Senator, as a 
product of this debate, will seek an authorization for the $1.9 billion 
which the GAO has identified as going to the Olympics. The Olympics 
have had a lot of problems in addition to that. I hope the Senator will 
address those as well.
  The third point is, indeed, banks and securities gave $14 million in 
soft money. They got, in the last tax cut, $38 billion in tax breaks.
  Restaurants and hotels gave $3 million in soft money; they got $14 
billion in tax breaks.
  The oil and gas industry gave $19 million in soft money; they got $5 
billion in tax breaks.
  Between 1991 and 1997, the chemical, iron, and steel manufacturing 
industries gave $22.2 million in soft money to the political parties. 
The 1999 tax bill included a provision to eliminate the alternative 
minimum tax, which will allow these industries to completely eliminate 
their tax liability in any one year. If the bill had not been vetoed, 
this single change would have saved these industries $7.9 billion over 
an 8-year period or almost $1 billion a year.
  Over the last decade, the oil industry has given $22 million in soft 
money donations to the political parties. What did they get? The 1999 
tax bill included a provision to remove the current limit of 35 percent 
on Federal tax credits that oil companies can take for taxes they pay 
to foreign countries. If the bill had not been vetoed, the provision 
would have allowed oil companies to take much larger credits against 
their tax liability, saving them $800 million a year; return on 
investment, 3,600 percent.
  Between 1995 and 1998, the restaurant and hotel industry gave $4.3 
million in soft money to the political parties.
  The 1999 tax bill included a provision to increase tax deductibility 
of business meals to 60 percent, although the industry wanted 100 
percent. If the bill had not been vetoed, this provision reviving the 
three-martini power lunch would have cost taxpayers $4 billion over the 
next 10 years. The list goes on and on, I say to the Senator from Utah.
  Now, the specific language says in the appropriations bill:

       Special interests unlimited campaign contributions were a 
     key ingredient in the pork stew that is choking the American 
     people.

  They were a key ingredient in all of these that I described. Perhaps 
they were not in the case of the Senator from Utah. Perhaps the Senator 
from Utah just decided to violate the rules of the Senate, and he is 
free to do that, although I will do everything in my power to see that 
this $1.9 billion is restrained.
  Now, I finally want to mention an incident. I was in the Republican 
caucus when a certain Senator stood up and said it was OK for you not 
to vote against the tobacco bill because the tobacco companies will run 
ads in our favor.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the Senator from Arizona has not named 
the Senators who were allegedly responsible for inserting all of the 
provisions that he listed in various and assorted bills, which he 
suggests were inserted as a result of soft money contributions to 
political parties.
  So the question remains: Who were the Senators?
  There was, however, at the end of his remarks, a not-so-veiled 
reference to this Senator, to which I would like to respond. Senator 
McCain suggested, I assume, as I heard him correctly a few moments ago, 
that as a result of the tobacco debate last year--and I might mention 
to my colleagues I have 45,000 tobacco growers; before the Clinton 
administration, I had 60,000 tobacco growers, and they are falling 
daily. These are the hard-working farmers engaged in producing a legal 
crop that representatives of Kentucky, regardless of party, seek to 
defend.
  In any event, Senator McCain brought up the way the tobacco debate 
ended last year, and there were allegations in the paper that this 
Senator, the Senator from Kentucky, had said to everyone: Don't worry 
about defeating the tobacco bill, the tobacco companies will be out 
there doing issue ads.
  As a result of that assertion, there was a complaint filed against 
me, and I want to refer to a letter from the Justice Department of 
January 29, 1999, to Chairman Orrin Hatch:

       I am writing in further response to your letter of 
     September 8, 1998, regarding the complaint filed with the 
     Federal Election Commission by the National Center For 
     Tobacco-Free Kids. Consistent with the Department's 
     longstanding practice, we deferred any inquiry until issues 
     arising under the Federal election laws have been reviewed by 
     the FEC. We did, however, agree to review the portions of 
     that complaint related to 18 U.S.C. 201 [which is a criminal 
     statute]. After careful examination, the criminal division 
     has concluded that there is insufficient evidence to warrant 
     a criminal investigation.

  So the suggestion that the Senator from Arizona was making was that 
I, representing 45,000 tobacco growers, was somehow trying to defeat a 
tobacco bill because of some alleged assistance by the tobacco industry 
to political parties. I might say to the Senator from Arizona, I am 
deeply offended by that. I don't know who are the most important and 
largest number of constituents in Arizona that he works for, but I try 
to help the 45,000 tobacco growers in my State. I try to defeat tobacco 
bills when they come before the body, as did Wendell Ford of the 
Democratic Party when he was here all those years. I don't need any 
contribution from anybody to myself, to the National Republican 
Senatorial Committee, any of our parties, or anybody, to stand up and 
defend the 45,000 tobacco growers from my State.
  So I repeat to the Senator from Arizona, the question before us is 
not reading a list of what he considers to be inappropriate projects. 
That is not the issue. The issue is, where is the corruption? You 
cannot have corruption unless somebody is corrupt. There is not 
corruption without somebody being corrupt. You can't say the gang is 
corrupt and none of the gangsters are. If the Senator from Arizona 
believes there is corruption, he has an obligation, under the Senate 
rules and the Federal bribery statute, to name the people. Who is being 
corrupt? Who are the people putting all of these items in these bills? 
What was their impetus for doing it? Who made the contribution, as the 
Senator from Utah said, and to whom? Where is the corruption?
  Mr. McCAIN. Does the Senator yield the floor?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Yes.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I have responded. It is time to move on. 
If the Senator from Kentucky has an amendment concerning this issue, I 
will be glad to address it. I have responded, and I will continue to 
respond. I am trying to change a system that corrupts all of us. I 
believe there is ample evidence, as I have cited, of this system's 
pernicious effect, in my view, and in the view of most objective 
observers. I am not going to let this debate, in the few days we have, 
get bogged down on this issue. It is time we move on with the amending 
process. I have responded. I have said to the Senator from Utah and the 
Senator from Kentucky that I am fighting a

[[Page 25426]]

system here. I will continue to fight that system, with its pernicious 
effects on the American people.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair observes that the priority of 
recognition is determined, first, by Senator Lott, the majority leader; 
second, the distinguished Democratic leader; third, by the manager of 
the bill; and also the designee of the minority leader; or by service 
on the committee of jurisdiction in order of seniority.
  In that regard, I recognize the Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, we are not bogged down; we are just getting started. 
We just took the bill up a few moments ago. At the heart of this whole 
debate--elevated now to a Presidential campaign--are allegations of 
corruption.
  All I am asking is a very simple question: Where is the corruption? 
The Senator from Utah is trying to get an answer to his question, and I 
haven't heard it yet. I know the State of Washington is also listed on 
the web site. I wonder if the Senator from Washington would also like 
to take the floor. I ask my colleague from Washington if he has also 
noted the web site that we were discussing earlier, in which a couple 
of projects from Washington are referred to.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, may I make an inquiry?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I believe I have the floor.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I have a question; that is all it is.
  I ask my colleague from Kentucky, for those of us who want to debate 
this larger question, how long will you continue with this attack of 
Senator McCain on the floor? How much longer is that going to happen?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Minnesota for 
his question.
  I now turn to the Senator from Washington and ask him if he noted on 
the web site the suggestion about $1.3 million for the World Trade 
Organization's ministerial meeting in Seattle, WA, the Senator's State, 
and an exemption for the Crown Jewel mine in Washington State to 
deposit mining waste on additional land adjacent to the mine. Listed on 
the web site of Senator McCain are examples of ``pork barrel spending 
is a direct result of unlimited contributions from special interests.''
  Mr. GORTON. The Senator from Kentucky is correct. There are 
quotations from Senator McCain's web site. There are two that I thought 
particularly bizarre coming from one of my closest friends in the 
Senate.
  The first of those two is----
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask the Chair, who has the floor?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky has the floor.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I wonder how a Senator can ask another Senator to yield 
the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as I understand it, seniority is a 
factor in the floor recognition. If I yield the floor, the Senator from 
Washington would be the senior Senator on the floor to be recognized 
first.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I don't believe one Senator can ever yield the floor to 
another Senator.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. If the Senator yields the floor, it is the 
judgment of the Chair to recognize whichever Senator would rise to his 
feet and be recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I believe I have the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky has the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I believe the Senator from Washington would surely----
  Mr. GORTON. I ask the Senator from Kentucky to yield for a question.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield to the Senator from Washington for a question.
  Mr. GORTON. In the web site to which the Senator from Kentucky has 
referred, there is the statement by the primary sponsor of this bill 
that ``pork barrel spending is a direct result of unlimited 
contributions from special interests.''
  The first example in the----
  Mr. McCAIN. The Senator is incorrect. Will the Senator yield? The 
Senator is incorrect. He is incorrect in his statement. The statement 
says ``a key ingredient''--the ``key ingredient.'' It doesn't say that 
it is the cause of it. So I hope the Senator will at least quote my web 
site accurately.
  Mr. GORTON. I am reading from what I believe is the web site. I think 
one sentence in the paragraph that doesn't have----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will suspend. The Senator from 
Kentucky has the floor, and the Senator is posing a question to the 
Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. GORTON. I pose a question to the Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yielded to the Senator from Washington for a 
question. Is that permissible?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. GORTON. To the best of my knowledge, I say to the Senator from 
Kentucky, I am reading from a web site of the Senator from Arizona, 
which includes the sentence that says, and I quote, ``Pork barrel 
spending is a direct result of unlimited contributions from special 
interests.''
  In this particular list, entitled ``The List Goes On and On,'' the 
very first example is a $1.3 million earmark for the World Trade 
Organization ministerial meeting to be held in Seattle, WA.
  Just what pork barrel spending is and just how that spending is a 
result of unlimited contributions from special interests is a matter 
that the Senator from Washington fails totally and completely to 
understand.
  I say to the Senator from Kentucky that the appropriation was the 
result of a request made by the U.S. Trade Representative in what I 
believe is a Democratic administration to the two Senators from 
Washington for assistance in financing a governmental operation--a U.S. 
governmental operation--the U.S. Trade Representative's participation 
in that World Trade Organization meeting to be held in Seattle.
  I ask the Senator from Kentucky, since the Senator from Arizona has 
refused to answer these questions of him, or similar questions from the 
Senator from Utah, how in the world can an appropriation to a unit of 
the U.S. Government to conduct trade negotiations be either pork barrel 
spending or the result of unlimited contributions from special 
interests? Can the Senator from Kentucky enlighten me on an answer to 
that question?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my friend from Washington that I am 
mystified. I do not recall a situation where you have corporate 
contributions to the government that might then--it is a mysterious 
thing to think that kind of a proposal could be a result of soft money. 
It is important to remember that candidates for office can't receive 
soft money anyway. The contribution is to a party, and parties don't 
vote. I am astonished by the allegation. I am not sure I can answer the 
question because it is a mystery.
  Mr. GORTON. A second question: There is a second accusation on 
another portion of the web site: The part that ``This `Pork Delight' 
took the form of the 1999 emergency supplemental appropriations bill. 
Special interest unlimited campaign contributions were a key ingredient 
in the pork stew that is choking the American people.''
  One of those is, ``An exemption for the Crown Jewel mine in 
Washington State to deposit mining waste on additional land surrounding 
the mine, even though other mines were denied similar permission.''
  First, I ask the Senator from Kentucky, I don't see any 
appropriations or any use of the taxpayers' money in that connection. I 
have checked with the mining company in question that tells me they 
have never made a soft money contribution to any party or any group 
whatsoever.
  I have letters from the county commissioners of the county in 
question praising this action--in fact, from a labor union that is 
usually not a supporter of the Senator from Washington on the same 
account--because this is one of the most poverty-stricken counties in 
the State of Washington, the Federal Government having closed almost 
all the timber harvests on public

[[Page 25427]]

lands, other organizations having bought up other timberlands to 
prevent their harvest, and the administration being in the process of 
cutting off irrigation water to farmers. After 7 years of study and $80 
million in complying with every single environmental law in the State 
of Washington, or for that matter the Federal Government, this company 
was denied its permit after a 100-year policy by a single bureaucrat.
  I ask the Senator from Kentucky, in the absence of an answer from the 
Senator from Arizona, isn't this what we are supposed to do, represent 
our constituents? What soft money contribution could possibly have 
influenced this? One may certainly disagree with the policy.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my friend from Washington that it is 
inconceivable to me how a soft money contribution to a political party 
would have anything to do with a project for a Senator's home State. I 
am mystified by the connection. It is astonishing.
  We have here rampant charges of corruption and yet no names are 
named, no transactions are named. You know it is not unusual for the 
newspapers looking to sell copies or talking heads looking for air time 
to point to an alignment of interests among member parties, issue 
groups, and contributors and speculators maybe even going so far as to 
infer that official actions were taken in exchange for campaign 
support.
  Mr. GORTON. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I yield for another question.
  Mr. GORTON. The Senator from Arizona said he wants to get back to the 
issues involved. I assume the Senator from Kentucky would agree with me 
that reasonable Members can differ on questions of high public policy, 
on the way in which we finance political campaigns, on how the 
Constitution of the United States with its unequivocal demand that 
Congress shall pass no law respecting the freedom of speech should be 
interpreted; that all of these are appropriate matters for debate, but 
that they are far better debated upon the merits, and, in general, 
accusations of a corrupt system, and rather specific examples pointed 
at individual Members without the slightest degree of proof, without 
evidence at all that they were related in any respect whatsoever to 
this matter--that these are separate questions but they are related 
questions when the proposition----
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I call for regular order.
  Mr. GORTON. Should result from--
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky has the floor and 
has yielded for a question.
  Mr. GORTON. These unproven allegations.
  Does the Senator from Kentucky agree that these are separate but 
highly related and relevant questions?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I agree completely with the Senator from Washington. 
What we have here suggests that there can be corruption but no one is 
corrupt.
  How can there be corruption unless someone is engaging in corrupt 
activity? I say to my friend from Washington, as I said earlier in this 
debate, that is similar to saying the gang is corrupt but none of the 
gangsters is.
  It is shocking to have these allegations when there are no specifics.
  Mr. BENNETT. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Yes.
  Mr. BENNETT. In response to my comment, the Senator from Arizona said 
I was violating the rules of the Senate in terms of what I was doing. 
He said he had not accused me of corruption. The Senator from Kentucky 
has been in the Senate longer than I and been on the Appropriations 
Committee longer than I. I ask, have my actions been violative of the 
rules of the Senate?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my friend from Utah, no rule of which I am 
aware.
  What we really are talking about in this particular debate on this 
particular amendment, which I will describe in a moment and have not 
described yet, is the whole notion that there is corruption. Yet no one 
is named. Somebody is alluded to, as the Senator from Utah and the 
Senator from Washington were, yet there is no proof.
  Mr. BENNETT. If I could ask an additional question, is the 
appropriations process, as it has been followed in this Congress and 
previous Congresses under Republican leadership and democratic 
leadership, in and of itself, demonstrative of corruption if there is 
an appropriations action that is not authorized?
  The Senator is the chairman of the Ethics Committee, and I see the 
other member of the Ethics Committee leadership on the floor in the 
form of Senator Reid. I ask, is this process, as it is being practiced 
and handled, virtually on a routine basis, violative of the rules of 
the Senate?
  Mr. McCONNELL. If to appropriate an unauthorized sum of funds were a 
violation of Senate rules, there would be a lot of Senators in trouble 
around here. We try to do it through the authorization and then 
appropriations process, but to suggest that it is somehow unsavory or 
inappropriate behavior for there to be an appropriation without an 
authorization I think is stretching the matter quite a distance. There 
is certainly nothing improper about it.
  We can have a policy argument about whether every single item ought 
to be authorized--and most of them are--but it certainly would not be 
appropriate to cast aspersions on the integrity of a Member of the 
Senate for trying to deliver something for his or her home State that 
might have at some point not been authorized by an authorizing 
committee.
  What is new is Senators who serve here, walking these Halls every 
day, who meet with their fellow Senators every day, who watch their 
fellow Members take official actions every day, go before the American 
people and declare openly and with great conviction that votes are 
being bought in the Halls of the U.S. Capitol. When Senators make those 
kinds of allegations about their colleagues, I think we are suggesting 
they ought to back it up. They ought to back it up.
  There are specific rules in the Senate that prevent taking an 
official action in order to reward somebody for a contribution. In 
addition to that, we have bribery statutes involving public officials:

       Any public official who ``directly or indirectly,'' 
     corruptly, demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to 
     receive or accept anything of value personally or for any 
     other person or entity, in return for . . . being influenced 
     in the performance of any official act . . . shall be fined 
     under this title . . . or imprisoned for not more than 15 
     years, or both, and may be disqualified from holding any 
     office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

