[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 198-200]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I have been interested in watching both the 
Democratic and Republican battles in New Hampshire for the nomination 
of the respective parties. I was not able to watch personally, but I 
understand that yesterday Mr. McCain, the senior Senator from Arizona, 
was interviewed on one of the national shows and talked about campaign 
finance reform and, in effect, the difficult sledding it has been for 
him, a Republican, to move forward on this issue.
  Based on what the Supreme Court did just last week, I think it is 
significant to keep our eye on the prize, and that is to recognize that 
the Supreme Court has now given us the latitude and leeway to be able 
to do something about campaign finance reform. Senator McCain is to be 
congratulated for being so responsive to what I think the American 
public is asking from us. That is to do something about lessening the 
need for the huge amounts of money in Federal elections.
  Senator McCain has been very lonely out there, for being a member of 
the majority. He has not had a lot of support. I think it has taken a 
lot of courage for him to move forward with campaign finance reform. I 
believe if we start talking about the issue, as I have heard Governor 
Bush say: Well, I can't support campaign finance reform because it will 
simply help the Democrats----Mr. President, it would help the American 
public if people took a more realistic view regarding this vital 
legislation. Let's move forward with

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legislation that will take the demand for money out of the mix.
  I have said it on this floor before, but I think it is worth 
repeating. In the small State of Nevada, with less than 2 million 
people, $23 million was spent in my last reelection. No one outspent 
the other. My opponent spent the same amount of money I did--a little 
over $4 million, for the individual campaigns. We each spent, through 
the various parties, money on our behalf, basically, $6 million each. 
That is $20 million. Plus, we don't know, but I have estimated there 
was another $3 million on independent expenditures.
  That is out of line. It is obnoxious, it is obscene, it is too much 
money. We have to arrive at a point where we have to take this soft 
money mix out of campaigns. We may not be able to do everything 
included in the McCain-Feingold bill that we need to do, but let's work 
toward a compromise that at least takes corporate money out of 
campaigns.
  Earlier in this century, the decision was made by Congress that 
corporate money should not be allowed in Federal elections. Over the 
years, that has worked fine. But in a ruling the Supreme Court said, 
well, you still can't use corporate money on individual campaigns, but 
State parties can use it basically any way they want. As a result of 
that, there has been this tremendous rush by both parties for corporate 
money, and they spend it on behalf of individual candidates. I think 
that is wrong. We should reverse that statutorily. As I reviewed the 
Supreme Court decision, it was clear that, in fact, was the case. 
Justice Souter did a very good job in writing that opinion. It is clear 
and concise. I think we should move forward and have campaign finance 
reform.
  Mr. President, beginning this congressional session, the last year of 
this Congress, it is important that we reflect on where we are and 
where we need to go. It seems pretty clear we have made great progress 
in getting the country's fiscal house in order. Just 7 years ago, when 
President Clinton came into office, the yearly budget deficit was more 
than $300 billion, especially if you add in the Social Security 
surplus, which was being used for years to mask the annual deficit. 
Instead of having these $300 billion-plus deficits every year, we will 
now, for the second year in a row, have a surplus.
  It is difficult for those of us who have served in this body for a 
few years to understand that we are now talking about what we should do 
with our surplus. During this period of time, we have created over 20 
million new jobs. The vast majority of the jobs are high-wage jobs, 
good jobs. We have low unemployment, low inflation, strong economic 
growth, and lower Government spending. We have cut the payroll of the 
Federal Government by over 300,000 individuals, excluding the cuts that 
have been made within the military.
  We are doing a much better job. We are at 18.7-percent Federal 
Government spending as a share of gross domestic product, and that is 
the lowest since 1974. That is real progress. Real hourly wages are up. 
We also have strong private sector growth, and as I have indicated, low 
inflation. The underlying core rate of inflation is at its lowest since 
1965. In the last four quarters, the GDP price index has risen only 1.3 
percent, which is the lowest rate of increase since 1963.
  We are talking about decades and decades of improvement. We have 
reduced welfare rolls. Both parties worked together to bring about less 
welfare. That is important. Not only are we seeing people move off the 
welfare rolls, we are putting people to work. We have high-home 
ownership. We have jobs in the auto industry. People said a few years 
ago that the American automobile industry was dead and that we should 
forget about again being somebody who produces most of the cars in the 
world. That was reversed because of good decisions by management and 
tremendous production by labor.
  Since 1993, we have added almost 200,000 new auto jobs. The annual 
rate of adding auto jobs is the fastest we have ever had. I think we 
are doing very well.
