[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 4515-4521]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about an 
issue that is absolutely crucial to our democracy, and that issue is 
the issue of reforming our campaign finance system.
  America is built, I say to my colleagues, on a system of a 
marketplace of ideas where we enter into elections, we debate ideas, we 
are out front, trying to figure out where we should move as a country, 
what direction we should go in as a country. That marketplace of ideas 
is being interfered with today, because what is happening is the 
biggest checkbook is determining what goes on in America, rather than 
the people's voices.
  As one person said, ``The poor man's soap box does not equal the rich 
man's checkbook.'' So we need to return to those basic democratic 
principles, and if we reform our campaign finance system, we can do 
that.
  This is an issue that calls for bipartisanship. We have got to see 
the kind of bipartisanship that we have seen on this issue in the past. 
The Shays-Meehan bill, which is the bill I have signed on to and many 
Members of my freshman class and many Members from both sides of the 
aisle have signed on to, last year passed the House of Representatives 
252 to 179 in August of 1998. This year, we have seen even more support 
than last year. We have more cosponsors at this point. Mr. Speaker, we 
have 110 cosponsors at this point, with 27 Republicans.
  When we take the new Members, we have more support than we did last 
year, and it is bipartisan support, it is encouraging to see friends 
from both sides of the aisle rising and joining on an issue that is so 
important to our democracy.
  People say that there is no support. I have heard the comment over 
and over again. People say there is no support for campaign finance 
reform. We cannot limit in any way the system. People do not want it. 
Well, I say to my colleagues, the voters are disenchanted and part of 
the reason they are disenchanted is because they view the system as one 
that is being controlled by money. They view the system as one that is 
controlled by special interests, and they do not believe that their 
voices are being heard. The undue influence of money is an absolutely 
crucial issue.
  This bill, the Shays-Meehan bill, would ban soft money. It would take 
soft money completely out of the system. Some people have described 
soft money as the cancer on our democracy, I think a very apt 
description.
  Let us talk a little bit about the disenchantment of citizens. Mr. 
Speaker, 30 years ago in this Nation, 75 percent of the people, 75 
percent of the people when they were asked the question said, they 
trusted government to do the right thing, trusted elected officials to 
do the right thing most of the time, and 25 percent said they did not. 
Now, a generation later, we have 75 percent of the people saying they 
do not trust elected officials to do the right thing most of the time. 
Not a very tough test, but that is what they say. So in a generation, 
we have eroded the trust, the credibility in our electoral system.
  Well, this campaign finance system that we have now is what is 
undermining that credibility. It is what is getting to the people, 
saying that it is actually convincing people that they should not 
participate in our democracy, that they should not be a part of our 
democracy.
  Let me say to my colleagues, this bill, this bill is not all that 
should be done. I support this bill. We are going to push this bill 
through the House. But more can be done, and that is what is so hopeful 
about this bill. Because one of the things we are going to see is a 
commission. Mr. Speaker, a 12-member commission, after this law is 
passed, is going to meet 180 days after the adjournment of the session 
and is going to report on other major reforms that should be taken in 
this area.

                              {time}  1515

  They are going to study issues and bring back to us major reforms, 
and those reforms will have to be voted up or down along the same lines 
as the Base Closing Commission operates.
  The other fact that I think needs to be noted is that the Federal 
Government is far, far behind the States on

[[Page 4516]]