  We have suggestions of violations not only of Senate rules but of 
Federal bribery statutes, without specifics. That is unfair to the 
Members of this body who are doing their very best to represent their 
constituents who are honest, hard-working, and good citizens. It is 
unfair to the Members of the Senate to have these aspersions cast on 
their honor and the honor of this institution.
  There is an amendment at the desk which is the subject of this 
debate. Let me describe what it would do. It is an amendment that would 
amend the Senate Code of Conduct to create an affirmative duty for all 
Senators who report any credible information of corruption directly to 
the Ethics Committee. As a former chairman of the Ethics Committee, I 
am familiar with Ethics Committee rule 3 that requires every member of 
the Ethics Committee to report credible information of corruption to 
the committee.
  The charges of corruption that are being made in this body require 
Members to extend the Ethics Committee rule to the full Senate. In the 
past, there has been an affirmative duty on the part of members of the 
Ethics Committee to report information about corruption directly to the 
committee. I think that now should be extended to the whole Senate 
because we have a number--at least two Members of the Senate--who have 
been alleging corruption. They have an affirmative duty, if this 
amendment passes, to report that corruption to the Ethics

[[Page 25428]]

Committee so we can all get to the bottom of it because these 
allegations demean the entire Senate.
  The message of this amendment is simple. If any Member of this body 
knows of corruption, he or she must formally report it to the Ethics 
Committee. In addition, the amendment also amends the Federal Criminal 
Code to establish mandatory minimum penalties for public officials who 
engage in corruption.
  Our criminal law is full of mandatory minimum penalties already. We 
have imposed them for a variety of different offenses over the years. 
For example, arson on Federal property requires a mandatory minimum 
penalty of 5 years in prison; special immigration attorneys disclosing 
classified information requires a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years 
imprisonment; bribery involving meat inspectors requires a minimum of 3 
years imprisonment; bribery involving harbor employees requires a 
minimum of 6 months imprisonment.
  We have mandatory minimum penalties for bribery involving harbor 
employees and meat inspectors. Surely it is not too much to ask we 
establish mandatory minimum penalties for bribery involving public 
officials.
  My amendment establishes that a conviction involving bribery of 
public officials as set forth in 18 USC 201 triggers a mandatory 
minimum penalty of $100,000, 1 year imprisonment, and disqualification 
from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United 
States.
  As Henry Clay once stated, ``Government is a trust and the officers 
of the government are trustees.'' I believe that principle to be true. 
These amendments firmly establish the principle in our Senate Code of 
Conduct in our criminal law.
  Before we pass laws that restrict the free speech rights of every 
American citizen, we should restrict ourselves. Let's regulate the 100 
men and women who cast votes in this great body before we regulate the 
speech of more than 250 million Americans.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative assistant proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bunning). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for one question?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Yes.
  Mr. McCAIN. I know the Senator is aware, but for clarification, on my 
web site I state the general proposition that soft money creates pork 
barrel spending. I then identify a recent appropriations bill as an 
example of how big the problem of pork barrel spending is. Nowhere 
should it be interpreted that every single one of those pork barrel 
projects are as a result of soft money. But they are a result of a 
violation of criteria that I have held for 10 years, which the Senator 
from Utah seems to think is OK, which bypasses the authorizing process. 
I am sure the Senator from Wisconsin appreciates it.
  Who is corrupted by this system? All of us are corrupted by it 
because money buys access and access is influence. The object is not to 
get into a vendetta about who is corrupted and who is not because the 
system is what needs to be fixed. We would never fix the system if I 
got into a business of finger pointing, name calling. For 10 years I 
have identified pork barrel spending which violates a process and 
criteria set up, not by me, but by the Citizens Against Government 
Waste, Citizens For a Sound Economy, National Taxpayers Union, and 
other objective and respected watchdog organizations.
  Finally, I would say I hope the Senator from Wisconsin will ask the 
Senator--I am ready to accept his amendment by voice vote. I hope the 
Senator from Kentucky appreciates the fact that we entered into this 
agreement and did not hold up the Senate so we could have an amending 
process going back and forth on both sides of this issue. I hope that 
is what will be adhered to.
  I also would say it is customary in this body to recognize one Member 
on this side of the aisle and another Member on the other side of the 
aisle, with the exception of the distinguished majority leader and 
Democrat leader. So I hope we could get some comity in this process, as 
we had intended to do at the beginning as part of the agreement.
  I ask my friend from Wisconsin if he agrees with that?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I thank the Senator from Arizona for his question. I 
certainly do agree with it. I appreciate the way he said it.
  I think we all agreed early on we would easily accept an amendment 
such as this. I want to make a couple of comments before we go forward 
with it.
  I think a serious omission has been made in this conversation about 
what the standard is with regard to corruption. The Supreme Court in 
Buckley v. Valeo did not just speak of corruption, which is the 
standard the Senator from Kentucky insists on. It also clearly refers 
to the appearance of corruption. So any suggestion that we have to 
demonstrate in this case or that case that there is actual corruption 
flies directly in the face of what the law of the land is under Buckley 
v. Valeo. So there is not a problem with the amendment itself. I 
question how much it has to do with the debate before us. I think it is 
irrelevant unless the Senator from Kentucky believes we do not have 
bribery laws, but I don't see any problem with it.
  Mr. BENNETT. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I will in a moment. I want to make a few comments 
because it was very difficult to get the floor, given the method of 
recognition used this morning.
  But the irony of this amendment, even though it certainly is 
acceptable, is that the corruption that is so evident is evident as a 
moral matter; it is a matter of governance. It is not recognized by the 
current law--except perhaps in cases I don't know about--as actual 
legal violation or a crime. The corruption our bill seeks to ban now is 
perfectly legal. That is the point. It is perfectly legal and it would 
not be reached as a legal matter by this amendment. This amendment 
would not reach the kind of soft money contribution we are talking 
about.
  The Senator from Kentucky knows this very well and almost revels in 
the loophole that would swallow the law. It is very important to 
recognize because I hope someday this gets before the U.S. Supreme 
Court.
  The Senator from New York said: Well, we already have a record of at 
least the appearance of corruption as provided by the Senator from 
Utah.
  Remember, our bill doesn't just affect congressional soft money; it 
also affects money used in Presidential elections, and thanks to the 
Senator from Utah, we now have on the record for the Justices to 
examine, his conclusion--which I believe is a fair statement--that you 
at least believe there was an appearance of corruption with regard to 
the Mr. Tamraz situation and the Indian tribe situation.
  I have to tell you, when I saw the TV show about the contributions 
with regard to the Indian tribe, it was one of the saddest things I 
have ever seen. Just as a citizen of this country, not as a Senator, if 
that didn't have the appearance of corruption, I don't know what would.
  To suggest there is a connection between soft money and an appearance 
of corruption is very legitimate, and I thank the Senator from Utah for 
putting on the record three examples of

[[Page 25429]]

what I think easily qualify as appearances of corruption. Certainly, 
the American people regard it as the appearance of corruption. That is 
the standard. The standard is not what the Senator from Kentucky is 
trying to make the standard, that we have to walk in here with 
documented corruption that is tantamount to bribery. There are laws on 
the books for that. The whole point is these practices are perfectly 
legal and nobody should be in trouble under the law for doing something 
that is perfectly legal.
  Let me read from Buckley v. Valeo because this is the central 
confusion on this whole debate this morning, that somehow the standard 
is that Senator McCain or I or somebody else has to walk in here with 
evidence of corruption. In fact, it would probably be a violation of 
rule XIX of the Senate if we did. But that is not even our point. It 
doesn't have to do with individual Members of the Senate; certainly not 
anything I have tried to do. Let me read from what the Court said. The 
Court specifically pointed out that you don't have to prove bribery in 
order to have a justification for some kind of limits on campaign 
contributions. The Court said:

       Laws making criminal the giving and taking of bribes deal 
     with only the most blatant and specific attempts of those 
     with money to influence governmental action. And while 
     disclosure requirements serve the many salutary purposes 
     discussed elsewhere in this opinion, Congress was surely 
     entitled to conclude that disclosure was only a partial 
     measure and that contribution ceilings were a necessary 
     legislative concomitant to deal with the reality or the 
     appearance of corruption inherent in a system permitting 
     unlimited financial contributions, even when the identities 
     of the contributors and the amounts of their contributions 
     are fully disclosed.

  This is where the Senator from Kentucky is not properly stating what 
the Court asked for. The Court does not say it must be only the reality 
of corruption. The Court says it may be the appearance of corruption, 
and that is often going to be in the eyes of the beholder. And Senators 
can disagree about what is the appearance of corruption and can amass 
evidence for the record of what may be the appearance of corruption, 
and that is what I have done by my calling of the bankroll and nobody 
objected for 14 times when I pointed out what appears to be a 
corrupting influence of multihundred-thousand-dollar contributions. It 
is not only the appearance of corruption, but that this is inherent, 
according to the Supreme Court, it is of the nature of large 
contributions. So this bar that the opponents of reform raise for us, 
that somehow we have to come in here with a pile of evidence of what 
everybody knows is true; that is, that soft money has a very 
inappropriate influence on our legislative process--I reiterate, not an 
illegal influence. That is why we need a law. That is why we are here. 
We need to make these kinds of unlimited contributions clearly illegal 
once again.
  Mr. President, I certainly have no problem with accepting the 
amendment, having had the opportunity to express my view that this 
debate, thus far, was not directly related to the issue of soft money. 
But I will be happy to yield for a question from the Senator from Utah.
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments made by my 
friend, and I ask him if, in his opinion, the appropriation of funds 
that are not authorized is an automatic appearance of corruption.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. What is it again? I did not hear the question.
  Mr. BENNETT. The question is, When the Appropriations Committee 
appropriates money that has not been previously authorized, is that 
prima facie an appearance of corruption?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I do not think it is possible for anyone to determine 
for everyone else what an appearance of corruption is. It is our 
responsibility as a legislative body to look at the total record of 
what is going on in our campaign finance system and to determine 
whether the American people believe the various things we do have an 
appearance of corruption and whether there is a remedy for it.
  I do not think it has anything to do with any particular part of the 
process. I think any part of the process can be perfectly clean at any 
point, but if there is an abuse at some point, a very large 
contribution at the wrong time, it is not about whether technically it 
is legal. It is about whether a large body of the American people would 
consider--for example, a $200,000 contribution given 2 days after the 
House marked up a bankruptcy bill by MBNA. OK, it is not illegal. 
Conceded. Maybe it is not even corrupt, but it certainly has an 
appearance of corruption to me and I think to many people. That would 
be a concrete example of where the appearance of corruption may occur.
  Mr. BENNETT. I thank the Senator for that example because he named a 
name, the source, and he named an amount, the $200,000. He did not name 
the recipient. Was it to the Republican National Committee?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I believe it was the Republican Senate campaign 
committee----
  Mr. BENNETT. National Republican Senatorial Committee?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Yes. On the 16 occasions I came to the floor and read 
out these contributions, I was careful to identify both sides. In my 
opening statement, I identified not only groups that would be more 
likely to support Republicans but Democrats, and in every instance I am 
referring to an appearance of corruption that the American people may 
see in looking at this. I am not making any allegation of illegality. 
But the issue here is the appearance of corruption under Buckley v. 
Valeo.
  Mr. BENNETT. I thank the Senator for that because, as I say, he has 
responded with things I have requested with respect to the allegations 
that I was under the appearance of corruption which I have not yet 
received.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. BENNETT. The Senator has the floor.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Let me ask, in response, when you became aware of the 
allegation against yourself?
  Mr. BENNETT. It was several days ago when my attention was called to 
it on the web site. I wrote to the Senator from Arizona and told him I 
was going to raise this on the floor because I did not want him to be 
blindsided by it. I wanted to be as courteous as possible. But in my 
letter to the Senator from Arizona, I told him I was disturbed, indeed 
offended, by this and intended to raise it. Therefore, I have kept my 
word to the Senator from Arizona.
  My question still goes to the response that I have had which is that 
the appearance of corruption comes from appropriations that are 
unauthorized. I want my friend to address this directly because he has 
been the outspoken advocate of this appearance of corruption question.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. As I said earlier, it is perfectly possible on an 
occasion that the kind of procedure the Senator has talked about could 
give rise to an appearance of corruption. It is not something one can 
sort of determine by a series of court rulings. The question is, Do we 
as legislators find that our constituents see that sort of thing as 
appearing corrupt and, therefore, do we legislate a response to it? 
That is the standard for legislatures, not the standard for the court 
which is trying to convict someone of a crime.
  Mr. BENNETT. But the standard I am trying to understand that has been 
raised in this debate today is that any time a Senator achieves an 
appropriations--as I say, I plead guilty. I make no attempt to hide 
this. I plead guilty as having been the Senator who approached the 
Appropriations Committee in request of this particular item.
  It has been raised here that by virtue of the fact that I did that on 
an item for which there was not a previous appropriation, that in and 
of itself is an appearance of corruption, and I am asking the Senator 
if he agrees with that characterization.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I simply cannot say for the general public on that 
particular example how they would react. That is not my role. My job as 
a representative is to react to what people respond to when you point 
out various

[[Page 25430]]

things that have been done. I do not know what the response would be to 
the particular incident.
  Some people might, obviously, as you say, think you were successful 
in doing something for your constituents. I know from my own experience 
as a Senator that you have to be very careful about the appearance as 
you move forward with something, not for purposes of our debate but for 
purposes of how it might look to your constituents. So you look to your 
constituents and you look to your sense of what people are feeling 
about the system for an answer to your question.
  In answer to your question, there is no automatic connection between 
every time a Senator does something for an interest and corruption--of 
course not--or the appearance of corruption. But the question is, How 
do the American people feel about the process?
  What I am saying is, what this debate is about, because we got into 
the issue of soft money, is whether there is a level of contribution, 
whether the dollars get so high that the Supreme Court's language of it 
being inherently appearing corrupt comes into play. I suggest when you 
get into high numbers of contributions, you cannot avoid the appearance 
of corruption. You may avoid actual corruption, but you cannot avoid 
the appearance of corruption when we increasingly have the reality of 
people giving $500,000 apiece.
  Mr. BENNETT. If I can ask the Senator an additional question--and I 
appreciate his comments; I think we are getting somewhere--will the 
Senator agree that the appearance of corruption would be much lower if 
there were no contribution identified at all, which is the case in the 
circumstance that I have raised? There has been no contribution 
identified from anyone connected with this in any form. Does the 
Senator not agree, therefore, that the appearance of corruption here 
would be pretty low?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Again, I do not know the specifics of the case the 
Senator is discussing. Obviously, given the issue we are raising about 
soft money, the strongest case is made if you demonstrate large soft 
money contributions. That is most likely to lead to an appearance of 
corruption.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for another question?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Yes.
  Mr. McCAIN. Is the Senator aware this is a straw man because what I 
said, and I repeat for about the tenth time:

       Special interests and unlimited contributions were a key 
     ingredient--

  And then I listed a whole bunch. I have listed for 10 years on my web 
site unauthorized appropriations to which I have taken great offense. I 
have argued that they are wrong. I will continue to argue they are 
wrong, and if the Senator from Utah wants to somehow interpret the fact 
that soft money is a key element or is not a key element in his 
particular appropriation, that is fine. I am telling the Senator from 
Utah that I listed a lot of projects. Some fall into the category of 
unauthorized appropriations.
  I have said it now about five times, and I hope we can move forward. 
We only have 5 days of debate. I hope we can move forward with various 
amendments and allow other Members to make statements; otherwise, we 
rapidly approach the appearance of a filibuster which was not the 
agreement that Senator Feingold and I entered into with the majority 
leader when we began. There are Senators who have been waiting to give 
statements. There are Senators who have been waiting to give speeches. 
And we have massaged this issue rather significantly.
  Again, I ask the Senator from Wisconsin if he agrees with me, the way 
we usually function in the consideration of legislation is proponents 
of the legislation have an amendment and then opponents have an 
opportunity to propose an amendment. We had understood that would be 
the way we would proceed.
  Is that the perception of the Senator from Wisconsin of this 
agreement, which was really a gentleman's agreement?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I certainly agree with the Senator's 
suggestion of how we are going to proceed. And to reiterate, when I 
started on the floor on May 20, 1999 and talked about various changes 
in the mining law that were prevented under the emergency supplemental 
appropriations conference report, as the Senate suggested, I was not 
talking about a particular contribution to any particular Member. It 
was a process with many factors. One of the factors was the $10.6 
million the mining interests gave over a 6-year period. To me, that is 
of such a high level that it raises an appearance of corruption.
  I think that is exactly what the Senator from Arizona is getting at, 
and exactly what he was trying to do in the case before us.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I believe we are ready to vote.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, if I could ask my friend from Kentucky a 
question as to how we are going to proceed. I think the discussion has 
been important, but it has taken several hours. I do not know when we 
started on this, but I think it was at 10:30 or a quarter of 11. It is 
now 1:30. I have a list of nine Senators on the Democratic side who 
wish to give statements on the general bill.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I say to my friend from Nevada, I wanted to start last 
night and no one wanted to stay past 7:30. Many of us believe this is a 
very important amendment. We have spent a couple of hours on it. But it 
is important. We are now ready to vote.
  I agree with the suggestions that have been made that we go back and 
forth. As you know, this is not a straight party-line issue. So I think 
back and forth means people who are generally in sympathy with this 
legislation offer an amendment; people who are not do not offer an 
amendment. The people who are not just offered one, which we are about 
to approve on a voice vote. My view is, you are next.
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend from Kentucky, we will be happy to give 
every consideration to alternating amendments. That seems to be a 
thoughtful suggestion. However, prior to our offering any amendments, 
we want to be able to speak on the underlying bill. That is the normal 
procedure.
  Mr. McCONNELL. That is fine.
  Mr. REID. We have people who have requested time from 5 minutes to 30 
minutes, reasonable requests for time.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Sure.
  Mr. REID. We agree with the Senator from Kentucky, this is an 
important issue. But people have been waiting over here for a long time 
to discuss the issue.
  So we are ready to vote on this matter at this time. It is going to 
be, I understand, by voice; is that true?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 
2293.
  The amendment (No. 2293) was agreed to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. REID. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I am going to take a couple minutes, and then I will 
yield the floor. I know the Senator from New York has been waiting 
patiently.
  The debate we just had has been an effort--toward the end of it--to 
shift it in a different direction. We are going to come back to this 
over and over again for the next 3 or 4 days.
  We are not just talking about the appearance of corruption. What the 
Senator from Arizona has repeatedly said is things such as, ``corrupts 
our political ideals,'' ``we are all corrupted,'' ``the corruption of 
Congress,'' ``soft money is corrupting the process.''
  These have been allegations of corruption, which is a violation of 
Senate rules and a violation of Federal bribery statutes.
  I would suggest to all of our colleagues, in our exuberance to pursue 
our different points of view on this issue, do not suggest corruption 
unless