  Regarding the construction industry, all we have to do is look at the 
State of Nevada which leads the Nation, and has for 14 years, as the 
fastest growing State in the Union. We have cranes--some use the old 
term that it is the ``national bird''--all over the State of Nevada, 
with construction going on. But Nevada is not the only place; this 
country is in a period of phenomenal economic growth. There are still 
sectors that need improvement, but we have done fine. We are looking 
now to improving people's lives. We are now looking into issues that we 
never have before.
  I am sure that you, just as the Senator from Nevada, find all this 
Internet stuff kind of new. It is something we didn't have when we were 
growing up, and it has taken some training and some real education to 
become somewhat computer literate. It is so easy to become computer 
literate. You can order anything you want off the Internet. You can 
order CDs, water, and many other items.
  The other Saturday morning, I turned on my computer to find out what 
the news was in Nevada. They have a little teaser there almost every 
time you turn on the computer about different services rendered. One of 
the things on my computer said, ``Do you want to sell your house?'' My 
wife and I, with our children being raised now, are considering moving 
from our home where the kids were raised to a smaller place. And so I 
clicked on that little thing on my computer, and within 5 minutes, on 
my screen in McLean, VA, where we have our home locally, I found places 
where homes were sold in the last 2 years and for how much they were 
sold.
  There is so much on the computer that it is difficult for me to 
comprehend. That brings about another problem, and that is our privacy. 
Is our privacy being protected with all the things happening on the 
Internet? Some say yes, some say they are not too sure, and some say 
no. This is something at which we as a Congress need to take a look. We 
need extensive hearings to determine how safe information is on the 
Internet.
  Are our medical records being protected? If your wife, your father, 
your brother, your sister goes to the hospital, are their records being 
protected? Is your privacy being protected? Is your credit card 
protected on the Internet? Are, in fact, these people who are getting 
information on the net selling this information to other people? These 
are questions raised in this new, modern society in which we live and 
at which Congress must take a look. We didn't have to look at those 
things just a short time ago.
  In addition to recognizing that our economy is in great shape, we 
have things on which we have to work. We have to realize we have new 
challenges ahead of us. Privacy is one of them.
  I talked about campaign finance reform. That is so important to us. 
We need to take a look at that. But also we have to take a look at what 
is happening to the health care delivery system in our country. Every 
year, over a million people become uninsured. We have now well over 40 
million people who have no health insurance. That is not something that 
we can say is someone else's problem. It is our problem, just as it is 
someone else's problem.
  Why do I say that? Because when a person who has no health insurance 
is in an automobile accident, they go to the emergency room--that is 
the most expensive care that can be rendered. As a result of this, the 
fact that people who have no health insurance are taking care of that 
way causes my premiums to go up and yours. It causes higher taxes to be 
charged for health care, and it, of course, causes hospital and doctor 
bills to be increased more than they should to take care of those 
people who have no health insurance.
  We must do something about inadequate health care. The fact is that 
in America, the most powerful nation in the world, we have over 40 
million people today with no health insurance. We could add in all of 
the little things people have talked about such as medical savings 
accounts and all other such things. If we added all of those and 
accepted them--some would say no, that is not good, and some of us 
disagree

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about the way to go. But let's say we did. We would then take care of 
only about 3.5 million people, still leaving almost 40 million people 
with no health insurance. We have to be real and stop talking about 
these little gimmicks and start talking about the fact that health care 
is something of which too many people do not have the benefit. Those 
people who do not have health insurance are being jerked around.
  The fact is that we have tried to pass a Patients' Bill of Rights 
giving people the ability to have health insurance and not to be taken 
advantage of by big-interest companies and HMOs. That is why we have 
worked very hard to have a real Patients' Bill of Rights passed, one 
where people can go to a specialist when they want to; to a health care 
plan that allows a woman to be taken care of by a gynecologist when she 
believes it is necessary; a provision so that when somebody does 
something negligent and wrong, they can be sued. People don't like 
lawyers unless they need one themselves. With health care, there are 
times when people do things that are wrong. Individuals need the right 
to go to court to redress wrongs.
  We have a lot to do in this Congress. We don't need to come here and 
boast about how well we are doing with the economy. We need to do 
something about the campaign finance problems we have in this country, 
about our health care delivery system.
  It is clear, with all that is going on in our country today, that we 
need to look at how guns are handled. I have said on this floor before 
and I say again that I was, in effect, raised with guns. As a 12-year-
old boy, I was given a 12-gauge shotgun for my birthday. I still have 
that gun. My parents ordered it out of the Sears & Roebuck catalog. I 
learned how to handle weapons as a young boy. We would hunt and do the 
other things you do with guns. I have been a police officer. I 
personally have a number of firearms in Nevada.
