[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 22840]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                            ELECTION REFORM

  (Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, since September 11, we have been focused on 
fighting terrorism across this Nation. However, this Congress has not 
failed to address its other priorities among the American people. One 
of them is to reform our election laws after last year's election 
chaos.
  What I rise today to do is to congratulate the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Ney) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) of the Committee 
on House Administration for their hard work in creating a bipartisan 
piece of legislation which addresses campaign finance reform, and it 
does it in three critical ways:
  First, this piece of legislation tells Congress that it must resist 
the urge to federalize what is constitutionally preferred by States and 
localities. The primacy of States and localities in the area of 
elections must be respected. Congress should seek to empower the duly 
elected State and local officials, not dictate to them.
  Secondly, Congress must examine ways to eliminate fraud. Inaccuracies 
in voter rolls lead to all sorts of problems nationwide, including 
fraud. The days of the ``cemetery vote'' and other ``ghost'' voting 
must come to a rapid close everywhere.
  Finally, Congress must address disenfranchisement, whether 
intentional or unintentional. One person, one vote is a principle that 
crosses all party lines.

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