[[Page 25431]]

you have evidence of corruption. It demeans the Senate, and in the 
instances of Senators Bennett and Gorton, it demeans a specific 
Senator. It is clear from this debate, there is no evidence--none 
whatsoever--of corruption.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. SCHUMER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I ask to address the Senate for 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the Chair and all of my colleagues.
  Before I get into the substance of the bill, I think many of my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle, in this last debate, are 
missing the forest for the trees. In fact, in my judgment, the Senators 
from Kentucky and Utah and Washington have helped make the case for the 
bill, not only in the specifics that I talked about with the Senator 
from Utah before, but everyone in this Chamber, all three, in my 
judgment, all three have felt compelled, in a certain sense, to explain 
themselves. All three are very honorable people. I tend to be 
sympathetic. If I were listed, I would feel the same way.
  But there is a cloud hanging over the Senate. There is a cloud 
hanging over this Capitol Dome and all of Washington. In good part, it 
has been caused by the way we finance campaigns.
  So even when Senators have the purest of motives, they are called 
into question. The good Senator from Utah felt his integrity was 
questioned. The Senator from Washington felt his integrity was 
questioned. The Senator from Kentucky was defending the honor of his 
colleagues.
  Why was that necessary? It is necessary because with the system we 
use today, there is such mistrust that no action--no action--no matter 
how purely done, is perceived that way.
  Obviously, there are many gradations. Pick Senator A and Senator B; 
Senator A is a lifelong believer in the pro-life movement and receives 
money from a pro-life PAC. Nobody questions that--or pro-choice.
  But how about if Senator C believes strongly that a certain facility 
or company needs dollars to bring jobs to his area and receives 
contributions closely related to that? Everyone doubts it.
  I would argue to you that those two cases, at least on a factual 
basis, are not distinguishable. But every--every--move we make in 
Washington is now under a cloud. It is under a cloud because of the 
system by which we finance campaigns. We must change it.
  This is the most important vote we are facing in this whole year of 
Congress, period. I know we have had important ones. But the very 
roots, the foundations of this democracy, are being eaten away by 
public cynicism. In good part, that public cynicism is caused by our 
system of financing campaigns.
  The great debates we have had this year--whether it be on impeachment 
or guns or Patients' Bill of Rights--over every one of them, the cloud 
of how we finance campaigns hung over it. The debate is vitiating by 
that cloud, and because of this system people feel further and further 
away from the Government that is theirs.
  So those who argue for the status quo, saying nothing is wrong, or 
other issues that predominate, sort of befuddle me. I am surprised at 
the advocacy of the first amendment by some on the issue of financing 
campaigns, when that advocacy on other issues--freedom of artistic 
expression--does not seem to be there. I find that befuddling.
  But, to me, there is no higher value that we can create than trust 
between the people and their Government. If that trust continues to 
decline, I don't know if this system of Government survives. So to 
argue whether the Senator from Utah or the Senator from Washington was 
maligned in a specific and wrong way, misses the point. To argue that 
every Senator is maligned fairly or unfairly by a system that the 
public perceives--and their perception is not out of cloud 9; their 
perception has many bases in reality--is making that Government further 
and further removed from their reach, that is what we are talking 
about.
  This proposal is a minor proposal in the broad scheme of what we must 
do. It is, to me, a disappointment. I would have liked to have gone a 
lot further. I do not hold my colleagues from Arizona and Wisconsin 
responsible for that. They are trying to go as far as this body will 
let them go.
  One thing I believe we cannot do--one thing we try to do too often--
is let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The McCain-Feingold 
proposal will make some good, positive changes. Will it advantage one 
party or the other? I don't know. I don't think any of us can predict. 
Will it advantage one race, one person in a political race over 
another? Maybe yes; maybe no. We know one thing. We know it will begin 
that first step of rebuilding trust between the people and their 
Government. It will begin the first step so the kind of debate that 
occurred on the floor a few minutes ago won't be necessary, because the 
public will have the kind of faith they had in their elected officials 
in decades and centuries past.
  We must move forward. Can we improve on the proposal before us? Yes. 
I am going to offer a proposal, most likely with the Senator from 
Nebraska, Mr. Hagel, to say that when there are independent 
expenditures and when there are independent committees, the financing 
there must be disclosed. That will help a little bit more without 
vitiating the chances of passing this bill. I hope my colleagues will 
support that. We will be talking about it.
  The bottom line is, we have a tremendously serious problem. We have a 
poison that is in the roots of this great tree of democracy. It is 
spreading day by day, week by week, and month by month. That poison is 
cynicism. That poison is a view of the average citizen, rightly or 
wrongly--and in many cases, it is right--that the average person 
doesn't have the influence of a person or a company or a group of great 
wealth. We have to begin to change it. In a complicated world, where 
decisions are not so clear and not so black and white, we cannot afford 
to have every decision, difficult as they are on the merits, be held in 
askance or even contempt by average citizenry because they don't think 
they have a fair shot at influencing their legislator.
  I ran for office at the age of 23, right out of law school. It is 
because I believed in our system of government. There were tens of 
thousands of young men and women, Republicans and Democrats, who threw 
themselves into government because they believed. We had seen good 
things happen in terms of World War II, getting out of the Depression, 
the prosperity of the 1950s, the civil rights movement, and the 
protests, angry at times, that changed our course in Vietnam. People 
believed.
  My guess is that there are far fewer 23-year-olds today who are 
making the sacrifices it takes to go into government because of the 
cynicism, because of the mistrust, because of the problems of financing 
their own campaigns. If we can no longer get our best young people 
going into government, whether it be elected or appointed, and if we 
can no longer have the citizens believe, when this body debates an 
issue, that the debates are being divided by firmly held beliefs rather 
than by who is manipulating, controlling, or contributing to whom, then 
we can't survive as a democracy. That fatal distance between people and 
their government will get larger and larger and larger. We will wake up 
one morning and say: We don't have the kind of democracy that the 
Jeffersons and the Madisons and the Washingtons and the Jays believed 
in and put together for us.
  This is not a trivial debate. The bill is smaller than many of us 
would like. But it is a debate that goes to the core of whether this 
Government will ultimately survive.
  I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle not to look at the 
specific details of ``this provision is in'' and ``that provision is 
out,'' but to look at the broad, in general, anger, hostility, 
cynicism, skepticism, and impotence that the public believes they have 
in relation to their government; then ask what can be done about it.
  My guess is, one of the few things we actually can do as Senators is 
pass the bill the Senators from Arizona and Wisconsin have put 
together. It is an important debate. I am glad we are getting to debate 
it on the floor. I hope

[[Page 25432]]

and pray that at the end of the day we will not walk out of this 
Chamber emptyhanded and end up being worse off than we were before the 
debate started, as the public will believe this Government has finally 
pulled totally out of their reach and influence.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. My colleague, Senator Durbin, is in order. I ask 
unanimous consent that he be allowed to speak now. I have the floor, 
but I don't want to jump ahead of him.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no order.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Chair.
  This debate on campaign finance reform is certainly not a new topic 
for any Member of this Chamber. I start by saluting my colleague, 
Senator John McCain of Arizona. He has been my friend since we served 
together in the House of Representatives many years ago. We have 
differed from time to time, which is not unusual in politics, but I 
have the greatest respect and admiration for the leadership he has 
shown on this and so many important issues, such as tobacco and others, 
that are near and dear to my heart. I thank him. I know that sometimes 
it is a lonely task to be a leader on an issue. I respect him very much 
for what he has done.
  My colleague, Senator Russ Feingold, deserves similar accolades, and 
more, for the leadership role he has taken on this issue. Senator 
Feingold, in his race for reelection in the State of Wisconsin, 
demonstrated rare political courage when he said he would live by the 
standards he preached when it came to campaign finance reform. It is a 
real test for every one of us in public life to be held to that 
standard. I am glad the people of the State of Wisconsin not only 
respected his decision but said they wanted him to continue as their 
spokesman in the Senate. I am happy to count him as a colleague and a 
friend.
  I find this debate to be absolutely critical when it comes to the 
future of our Nation. I don't think what is at stake in this debate is 
just a question of money and where it comes from. It is about much 
more. What is at stake in this debate is the future of this democracy. 
We expect politicians to be hyperbolic, to say things that sound so 
sweeping, they can't be true. But in my heart, I really believe what I 
have said is true. I am honestly, genuinely, and personally concerned, 
as a Member of the Senate, a former Member of the House of 
Representatives, and as a person who, for better or worse, has devoted 
his adult live to public service, about the fact that the people I 
represent and we represent are losing interest in their Government. The 
clearest indication of that loss of interest is in their declining 
participation in elections.
  Why is it, at this moment in the history of the United States of 
America, in the closing days of 1999, as we anticipate a new century 
and a new millennium, as we see the end of the so-called American 
century, when we swell with pride when hearing our national anthem and 
seeing our flag and appreciating what this country is all about, when 
we watch as leaders from around the world in burgeoning democracies 
come here to the United States to validate their pursuit of democratic 
ideals--why is it now that the people of the United States of America 
have decided they are basically not going to be involved in the most 
critical single decision any citizen can make, which is the decision to 
vote for the man or woman of their choice for public office?
  I have tried to analyze this, and I have to say it is interesting 
that this problem, in my mind, relates to this debate on the floor. 
This is a debate about political campaigns, money, and voters.
  I have a bar graph I would like to display which shows in fairly 
graphic terms what I think this debate is all about. If you look at 
this, you will notice that, in 1960, in the Presidential election 
campaign, both candidates spent the relatively meager sum of $175 
million. And then, if you will fast forward to the estimated 
expenditures of the 1996 campaign--a span of 36 years--it went from 
$175 million to $4 billion.
  What happened in between to cause this dramatic increase in spending 
on campaigns? Certainly inflation was part of it, but this is more than 
inflation. What happened is that candidates--myself included, and 
virtually every Member of the Senate--decided that to win a vote or 
entice a voter, they had to spend money in record amounts--on 
television, on radio, direct mail, bumper stickers, pocket combs.
  I carry a comb in my pocket given to me by a friend named Craig 
Lovett who ran for Congress and lost. About the only thing remembered 
of Craig's campaign is these wonderful combs, which I have carried 
around for over 20 years. He was a great fellow, and he has passed 
away. Sometimes that is all that is left of a campaign. We spend money 
on things such as that, as candidates, in trying to reach the voters, 
touch the voters, convince them we are worth voting for. If you look at 
them, you have to ask, as we plow more money into our political system 
of elections, is it working? The honest answer is that it is not.
  There is another part of this graph that is worth noting, too. The 
statistics here indicate voter turnout in Presidential elections. Look 
at what is happening. When we spent $175 million in 1960, 63.1 percent 
of the eligible voters turned out. Then we started piling on big time 
all the money we could find and raise legally in the system. And what 
happened? There was a steady decline in voter interest and 
participation to 49.1 percent in 1996. We have lost 14 percent of the 
eligible electorate as we have plowed massive amounts of money into the 
system.
  Some people on the other side of this debate have argued that the 
weakness in the American political system is not enough money. If we 
can just jam this blue bar up in the next campaign to $5 billion, $6 
billion, and beyond, they will tell you, in their way of thinking, that 
is how democracy works. I have heard political spokesmen such as George 
Will talk about money being free speech, and if we had more free 
speech--that is, more money--then we would be living up to our 
constitutional ideal, and that is what we should be all about. But the 
facts don't bear that out. The more money we plow into it, the fewer 
people turn out to vote. I think that is significant because I think 
something is happening here that really is worth our observation.
  Look at what happened on November 5, 1996--or perhaps what didn't 
happen. I think it represented the single most dangerous and tragic 
threat to our democracy, the outcome of that election campaign--not the 
candidates, but from the voters' point of view. One need not look 
beyond the voter turnout in the last Presidential election to recognize 
the degree of public disillusionment in America. It is perplexing that 
this very same election cycle that spawned skyrocketing revenues and 
outlays in campaign dollars generated only a 49.08-percent turnout at 
the polls.
  The 1996 Presidential campaign had the lowest national average 
turnout for a Presidential election in 72 years. The money was there; 
the voters weren't. If one accounts for the flood of new voters in 1924 
with the passage of women's suffrage, it may have been the lowest 
percentage turnout of eligible voters to vote for President since mass 
popular balloting was introduced in America in the 1830s, in the 160-
year history of the United States. And by 1996, the voters of the 
United States said: None of the above; we don't care; a majority will 
stay home.
  The average voter participation rate in Presidential elections 
between 1948 and 1968 was 60.4 percent. This dropped to a 53.2-percent 
average turnout from 1972 to 1992. Campaigns are too long, too 
expensive, too negative, and a majority of self-respecting people have 
said: We don't want to sully our hands by even voting. And they vote 
with their feet; they stay home.
  The decline in the exercise of the basic right of citizenship is a 
grave concern. More than 100 million Americans of voting age don't 
participate. I