this issue. The States are making huge changes in their campaign 
finance system. The State of Maine had a ballot initiative in 1996, 
over 2 years ago, where 56 percent of the voters said we do not like 
the current system. Let us change it. They passed a $3 checkoff, and 
80,000 have already signed up for that checkoff. They have a financing 
system that cuts government in order to get the revenues to finance 
their campaign finance system. They have taken a big step to clean up 
the system.
  In Arizona, taxpayers have done the same thing. They have increased 
lobbyist fees from $25 to $100 to try to do everything they can to 
raise the money to operate a decent system. They have created voluntary 
tax checkoff on their tax forms, and they have imposed a 20 percent 
surcharge on civil and criminal fines in order to raise money to 
operate the system better.
  Massachusetts has also taken major reforms at the State level.
  So I say to Members now is the time to return democracy to the 
people. In order to do that, a big step would be made by endorsing 
campaign finance reform legislation in the form of the Shays-Meehan 
bill. We have to do it early. We have to do it now.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from the great State of Kansas 
(Mr. Moore) for his statements on this issue.
  Mr. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I am here today to rise in support of the 
Shays-Meehan bill which is now pending before this Congress. As the 
gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall) has already pointed out, it 
passed the 105th Congress and died a slow death in the Senate. We need 
to revive and pass this legislation and do it early.
  I think most people would agree that politics and public service have 
become something of a negative and distasteful word to a lot of people 
in this country, and it really should not be that way. Politics is a 
noble profession, as is public service. Politics, after all, is really 
the art of governing without guns.
  I think the public reaction, the adverse reaction that we have and 
that we see in this country to political campaigns is a direct result 
of the public perception that both political parties are awash in 
corrupt money. People in this country believe that both parties receive 
so much corrupt money from interest groups, from lobbyists, from other 
sources, that the whole system is corrupt. We need to change that 
perception. We dramatically need to change that perception.
  Right now, the Shays-Meehan bill, if we pass this bill, will ban soft 
money. It will also regulate so-called issue ads which were intended to 
influence the outcome of elections for or against a particular 
candidate.
  Mr. Speaker, even an 8-year-old child watching one of these issue ads 
could tell which side the interest group is supporting by the 
expenditure of money. We need to restore public confidence in our 
electoral process, and I believe the only way we can do that is to pass 
a strong finance campaign law such as Shays-Meehan.
  I urge all of the Members of this body in the House of 
Representatives to vote in favor of the Shays-Meehan bill. It passed 
the last Congress. It should pass this Congress. We need to send a 
message to the United States that it also should pass that body and be 
enacted into law.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Kansas for his excellent comments.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall), my 
cousin.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New 
Mexico for yielding to me to speak on this very important issue facing 
us today in the 106th Congress.
  I am pleased to join my freshman colleagues in calling for this early 
consideration of campaign finance reform in our 106th Congress. I know 
that a lot of my colleagues, many of my colleagues share my concern 
that the high cost of elections and the flood of so-called soft money, 
special interest money may threaten the integrity of our electoral 
system.
  Just 6 months ago, the majority of our House voted to pass the Shays-
Meehan bill. This bill had at that time, and I believe still has, 
strong bipartisan support. This is for a number of reasons. Let me tell 
my colleagues about a few of them, Mr. Speaker.
  First is that unlimited soft money contributions allow special 
interests to buy political access. It is important to point out that 
soft money, unlike hard money, is unregulated. On the hard money side, 
there are limits on the amounts of money one can contribute. It is also 
transparent. It is public money. Soft money is much harder to trace. We 
need to make sure that the policy decisions that we make here are not 
unduly influenced by these special interests.
  Secondly, the high cost of elections now contributes to the public's 
perception that elections and, therefore, public servants can be bought 
and sold. I think, especially given the events of these last months, 
more public cynicism is not now what we need about our U.S. Congress.
  Third, more and more time spent chasing money means that less time is 
devoted to our public duties as Representatives. We need to restore 
this balance. All of us, Republicans and Democrats, who ran for the 
Congress this last election for the first time, and we are elected as 
freshmen, know how much time we spent on the telephone and at fund-
raising events rather than studying issues of importance around public 
policies, whether it is education or Social Security or health care. We 
need to restore that balance so that we can spend more of our time on 
those important issues and less time on raising money.
  Fourth, the high cost of campaigns unfairly restricts the process in 
many cases to those who can afford to run. We need a system that is 
equitable for all candidates. This country has been built on the idea 
that all of us are equal, that it is an egalitarian system. We ought to 
make sure that anybody that wants to and has a passion can run for 
office, not just those people who have deep pockets.
  Fifth, and I think maybe most importantly, a majority of Americans, 
in fact an enormous majority, a New York Times survey shows that 9 out 
of 10 Americans think that we ought to have significant campaign 
finance reform. We are here to listen to our constituents and represent 
our constituents. We ought to be doing that on campaign finance reform.
  It is early in our session, but we need to act now so that we can 
begin to put this legislation in place for the races in the year 2000. 
I am here to speak in favor of beginning that process.
  I am proud to be a sponsor of the bipartisan Shays-Meehan campaign 
finance reform bill. I have to tell my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, I 
recognize the bill may need some work. It is probably not perfect. But 
we ought to bring it up so that it sees the light of day. We ought to 
begin a debate in committee. We ought to bring it to the floor of the 
House.
  So let us start today. Let us address this problem now. Let us make 
sure that we bring this legislation forward and we begin to restore 
common sense to our campaign finance reform system.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Colorado for those comments.
  The gentleman from Colorado mentioned the issue of spending time and 
how it takes away from the job. It seems to me, as I have been here for 
this short period of time, and I am sure that it impresses upon him 
that the number of issues that the United States Congress deals with 
and that the House deals with, whether it is international issues in 
Kosovo, whether it is education and health care, Social Security, 
Medicare, I mean, every day, there is so much for us to learn.
  We could be much better at legislating if we had the time to spend on 
those issues, studying the issues, meeting with people that have 
concerns, trying to do everything we can to educate ourselves.
  I think all of us know that, when we are out there fund-raising, we 
are taking time away from something that we should be spending time on. 
Yet we know that we have to be prepared to deal with these sham issue 
ads and attack ads that come from other sides.