  I have no problem with the fact that if I want to purchase a handgun, 
I tell people who I am and they can make a determination by checking my 
identification and whether or not I am a felon or in fact mentally 
unstable. That is what the Brady bill is all about. Hundreds of 
thousands of people are granted weapons as a result of that. I am 
willing to be checked each time I purchase a gun. I don't think that is 
unreasonable. But there are those who are trying to avoid that by going 
to pawnshops and purchasing pistols, and, as a result of that, checks 
aren't made--or they are going to gun shows. We need to close those 
loopholes. Here on this floor last year, we did that. That was done by 
virtue of Vice President Gore breaking the tie vote. But the problem 
is, we haven't gone to conference. We need to take that loophole out of 
the law. The American public believe that is appropriate. We should at 
least do that. That is the minimum we can do with guns.
  My knowledge about weapons is, I think, average or above, and I don't 
need an assault weapon to go hunting or to protect my family. These 
assault weapons need some restrictions placed on them. I am a believer 
in the second amendment. Nothing that I have talked about today 
deprives anyone of their second amendment rights.
  In this Congress, I hope we can work in a bipartisan fashion to solve 
some of these problems that everyone recognizes: Campaign finance 
reform, health care, problems with guns in our society, and other 
things on which we need to work together to come up with bipartisan 
solutions to the problems that face this country.
  One of the things we worked very hard on last year as a minority--we 
hope the majority will join with us this year--was to do something 
about raising the minimum wage. Why is it important that we raise the 
minimum wage? That is all the money some people get to support their 
family. In fact, 60 percent of the people who draw minimum wage are 
women, and for 40 percent of those women who draw minimum wage, that is 
the only money they get for themselves and their families. It is 
important that we increase the minimum wage. The minimum wage is 
something more than a bunch of kids at McDonald's flipping hamburgers; 
it is for people who need to support their families.
  Speaking for the minority, we reach out our hands to the majority. We 
want to work with the majority to pass meaningful legislation. But I 
also say we want to approach legislation in the way it has been 
traditionally handled in this body: For example, the bankruptcy bill, 
which at 2 o'clock this afternoon will be brought up and we will move 
forward. We have worked very hard in spite of the fact that there are 
in the minority some people who support the underlying legislation and 
some who don't support the legislation. But we have worked to move this 
legislation forward to have the battles here on the Senate floor. That 
is why we were disappointed at the end of the last session when the 
majority leader filed cloture on this legislation when there were only 
a few amendments left that would take up any time at all. As a result 
of that, some of us joined together during the break and said: We are 
not going to let this legislation move forward, we are going to have 45 
Democrats voting against cloture, until we have the opportunity to 
debate these measures which we believe are important.
  What were the two things holding it up? One was legislation that said 
do not do violence to a clinic that gives advice on birth control 
measures and gives counsel to people as to whether or not they should 
terminate a pregnancy. This is something that is enforced by the laws 
in this country. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that these kinds of 
clinics are legal. Whether or not you agree or disagree with abortion 
is not the issue. A person has no right to throw acid in these 
facilities and do everything they can to stop the business from going 
forward. There have been lawsuits filed against people who do this. 
This amendment says if you do that, you can't discharge that debt in 
bankruptcy. That is what this amendment is all about.
  We are going to have an opportunity to vote on this in the next few 
days. That is the way it should be.
  The other amendment that was holding things up and caused cloture to 
be filed was an amendment by the Senator from Michigan that says if you 
manufacture guns and there is a lawsuit filed against you because of 
something you did which was wrong, you can't discharge that debt in 
bankruptcy. I am paraphrasing the amendment. Senator Levin will explain 
it in more detail.
  But we have said, no matter how you feel on the gun issue and 
abortion, these are issues that have nothing to do directly with these 
issues; this issue deals with bankruptcy. As a result of that, the 
minority held firm.
  I applaud the majority leader. He withdrew the motion for cloture. We 
are going to debate this and complete this legislation in the next 
couple of days. We are willing to work with the majority if we go 
through the normal legislative process allowing us to bring up our 
amendment. We worked hard to try to reduce the number of amendments. 
Some amendments are difficult. Some amendments we don't want to vote 
on, but that is what we are elected to do--vote on tough issues. We 
can't avoid those tough votes by filing cloture and knocking all of 
these amendments out.
  Again, on behalf of the minority, we look forward to a productive 
session and we will do everything we can to make sure we not only keep 
the economy moving but also handle some of the more difficult issues 
that face us in this society.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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