[[Page 25433]]

don't think this is an accident. Despite the fact that we tend to 
register more voters--an increase of some 8 million eligible voters, 
resulting in 4 million being registered--fewer Americans cast their 
ballots in the most recent election, the 1998 mid-term, than in 1994's 
similar election, plunging voter turnout to the lowest level in over 50 
years.
  I think the message here is clear. Americans have watched this 
electoral process, and an estimated 119 million of them have decided to 
avoid the ballot box like a root canal. That is the largest number in 
American history. If you look at the United States in terms of other 
countries around the world and all the things we point to with pride in 
this country, we cannot point to voter participation with pride.
  According to data compiled by IDEA, the United States ranked 114 out 
of 140 countries the voter turnout of which has been assessed since 
1945. Despite all the money, we don't see the participation we have 
come to expect.
  The life of a Senator is a wonderful life in many respects. I am so 
honored to represent a great State such as Illinois and to be able to 
stand in this Chamber and use my best judgment on my votes to try to 
help them. But the path to the Senate, for someone who is not 
independently wealthy, is a path that takes you to many small offices, 
many desks, many telephones, and many telephone calls to perfect 
strangers, begging for money.
  When I was a Member of the House of Representatives running for the 
Senate, I used to take off during the course of a day, drive about a 
block away to a little cubicle I had rented, where I could sit and 
legally make fundraising calls. I would take every available minute to 
do it. When I received my beeper notification, I would race back to the 
floor of the House of Representatives to cast a vote and then back to 
make more phone calls and raise more money. Of course, it is going to 
have an impact on your private life, and it had an impact on my public 
life, too. I can remember, to this minute, the day I left to race over 
and make a vote on the floor of the House. As I cast my vote, I looked 
up and thought of the list of potential contributors I was now about to 
call. But there were two or three of them I could not call. I just 
voted against them. You know, when that becomes part of the 
calculation, it takes something away from your judgment.
  I don't point the finger of blame to any of my colleagues in this 
Chamber. I think they are, by and large, to my knowledge, some of the 
most honorable people I have come to know in life, and they are really 
conscientious in the job they do. But the system as it is currently 
constructed is a system that, frankly, is going to lead all of us to 
make conclusions and make decisions which may not be the right ones.
  The argument on the other side against Senator McCain and Senator 
Feingold is the suggestion that more money into this system is going to 
make it better. This is not a new argument. We have seen it in several 
other iterations.
  I can recall the debate over guns in America. The National Rifle 
Association is for a concealed carry law. What does it mean? It means 
all of us would be able to carry a gun around in our pockets or, for 
women, in their purses, taking them into shopping malls, restaurants, 
churches, and high school basketball games. It is their belief that 
this proliferation of guns in America will make us safer.
  Yesterday, we had a vote on a nuclear test ban treaty. Many of us 
believe that we have all the nuclear weapons in the world we will ever 
need and that we should have passed that treaty to reduce the number of 
nuclear weapons in those countries that possess them. The treaty was 
defeated. Those who wanted fewer nuclear weapons lost. Those who 
believe we shouldn't have a limit on testing and, therefore, the 
development of nuclear weapons around the world prevailed. They 
believe, obviously, that more nuclear weapons around the world make us 
safer. I don't share that belief.
  But a similar argument is at hand. There are those who argue that 
more money going into the political system will somehow result in 
better men and women being elected to Congress and to other offices. I 
don't believe that is the case.
  In 1996, the Republicans raised $548 million; the Democrats raised 
$332 million. The Republicans outraised us 65 percent more than we did 
in 1996. In 1992, both parties had only raised $507 million. So you can 
see the numbers going up dramatically.
  Part of the resistance to campaign finance reform reflects the 
reality that the incumbent Republican leadership in the House of 
Representatives and in the Senate does not want to put an end to a good 
thing. I can understand that. It makes sense to me as a political 
person that some might take that position, with notable exceptions such 
as Congressman Shays from Connecticut, the Republican who supports 
campaign finance reform, and others on the Republican side.
  Centuries ago, Machiavelli wrote his famous book, ``The Prince,'' and 
outlined some ideas and principles of politics. I have always said that 
if he did not have a chapter in his book on the subject, he should, and 
it should be entitled ``If you have the power, for God's sake, don't 
give it away.'' The power now is in the money. And many on the 
Republican side of the aisle who are capable of raising more money than 
we do on the Democratic side of the aisle do not want to surrender that 
advantage.
  It is similar to handing a weapon to your enemy, as they see it. That 
is an understandable conclusion by some. But thank goodness for Senator 
McCain and others who have risen above it and said it is an empty 
victory to continue the status quo, the current system of campaign 
fundraising, if in fact we are losing credibility and losing the 
respect of the American people. What good does it do for us to be 
elected and supposedly lead this country when the American people do 
not give us the respect for the office or the job we do? It has a lot 
to do with the campaign finance system.
  This bill in its particulars addresses many issues, and one of them 
primarily in the focus of this debate is on the question of soft money. 
In 1996, the Republican national party committees tallied soft money 
receipts of $141 million; in 1998, an off year, $131.6 million. That 
was the dramatic increase over the prior off-year election. The 
Democratic side raised $122 million in soft money in 1996 and, in 1998, 
$92.8 million. That was a 89-percent increase over the summer election 
cycle just a few years before.
  Much time and energy has been spent in the aftermath of the 1996 
Federal election cycle, launching accusations about questionable 
practices that occurred. I sat through Senator Thompson's hearings 
investigating the Presidential campaign for a year. There were 
certainly irregularities and embarrassments involved in that campaign. 
I am certain as I stand here that similar irregularities and 
embarrassments happen on both sides--Democrat and Republican.
  You cannot deal with these massive sums of money from people whom you 
don't know as well as you might a member of your family and not run 
into embarrassing circumstances. I have. There have been times when I 
have received checks in my campaign and have taken a hard look at them 
and said, ``Send them back.'' It just raises too big a question as to 
whether my values and principles are being compromised. Think about a 
national party raising millions of dollars under similar circumstances 
and wondering if any single check is tainted or raises questions about 
your honesty.
  What we learned from investigating the Presidential campaigns is that 
some of the most reprehensible and unseemly tactics are perfectly legal 
under the law today. Several loopholes in the law allow funds to be 
raised and spent in ways that do not violate the letter, although they 
might violate the spirit, of the law. Chief among them is soft money 
donations.
  It is an arcane world for the average American to try to figure out 
the difference between hard money and soft money, caps on spending, and 
the like. I can tell you, there are certain things that can basically 
differentiate them.

[[Page 25434]]

 Hard money is limited as to how much you can raise with each 
individual. You are limited as to the sources and individuals as well 
as PACs. You are limited in how much they can give, and everything is 
disclosed.
  Hard money is a reform that really tried to clean up the system by 
saying, if we limit those who can give while staying away from 
corporations, for example, and we limit how much people can give, and 
then we have full disclosure, we will have a more honest system. I 
think the premise was sound.
  Soft money violates basically all these rules. Soft money doesn't 
live by these limitations. The sources, the amounts, and the 
disclosures in many cases just aren't there.
  That is what this debate is about. Senators McCain and Feingold have 
said put an end to this soft money and the problems it creates for our 
electoral system.
  There are several items and issues that will come up, I am sure, 
later in the debate. I am going to hold back from going into some of 
them. One of them has to do with issue ads. I am looking forward to 
that because I think my greatest fear is that if we ban soft money, we 
will create vehicles for more and more independent so-called 
``independent organizations'' to appear and become part of this 
process.
  Let me close by saying this: I have supported the McCain-Feingold 
bill as originally written. It embodied a number of reforms that I 
think are essential to restore confidence in this electoral process. I 
have been disappointed by some sponsors. I understand their political 
realities. But I have been disappointed in the fact that we have over 
time lost some of the major reform provisions in the bill and we are 
now focusing on just one--the abolition of soft money. There are many 
other parts of that bill which deserve to be enacted into law if we are 
going to have real reform.
  I will close on this note. I hope this Congress--particularly this 
Senate--can muster the political courage to vote for this reform. I 
hope that will happen. I am skeptical as to whether that will be the 
outcome.
  We have seen demonstrated in American political history time and time 
again that it takes a major overwhelming scandal for this Congress to 
act to enact real reform. The Watergate scandal is one example, and 
others have shown up in our history. We are not dealing with such a 
scandal today in specifics, but we are dealing with a scandalous 
system, a system which really troubles me the most, that so many 
Americans have given up on us. We can't allow that to happen. We can't 
afford it.
  For those who argue that we have to allow the very wealthiest in 
America to be articulate in our political process by writing checks for 
thousands--$10,000, $20,000, $50,000, or $100,000--I think on its face 
is laughable. To think we would give up on working people, average 
families, and businesses making modest amounts and disclosing 
contributions and instead turn this process over to the wealthiest in 
America is to give up on the very basis of this democracy. It will 
continue to push away from the average American that interest they 
should have in this most fundamental system of representative 
democracy.
  I rise in support of McCain-Feingold.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I think we will alternate sides.
  I ask my colleague from Tennessee, if we are going to rotate, could I 
ask unanimous consent I be allowed to follow the Senator from 
Tennessee?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Voinovich). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. President, I rise in support of the McCain-Feingold 
legislation as amended. I do so based upon the premise that it is our 
responsibility in this body, it is our responsibility as a Congress, to 
address the issues concerning the election of Federal officials. I can 
think of nothing more appropriate to address than how we elect Federal 
officials and the way in which we elect them. It is not up to the 
Federal Election Commission to do this for Congress. It is not up to 
the Attorney General to do this for Congress, nor the lower courts. It 
is for Congress to state precisely what kind of system we want--or no 
system, if we don't want a system--to state that clearly and be willing 
to stand up and make a case.
  This is a balancing process, one that has been endorsed by the 
Supreme Court of the United States. I think the purists on both sides 
of this issue probably have missed the boat. It clearly does cost more 
now to run campaigns than it used to cost. In my opinion, the $1,000 
limitation, for example, is clearly too low. It needs to be adjusted 
for inflation. On the other hand, those who say there is not enough 
money in politics and that we should be able to donate unlimited 
amounts of money to parties for the benefit of those who are running 
for office I think miss the boat, also. Surely, we can strike some kind 
of a balance wherein we can address the legitimate costs of running for 
office and the fact that we are not going to be able to eliminate money 
from politics on the one hand with certain reasonable limitations that 
do not cause public cynicism and do not cause questions to be raised 
concerning the motivations of those who write the laws in this country.
  Both history and common sense demonstrate beyond any purview of a 
doubt there is something inherently problematic with giving large 
amounts of money to people who write the laws, especially when donors 
of that money are affected by the laws that are being written. That is 
not a novel concept. That is something historians back in the 19th 
century were talking about. They were talking about the downfall of the 
Roman Empire, something that the Venetians addressed seven centuries 
ago when they placed strict limits on what could be given to elect the 
officials. Under their system, if one was going to ask elected 
officials for any favors, one couldn't contribute to them at all.
  We have recognized that in this body. Senator Barry Goldwater, who is 
one of my heroes, has been called Mr. Republican; he has been called 
Mr. Conservative over the years. He is the conscience of the 
conservatives. It is one of the things that caused me to want to get 
into politics. I admired his courage. I also admired what was on his 
mind. He was always a man of integrity and always willing to look a 
little bit further than the end of his nose, look a little bit further 
than things that affected him.
  He said in 1983 about big money:

       It eats at the heart of the democratic process. It feeds 
     the growth of special interest groups created solely to 
     channel money into political campaigns. It creates the 
     impression that every candidate is bought and owned by the 
     biggest givers, and it causes elected officials to devote 
     more time to raising money than to their public duties. If 
     the present trends continue, voter participation will drop 
     off significantly--

  I might ask parenthetically if that sounds familiar--

     public respect will fall to an all-time low--

  I ask the same question--

     and political campaigns will be controlled by slick packaging 
     artists, and neglect of public duties by absentee officials 
     will undermine government praises.

  That was Barry Goldwater in 1983. I am disappointed some of my 
colleagues on the Senate floor did not have an opportunity to question 
him and interrogate him and try to get him to name names as to those 
who are corrupt. That is what Barry Goldwater said in 1983.
  It is not just statements made here that recognize this inherent 
problem to which there is no one answer--I might add, an inherent 
obvious problem--and has been with us over the centuries. It is based 
on human nature. In response to that, we do such things as pass a gift 
ban. If there is no problem with the giving of things to public 
officials and to candidates for office, why have we passed the gift ban 
rule? But we did. So we have the rather curious situation now where an 
individual cannot buy a Member dinner, but he can give a Member $1,000 
for his campaign. Or he can bundle $100,000 for you. Or if he is rich 
enough, he can give $1 million to your party for your benefit, but he 
cannot buy you dinner.

[[Page 25435]]

  We recognize this basic question in the laws that we pass. In 1907, 
we banned corporate contributions. In 1943, we banned union 
corporations. In 1974, we passed limits on amounts of money that could 
be given to individual candidates. We passed limits on amounts of money 
that could be given to political parties. We set up a system of 
partially funding Presidential campaigns--the idea being if the 
taxpayers funded the Presidential campaigns, the Presidential 
candidates would not have to go out and raise private money.
  Why were we concerned about that if it is the same old answer--the 
things we have been talking about for the last few minutes. We set up 
that system. I might say, since that was passed and has been in effect 
since 1976, until the last Presidential campaign, we have had no real 
problems in terms of scandals. The Presidential candidates each spent 
about the same amount of money; sometimes Republicans won, sometimes 
Democrats, sometimes incumbents, sometimes challengers. That is what we 
had until recently.
  This balance that was struck--not impeding first amendment rights but 
recognizing this inherent question, this inherent historical century-
old problem--the balance that was struck was upheld by the Supreme 
Court. The Supreme Court acknowledged we were placing limitations on 
individuals, perhaps involving the first amendment in some ways, but 
the Supreme Court said in striking a balance between that legitimate 
concern on the one hand and the concern over the corruption or 
appearance of corruption on the other hand was a decent one to strike 
and was permissible to strike. So we set up a system of limitations and 
disclosures.
  This is not a personal matter. This does not have to do with 
individual Members. It is not about Members as individuals as we 
consider this in the Senate and the Congress. We haven't been here for 
very long when considering the course of history, and none will be here 
very much longer. What we are supposed to do is look past that and do 
what is necessary and beneficial for the country.
  I have been distressed in watching this morning, that all of the 
concern supposedly has not been on the merits of campaign finance but 
attacks on the Senator from Arizona because he has raised these 
questions--the same ones that Barry Goldwater raised. Hopefully, we 
will be able to get back and debate the issues as to whether or not our 
current situation is a good one.
  I was thumbing through some material. I haven't been able to catch up 
on my reading lately. I suggest we direct our attention to what people 
are saying--not the Senator from Arizona, not Common Cause, not the 
ACLU, not the advocates we all are on the issues.
  Congressional Daily was put out by the National Journal on October 7. 
This journal is primarily a discussion of the legislative issues, what 
is happening and what is going to happen. In this article written by 
Bruce Stokes, I was struck by this passage that probably didn't raise 
any eyebrows because it is so common nowadays. This man wrote:

       More importantly, the China WTO issue may loom large in 
     some congressional primaries not because voters will care but 
     because candidates on both sides of the issue will use it to 
     raise money from business and labor, a milk cow Members of 
     Congress may be reluctant to cut off by actually voting on 
     the issue.

  That is not something I would say. I do not know that to be true at 
all. But this is what people writing for the National Journal are 
saying. I suggest we ought to be concerned about that. We ought to be a 
little bit more concerned about the message and not so much concerned 
about the messenger. So maybe we can get back to the issue, as we 
proceed these next few days, as to whether or not we have a good 
situation in this country today.
  I suggest it is not about the total amount of money in politics. 
People argue there is too much money in politics; there is not enough 
money in politics. How long is a piece of string? I am not here to say 
there is too much or too little money in politics per se. People point 
out Procter & Gamble spends more on advertising soap than we spend on 
politics. But I would say a couple of things about this.
  No. 1, I draw a distinction between what we do and soap making. I 
hope it would be fairly obvious but perhaps not.
  Second, the problem, again, is the age-old question: What do we do 
about the necessity for money in politics and political campaigns on 
the one hand and the inherent problem of giving large sums of money to 
individual politicians, to individual legislators, or to individual 
parties which will inure to the benefit of those legislators? Procter & 
Gamble has nothing to do with that. The advertisers who place those 
ads, the people who run those ads, do not conduct public policy in this 
country, but we do.
  So why are we here today? Why does this keep coming back? Because, as 
I have said, we have not addressed this legislatively. The answer is, 
we are going to have to strike a new balance. We are going to have to 
readdress what we have done in this country on campaign finance and 
what we have learned over the last few years because having set up a 
system that, for better or for worse, whether you agree with it or not, 
struck that balance in terms of letting money in, letting people have 
enough money to run but not being overwhelmed by money so it looks as 
if your vote is based on something other than the merits--that has been 
totally done away with, basically. We do not have that system anymore.
  You say: When did Congress change it? Congress did not. Congress 
really did not do anything to change that system. That system was 
changed by, basically, the Federal Election Commission and by 
interpretations of the Attorney General. Now soft money can, in large 
measure, do what hard money used to do. The gates have been opened. 
Presumably, after learning the lessons of the last Presidential 
campaign and the interpretations that the highest law enforcement 
officer in the country has placed on it, which presumably is the law 
which presumably is going to be the pattern candidates for both parties 
are going to be following, a candidate can now go out and raise 
millions of dollars of soft money, run it through the State parties, 
coordinate its expenditures, and run television ads, as long as he 
doesn't say, ``Vote for me.'' That is basically the system we have 
today.
  The system we have now is not what we want. It is not what we ever 
voted for before. It is not the system we have had before. But because 
of FEC interpretations and the Attorney General, that is the system we 
have now.
  As we often have to do in this body, we have to readdress fundamental 
issues. You seldom fix anything for the duration of eternity. Sometimes 
you can do pretty well for a couple of decades, as we did in 1974. 
People say it didn't work. I think it worked pretty well in most 
respects. Certainly, in the Presidential campaigns it has worked well. 
It has now been proven the hard money limits are too low. That is one 
of the things we have learned. What do we do? Throw the whole thing out 
or do we raise the hard money limits? I think we ought to raise the 
hard money limits in light of the reality we have learned since the 
last time we addressed this issue.
  We have a system now where basically there are no practical 
limitations on any amount of money anybody wants to give to effect 
political campaigns. If that is what we want, an argument can be made 
that is a good thing. It has never been made as far as I know. It has 
never been voted on in this body. Do we want that? If we do not want 
that, we ought to say so. If we do, we ought to say so.
  How did we get into a situation where, without this body lifting a 
finger, we went from a system where people were mightily concerned 
about the $5,000 PAC check, by the $1,000 individual check--from that 
system, that is the last time we addressed it, to a system whereby now 
you are not a player unless you are giving $100,000?
  It started in 1978, the FEC rule that parties could send certain 
moneys to the State parties; the Federal party could send to the State 
parties for party-building activity. Then in 1991, they said they could 
fund certain voter drive costs with soft money, up to a