[[Page 4517]]

So we are caught in a rough place. I know the gentleman from Colorado 
has been through a campaign where he has had something like that 
happen. The gentleman from Colorado may want to talk a little bit about 
that.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I agree. Let me give my 
colleagues a couple of examples. I probably spent many days on the 
campaign trail, 4 or 5, 6 hours on the telephone making these phone 
calls. I even got to the point where I purchased a headset so that I 
could save my neck from the constant strain of holding that telephone 
handset.
  I know there are people out there who do that for a living, and a 
headset is a great tool. But it was symbolic to me that I was not out 
visiting with people and learning about the issues and studying the 
broad range of things that we are faced with while we are here in the 
Congress.
  Let me talk a little bit about the issue ads and so-called 
expenditure campaigns. These groups can come in and be for you or be 
against you. But in either case one has no say, no control over these 
ads that are running.
  In particular, I have been concerned about groups who think they 
might want to support me, but they could be running negative campaigns 
against my opponents when that is not the way I want to campaign. So we 
need to get ahold of these independent expenditure campaigns. We need 
to get ahold of this soft money situation.
  As Jefferson talked about, when democracy is ailing, one of the best 
solutions, one of the best treatments is more sunshine, more 
transparency. We need to make sure that all of the money that is 
contributed to our campaigns is visible, and people can track it and 
trace it. We could use the Internet. We could have almost instantaneous 
disclosure. I would certainly support that. I think many Members of the 
House of Representatives would.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, the issue ads, it seems to me, 
are something that, I do not know in the State of Colorado, but I know 
in New Mexico that the issue ads are a completely different thing when 
one gets to the Federal level. I mean I ran 2 years, two times, two 
terms as State Attorney General. I never saw an issue add. I never had 
an independent group come in and attack me or speak up for my opponent. 
They did not clutter the debate that was going on, the very serious 
debate about the issues.
  But one gets in the Federal race, and it is remarkable the change 
that takes place. Big national groups raising soft money, raising hard 
money, come into one's district, they label themselves with the most 
innocuous sounding labels, Responsible Citizens For Good Government, 
and then they get in there and slash and burn against one's opponent or 
for you or however it comes out.
  It generally is very, very negative stuff. They are dumping things 
that candidates would not ever touch. They are getting into issues that 
candidates would be editorialized against, would be criticized bringing 
up the issues. They have changed the whole tenor of the campaign.
  I really believe that those issue ads with these changes we make will 
go a long way, will go a long way towards reforming the system, because 
if one has to disclose who is supporting them, if one has to have it in 
hard dollars, it is going to make a big difference.
  I do not know what the gentleman's thoughts are on that, but I am 
sure that he has seen the same thing in his elections in Colorado, that 
maybe he does not see these issue ads at the State level.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall).
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, this is one of the most important 
parts of the Shays-Meehan bill is that the sham ads, and they really 
are that, would be exposed for what they are.
  I do not have any problem with people wanting to speak out. That is 
the First Amendment. That is what this country is founded upon. It is 
one of the key principles that makes our country so free. But we ought 
to be clear about where those ads are coming from. We ought to be clear 
about who is paying for those ads.
  I think that is not an abrogation of the First Amendment. It is not 
restricting people's right to free speech. But it is letting all of the 
voters know where these resources are coming from so they can make an 
informed choice. I think there is nothing more crucial with Shays-
Meehan than getting a handle on all of this money that comes from 
outside the system right now.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
the great State of Washington (Mr. Baird), who is also the President of 
our freshman class.
  Mr. BAIRD. Mr. Speaker, we are here today to discuss an issue which, 
if we ask pollsters, they will tell us it does not poll high. 
Education, fighting crime, Social Security, that is all the American 
people care about. Those things are absolutely critical, and we have 
spoken on those issues here as well.

                              {time}  1530

  But if this body is to be able to address those critical issues, we 
need to give our Members time and we need to give them the freedom to 
speak their mind without fear of political attack.
  This is my first term in Congress. I was sent here by the good people 
of southwest Washington to represent their views. Southwest Washington 
is a beautiful area. It is a rural district as well as urban-suburban. 
I am here to speak their voice. We should be here to speak the voices 
of our people, not the voice of money. That is why campaign reform is 
so important.
  People across this country are losing faith in the political system. 
Young people are saying their vote and their voice do not matter. 
People are saying they do not need to turn out and vote, and we are 
seeing voter turnouts below 50 percent, even below 30 and 25 percent in 
primaries.
  Mr. Speaker, yesterday our freshman class submitted a letter to the 
Speaker's office signed by 22 of our 23 Democratic freshmen, and what 
we called for was early consideration of meaningful campaign finance 
reform. Early consideration. We cannot wait until the end of this year 
or until the end of this session of Congress and then say, gosh, we 
tried, but we ran out of time.
  We must address this issue early for two reasons. Early, to give us 
time for meaningful, informative debate; early, so that we show we are 
sincere in this effort; and also early so that we have time to enact 
some of these laws to save the integrity of the next campaign season.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not want to see any more campaigns of the kind that 
we have seen in recent years, with vast independent expenditures, with 
scorched earth policies of saying anything and doing anything to be 
elected. We have seen too much of that. It is poisoning the political 
process; it is souring people in the belief that their voice and their 
vote matters.
  During the 1997-98 election cycle, the national political parties 
raised $193 million in soft money. That is right, my colleagues, $193 
million. I have to ask myself, how else might we have spent that money 
in this country? Could we have put it towards improving our education 
system? Could we have put it towards helping to reduce crime in our 
communities? Could we have helped senior citizens pay for their 
housing? Could we have improved the environment? There are innumerable 
uses we could put $193 million towards, but we put it towards 
advertising.
  We have had some laws that have attempted to deal with the problem of 
campaign funding, but existing loopholes have actually made the system 
worse, not better. Last year, 252 Members of this body voted to pass 
substantial reform legislation. Now, the Shays-Meehan bill may not have 
been perfect, but it was the best that we had before us, and I 
personally have signed on as a cosponsor of that bill because I think 
it is reasonable and it is responsible.
  We have to do everything possible to maintain the public trust. 
Reforming campaign finance laws is not a Democratic problem, it is not 
a Republican problem, it is an American problem. It is a threat to our 
constitution if we do not achieve it, and we need to work now to do 
that.

