[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Page 27370]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



             THE HAGEL PROPOSAL ON CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I come to the floor to briefly comment 
on a significant development in the fight for campaign finance reform. 
This morning, a bipartisan group of Senators, led by the Senator from 
Nebraska, Mr. Hagel, announced a new campaign finance reform proposal. 
Let me say that I and the Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, warmly 
welcome the heightened participation of this new group of Senators, 
which includes the Senator from Louisiana, Ms. Landrieu, who has been, 
from the day she came to the Senate, a strong supporter of campaign 
finance reform. I also note that it includes five Republican Senators 
who have previously never voted for a campaign finance reform measure 
that includes limits on soft money.
  As I predicted last week on the floor, the wall of protection for the 
current system of unlimited soft money contributions to the political 
parties is rapidly crumbling. While I am pleased by this development, I 
am not surprised. The soft money system is indefensible. I think we saw 
that during our abbreviated debate last week. Opponents of reform 
didn't defend soft money; they tried to divert our attention from it. 
They actually questioned whether there is anything corrupting about 
unlimited contributions from corporate and union treasuries to the 
political parties.
  As the chairman of the Global Board of Directors of Deloitte Touche 
Tohmatsu wrote in the New York Times when he heard about these comments 
on the floor:

       You could almost here the laughter coming from boardrooms 
     and executive suites all over the country when Senate 
     opponents of campaign finance reform expressed dismay that 
     anyone could think big political contributions are corrupting 
     elections and government.

  I think the new initiative, led by the Senator from Nebraska, 
recognizes the opponents of reform have now retreated to an untenable 
position. They are defending the indefensible. To say there is nothing 
wrong with unlimited contributions to the political parties, that this 
is somehow the ``American way,'' is to live in a fantasy world the 
American people simply will not accept.
  The public knows soft money is wrong. The public knows soft money is 
corrupting. And the business community knows it, too, as the Global 
Chairman of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu so well expressed.
  While the Hagel proposal does not ban soft money completely, which I 
believe is an essential element of an acceptable campaign finance 
reform bill, it does limit it significantly. So what you have here is a 
whole new group of Republican Senators, as well as some Democrats who 
are obviously saying it is not unconstitutional to limit soft money. In 
fact, they are obviously seeing the abuse of $300,000 or $500,000 
contributions and they want to do something about it. So I am looking 
forward to working with Senator Hagel and the others to reach common 
ground.
  When campaign finance reform left the floor last week, we had a total 
of 55 Senators who had voted in favor of reform. Now, with this new 
initiative, there are five more Senators who apparently are prepared to 
vote to change this system. I think that is very significant, as I am 
sure my colleagues know, because what is 55 plus 5? It is 60. If we can 
bring all of these Senators together on a package they can all accept, 
we can break the filibuster. What we need now is real hard work, 
bipartisan work. We need to bridge our differences. If we can do that, 
we can defeat the defenders of this corrupt system and give the people 
a cleaner and fairer campaign finance system for the new century.
  I yield the floor.




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