[[Page 25436]]

percentage: It is 35 percent in a nonelection year, 40 percent in an 
election year. In 1995, for the first time the FEC said you can use 
soft money for television. Then, Mr. Morris over at the White House 
showed the President how he could take the matching money, certify that 
he wouldn't raise any money himself, go out and raise all of this 
additional $44 million in soft money, while being able to say, ``I am 
not raising this money for my campaign; I am raising it for the 
party.''
  So the President raises all this additional money, the President sits 
in the Oval Office and coordinates all of it, tells what kind of ads to 
put on, where to put them on, how much, and how much money to spend. 
That is the procedure that Attorney General Reno put her stamp of 
approval on. Until some court or somebody--or this body--says 
otherwise, that is the way it is.
  Now a President or a Presidential candidate, and if so, a 
congressional candidate, can raise unlimited amounts of soft money, run 
it through the proper party, coordinate the ads, and have ads run as 
long as they qualify as issue ads.
  I am not even arguing the merits of that now. I am saying that is 
what we have today, and I do not think a lot of people realize it. We 
did not realize it until recently. The problem we have is that we want 
to castigate the President for opening up the floodgates. But instead 
of leaving it at that, we want to do it, too, because the system we 
have now has been the one that has been developed by the FEC, Mr. 
Morris, the President, and the Attorney General. Those are the 
standards we are now operating under. Those are the standards which 
Members of this body are fighting to preserve.
  Not only have we discovered it because a few years ago soft money did 
not play much of a role at all, and what was there went for party-
building activities, not for what we see now--not only have we 
discovered it, or the President discovered it for us, we discovered it, 
we like it, it now has constitutional protection, and we would have 
political disaster if we did not have it anymore. We haven't had it 
very long, but now that we have it, it would be absolute political 
disaster if we had to do away with it.
  Back in 1990, for a 2-year cycle, both parties raised $25 million in 
soft money. In 1996, under Mr. Morris and the President and their new 
plan--their Plan B, they called it--they raised $261 million. That is 
from $25 million at the beginning of the decade to $261 million. For 
the first 6 months of 1999, the parties have raised $55 million and the 
predictions are, by those who do this sort of thing and have been 
correct in the past, that by November of 2000 we will have raised $525 
million of soft money, which is more than double 1996. The year 1996 
was the high-water mark because that is when it was discovered; that is 
when it was perfected; that is when the doors were opened.
  By November of next year, the predictions are we will double that. 
The question is, How long will this go on? How long should it go on?
  I suggest that we are in need of a new balance. We need to 
drastically cut back or eliminate soft money, but we need to raise the 
hard money limits to comport with inflation.
  It is true--and the promoters of reform need to understand this--that 
we are developing a system whereby only the rich or the professional 
politician can participate anymore because those limits are so low. 
They have not kept up with inflation. If $5,000 were indexed for 
inflation today, it would be, what, $32,000, or something of that 
nature. The costs are much more. It is becoming much more time 
consuming. We need to raise those hard dollar limits across the board, 
and then we would not need that soft money as much, for one thing, and 
a lot of that soft money, I think, would come into the hard money 
system.
  That would be consistent with our long history of concern on this 
matter and our long history of legislating on this matter.
  What are the arguments? I would have hoped by now we would have heard 
a little bit more about the merits and the arguments of this case 
instead of the personalities. But as I understand the arguments, No. 1, 
all this soft money--it is true that the floodgates have been opened. 
It is true that in every election cycle, we will be doubling the amount 
of money next time. We will be up there with good old Procter & Gamble 
before long.
  The answer is, this just goes to parties; it does not go to 
candidates, so it cannot have a corrupting influence. I am wondering, 
if that is the case, why are we spending so much time raising it. I am 
wondering why President Clinton spent so much time raising it in the 
White House? Did he really enjoy having coffee with all that many 
people because the money was going to the Democratic National 
Committee? And yet he continued to raise it.
  Do the national committees have no relationship at all to the 
members? I do not think we want to try to convince the American people 
of that. Roger Tamraz met with Don Fowler when he was chairman of the 
Democratic National Committee. Tamraz agreed to contribute $300,000 to 
the DNC. He had an oil pipeline he wanted to build in the Caspian Sea 
region.
  To make a very long story short, he was able to set up a meeting with 
the Vice President. To the Vice President's credit, he canceled that 
meeting. He kept working. He got Mr. Fowler to call the National 
Security Council for him. He got Mr. Fowler to call the CIA for him. 
Tamraz attended six events with President Clinton in 9 months. Sullivan 
over at the Democratic National Committee prepared two memos 
summarizing Tamraz's hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions 
to various Democratic institutions. Four days later, he attended a 
coffee with the President, talked about the pipeline with Mr. McCarty, 
and McCarty later enlisted Energy Department officials to lobby for the 
pipeline, officials who were aware of Mr. Tamraz's contributions to the 
DNC.
  I do not think anyone would contend that Mr. Fowler, who was chairman 
of the DNC at that time, had no influence with regard to the members of 
his own party and the members of this administration. Some people say 
Mr. Tamraz did not get what he wanted. Is that cause for great comfort 
to find out in a situation such as this, a pitiful situation such as 
this, that this individual did not in this instance get what he wanted? 
Besides, I raise the question, if there had not been a courageous young 
woman by the name of Ms. Heslin at the National Security Council who 
was raising red flags about all of this, I do not know whether or not 
Mr. Tamraz's luck would have been different.
  The same principles are involved with soft money contributions as 
they are with hard money contributions. This is not an easy thing to 
discuss. This is not something where anybody wants to be holier than 
thou. We all raise money. We all know we have to raise money. We all 
try to strike a balance in terms of amounts, in terms of appearances, 
but if we really are trying to strike a proper balance to come up with 
something that may not necessarily be the best in the world for us as 
an individual politician but really is something the country is going 
to have to move toward, if we really do our jobs, we are going to have 
to do that.
  Let's not kid ourselves: We are not casting aspersions on any 
individual. It is not enough for us to stand up and say: OK, who here 
is a crook? I see no hands; therefore, there is no problem. Let's go 
home.
  We are talking about something that is supposed to pertain for all 
time and something that, hopefully, will deal with appearances as well 
as reality, appearances that the Supreme Court recognizes as a valid 
concern and has been recognized as a valid concern throughout history.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield to me for one question?
  Mr. THOMPSON. Yes.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, in response to the Senator from Utah, the 
argument I made both on my web site and today is that I believe that 
part of the problem--indeed, a key ingredient of wasteful spending and 
special interest tax breaks--is the effect of soft money on the 
legislative process. Not that every bit of pork that Members secure is 
caused by soft money, but in

[[Page 25437]]

the aggregate, wasteful spending is caused by, among other things, soft 
money.
  Let me offer my colleagues a definition of ``corruption'' from 
Webster's dictionary. Corruption: The impairment of integrity, virtue, 
or moral principle.
  Note, this definition does not say that corruption occurs only when 
laws are broken. I have already cited, as has the Senator from 
Wisconsin, the large amount of soft money given to both parties by 
various industries and the aggregate amount of tax breaks those 
industries receive. I believe, even if some of my colleagues do not, 
that these amounts have impaired our integrity. I believe that as 
strongly as I believe anything. Unlimited amounts of money given to 
political campaigns have impaired our integrity as political parties 
and as a legislative institution.
  As the Senator from Wisconsin has noted, we are not accusing Members 
of violating Federal bribery statutes. No, we are here because there no 
longer is a law controlling the vast amounts of money that I believe 
are impairing our integrity. In the immortal words of the Vice 
President: ``There is no controlling legal authority.''
  I watched very closely as the 1996 telecommunications deregulation 
bill became everything but deregulatory and led to far less competition 
than it was intended to engender and the consequent increase in cable 
rates, telephone rates, et cetera. I believe soft money played some 
role in that; again, not in a way that fits within a legal definition 
of ``bribery,'' but in a way the vast majority of Americans believe is 
an impairment of our integrity, and I include myself in that 
indictment.
  That is the problem I am trying to address in this legislation and no 
attack, no amount of head-in-the-sand pretense that soft money does not 
affect legislation will cause me to desist in my efforts.
  I will close with one observation. If special interests did not 
believe their millions of dollars in donations buy them special 
consideration in the legislative process, then those special interests 
that have a fiduciary responsibility to their stockholders would not 
give us that money, would they?
  Those interests enjoy greater influence here than the working men and 
women who cannot buy our attention but are sometimes affected adversely 
by the laws we pass.
  To me that seems to be a good working definition of the impairment of 
our integrity which, as I noted, is Webster's definition of 
``corruption.''
  My question to the Senator from Tennessee is, indeed, is there 
anything that would be a violation of law that we do in any way in our 
pursuit of money today?
  Mr. THOMPSON. Is there any way you can violate the law under our 
current system today? Yes, I can think of ways. A clear quid pro quo 
would be a violation of the law. But you have to prove a quid pro quo, 
which is a very high standard. That is under the bribery statutes.
  But under the campaign part of it, as long as you disclosed it, 
raising unlimited amounts, I see no effective limitation.
  There is even a controversy as to whether or not foreign soft money 
contributions are now legal. A lower court held they were legal. I had 
a discussion with Attorney General Reno in one of our hearings, when 
she was trying to excuse what was going on over in the White House and 
the fact that the President was sitting over there coordinating 
millions of dollars of soft money for his personal ads to benefit his 
campaign, and she said: Well, soft money is not regulated.
  I said: Soft money is not regulated. What about soft money that came 
from China or Indonesia or somewhere?
  She said: Well, that would be illegal.
  I said: Logically, it wouldn't be. If soft money is soft money, it 
doesn't say anything about a source.
  Sure enough, a Federal judge agreed with my analysis. Now the court 
of appeals has overturned that lower court. So goodness knows where we 
are. But the whole question of foreign soft money is at issue now.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Would the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. THOMPSON. Certainly.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I listened carefully to the statement of my friend 
from Arizona. I am still trying to understand it. I know the Senator 
from Tennessee has the floor, so I don't know if I should pose this 
question to him or the Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. THOMPSON. I will take it and pose it to him.
  Mr. McCONNELL. OK. Is the Senator from Arizona saying, then, it is 
possible to have corruption and that no one is corrupt? You can have 
corruption and yet there isn't anybody actually responsible for it?
  Mr. McCAIN. May I answer?
  Mr. THOMPSON. Yes.
  Mr. McCAIN. I say to my friend from Kentucky, either the Senator from 
Kentucky did not listen to what I said or doesn't care about what I 
said.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Would you say it again?
  Mr. McCAIN. I repeat again, the definition of ``corruption'' from 
Webster's dictionary: The impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral 
principle.
  I repeat again, we have impaired our integrity when we convey to the 
American people the impression that soft money distorts the legislative 
process, such as it did, in my view, in the 1996 Telecommunications 
Deregulation Act, with the protection of special interests, which 
caused increases in cable rates, phone rates, and led to mergers rather 
than competition in the industry.
  So this system has impaired our integrity. That does not mean bribery 
laws were broken necessarily. They may have been. I don't know. But I 
do know that our integrity has been impaired. And whether that is the 
view of the Senator from Kentucky or the view of the Senator from Utah 
or my view, it is the view of the American people. That is 
substantiated by polling data and personal experience.
  Mr. McCONNELL. So let me get this right. All of our integrity is now 
impaired--all of us.
  Mr. McCAIN. I will repeat again. I believe that a system of unlimited 
soft money in the American political process has impaired our integrity 
because we are now held in such low esteem by Americans because they 
believe we no longer respond to their hopes and dreams and aspirations.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Let me reclaim the floor, if I can. I won't be very 
much longer.
  But listening to the discussion, it looks as if we need to take a 
step back and look at it as others have from the outside.
  What makes me angry is reading things such as the article in the 
National Journal. To me--this is my view; you know what I think about 
the system--I think things such as this article in the National Journal 
and others portray a situation that is worse than it is. But it is 
portrayed that way because so many people believe that.
  Our problem is this--this is no aspersion on anyone, but I am not 
going to shrink from it because you ask me to name names--our problem 
is this: When big bills come up and major industries are affected--
whether it be telecommunications, whether it be banking, whether it be 
health care, or anything else--and the tremendous hard money 
contributions start coming into our respective parties, Democrat and 
Republican, I think people take a look at that and think there is a 
connection.
  Do they think that we are necessarily being bribed? I would hope not. 
Because I know that not to be the case. But it is, at a minimum, an 
appearance problem that has been with us historically. We have always 
recognized there is this tradeoff we are having to deal with. What we 
are trying to do is strike a proper balance.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Would the Senator yield for a further question?
  Mr. THOMPSON. I will. But I would also like--now or later--to pose 
this: I was looking through this list, and in the first 6 months of 
this year, 37 companies, corporations, gave $50,000 or more to both 
parties--both parties. I would ask the Senator why he thinks they did 
that.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I am grateful they did because it gave us an 
opportunity to compete with the newspapers and the special interest 
groups that have a

[[Page 25438]]

constitutional right to participate in the political process. I am 
extraordinarily grateful that all of these disclosed contributions--and 
this is why my friend from Tennessee knows who contributed--
extraordinarily grateful that these companies are giving us the 
opportunity to engage in vote buying, engage in getting out the vote, 
engage in issue advocacy, and the other things that benefit our 
parties.
  I am extremely grateful they do that. And anybody who wants to make 
an issue out of it, it is fully disclosed, which is why my friend from 
Tennessee has the list.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Most of these things we are talking about are 
disclosed, and that does allow us to have the debate.
  But to follow up on that for a moment, conceding, for a moment, we 
are using the money for noble purposes.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I assure you we are. Winning elections is a noble 
purpose for a political party.
  Mr. THOMPSON. We are talking about motivations. The Senator brought 
this up. It caused me to think about this. Again, I ask you, why do you 
think these corporations and unions contributed that much money to both 
parties?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I don't know of any labor unions contributing to my 
party. But I assume the reason they are contributing is they believe in 
the principles that you stand for, which they have a constitutional 
right to do.
  Mr. THOMPSON. Principles of both parties simultaneously?
  Mr. McCONNELL. I think you have the right to be duplicitous in this 
country if you want to. I think it is not uncommon for people to 
contribute to both sides.
  May I ask the Senator a question?
  The Senator from Arizona was talking--again, I am trying to 
understand what he said and you said, I say to Senator Thompson--that 
the appearance is the problem and not the reality. I guess the argument 
then is, based on appearance, we should enact legislation. Appearance 
we can only ascertain by looking at polls, so let me----
  Mr. THOMPSON. Partially the basis of Buckley v. Valeo, you would 
agree.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Let me give you poll data of how people feel about 
newspapers and see if the Senator thinks we ought to legislate based on 
the appearance there to restrict the activities of newspapers.
  A poll taken in September of 1997 indicated that 86 percent of the 
American people believe newspapers should be required to provide equal 
coverage of congressional candidates; 80 percent want restrictions 
placed on the way newspapers cover political campaigns; 68 percent 
believe newspaper editorials are more influential than a $1,000 
contribution; 70 percent believe reporter bias influences the coverage 
of politics; 61 percent believe the candidate preferred by a reporter 
will beat the candidate with more money; and 42 percent believe 
newspaper editorial boards should be required to have both Republicans 
and Democrats.
  This is the public's perception of the newspapers, which operate 
under the first amendment, just as American citizens and parties do.
  If the argument is that we should pass legislation restricting first 
amendment rights based upon perception, I am wondering if the Senators 
also believe we ought to eliminate the newspaper exemption from the 
Federal Election Campaign Act and react to the public perception that 
newspapers need a bit of this Government regulation of speech as well?
  Mr. McCAIN. Could I just----
  Mr. THOMPSON. If I may, in the first place, the perception of 
potential corruption is one of the bases for Buckley v. Valeo. The 
Supreme Court took a look at that and they said that is a valid reason 
for legislating in this area. And because of that, because of that 
decision, what we are talking about today is not a restriction on 
anybody's first amendment rights.
  I think in times past Senators had a decent point with some 
provisions. What we are talking about today does not impinge on the 
first amendment because it in some way restricts somebody to spend some 
money somewhere. Because they are limited in donations does not impinge 
on the first amendment. Buckley v. Valeo holds that also.
  In answer to my friend, I am aware of erroneous public perceptions as 
well. They don't trust used car dealers much. My father was one for 50 
years in the same little town. I know about all that. But I answer that 
when newspapers start voting, when they are sent up here and trust and 
confidence is placed in them to come up here and vote for the American 
people on these issues, then they subject themselves to the same 
limitations the Supreme Court says can be placed on us.
  Mr. McCAIN. Is the Senator aware that, at least in the words of the 
Senator from Utah, it isn't just the appearance of corruption. The 
Senator from Utah pointed out three cases--I can recall two: Mr. Tamraz 
and the Indians. Mr. Tamraz said: Next time I am going to pay 
$600,000--where, at least if I understood the comments of the Senator 
from Utah, there were actual acts of corruption.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Isn't that against the law now?
  Mr. McCAIN. As far as I know, it is not against the law.
  Mr. THOMPSON. There are lots of things we used to think were against 
the law.
  Mr. McCONNELL. It should be against the law.
  Mr. McCAIN. It should be against the law. The point is, apparently it 
is not because Mr. Tamraz was not prosecuted, at least under this 
Justice Department.
  Mr. McCONNELL. That might say something about the prosecutor.
  Mr. McCAIN. It is not just the fact that there is the appearance of 
corruption. I think most Americans believe that there was actual 
corruption in that case and the Indian case. What we are fighting 
against here in the soft money is not only against allegations but also 
reality. Those examples the Senator from Utah pointed out are how 
terrible the situation can become. When a poor, impoverished Indian 
tribe is asked to give money in order to have their voice heard in 
Washington, I hope that would compel the Senator from Kentucky to 
rethink his position concerning soft money.
  Mr. McCONNELL. That should be illegal, should it not? That is against 
the law now, isn't it?
  Mr. THOMPSON. The real question is, if you prove a quid pro quo, 
which reminds me of some of the old corruption laws we have had on the 
books for many years, under which there has never been a prosecution, 
you have to prove the high standard of a quid pro quo, which is very 
difficult. I think we can all agree that it is improper, whether or not 
it is illegal.
  I think it raises a further question, the basic question, which is 
kind of the converse of the well-stated point I think the Senator from 
Kentucky made. The converse of that is, do appearances matter at all? 
Suppose we know we are trying to do the right thing, but we are seeing 
this tremendous influx of money at times from industries with which we 
are dealing on legislation. Should we be concerned about that? Perhaps 
we should go out and explain to the American people how that is 
unrelated, how the patriotic spirit of these companies and unions just 
happened to peak at certain times coincidentally. I am not saying that 
appearances should rule, but I do ask the question whether or not they 
should matter.
  I yield for the purpose of an answer to the Senator from Utah.
  Mr. BENNETT. I ask unanimous consent that I may make a comment 
without the Senator losing his right to the floor.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I don't 
think I will, but I have been here since early this morning. It depends 
upon how long my colleague from Utah wants to respond.
  Mr. BENNETT. I shall respond within 2 minutes or less.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I do not object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BENNETT. My only response to my chairman, when I served as a 
member of his committee, we talked about Roger Tamraz, the Riadys, and 
the Indian tribes not being illegal. It has the