[[Page 4518]]

  I would like to speak to a couple of elements of the Shays-Meehan 
bill that make common sense, and I firmly believe if we ask the general 
public, the folks who sent us here to represent them, if these 
proposals make sense, they would encourage us to put them forward.
  First, and my colleague mentioned it, a soft money ban. When we 
receive in the mail every single day during the campaign's final weeks 
a letter attacking one person or attacking another person, and at the 
bottom, as the gentleman from New Mexico said, it has some innocuous 
sounding name suggesting that that fine group of responsible citizens 
voluntarily put small contributions together to have a voice, that 
sounds reasonable. But that is not what happens. In fact, huge, 
virtually unlimited donations can come in and they can be spent on so-
called issue advocacy ads.
  Let me share with my colleagues what some of those issue advocacy ads 
do. In our campaign, one issue advocacy group spent over $12,000 for a 
single 30 second advertisement. That is correct, $12,000 for 30 
seconds. The ad was later denounced as deliberatively false and 
misleading, but they continued to run it. Now, $12,000 for 30 seconds 
comes down to $400 a second. Four hundred dollars a second to 
disseminate disruptive, deceptive and mean spirited information. 
Misinformation. That is wrong, Mr. Speaker, and we need to change it.
  The Shays-Meehan bill before us this year would ban soft money and 
would set hard dollar contribution limits for the party so that we know 
where the money is coming from, and it has a meaningful ceiling.
  The Shays-Meehan bill would recognize sham issue ads for what they 
truly are. They are campaign ads. It would say that if that group 
identifies a person in an advertisement, and it is within 60 days of an 
election, by golly, that is not information, that is political 
advertising, and they will fall under the restrictions that restrict 
political advertising.
  It would say that any ad that contains unambiguous support or attacks 
on a position of a politician would also fall under the guidelines of 
campaign financing and, therefore, under the restrictions.
  It would improve FEC disclosure. We should not have to spend days and 
weeks after an election to find out who contributed to a candidate or 
who spent money on issue ads during the election.
  It would establish a commission to study further reforms to our 
campaign system.
  It would also limit and restrict foreign soft money contributions.
  It would restrict further franking. Franking, as a means of informing 
the public, is a wonderful thing, but if it happens just a few weeks 
before an election, and currently I believe the limit is about 60 days, 
if it happens a few weeks before an election, it may well be political 
in nature.
  The Shays-Meehan bill would limit the amount of money that wealthy 
candidates can contribute. When the young people who visit us here 
every day look down on this floor and say to themselves, I would like 
to be a representative someday, they should say, I would like to be a 
representative because I believe so strongly in this democracy; I 
believe in the issues I care about. That is what should bring them 
here. It should not be a question of how much money they have to raise 
or how wealthy their friends are. It should be a question of how decent 
their values are, how strong their commitment to this country is, how 
much they know about the issues, and how strongly they will fight to 
make this a better Nation. That is what should get them into Congress, 
and not just how much money they are able to raise.
  The Shays-Meehan bill would establish a clearinghouse for information 
from the FEC and it would strengthen penalties for violations.
  Mr. Speaker, my good friend, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. 
Udall), was elected by our class to lead our freshman class's efforts 
to make campaign finance reform a top priority issue in this 
congressional session. He is doing an outstanding job in that. We are 
united as a freshman class in the commitment to campaign finance reform 
being addressed early in this session. I stand with my friend from New 
Mexico and with our freshman class in a commitment to keep bringing 
this issue forward until we pass meaningful legislation.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Baird) very much.
  One of the issues that the gentleman mentioned, and I hope we can 
carry on a little discussion about some of these issues that the 
gentleman has raised here, the first one is this issue of people being 
discouraged from going into elective politics.
  I have traveled throughout my Congressional District and gone into 
high schools and taught high school classes and tried to talk about 
what it means to be a public servant and why we need good public 
servants. And, in fact, I have heard people say if we do not have the 
best and the brightest going into our governmental arena, then we 
relegate ourselves to second class leadership.
  I think that is really the thrust of what the gentleman is saying 
there. The gentleman, in a very powerful way, is saying if we change 
the system, we may open it up to a whole new group of leaders out there 
that will say, look, this is a cleaner system, this is a better system, 
this is a system that I believe I can stand up and be a part of.
  I was wondering, does the gentleman see those kinds of things in 
Washington, in his district, where he thinks there would be a lot more 
interest in terms of individuals?
  Mr. BAIRD. Absolutely. I cannot tell my colleague the numbers of 
people, fine, decent, upstanding people, who would make outstanding 
representatives at all levels of government, who come to me and say, 
what is it like? I have to tell them that I believe being a 
representative to the United States Congress is the highest privilege, 
the highest honor one could ever aspire to, but it is a tremendous 
responsibility as well.
  That is the positive side. What I hate to have to tell people, but I 
do, because it is, unfortunately, the truth, that if they want to serve 
today in the United States Congress, and if they are from a district 
that is competitive, they need to be prepared not to study the issues 
as well as they wish they could, not to have as much time as they wish 
they had to meet the people, not to spend time with their family 
sometimes, but that they need to be prepared, regrettably, to attach 
themselves to a telephone and become basically a phone solicitor.
  That is a tragedy. It is nothing short of a tragedy. When Jefferson 
and Madison and Mason and George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, the 
Founding Fathers of this country, were establishing this great Nation, 
they did not envision, in their wildest imagination, that good people, 
people who they inspire every day by their example, would be tied to a 
telephone asking for money. They did not envision that all the 
wonderful people who care about the democracy would feel that dollars 
sometimes mean more than votes. That is wrong. It should not be that 
way.
  I want to compliment the people who do contribute, the donors who, 
most of the time, are not asking for anything. I cannot tell my 
colleague how many folks have said that they are contributing to my 
campaign because they believe in me as a person. They are not asking 
for anything except for me to do my best for our country. We should not 
insult them. We should not demean them. We should praise them for being 
active participants. But we should also honor their contributions by 
setting reasonable limits like those proposed in Shays-Meehan.
  I talked to a woman once who was on Social Security, a fixed income, 
and she said she knew how much we have to raise to run for Congress and 
she wished she could give it all to me. She said she would offer to 
give $5, but she would be embarrassed because she knew that I may have 
to raise $1 million and that I would not get there very fast if I went 
at it $5 at a time.
  I was happy to accept her contribution. That $5 meant a lot of me. 
Proportionately, it was probably a greater

