[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 7358-7362]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           CAMPAIGN SPENDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Poliquin). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2015, the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. McNERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I am going to talk a little bit about 
spending today, like my friend and colleague from Arizona, but I am 
going to talk about spending of a different kind. I am going to talk 
about campaign spending.

[[Page 7359]]

  Campaign spending is quite an issue, and I want to spend about an 
hour or less talking about its effect, and I want to talk about some of 
the solutions that we have out there that might make a big difference.
  First, I want to say I truly believe in my heart of hearts that the 
United States of America is the greatest country in the world, probably 
the greatest country that the world has ever seen and may see in the 
future. You can just see that by some of the markers.
  The notions of freedom that this country has had in the past have 
inspired nations; they have inspired individuals around the world. Our 
economic strength is unrivaled. Our cultural influence reaches every 
corner of the world. Our military power is absolutely unrivaled.
  However, again, I truly believe that we can do better, and I will 
tell you some of the big challenges that we are facing right now, that 
if we take on these challenges, we will even be a greater Nation.
  First of all, we need massive investments in our Nation's 
infrastructure, our highways, our bridges, our ports, our airports. We 
need it in our broadband. We just need a massive amount of investment 
in our Nation's infrastructure.
  Our Nation's education is falling behind. Yes, we have some of the 
greatest schools, some of the greatest universities in the entire 
world, some of our public schools, some of our charter schools and 
private schools unrivaled; but there are a lot of schools that are 
struggling and producing students that really can't compete in today's 
world.
  We need to do immigration reform. We have 12, 15 million people in 
this country that are undocumented that live in the shadows that may or 
may not pay taxes that contribute to our economy but are always afraid 
of being deported.
  We have climate change. Climate change is here; it is progressing; it 
is going to get worse. We need to do something about it as soon as 
possible.
  We have a vanishing middle class. There is a huge disparity in 
incomes between the richest and the poorest in this country, and it is 
increasing. Our middle class is vanishing. They are feeling more and 
more insecure. They are unable to send their kids to college. We have a 
huge challenge in that regard.
  We have a need to establish background checks for purchase of weapons 
and to close the gun show loopholes.
  We need to create a sustainable economy.
  These are huge challenges that we need to attend from the Congress, 
from this body, from the House of Representatives, from the United 
States Senate, from the State legislatures, from local governments; but 
we are unable to attack these problems, in a large part, because of the 
way campaigns are financed.
  Now, we see a growing perversion of Presidential campaigns. We have 
super-PACs. We have dark donors, and they are having meetings with 
Presidential candidates, which are allowed by the laws because the 
candidates are not official candidates.
  No one knows what is legal and enforceable right now in Presidential 
candidate financing; and worse than that, foreign money is probably 
coming into all of these campaigns now.
  I just want to say elections up and down the ballot are being more 
and more perverted each election. All Americans should be concerned.
  While I was waiting to speak this evening, I just read an article in 
the National Journal Daily today that stated: ``According to data 
gathered in 21 states by the National Institute on Money in State 
Politics, $175 million was spent by them in 2006''--that is local 
politics; that is city council and school boards--``a number that 
ballooned to $245 million four years later.''
  That is a delta of $70 million increases in local campaign financing 
in just 4 years, and that is a fraction of the total expected to be 
spent in future local races.
  Before I go further, what I would like to do is take a break and 
yield to my friend and colleague from North Carolina (Mr. Jones). He 
wants to say a few words.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. McNerney, thank you very much, and I want to thank you 
for taking the lead tonight to be on the floor. I know you have other 
Members of Congress to join you in your hour, but I have been here for 
20 years, and I must tell you that, since I have been here, I have 
never seen as much influence by the special interests as I do now, and 
that is because of money.
  Actually, both parties--and that is why you are a Democrat, I am a 
Republican--but both parties seem to succumb to the influence of money 
to get bills to the floor.
  I am a strong supporter of John Sarbanes, who is from Maryland. You 
have your bill that I have joined today, by the way, to sign my name to 
your resolution, and I am on John Sarbanes' bill, which is H.R. 20. The 
title is the Government By the People Act.
  I will touch on four quick points. One is building a government of, 
by, and for the people. The second part of the bill says empower the 
Americans to participate. The third part is amplify the voice of the 
people and then fight back against Big Money special interests.
  In my few minutes, Mr. McNerney, what I would like to talk about is 
the influence of money. I am a Republican and proud to be one; you are 
a Democrat and proud to be one, but I will tell you that I have seen so 
many bills this year get to the floor of the House because, in my 
opinion, it is because of the influence of special interests.
  You and I recently had a bill on the floor that basically said that 
we would change the law that would allow the mobile home companies that 
sell mobile homes--many people in my district, 45,000 people own mobile 
homes, and there will be others buying mobile homes--but they will 
change the contract to say that it would go from 8 to 12 percent.
  Well, who did it benefit? It was Warren Buffett. I don't deny Warren 
Buffett his success. He is a very successful man, and I am happy for 
him. What this bill did was to say to the average person that maybe in 
California or North Carolina that needs to buy a mobile home, because 
that is the best they can do: we are going to let you pay more in 
interest.
  I was the only Republican to vote ``no'' on that bill. I said this 
back in my district, and quite frankly, I was pleased that the majority 
of people agree with me that we should be considerate of those people 
who cannot afford to buy better than a mobile home; but there, again, 
that special interest influence, that is what you just said a moment 
ago.
  I am of the firm belief that if we do not change the system--you have 
an H.J. Res. that you have introduced. I talk about John Sarbanes' H.R. 
20. That will create an alternative to the system that we have.
  You and I both know that Citizens United that said that a corporation 
is an individual has created a lot of the problems that we face today. 
I will say that the American people need to get behind what you are 
trying to do, what Mr. Sarbanes is trying to do--and I, in a lesser 
way--to return the power of the people to the people because, too many 
times, decisions here in Washington are made because special interests, 
whether it be a Democrat or Republican leadership, puts it on the 
floor.
  I believe that the people, as you believe, have a right to let this 
be the people's House and not the special interests House.
  I am delighted to be on the floor with you tonight. I will stay just 
a few minutes, if you want to call back on me in a couple of minutes. I 
will be here until a little bit after 8, but I wanted to thank you for 
getting on the floor tonight to speak about this issue because, if we 
are going to let the people own the government, then we must give the 
power back to the people.
  Mr. McNERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Jones.
  I just want to point out, again, that this is bipartisan. Mr. Jones 
is a Republican; I am a Democrat. We both see the corrosive influence 
of money here in Washington, and we want to do something about it.