[[Page 25439]]

appearance of impropriety. I think it is only not illegal in the 
opinion of the current Attorney General. I think there are others for 
whom it clearly would be considered illegal and that indictments might 
be brought. The current Attorney General has decided in her wisdom that 
it is not illegal.
  I want to be clearly on record as disagreeing with her on that and 
believing that indictments should have been brought and that this is, 
in fact, a violation of existing law. Being unburdened with a legal 
education, I think perhaps I can make that kind of comment without 
having to back it up. Nonetheless, it is my opinion with respect to her 
opinion on these particular cases.
  Mr. THOMPSON. I couldn't agree more with my colleague from Utah on 
that point. It points out another difficulty for those who would try to 
sit down and apply some kind of commonsense analysis to this and think 
about what it ought to be, maybe 10 years after we have left this body, 
something we can be proud of. We sat there, the Senator from Utah and 
I, for almost a year and saw the most egregious violations of 
propriety, ethics, what ought to be illegal--some clearly was illegal. 
And many of our colleagues who are now calling the loudest for reform 
were definitely silent on those occasions. It really grieves me. I 
think it is extremely unfortunate that so many of us have lost our 
ability to take the high ground on this issue because of that.
  Now we see a succession of semiprosecutions where nobody gets any 
jail time. Everybody gets a slap on the wrist. Nobody is forced to 
testify against anybody else. The Attorney General gives her stamp of 
approval on something that nobody in their wildest imaginations thought 
would have been legal a few years ago. That is kind of a sidebar.
  What I am trying to do is not let my anger over that and having 
watched that and gotten damn little cooperation during it cause me not 
to be able to try to figure out what would be best for us as a system 
as we go forward.
  Briefly--I have taken too long--on the constitutional issue, I do not 
believe the constitutional concerns that have been expressed heretofore 
are with us now. We do limit hard money. Under prior law, 1974, we 
limited hard money to both individuals and to parties in this country. 
We actually prohibit unions and corporations from contributing in this 
country. That has been upheld as constitutional. It would not make any 
sense to me to say that we can limit a $1,000 contribution in hard 
money but we cannot limit or do anything with a million-dollar 
contribution in soft money when it is going for the same purpose. I 
think the constitutional points that were made previously no longer 
apply.
  In summary, allusion has been made to perception. My concern on that 
is not what a public opinion poll one day or the next might say but a 
consistent trend of objective analysis--the Pew Research people are 
some that come to mind--that shows that in this time of prosperity, 
this time of peace, we have increasingly cynical views toward our 
elected officials in this country and toward our institutions. This is 
especially true with regard to the young people.
  This is a generation of young people who did not experience 
Watergate, who did not experience Vietnam, who did not experience the 
assassinations we all went through as a nation. What reason do they 
have to be cynical? They are more prosperous than young people have 
ever been before. Yet the numbers indicate they are more cynical about 
us and what we are doing than ever before. That is what concerns me, 
not these petty personality disputes we have around here.
  In 1968, 8 percent of the American people contributed to elections of 
any kind--Federal, State, national, local. By 1992, it had dropped to 4 
percent. I don't know what it is today. But talking about 
contributions, that is 4 percent of the American people. So as the soft 
money doubles, the amount of people contributing is halved; voter 
turnout declines.
  Thomas Paine, the famed agitator for the American Revolution and 
author of Common Sense, said this: A long habit of not thinking a thing 
wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right and raises at 
first a formidable cry in defense of custom.
  Let's not lock ourselves into the defense of this custom. Let us look 
beyond ourselves for a moment and ask ourselves: Is what we are doing 
going to make for a stronger country? Will it engender respect for our 
institutions and for this body? Will it give the average citizen more 
or less confidence in the integrity of his or her government? I think 
we know the answers to those questions.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Minnesota is recognized.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Before the Senator from Tennessee leaves, I want to 
say I don't think he was on the floor too long, and I think his 
comments were very important. I appreciate what he had to say.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, as we go back and forth, that 
on the Democratic side Senator Boxer be allowed to speak when it comes 
back to our side, followed by Senator Cleland.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I have some prepared remarks. I don't 
know how much I will pay attention to it because I have been listening 
to the debate about corruption. Let me try a different definition, 
which my colleague from Kentucky, who is very skillful, may want to 
challenge. But this is at least the way I look at this question.
  The kind of corruption I think we are talking about is actually much 
more serious than the wrongdoing of an individual office holder. That 
is not what I will focus on. I gather that is what some of my 
colleagues have focused on and questioned. I say it is much more 
serious. I say it is a systemic corruption, and it is a systemic 
corruption when there is a huge imbalance between too few people with 
so much wealth, so much power, so much access, and so much say, and the 
vast majority of people in the country who don't make the big 
contributions, aren't the heavy hitters, aren't the investors, and who 
believe that if you don't pay, you don't play: I think that is the 
corruption.
  I think the corruption is that the standard of a representative 
democracy that says each person should count as one, and no more than 
one, is violated. If any Senator--Democrat or Republican--should go 
into any cafe in Minnesota, or around the country, and try to make the 
argument that, as a matter of fact, because of this system we have--
which I think is really a failure when it comes to any standard of 
representative democracy--if we were to try to argue, no, it is not 
true that people who are the investors and make these big contributions 
don't have too much access and too much say, I think 99 percent of the 
people in the country would say you are not credible. Of course, that 
is what is going on. Of course, people make contributions for a variety 
of different reasons, one of which is to have access and a say.
  I say to my colleague from Utah, I think it is a bipartisan problem. 
We don't need to talk about individual cases. And I understand the 
comments he has tried to make. I see it on both sides of the aisle. 
Look, both parties will talk about special gatherings we will have with 
the business community here, or the high-tech community there, or the 
labor community there. We will have gatherings where big contributors 
come. That is what is done. We have big dinners, and we are told to 
come to the dinners. What is the purpose of those dinners? These 
dinners are with the big contributors. We are told to come, to be 
there. It seems as though, if you don't come, you have no interest.
  Both parties give these lectures at caucuses to all of us. And we go. 
The reason we go is, we believe, given the system we have, people have 
to raise money, and if you don't come and you are not up for 
reelection, you believe, when you are up--you hope, given this rotten 
system we have--there is

[[Page 25440]]

enough money raised for you, so now you go to help other people.
  But the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of people in 
the country don't come to these dinners. The vast majority of people 
aren't invited to special gatherings and special sessions. The people 
who are invited by both parties are the big contributors. They are the 
investors.
  Come on. You are not going to try to argue on the floor of the Senate 
that we don't have a problem with systemic corruption, where we have 
just too few people who make these big contributions, who, as a result, 
perhaps have too much access and too much say.
  Let me go out on a limb. It is not just a question of perception. The 
vast majority of people in our country today believe their concerns 
about themselves and their families and their communities are of little 
concern in the corridors of power or the Halls of the Congress in 
Washington, DC. Do you know what. We have given them entirely too much 
justification for having that point of view. They are not necessarily 
wrong.
  I am not going to have somebody, all of a sudden, ask me to yield for 
a question and take my head off because it looks as if I am making an 
individual accusation. I am not going to do that. But I will tell you 
something right now. I am fully prepared, as a Senator from Minnesota 
and a political scientist, to tell you I see certain people, who also 
happen to be the big contributors, who have way too much access here. I 
don't know whom we think we are kidding.
  When we debated the telecommunications bill, the anteroom outside the 
Chamber was packed with people. I could not find truth, beauty, and 
justice anywhere. Everybody was representing billions of dollars here 
and billions of dollars there. And when we had a debate about the 
welfare bill--whatever you think about the welfare bill--where were the 
poor mothers and children? Where was their powerful lobby? They were 
nowhere to be found.
  When we decide where we are going to make deficit reduction and make 
the cuts, and when we do tax policy, and when we do a lot of other 
policy, it just so happens that certain folks and certain interests 
seem to be much better represented than others. I think that is true. I 
think we can make it better. I think we can do a lot better job of 
reaching the standard that each person should count as one and no more 
than one.
  Certainly, we have corruption, but it is not the wrongdoing of any 
individual office holder that I know of; it is systemic. When you have 
this frightening imbalance of power between the elites, the few who 
make the big contributions and are so well connected, and the majority 
of the people who basically feel locked out--and they have every reason 
to feel locked out--that is the problem.
  I smile at the proposal, which may be one of the amendments to this 
bill, to raise the contribution limits. I think it is about two-tenths 
of 1 percent of the top population, or less, who can afford to make a 
contribution of $1,000 or more. I am not supposed to look up in the 
galleries, and I certainly do not invite comment from people in the 
galleries--that would go against the rules--but I bet most of the 
people in the galleries observing our debate would probably think to 
themselves: We don't make $1,000 contributions.
  The fact is, two-tenths of 1 percent are able to make those kinds of 
contributions. Some people want to now raise it to $3,000. If you want 
to further skew the imbalance of power, where some people are counted 
on even more to make the big contributions and most regular people feel 
left out, then pass that kind of amendment. We will look like fools to 
people in the country. They will say: My God, the Senate took up reform 
and today passed an amendment that raised the individual contribution 
from $1,000 to $3,000--actually from $2,000 to $6,000 through the 
primary and general election. Most people will scratch their heads and 
ask: This is the Senate's definition of reform? I don't know, but I 
think people are being foolish if they don't think that campaign 
finance reform is an idea--with apologies to Victor Hugo--whose time 
has long passed.
  We have seven Republicans supporting this piece of legislation, the 
McCain-Feingold legislation. It will take only eight Republicans more 
to assure that we can pass a bill and to stop this effort to block all 
reform. I hope there will at least be eight Republicans, if not more, 
who will find the courage to basically vote for reform, who will find 
the courage to no longer be a part of this effort to block reform, to 
expand democracy.
  I want to say to my colleagues, Senator McCain and Senator Feingold, 
in the spirit of friendship and honesty, this bill, in its present 
form, is a mere shadow of its former self. I don't think it lights up 
people around the country. I don't think it is going to bring people to 
the reform barricade. I don't think it is going to galvanize people or 
cause people to rise up and really put the pressure on Senators. I wish 
it were more comprehensive. That is what I am saying. I wish it were 
much more comprehensive.
  I think we would be much better off talking about clean money and 
clean elections and getting as much of this interested big money out of 
politics and bringing as many people back into politics as possible. I 
think issue advocacy ads are phony.
  While I have the floor of the Senate to talk about my experience, 
especially in 1996, I worry about the ways in which money will shift 
from one source to the other. I think we can do better, although I will 
tell you that if we could ban the soft money, the unregulated money, 
the under-the-table money, the money where there is essentially no 
accountability in this system, we would still be taking an important 
step forward.
  I want to express my fear, and then I want to express my hope.
  Fear: What could happen is that none of the amendments to strengthen 
this bill will pass. But there will be a number of amendments to what 
is a very water-downed version, a very almost timid piece of 
legislation, but it represents a step forward. I would be proud to 
support it. But you will get some additional amendments raising the 
amount of money people can contribute. Gosh knows what else. Then we in 
the Senate will announce that we did campaign reform for the new 
millennium, and let's go forward with our special interest parties.
  I am going to worry that we may end up getting a bill that will have 
some fine sounding acronyms, such as ``PEOPLE,'' or something like 
that, which actually won't represent hardly any step forward at all.
  On the other hand, we have this bill right now, and if we can just 
deal with the soft money ban, we would be making a real step forward.
  I want to speak a little bit to this whole question of freedom 
because it has come up a lot and is raised by a number of colleagues. I 
want to simply draw from an important book by Eric Foner called, ``The 
Story of American Freedom.'' He talks about what freedom has meant to 
people in our country over the years. Freedom is way beyond the kind of 
definition that we have been given of it. Freedom means the ability to 
participate. Freedom means to have a place at the table. The definition 
of freedom of speech is larger than the absence of a regulation that 
would say we are going to try to put up some kind of framework that 
doesn't undercut representative democracy.
  If you think about it, union organizers in the 1930s and working 
people were talking about freedom to be more involved in the economic 
decisions that affected their lives. That was the kind of freedom on 
which they were focused.
  Then we had a fight for political freedom which began with our own 
American Revolution. Also, an important part of our history was the 
emancipation of slaves during the Civil War, then the passage of the 
13th, 14th, and 15th amendments--again, a broad definition of freedom; 
in the 1950s and 1960s, freedom which had to do with desegregating our 
schools and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 1965. Each time the kind 
of freedom we were talking about was the freedom to participate in

[[Page 25441]]

the political life of our country, or the economic life of our country, 
or the community life of our country.
  Let me share with you the words of Dr. Gwendolyn Patton at a recent 
conference at Howard University sponsored by the National Voting Rights 
Institute. She said:

       We thought we had scored a people's victory when we ushered 
     in the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Our movement of great numbers 
     of ``street heat'' feet wrought a structural change that 
     fundamentally expanded democracy. But we know now that it 
     wasn't enough. Ridding the system of private, special 
     interest money is the unfinished business of the voting 
     rights movement. This movement, like that one, is a 
     revolutionary movement--it is not just a tactical question. 
     It is an ideological struggle, not only for black folks, but 
     for all Americans. We are engaged, to borrow Lincoln's words, 
     in ``a great civil war.''

  She goes on to say, that while much was achieved through voter 
registration of African Americans, Latinos, and others.

       As a result of these victories we entered the political 
     arena by the millions--but as passive voters. Soon we began 
     to realize that we had to become active participants by 
     running for office if we were going to enact laws and 
     implements policies that would make a change for the better 
     in our lifetime. That's when we discovered another barrier, 
     and while it's not as directly life threatening, it's 
     certainly as formidable as any we have faced before. That's 
     the barrier of money.