[[Page 4519]]

portion of her income than a lot of folks, and it should not be 
overwhelmed by a tide of soft money. It should not be overwhelmed by a 
tide of enormous contributions. It should stand as her contribution to 
the democratic process.
  We need to ensure, through legislation like this, that everyone's 
voice matters in this process. The gentleman is exactly right, we have 
to free our candidates up, we have to reinspire a sense of hope and 
civility and civic pride that once led people to say, I would like to 
run for political office and serve this country. The gentleman is 
exactly right.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. One of the parts, and I think the gentleman 
touched on it, that I believe is a particularly valuable part of this 
bill, is the setting up of a blue ribbon panel to study the entire 
campaign finance system. Those of us here in the House that have worked 
on this issue realize that we probably need some people to take a big 
comprehensive look at the whole system, spend 18 months and come back 
to us with some of the issues that we are not addressing here.
  The gentleman and I both know that in a campaign today 80-85 percent 
of our money is spent on television. Well, these are airwaves that are 
owned by the public. The broadcasters and media people get these 
licenses. In Britain they have great debates when they enter into an 
election. They are all publicly televised at no cost.
  I think there are parts of this bill where we could make the bill 
stronger, but I believe the way to do it is to have this big broad 
commission go out and do their very best to find out how we can get 
back to work in this body, how we can lessen the impact of special 
interests, how we can do everything we can to make sure that the 
people's voices are heard in our democracy.
  I think this commission idea, although it is not mentioned that much, 
I think is a good one, of getting citizens to go out and report back to 
us.
  Mr. BAIRD. I agree. Absolutely. The Shays-Meehan bill is a start. It 
is a first step, an important and essential first step, and one we 
should take today or tomorrow. We should not wait until the end of this 
year.
  But there are other things we can do, and the gentleman raises an 
interesting point. Throughout my campaign, for example, I said that we 
needed to have informative voter pamphlets. In our State of Washington 
a candidate for the United States Congress is allowed 250 words in the 
State voter pamphlets. Two hundred and fifty words, with critical 
issues like national defense, health care, Social Security, our 
children's education, stopping crime.
  With those issues on the table, we get 250 words to condense a 
lifetime of community service and teaching and training and experience. 
Two hundred and fifty words. We need informative voter pamphlets. We 
need to work with the media. And I think that is part of what the 
gentleman is addressing.
  In our district we have some very, very responsible broadcast 
stations, stations that do grant candidates time; that do air debates. 
We need to encourage those stations, and we need to encourage the 
viewers to not just dive for the remote and say, oh my goodness, it is 
a political debate, I have to watch something else.

                              {time}  1545

  Because if they do that, candidates have no choice but to change them 
with advertising, and a 30-second advertisement will not tell them as 
much as a 1-hour debate. So we have got to encourage the stations that 
do provide coverage. We need to work, I believe, in our public schools, 
and it is something I am going to work through and throughout my life 
in Congress. And here is what I would like to see us do.
  I would like to see us consider every senior in this class getting an 
American Government course which talks about their personal 
responsibility to the country, which talks about how the transition 
from high school is not just the end of drudgery, as some view it, but 
it is their transition to the most sacred responsibility a person in a 
democracy has, that of citizen.
  If we combine those informative voters pamphlets, meaningful 
broadcast information, better public civics education in our public 
schools, we could, in addition to things like Shays-Meehan, 
reinvigorate a vibrant and vital political debate, a debate on which a 
democracy depends. And so we need exactly, as you said, to strengthen 
that commission, to let it do its job and provide comprehensive 
recommendations for further improvements in this process.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Baird, you mention the point of the 
responsible broadcasters that are out there, and I really believe that 
many of us have seen in our congressional districts many responsible 
broadcasters. And I think over the 8 to 9 years that I have been in 
public service, I have seen broadcasters step forward with free time 
and say right near an election, ``we are going to give you 5 minutes 
completely unrestricted and you can say whatever you want.'' Now, that 
is a very I think commendable effort on their part.
  And there is another proposal they have come up with, this idea of 
banking credits for television time and involving the political process 
and the electoral process in that. So I would like to hear their ideas 
as to how is the best way to do this. When I spent 5 weeks in England 
during one of their elections, all of it was on television. The entire 
public was engaged. And it was not on in 30-second ads. It was on real 
debates, where men and women were discussing the direction of the 
country, they were discussing what are their values and what direction 
do they want to move in. And it was a very stimulating debate. And as 
somebody that was not even allowed to vote, they would walk into one of 
their establishments and they would be right in the middle of a big 
political debate to where Britain should go.
  So we need to try to get to the point where we bring our elections 
back to really this idea of a marketplace of ideas, a true discussion, 
involving the public, bringing them in. And we are not doing that right 
now. The 30-second commercials I think are turning people off. They are 
saying this is not a part, this is not a part of me; this is some other 
debate taking place over there.
  Mr. BAIRD. I sometimes think we need to pose to the American people a 
basic choice, and the choice would be this. Do they want people who are 
going to represent them to spend their time on the telephone raising 
huge amounts of money so they can run 30-second advertisements or do 
they want them to come visit them in town meetings? Do they want them 
to be studying the issues, to be listening to them, to be meeting with 
their colleagues to try to propose constructive progressive 
legislation?
  I personally believe that there is no question people want us to do 
the latter. But until we have campaign finance reform and until the 
American public feels that they have a voice and a responsibility in 
the political process, we will not have the kind of dialogue that my 
colleague has described. That is why I think Shays-Meehan is so 
important and it is why we need to dedicate ourselves to that.
  Let me, if I might, address one other issue that I feel real strongly 
about. In a sense, people might say we are foolish to be even talking 
about campaign finance reform. We are incumbent now for goodness sake. 
The incumbent potentially would have all the advantages of a system 
where large dollar contributions come flying in because of our position 
here.
  In some ways, we are saying we are willing to set down our advantage, 
what might be a financial advantage, for the good of the country, we 
are willing to say we are prepared to compete on a level playing field, 
we are prepared to clean up the process. So that, for the good of 
everybody, we have got to stop saying in this body, how will this 
legislation impact our opportunity to win the next election and we have 
got to start asking, how will this legislation work for the good of the 
country.
  That is what it is about with campaign finance reform. It should not 
be

[[Page 4520]]