  Dr. Gwendolyn Patton is talking about basically what we have right 
now, which is a wealth primary. What we are really saying is the very 
question of who gets to run, the very question of who is likely to get 
elected, the very question of what issues quite often get considered, 
the very question of what legislation we are able to pass, the very 
question of who has access to the political process and who doesn't, is 
all too often determined by money. The vote is undermined by the 
dollar. Our elections have become auctions.
  Some of my colleagues want to talk about raising the contribution 
limits. Let me just give you some figures.
  This is a picture of those who contribute the vast majority of money 
to candidates under the current contribution limits. Believe me, this 
is a picture that is not a broad slice of America. It is overwhelmingly 
white, it is overwhelmingly male, and it is overwhelmingly wealthy. 
These are people who have contributed over $200, and some colleagues 
want to go from $1,000 to $3,000.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I would be pleased to yield for a question.
  Mr. McCAIN. The Senator from Minnesota, in his opening statement, 
used the word ``systemic corruption'' associated with the present 
campaign finance system. Since I have been challenged on comments such 
as that, would the Senator mind defining what he is saying there?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague from Arizona, I thank him for 
his question. I would be pleased to be challenged by anybody on the 
floor on this comment. I made a comment that I think is quite similar 
to what the Senator from Arizona has been trying to say, that we have a 
systemic corruption that is, unfortunately, far more serious than the 
wrongdoing of individual office holders--far more serious. It is a 
corruption when you have a huge imbalance of power between too few 
people who have so much wealth and money, who make these large 
contributions, and who have so much more access and influence, versus 
the majority of people who have concluded that either you pay, and 
therefore you can play; but if you do not pay, you don't play. They 
feel locked out. They feel left out. They are disillusioned. They do 
not believe the political process belongs to them.
  That is a fundamental corruption of representative democracy. And I 
say to my colleague it violates the most important principle--that in a 
representative democracy each person should count as one and no more 
than one. That is being undermined.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator respond to an additional question?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I would be pleased to.
  Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Senator for his eloquent answer.
  Secondly, would the Senator be willing to name names as to examples 
of that corruption?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I would not want to name names, and I 
don't need to name names because the kind of corruption that I am 
talking about goes way beyond any one officeholder. It is systemic; it 
is endemic; it is structural; and it is very serious. The fact is big 
money has hijacked representative democracy. It undercuts 
representative democracy, and it violates the very principle that each 
person should count as one and no more than one.
  Therefore, I would be proud to be included in the ranks of my 
colleague from Arizona as a Senator who is not naming names.
  Let me go forward and just present some figures.
  A study conducted of donors in the 1996 election found the following 
characteristics of such donors.
  Ninety-five percent--these are people who contributed over $200--were 
white; 80 percent were male; 50 percent were over 60 years of age; 81 
percent had annual incomes of over $100,000.
  The population at large in the United States had the following 
characteristics:
  Seventeen percent were nonwhite; 51 percent were women; 12.8 percent 
were over 60; and 4.8 percent had incomes over $100,000.
  Eighty percent of the people who make contributions of over $200 have 
incomes over $100,000. And that represents exactly 4.8 percent of the 
population. If the hard money contributions are increased, as some of 
my colleagues have suggested, then the picture is going to become even 
more skewed.
  If money equals speech, as some have suggested, we can clearly see 
who is doing all the talking. If money equals speech, then we can 
clearly see who is doing all the talking. At least those folks are 
being listened to. The hopes and the dreams and the concerns of the 
vast majority of the American people are going unheard because the 
bullhorn of the $1,000 contribution drowns them out.
  For those who want to raise the limits, why make the bullhorn bigger 
and louder? Why give greater access and more control to those people 
who already have too much access and too much control?
  Again I issue this challenge in anticipation of what might happen. If 
what we do on the floor of the Senate in a couple of days is raise the 
contribution level from $1,000 to $3,000--even given the sometimes too 
low opinion they have of the Senate--people in the country will become 
even more disillusioned; they won't believe it. I certainly hope we 
don't do that.
  I want to talk about the distrust and the dissatisfaction. Mr. 
President, 92 percent of all Americans believe special interest 
contributions buy votes of Members of Congress--92 percent; 88 percent 
believe those who make large contributions get special favors from 
politicians; 67 percent think their own representatives in Congress 
would listen to the views of outsiders who made large political 
contributions before they would listen to their own constituents' 
views; nearly half of the registered voters in our country believe 
lobbyists and special interests control the Congress.
  I will go out on a limb and not antagonize, but perhaps prompt, some 
response from colleagues. All politicians love children, but we do 
precious little for them. One of the reasons we have done so little for 
or about poor children in America--who, by the way, constitute the 
largest group of poor citizens in our country--might be that they and 
their parent or parents don't contribute much by way of big 
contributions and don't have much access.
  One of the reasons we have done very little to close the gulf between 
the rich and the poor, one of the reasons we have done so little to 
combat homelessness, and one of the reasons we have done so little to 
respond to the concerns of hard-pressed Americans even in these flush 
economic times is that these are the people who don't pay and don't 
play.
  Perhaps the same argument can be made why we have been so generous in

[[Page 25442]]

providing special breaks for oil companies; we have been so generous in 
making sure the tobacco industry continues to rule; we have been so 
generous in making sure we dare not take on the pharmaceutical 
companies, we dare not take on the insurance industry.
  With all due respect, I don't know who is kidding whom, but I call 
this a very serious kind of corruption. I will keep using the word. It 
is not the wrongdoing of individual office holders, but we have 
developed a severe, serious imbalance of power in a representative 
democracy so that the very few in the country dominate the political 
process and all too often have their way and get exactly what they want 
and what they need, and the vast majority of people think their voice 
is not heard.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I yield.
  Mr. McCAIN. Is the Senator familiar with the tax bill of $792 billion 
that passed through the Senate, and then there was going to be a tidal 
wave of public opinion that would force the President of the United 
States to sign it?
  Does the Senator remember there were a number of special tax breaks 
in that bill--one for a corporation that turns chicken litter into 
energy and another for oil and gas, and even for people who make tackle 
boxes?
  Does the Senator remember that those tax breaks would take effect 
immediately upon the signature of the President of the United States 
and that there were provisions to repeal the marriage penalty and 
others that would help average working Americans who don't make big 
political contributions, yet those tax breaks would not kick in until 
well into the next century?
  Is the Senator familiar with those provisions of the tax bill, and, 
if so, what conclusions does he draw?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will not draw one-on-one conclusions 
about each and every one of those provisions, and I will not make the 
assumptions that Senators vote one way or the other each and every time 
because of campaign contributions that a particular Senator may 
receive, but the overall bias is so much in favor of those large 
interests that are able to control and invest so much of the money in 
the political process. That is the problem.
  One can allow on any one vote for Senators to honestly disagree, and 
we can't each time say it is because of money, but overall, I don't 
know anybody in the world who could argue that we don't have a serious 
problem.
  Mr. McCAIN. Did the Senator dare to use the word ``corruption''?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I have deliberately used the word ``corruption'' about 
10 times because I think that is exactly what we are talking about: 
systemic corruption, not the wrongdoing of individual officeholders but 
the kind of corruption that exists when there is such a huge imbalance 
and few people have too much wealth and power and the majority of the 
people are left out of the picture.
  Let me conclude in two different ways. One, I make a political 
science point; and, two, I want to make a personal point. I think what 
we are talking about, in the words of my hero journalist, Bill Moyers, 
is the soul of democracy. My premise is that political democracy--and I 
am pleased to be challenged on this if my colleagues choose--has 
several basic requirements.
  First, we need to have free and fair elections. It is very hard to 
say we have them now. That is why people stay at home on election day. 
That is why they don't participate in the process. Incumbents outspend 
challengers 8 or 10 to 1 on average. Millionaires spend their personal 
fortunes to buy access to the airwaves, and special interests buy 
access to the Congress, all of which warps and distorts our democratic 
process.
  That is what is going on. A millionaire can run and spend their own 
money--and many do, and there are millionaire Senators who are great 
Senators. Again, it is not a personal point I am making. However, most 
people ought to be able to run for office even if they are not a 
millionaire. If you are an incumbent--and I certainly hope this debate 
is not, in the last analysis, a debate between ins and outs--if you are 
an incumbent and you are an ``in,'' this system is wired for 
incumbents. We can go out and raise a lot of money. It is much harder 
for challengers to raise that money. This is a system that warps and 
distorts the democratic process, and we do not have free and fair 
elections.
  The second criterion: A representative democracy requires the consent 
of the people. The people of this country, not special interests-big 
money, should be the source of political power. Government must remain 
the domain of the general citizenry, not a narrow elite.
  We have two-tenths of 1 percent of the population that makes 
contributions of $1,000 or more. I don't know what percentage that is 
of the overall money we raise--60 percent? I could be wrong, but it is 
really skewed.
  Let me put it this way. When I was teaching a class about the 
Congress, I remember I would talk about the Senate. I did not know 
people, and I have had a million pleasant surprises. In another speech, 
another debate, I will talk about all the pleasant surprises. But I 
made the argument: If you look at who the people are in the Senate, by 
background characteristics, by their income, by who they are, they 
certainly are not truly representative of the American population. But 
the more serious problem is, if you then look at the people back home, 
the constituents who are the relevant constituents, who can most affect 
our tenure or our lack of tenure, they are the people with the money. 
They are the people who can make the contributions so we can then put 
the ads on television in these hugely expensive, capital-intensive 
campaigns. The vast majority of people in the country know that and 
they feel left out. We should hate it.
  I hope it is OK to say this about my conversation with my colleague 
from California. Jump up if I am wrong. We were talking about this. I 
think all of us should hate this system. We should all hate it. On the 
one hand, I say to myself: I get this. I know why a lot of colleagues 
do not want any reform, even this modest step of this legislation, 
which gets at a lot of the unregulated money, the soft money. I say to 
myself: I can figure this out because it is wired for incumbents. This 
is not a debate about Democrats versus Republicans, although all the 
Democrats are going to support this bill, and I hope we will have 
enough Republicans to pass it and stop the people who are blocking it. 
Maybe this is a debate between ins and outs and the ins don't want to 
change it. They don't want to change it because it is wired for us.
  But then I think to myself: This cannot be because it is degrading 
getting on the phone calling strangers, people you do not even know. I 
don't know what is worse, I say to my colleague from California. I 
don't know what is worse.
  I am having a little fun on the floor right now. I am on a roll, so I 
have to talk a little longer.
  I don't know what is worse, when I call someone up, a perfect 
stranger, and I call them five times and they never return the call, or 
I call them up and they say no--I don't know whether that is worse, or 
if it is worse when they make a contribution, but I don't know them and 
they don't know me and I don't know why they made a contribution. I am 
not sure which is worse.
  The only thing I know is it is torture. It is torture to have to get 
on this phone and beg and beg and beg for money. It is degrading.
  Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. WELLSTONE. I will be pleased. Can I make one brilliant point 
before I take my colleague's question?
  On this ins versus outs, I think all of us ins should be supporting 
the McCain-Feingold legislation and more, for one other reason. The 
other reason is, when we are up and it is our cycle, we can't do a good 
job of representing people because every day we have to spend 2 and 3 
hours on the phone. We miss debate that we should be involved in; we 
miss committee work we should

[[Page 25443]]

be involved in; we miss a lot of work that we should be doing, 
representing the people of our States. We should want to change this 
for that reason as well.
  I will be pleased to yield for a question.
  Mr. McCAIN. Does the Senator think if he had a more pleasing 
personality and shaved his beard he would get a more positive response?
  Mrs. BOXER. They can't see the beard on the phone, though.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I am speechless. That doesn't happen 
that often.
  Mr. President, I want to finish up. I said that three times. I will 
finish up.
  The last criterion is political equality. Everybody ought to have an 
equal opportunity to participate in the process. That means the values 
and preferences of citizens, not just those who get our attention 
through the large contributions, should be considered in the debate. 
One person, one vote; no more, no less; one person, same influence. 
Each person counts as one, no more than one. That is the standard. That 
is what it is all about. That precious principle, that precious 
standard of representative democracy, is being violated.
  I have spoken about why I am going to oppose with all my might 
efforts to raise the limits on contributions. I want to speak about one 
amendment that I will introduce, which I think is a good amendment, I 
say to my colleague from Arizona. It is a States rights amendment. It 
holds harmless--no State certainly could go below the standards we have 
in Federal campaign finance law, but it would allow States which want 
to move toward clean money, clean elections, to do so. Arizona has done 
that; Massachusetts has done that; Maine has done that; Vermont has 
done that. There are going to be other votes in other States. It would 
say to those States: If you want to get much of the interested money 
out and you want to have clean money and clean elections and the people 
in your State vote for it, you should be able to apply it in Federal 
elections.
  If we are not at the point yet where we have the political will so 
that we can pass more far-reaching reform, I say people in our States, 
if they are willing to apply this to Federal elections, should be 
allowed to do so. There is a lot of steam and there is a lot of 
momentum and a lot of enthusiasm for the clean money/clean election 
option. I think it is a very important one.
  Finally, I have to say this because I forgot to mention this earlier. 
This is the part of the McCain-Feingold legislation that I think is 
perhaps most important. I remember the 1996 election. I think these 
issue advocacy ads are a nightmare. I think all of us should hate them. 
I very much would like to apply this to independent expenditures as 
well. I want to be clear about it. But in Minnesota, it was a barrage 
of these phony issue advocacy ads, where they do not tell you to vote 
for or against; they just bash you and then they say: Call Senator So-
and-so.
  They are soft money contributions with no limits on how much money is 
raised, no limits on how the money is raised. It could be in $100,000 
contributions, $200,000 contributions, and make no mistake about it, 
this is in both parties. These big soft money contributors have a 
tremendous amount of access and way too much influence in both parties.
  So with one stroke, it would be a wonderful marriage. We could get 
some of this poison politics off television. We could get some of these 
phony ads off television. We could build more accountability, and we 
would make both political parties, I think, more accountable to the 
public.
  This debate is about whether or not something we all value and love, 
which is our representative democracy, is going to continue to be able 
to function. It is the most important debate we are going to have. That 
is the core question, the core issue, the core problem. I hope there 
will be a vote for McCain-Feingold. I hope we can strengthen it. I hope 
those who oppose reform and continue to block efforts will not be 
successful. I think people in our country are counting on us to vote 
for democracy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.


                           Amendment No. 2294

      (Purpose: To increase reporting and disclosure requirements)

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 2294.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of 
the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

       At the end of the bill, add the following:

     SEC. _. DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS FOR CERTAIN MONEY 
                   EXPENDITURES OF POLITICAL PARTIES.

       (a) Transfers of Funds by National Political Parties.--
     Section 304(b)(4) of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 
     1971 (2 U.S.C. 434(b)(4)) is amended--
       (1) by striking ``and'' at the end of subparagraph (H);
       (2) by adding ``and'' at the end of subparagraph (I); and
       (3) by adding at the end the following new subparagraph:
       ``(J) in the case of a political committee of a national 
     political party, all funds transferred to any political 
     committee of a State or local political party, without regard 
     to whether or not the funds are otherwise treated as 
     contributions or expenditures under this title;''.
       (b) Disclosure by State and Local Political Parties of 
     Information Reported Under State Law.--Section 304 of Federal 
     Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 434), as amended by 
     section 4, is amended by adding at the end the following:
       ``(e) If a political committee of a State or local 
     political party is required under a State or local law to 
     submit a report to an entity of State or local government 
     regarding its disbursements, the committee shall file a copy 
     of the report with the Commission at the same time it submits 
     the report to such entity.''.
       (c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section 
     shall apply with respect to elections occurring after January 
     2001.

     SEC. _. PROMOTING EXPEDITED AVAILABILITY OF FEC REPORTS.