a partisan issue. And if there are special-interest groups pressuring 
Members of one party or the other and saying, ``you must not support 
campaign finance reform or we will come after you,'' which I know to be 
a fact, there are special-interest groups doing that, those special-
interest groups that do that are the problem, and Members who feel 
pressured need to speak out about that.
  It is not right for people to threaten Members by saying, ``we will 
attack you with financial resources if you try to change the campaign 
finance system.'' That is symptomatic of the problem, and we need to 
speak out vigorously about that and the public needs to speak out and I 
think they need to ask themselves where their Member was on the issue 
of campaign reform. That is why we are here today.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird) in terms of leveling the playing 
field. I very much believe that the imbalance that is there with the 
fund-raising, with the ability of an incumbent to buy incredible 
numbers of 30-second ads, it perverts the whole system. And we need to 
try for a system where when there are two candidates or three 
candidates, or however many there are in a particular primary or 
general election, that they do have equal time and that they have the 
ability to get their ideas across.
  The 30-second spot, although it may be a good medium to convey an 
idea, is so restricting in terms of allowing an individual to really 
articulate their vision for the country, where they want to take the 
country. And so in structuring this, the gentleman from Connecticut 
(Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) put 
together a bill that I think is going to level the playing field, 
create a commission where they can come back and tell us other ways 
that we can try to make sure the challengers have a true opportunity to 
get their ideas out. And I think that is what we are all about here in 
terms of our freshman class, and members of our freshman class that 
have signed on, is saying, we have been through it, we know how it 
works, we need to reform it and we need to reform it right now.
  Mr. BAIRD. People have said that the legislative process is like 
making sausage, it might taste good at the end but we do not want to 
see how it is made. I think people are all too familiar and believe 
that the process is made unfortunately through contributions.
  What we are trying to do here is say, and I want to emphasize this, 
the bill that we are putting forward that the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Meehan) have put forward and in our class and my colleague and myself 
have endorsed does not say we have to stop all money. Because, quite 
frankly, we do need financial resources. Campaigns to reach 500,000 
people with their message do cost money. But it says the way we raise 
the money needs to be reformed. It says the playing field needs to be 
level. It says enormous special-interest contributions and thinly 
disguised attack ads need to be eliminated. It says they need to have 
access to information about who is contributing so they can see the 
groups they agree with or disagree with support this candidate, they 
can see if the group says, ``we are citizens for a wonderful, happy 
economy and gracious environment,'' or some such thing, who the heck 
are those people? Because oftentimes the names they choose are 
different than the agenda they would have us believe through their 
titles.
  That is why we need the reform. We have got to have transparency. We 
have got to have a level playing field. We have got to have reasonable 
limits. And we have got to set our candidates free from the drudgery of 
having to spend their lives on the telephone. We get to talk to a lot 
of nice folks when we do that and there is merit to that. And I have 
met some wonderful people through the process of politics so far, but I 
will tell my colleagues that I would most of all like to meet with them 
and just listen to their issues and never have to have them or myself 
worried about the proverbial pitch for money, because that is a blight 
on our system. And the more we can do to reduce that, the more we can 
do to level the playing field for the small and individual donors, to 
limit soft money, to ban soft money used in political advertising, the 
better off we will be.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Baird, the idea that people do not care 
about this, the idea that somehow the electorate is not concerned about 
the issue of how our campaigns are financed is one that when people 
throw that idea out I just instinctively believe that they have not 
been around, they have not heard what people have said. Because when I 
ask people, ``what would you do to change the system?'' they say, ``no 
gifts at all, no corporate giving, very small amounts of money.'' They 
do not even like how high the amount is now. ``Get the money completely 
out of politics.'' Those are the kinds of comments I hear. And that is 
clearly where they are coming from, and they want us to reform.
  Mr. Speaker, we have here the gentlewoman from the great State of 
Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky). She would like to join our debate I believe, 
and I yield to her.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, representing the State of Illinois was 
the great Senator Paul Simon just for two terms. He decided not to run 
again, and one of the reasons he decided not to run again was that he 
knew that he was going to have to raise an obscene amount of money in 
order to be a viable candidate for the United States Senate.
  Paul Simon has been a paragon of integrity, a person who has 
represented the highest in public service, and decided not to run. And 
he would tell a story during the campaign about how, after a long day 
on the trail, he would come back to his hotel room and there would be a 
stack of messages, all those pink slips that we all get telling us who 
to call back, and he would look through that list and among them would 
be maybe four from people or PACs that have contributed a lot of money. 
And he said, you know, I just want to ask you, who do you think after a 
long day it was that I felt a priority to call back? Now, he was making 
an admission about how campaigns and how running for office really 
works. He said, yeah, I called those big givers back because, without 
the millions of dollars that it took to run for the United States 
Senate, all of those things that I believe in and that my constituents 
stand for, I would not be able to be there in the Senate. And it was 
partly that that drove him from office. I think what Paul Simon was 
saying is that money to the extent that it is a factor in politics 
imperils our democracy.
  Now, we have a number of opportunities this session to address this 
issue. I know that the Shays-Meehan bill will be up again, a bill that 
deals with the question of soft money, a way to get around campaign 
financing rules, and I support that. But there are other options too 
that I think eventually we are going to have to get to, the clean 
elections, clean money proposals, which essentially say that we are 
going to just take that special-interest money, those big bucks, out of 
politics.
  Now, we looked in the State of Illinois at how much it would cost 
each Illinois family per year to pay for all of the Federal elections 
within our State. And do my colleagues know what we found? It would 
cost about $5 per family per year to fund the elections at the level 
that they are being funded now, which is very high. We are talking 
millions of dollars per election. Well, it seems to me that 5 bucks a 
family per year to buy back our Government is a bargain.
  Why don't people vote? Why don't they participate? Because they have 
a sense that there is not a place at the table unless they put their 
money down and they have bought that place at the table. And all too 
often that is true and certainly in terms of access to elected 
officials. And that was that story that Paul Simon was sadly telling 
and all too often I think in the outcome of public policy decisions.

[[Page 4521]]



                              {time}  1600

  Do people care about it? Do they care about how much they pay in 
their utility bills? Do they care who is polluting their air? Do they 
care whether or not their schools are of a good quality? All of these 
issues are influenced by big-money players in the political arena. 
Those are issues that they care about. Fundamentally I think we are 
never going to get to deciding on the basis of what is right, what is 
wrong, what is best for people unless we take the element of big money 
out of our election campaigns.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. I thank the gentlewoman very much for those 
excellent comments.
  Mr. Speaker, one of the issues that either one of my colleagues may 
want to engage me in, is an important issue. There were people in the 
past that have shone the light. The gentlewoman mentioned Paul Simon 
from her great State. I know two individuals, one, Senator Proxmire 
from Wisconsin who took the attitude that he was not going to take any 
money, and he sent money back, actually. What he would do is every time 
he would go out to Wisconsin, he would get out at the professional 
football games, stand in line and shake 40,000 hands. He figured that 
was the way to get reelected. Back in those days, he did a good job of 
it and people loved him. And Representative Pat Williams, I think, was 
asked when he left Congress what he was going to miss, and he said that 
the one thing he had never gotten into was making telephone calls for 
fund-raising. He said, ``Somebody else can do that.''
  Clearly we are in a different time because of the mistrust and 
because of all of the issue ads and everything else that is out there, 
but we need to try and move back, I think, to the point where there is 
more of that. Their real purpose in doing that was saying, ``I want to 
focus on my job. I don't want to take one minute away from my job.''
  Mr. BAIRD. Let me share with my colleagues an example actually from 
our recent experience. We had a very expensive campaign, I will admit 
it, because we were getting attacked heavily, one of the number-one 
targets in the whole country. But we also had a grassroots campaign. 
That is what we need to have more of. We had 1,100 volunteers in the 
field on the day of the election, 1,100 people going around the 
district working telephones, saying why they cared so much about that 
election. I know my good friend from Illinois had a similar 
organization. That is politics at its best. Politics at its best is 
people working in the field for people they believe. Politics at its 
worst is when people pay telephone solicitors to call with smear 
campaigns. Politics at its worst are last-minute $100,000, $200,000 and 
$300,000 TV attack ads.
  What I am hoping we can do is inspire the young people who come watch 
us each day and watch us on TV and who are in our schools today to be a 
part of politics at its best. This bill will help reduce the impact of 
politics at its worst and maybe inspire people to do more.
  I know my good friend from Illinois has had similar work with people 
in the field.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. During the election campaign, I spent about 25 hours 
a week on the telephone, as they say, dialing for dollars, asking 
people if they would contribute to my campaign. Those are 25 hours a 
week that I could have been learning more about issues, attending 
meetings with community representatives, out shaking hands, going to 
grocery stores, meeting with constituents, learning about the real 
issues that affect people in my district and not calling name after 
name of people who might be able to contribute to the campaigns. But 
worse than that, it seems to me, what they want in a Member of 
Congress, when we reach for our voting card to put it in a slot and 
vote on an issue, I think what the voters want us to be thinking about 
is them, what is good for them, not making a calculation in our minds, 
``If I vote yes, which of my major contributors is going to be upset?'' 
Or ``how am I going to explain this to somebody who has given me a lot 
of money?''
  I know from being in the State legislature that unfortunately these 
kinds of calculations are made. I think anyone who says otherwise is 
simply not telling the truth about how it works in terms of money. And 
so I think that it is not only the candidate's time but also the 
candidate's vote that is at stake here.
  Mr. BAIRD. If I could echo that a little bit. One of the things that 
is frustrating about some of these discussions of reform, people have 
come and said that the politicians are corrupt. People need to 
understand that I do not know a single person who says, ``Gosh, I'm so 
excited because there's 5 hours of call time on my schedule today.''
  We need to understand that money does not come to the candidates. It 
goes to your campaign fund, which then typically goes almost directly 
to a TV or radio station or direct mail house. The people who are 
running for office, the people I have met in this great body, are 
decent people. They are here because they care about the system. They 
do the fund-raising side not because they like that, not because they 
line their own pockets but because they are willing to endure the 
humiliation and the drudgery and the frustration in order to get here 
and have a voice for the people of their State. We need to be very 
careful when we talk about this to not tear down this House and not 
tear down our colleagues because they are good, decent people. The 
system of funding may be corroded but the people involved are not 
corrupt people. I want to make sure what we do is we free them from 
that drudgery and we free them from that stigma and that stain that 
other people might attach to it.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I would certainly echo that. I would also say that 
the gentleman raises a good point about the cost of media and the idea 
that radio time, that TV time which eats up so many of the dollars that 
are raised in campaigns, if we could get more contributions from the 
public airwaves toward campaigns, if we could have some free air time 
on radio and television, that it would certainly help ease the need for 
campaign donations.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. The issue of the individuals, the Members of 
Congress, that are here and how they relate to this system, I do not 
think there is any doubt that we have people that are here that are 
well-intentioned, they care about their constituencies, they care very 
much about their congressional districts, and they are caught in a bad 
system. They are caught in a bad system. That is why I am so proud of 
our freshman class for stepping up to the plate. The freshman class 
that preceded us did the same thing.
  Members from both sides of the aisle last August, in 1998, 252 
Members, voted for this bill that all of us want to see passed today. I 
think that sends a very strong message that we want change, we want 
people to be heard, we want truly to open up the system and get back to 
ideas rather than money.
  If there are no additional comments from either the gentleman from 
Washington or the gentlewoman from Illinois, let me at this point just 
close by saying that I am very, very proud of our freshman class for 
stepping up to the plate on this issue. I am very proud of the 
gentleman from Washington for his leadership on this issue as the 
president of our freshman class, and the gentlewoman from Illinois. I 
know that she has also become a leader on this issue and I compliment 
her on that and say that I think with all of us working together and 
reaching across the aisle, I really and truly think we are going to get 
this done, we are going to get it done early and get it over to the 
other body. I think we are going to see progress on this issue this 
year. I thank both my colleagues for their participation.

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