       (a) Mandatory Electronic Filing.--Section 304(a)(11)(A) of 
     the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 
     434(a)(11)(A)) is amended by striking ``permit reports 
     required by'' and inserting ``require reports under''.
       (b) Requiring Reports for All Contributions Made to Any 
     Political Committee Within 90 Days of Election; Requiring 
     Reports To Be Made Within 24 Hours.--Section 304(a)(6) of 
     Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 434(a)(6)) is 
     amended to read as follows:
       ``(6)(A) Each political committee shall notify the 
     Secretary or the Commission, and the Secretary of State, as 
     appropriate, in writing, of any contribution received by the 
     committee during the period which begins on the 90th day 
     before an election and ends at the time the polls close for 
     such election. This notification shall be made within 24 
     hours (or, if earlier, by midnight of the day on which the 
     contribution is deposited) after the receipt of such 
     contribution and shall include the name of the candidate 
     involved (as appropriate) and the office sought by the 
     candidate, the identification of the contributor, and the 
     date of receipt and amount of the contribution.
       ``(B) The notification required under this paragraph shall 
     be in addition to all other reporting requirements under this 
     Act.''.
       (c) Increasing Electronic Disclosure.--Section 304 of 
     Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 434(a)), as 
     amended by section 6(b), is amended by adding at the end the 
     following:
       ``(f) The Commission shall make the information contained 
     in the reports submitted under this section available on the 
     Internet and publicly available at the offices of the 
     Commission as soon as practicable (but in no case later than 
     24 hours) after the information is received by the 
     Commission.''.
       (d) Effective Date.--The amendment made by this section 
     shall apply with respect to reports for periods beginning on 
     or after January 1, 2001.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I will say to my colleague from California 
I will be very brief on my statement on the amendment. I know she has 
been waiting a long time and has shown patience. I will be brief on 
this amendment because I know she wants to speak on this important 
issue. I will take about 2 minutes to explain the amendment.
  Mr. President, the amendment is simple. It simply calls for greater 
disclosure of campaign funds. I begin this

[[Page 25444]]

discussion by noting this is not an original idea. It is language 
borrowed directly from legislation offered in the House of 
Representatives by our colleague, Congressman Doolittle.
  Specifically, this amendment requires campaign contribution 
disclosures made by political committees under State or local law to 
also be submitted to the FEC. Additionally, all campaign contributions 
made to political committees within 90 days of an election must be 
reported within 24 hours of receipt and the campaign contribution 
reports then be made available on the Internet by the FEC.
  These provisions ensure the public knows who is contributing to 
campaigns in the closing days of an election and how much is being 
contributed. These added protections will allow the voting public to 
decide for themselves whether a campaign or an election is being unduly 
influenced by special interests.
  I do not think these disclosure provisions will pose any unnecessary 
hardship on political parties or committees. This amendment provides 
simply for additional information about State and local elections to be 
made available quickly through the Internet and by the FEC. It ensures 
a common data bank of information about contributions so that 
interested voters can get updated information in one place and, as an 
election draws near, with close to realtime disclosures.
  I firmly believe the public has a right to know, and tighter 
disclosure requirements will provide important information to the 
voters which will allow each voter to draw his or her conclusion about 
whether the effect of the contribution is--dare I say it? --corruption. 
But unlike the Doolittle bill, I believe these provisions add to the 
underlying bill and should not be considered a substitute. The 
amendment makes the bill better, and I hope my colleagues will support 
it.
  In summary, the Internet has done enormously beneficial things. As 
far as the political process is concerned, it has provided a tremendous 
way for us to receive on-time information. We can, hopefully, utilize 
this incredible technological marvel to allow Americans who are 
interested to know literally within 24 hours of a contribution whom it 
was from and the amount of it.
  I also believe we can do the same thing at a later time on 
expenditures as well because the Internet has provided us a great 
opportunity. Knowledge and information is obviously power and will help 
our voters understand the issues to make a more informed judgment.
  I yield the floor.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, a Democrat should be 
recognized. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I assure my friend from Utah, I will not be long. I 
was looking at my statement, and even if I get enthusiastic and go off 
it, I think he is looking at 10 or 15 minutes.
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, if I may, I thank the Senator from 
California. I was under the impression it would be by position rather 
than by party, but I am more than happy to listen to her for 10 to 15 
minutes because I am making notes.
  Mrs. BOXER. I appreciate that, and I am sure my friend will find 
added comments after he listens to mine.
  Mr. President, I want to start off by thanking Senators McCain and 
Feingold for their leadership on this issue. It is nice to see this 
cooperation across the aisle. I like it. It is healthy for the system, 
it is good for the system, and we gain more respect as an institution 
when we work together as opposed to constantly being on opposite sides. 
People get suspicious; they say: Why is it they always are fighting 
each other? This is good, and the subject is so important and gets 
right to the heart and soul of who we are as a people.
  I also point out that it is very difficult around here to challenge 
the status quo. Some of us saw Senator McCain getting fairly well 
grilled this morning. It is every Senator's right to grill another 
Senator. But it is very lonely sometimes to take on the status quo.
  I have noticed in all my years in politics--and it has been a long 
time--what a legislature likes to do most is nothing, because it is 
easy, because if you keep it the same, you do not make waves, you do 
not disturb anybody, and it is comfortable. Certainly campaign finance 
reform is comfortable for many of us who have been in this for a long 
time.
  Ever since I have been in politics, I have been supporting reforms in 
campaign finance. I have been in politics, in elected office, for 23 
years. That is most of my adult working life. I started in local 
politics. It was an issue then. Then I went to the House in 1983. It 
was an issue then, and it has been an issue in the Senate during the 7 
years I have served.
  It is fair to ask: Why is Senator Boxer in favor of the most far-
reaching campaign finance reform we can get? I can sum it up with three 
main reasons. Maybe there are 10 or 12, but I want to give the Senate 
the three main reasons.
  First of all, the system is bad for ordinary people; and I will 
expand on that. Secondly, the system has the appearance of corruption; 
and I will expand on that. And thirdly, the system is stealing precious 
time from public officials who are elected to do a job; and I will 
expand on that.
  First, the system is bad for ordinary people. Let me tell you why. 
Ordinary people feel disenfranchised. Ordinary people who cannot afford 
to make contributions to campaigns feel left out. Even if they were 
wrong on that--and I would tell people in my State, regardless of 
whether they make a campaign contribution or not, they are important to 
me. We all say that, and we mean that. They do have the vote. They are 
important to us. They do not believe it. They do not believe they 
count. They believe the people who count are the people who give $100, 
$500, $1,000--soft money contributions.
  How do we know they feel this way? They have shut us out. They do not 
believe us when we talk. They believe we are motivated by people who 
give us the big dollars, and, sad to say, they are not voting. I look 
at the turnout of voters, and it is sad when we see in many elections 
25 percent of the electorate votes, 40 percent of the electorate votes, 
and there are people all over the world literally dying to stand in 
line to vote in countries that are struggling to get the franchise. 
Ordinary people feel left out. That is a danger.
  Secondly, the system has the appearance of corruption. Let me talk 
about the fight I waged on oil royalties. I do not know anyone who 
stood up in that debate who did not believe big oil companies were not 
paying their fair share of royalties.
  Everyone agreed; even the key opponent of my perspective that we 
ought to do something about it said it is true, they are not paying 
their royalties. I know it to be the case when the person who stands up 
on this floor, whoever that might be--and in another case it could be 
me; in this case it was another Senator--and fights for the status quo 
for one particular industry and the newspapers write a story that that 
individual got more money from that industry than anyone else; even if 
the motives were as pure as the driven snow--and I have no reason to 
believe otherwise--people lose faith. They do not want to believe us if 
we stand up and fight for an industry and we are the biggest recipient 
of the industry's funds.
  We are not talking about a thousand bucks; we are talking about big 
bucks. The appearance of corruption, if I may use the word, is out 
there.
  I don't care what Senator, on either side of the aisle, stands up and 
stamps his or her foot and says: That's a terrible word. Don't use it; 
the appearance of corruption is out there. Maybe you don't think so, 
but ordinary people think so. We know it. It is another reason they are 
turned off. It is another reason they do not vote.
  And the third reason: The system is stealing precious time from 
elected officials. Look, let's be honest. A person who comes from 
California, who takes

[[Page 25445]]

the oath of office, would have to raise $10,000 a day, 7 days a week, 
for 6 years, in order to have the resources to run for reelection.
  Let me repeat that--for 6 years, $10,000 a day, 7 days a week, in 
order to have the assets that are needed to run for reelection in 
California, where there are 33 million people and the highest TV rates 
in the country.
  How do you think that happens? Do you think that individual in the 
Senate can possibly do all that and still do the best job that she can 
do? It is impossible.
  Let me make a confession on the floor of the Senate. Having run for 
the Senate twice from that great State, I did every single thing I 
could to raise as much money as I could within the law. I don't want 
anyone to think I am holier than thou because I am not. If I was, I 
would have said: I'm not going to take the PAC money. I'm not going to 
ask people for soft money. I'm going to demand they take the issues ads 
off when they help me.
  I am not holier than thou. I am a user of the system, and the system 
is wrong. I think the Senators from California who know what it is like 
to do this in some ways have more credibility than Senators from small 
States to talk about the evils of this system. The system is broken, 
and we have to clean up our act. It is very simple.
  I am willing to do it in a baby step, which is what I consider this 
stripped-down bill to be, or I am willing to do a much larger step, 
which I think Shays-Meehan is in the House. I like it better. I will do 
what it takes to get something out of this Senate that speaks to 
reform.
  Soft money, unlimited dollars, it does not matter what it is. It 
could be any amount going to the parties. Did it help me? Oh, yes. It 
helped me a lot. In some ways, I was in a better position than my 
opponent. He spent a fortune. I was able to raise more.
  Why am I standing here? I know how to work the system. I have been at 
it a long time. It is in my benefit to keep it the way it is. Even a 
well-heeled opponent that I had and I faced, with all the support of 
the Republican Party, could not go toe to toe with me because I know 
how to work the system. But the system is broken, and we have to clean 
up our act. We have a chance to do it.
  I hope people in this Senate who know this system inside out will do 
what they can to change it. Doing away with soft money is a step in the 
right direction. Do we need other steps? You bet we do.
  We need to expand disclosure requirements, and I am going to read 
Senator McCain's amendment with great interest. It seems to me we can 
do that in this bill because many times the special interests will wait 
until the last minute to dump big money into their candidate's 
campaign, hoping it will not be found out until after election day. 
With the computers the way we have them today, we ought to be able to 
know it pretty much on a real-time basis.
  We need to ensure that these issue ads become a thing of the past. 
What a phony deal that is. That is as much an ad as the ad I put on for 
myself. How is this for an issue ad? ``Senator X has just cast a vote 
against a particular bill. It is a disaster for our country. Call 
Senator X and tell her she is wrong.'' That is an issue ad? No. That is 
a personal attack.
  ``Senator Y has supported a bill that is going to hurt our country's 
economy. Call Senator Y. Here are the three reasons he is wrong on 
that,'' and you mention the Senator's name over and over. By the way, 
you can even show the Senator's face.
  That is not an issue ad. That is a direct attack ad. Was it done 
against my opponent? Yes, it was. Was it done against me? Yes, it was. 
It is uncontrolled. It brings in other issues that the two candidates 
themselves do not even want to talk about. It unbalances the whole 
debate in the campaign. It has to be a thing of the past.
  ``Free speech,'' my colleagues say on the other side. I will tell 
you, I never heard anyone more eloquent on the point than the Senator 
from Kentucky. The Supreme Court was divided 5 to 4 on the issue of 
free speech. I tell you, they are wrong because when you say money 
equals speech, you are demeaning the Constitution; you are demeaning 
this democracy.
  How is it free speech if candidate A is a billionaire and can buy up 
every inch of time on the TV and the radio and the other candidate, 
candidate Y, is a poor candidate and has to go raise money? By the time 
he gets the money, he goes to the TV stations and the radio stations, 
and they say: Oh, sorry, candidate Y. There is no time left for you to 
buy. That is an infringement on his speech.
  I had an interesting situation at the end of my last campaign. A lot 
of money came in toward the end of my campaign. I sent it over to the 
TV stations. I just got it back with a big refund. By the time we got 
it over there, there was no more time.
  So how do you say that money equals speech if one candidate has it; 
the other one has a harder time getting it, and they cannot get the 
prime time? This speech argument is a debasement of everything that I 
believe in. I believe that our Founders would roll over in their graves 
if they knew that when they fought and died for free speech, it now 
means money, and you cannot tell a wealthy candidate you can only put X 
into your campaign, because it is a violation of free speech. But what 
about the poor candidate? He does not have the money. What about his 
speech?
  So this argument on speech, to me, is nonsensical. I am one of these 
people who believe the Supreme Court ought to take another look at that 
Buckley v. Valeo because I think it is off the wall.
  So here I am standing in front of my colleagues admitting that I have 
used this system to the ultimate, that I have benefited from it because 
I understand it, that I am good at it. I have had, in the course of my 
campaigns, thousands and thousands and thousands of contributors. There 
is not a day that goes by that I do not thank them for their support 
because I would not be here; I could not have gotten my message out. 
But they understand, in their heart of hearts, and one of the reasons 
they wanted me to be here, I will stand up and fight against this 
system.
  So I am doing it again in the hopes that maybe this time, with this 
stripped-down bill, we can pick up enough votes from the other side of 
the aisle to ensure that we will have some reform.
  I beg my colleagues--we have had some bitter debates, very partisan 
debates, and it has not been a pretty thing to watch--maybe we can make 
this a pretty thing to watch. So far it has been kind of contentious.
  In the end, if we can get the 60 bipartisan votes to shut off debate, 
maybe we will get a bill, maybe we can be proud of something we did in 
this Congress. They did it in the House.
  I urge my colleagues, let us follow the lead of Senators McCain and 
Feingold. Let us reach across the aisle, do something right for the 
people, restore their faith in this system. Maybe they will start 
voting again and feel good about who we are and, frankly, about this 
country, if they think we are moving toward a truer democracy. We have 
a chance to do it. I hope we will.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, a Republican is to 
be recognized at this time. The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of the 
distinguished Senator from California. I know there has been a lot of 
frustration about campaigns, campaign financing and having to run for 
office and ask for money. I am not good at it and don't like to do it. 
It is a humbling experience. Sometimes people won't give you money. If 
enough people won't give you money to run your campaign, it may be an 
indication you are not as good a candidate as you think you are. But if 
you have a message and people care about it and want to give to it, 
that is what happens in this country.
  I guess what I want to say is, there are frustrations. Part of it, 
for those who wish this system weren't the way it is, is the first 
amendment to the

[[Page 25446]]

Constitution. It provides for free speech. In the primary, when I ran 
in Alabama in 1996, for the Senate--I have only been here since then--
there were two individual candidates who ran against me in that primary 
who personally put in over $1 million of their own money into that 
race. I spent $1 million in my race and raised it by every way I could. 
I had two kids in college and was living on a government salary. I 
didn't have a million dollars, but I won the race. And there are 
instances of people spending tens of millions and losing.
  The Supreme Court has said you cannot deny, under the free speech 
clause of the Constitution, an individual citizen the right to go on 
television and say, I have a dream for America or Alabama and I want to 
carry it out and listen to me. You can't prohibit that. That is free 
speech. I wish it wasn't so. They have things such as, well, you can do 
it except for the last 60 days before the election. They said that one 
time. I suspect we will have an amendment a little later on on this 
bill that goes back to that, saying you can have free speech, but not 
for 60 days before the election. That dog won't hunt, as they say. When 
do you want to speak most intently, if it isn't during the election 
cycle?
  We have a serious problem, when we try to contain by Federal law the 
right of individual Americans to come together to put money in a pot 
and to campaign for or against a no-good or a great candidate for the 
Senate or the Congress or anything else. That is what we are talking 
about. We are saying people can't get together and actively challenge 
and fight, with every ounce they have, for the beliefs that they share.
  Two years ago, when I got here, I couldn't believe what was 
happening. The Chair is an attorney, and he will understand this. We 
actually had an amendment offered in 1997 in this body to amend the 
first amendment to the Constitution, the right of free speech and 
press. Thirty-eight Senators out of 100 voted for it. It would have 
been the greatest retrenchment of American democracy since the founding 
of this country. I was shocked at it. I guess they are not embarrassed. 
They have not offered it again. They haven't come back with that 
amendment. I have it right here.
  This was the amendment. Thirty-eight Senators proposed to amend it by 
saying that Congress shall be able to set limits on contributions in 
campaigns.
  I will say one thing about those people, they were honest about it. 
They were direct about it. They knew that being able to speak out and 
raise money and buy time on television is part and parcel of free 
speech, and they were willing to pass a constitutional amendment so it 
could be done. We have problems when we start telling people they can't 
raise money.
  As the Senator from Kentucky says, to speak, to carry your message, 
what you are doing is, these politicians, we politicians are going to 
get around here and say who can speak and who can't speak. We are going 
to tend to say the ones who can't speak are the ones who are attacking 
us and don't agree with us. American democracy is a great, great thing. 
Some say, our government is terrible but it is better than all others. 
I suppose that is what we are talking about fundamentally. We have 
learned over the years that the right of Americans to speak and debate 
and contend for their beliefs is ultimately better than passing laws to 
control it. That is the fundamental choice with which we are dealing.
  McCain-Feingold originally, as it came forward, was going to stop all 
kinds of activity within days of the election. It was going to do a lot 
of different things on issue advocacy, that sort of thing.
  Mr. President, I believe I will need unanimous consent to retain the 
floor following the vote at 4 on the DOD conference report. I ask for 
that at this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, we are going to vote at 4, is my 
understanding.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Does this unanimous consent request change that?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It does not.
  Mr. CHAFEE. So we will still vote at 4 on DOD?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. This request does not change that.
  Mr. CHAFEE. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the vote is scheduled for 4? We will be 
voting at 4?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I will simply wrap up by saying there is not an easy 
way around this. The original McCain-Feingold attempted to contain all 
collections of money outside a political campaign in a lot of different 
ways. The effect of that was to say that a pro-choice group, a pro-life 
group could not raise funds and speak out on issues, even as it related 
to a particular candidate or campaign. When it became clear, I submit, 
that would not meet constitutional muster, we now have McCain-Feingold 
lite, as they say. It simply says you can't give but a limited amount 
of money to a political committee, Republican or Democratic committee 
or Republican or Democratic congressional campaign committee and, I 
suppose, some other party, if they have that much strength and qualify, 
but basically, political parties can't receive moneys except under the 
limited powers given. They have had to abandon the goal of prohibiting 
independent political action groups from receiving money and spending 
it.
  I had groups against me that had spent money that I am not sure who 
they were. They were basically fly-by-night groups. I have heard other 
Senators talk about waking up and turning on the television and being 
attacked by some citizens for the environment or citizens for this or 
that. People put their money into those groups. They run ads, and they 
call your name. That is not covered by this bill. All it says is you 
can't give to a political party who may be involved in the election and 
you are limited in how much money you could give to them. But a 
political party is better than these fly-by-night groups. A political 
party has to be there the next election. If they cheat and lie and 
misrepresent, you can hold them accountable, and it probably will hurt 
them in the next election. They have people whose reputations are 
committed to those parties.
  If we are going to control anything, we ought to do these other 
groups, rather than political parties, because they have an incentive 
to maintain credibility, and this bill would not do anything except for 
political organizations.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

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