[[Page 7360]]

  A lot of our colleagues agree with us wholeheartedly but are actually 
afraid to say it. They are afraid to get up here because they know, if 
they do, they are going to be targeted by this special interest money, 
by super-PAC money, by dark money.
  The sad thing is that you don't know that it is coming. You could be 
running a good, solid, healthy campaign arguing the issues and, all of 
a sudden, see a $2 million television ad against you, and they would be 
going after you for very personal misleading ads, which could destroy 
you and your family, for no reason other than you don't want to see so 
much money in campaign spending.

                              {time}  1945

  Let me look at some of the specific risks and problems that we see 
today because of the way campaigns are financed.
  First of all, campaign financing makes elected officials less 
effective in their jobs because of the time you have to spend raising 
money.
  Here in Congress, it is not unusual to see a Member of Congress spend 
2, 4, 6 hours a day on the phone, begging people for money. That 
lessens your effectiveness. You can't spend the time you should be 
spending on studying legislation, in talking to colleagues, in finding 
ways to compromise on issues.
  The second item is negative campaign ads turn off voters and suppress 
votes.
  Boy, we saw in this last election a turnout of 40 percent, 35 
percent, and 30 percent in some districts, and a lot of that has to do 
with the negativity that people see on TV. They don't know what to 
believe. They think they are both bums, and they just close their noses 
and vote for the least worse or they don't vote at all. That is the 
second.
  The effect of campaign financing makes for wasteful government 
spending.
  This is an issue that, I think, folks like my predecessor here 
tonight was talking about. The Tea Party folks should be interested in 
this issue because the way campaigns are financed causes wasteful 
government spending. Boy, I will tell you that I sympathize with the 
Tea Party objectives. Government seems big. It seems wasteful. It seems 
loaded. It seems ineffective. There is wasteful spending. There are 
projects that shouldn't be funded. A lot of that has to do with the way 
campaigns are financed.
  The next one is a big one. This is important. It is kind of what I 
mentioned before. It is the threat of negative campaign ads causes 
elected officials to avoid important and controversial issues:
  Now, I do not care if you are a Republican or a Democrat. If you are 
a Republican, you have risk in your primary elections. If you are a 
Democrat, it is of big money coming in and trying to trash you 
personally in election campaigns. If you are a Democrat, you have more 
risk coming in in general elections. So it doesn't matter what party 
you are in. It doesn't matter whether you are conservative or liberal. 
The way campaigns are financed is causing our government to be 
wasteful, and it is causing it to be ineffective. I think that needs to 
be improved.
  There is another problem that I mentioned earlier. Foreign money is 
coming into these campaigns now. Do you want to see foreigners, do you 
want to see folks from Russia or from China or from any country besides 
the United States having an influence on our elections?
  The amount of money coming into elections continues to grows election 
by election. We had $6.2 million in 2010 versus $3 billion in 2012. I 
think I have gotten a million or a billion mixed up there. Sorry about 
that. Elected officials respond more to wealthy donors than they do to 
nonwealthy donors. It is simply a matter of access. Someone gives you 
money, and they are more likely to have access, and that means that you 
are more likely to be sympathetic to their legislative goals.
  Judicial races are getting more expensive and tainted as well. Do you 
want to have a judge in a case that you may be bringing to court to 
have gotten his seat or her seat because of the way the campaign 
finance trashed his opponent? I do not think so.
  In general, people have become very cynical about government because 
of the negative advertising, and people lose faith in our government. 
To have the greatest country in the world and the things that this 
country has accomplished--the innovation, the science, the freedoms 
that we have established throughout the world--and then have people 
cynical about our government because of the campaign financing is more 
than a tragedy. Campaign spending is a zero-sum game. Let me tell you 
what I mean by that.
  Consider that you are in a meeting. You have got a 1 hour, and you 
have got 12 people, so everyone has 5 minutes to speak. Now, what if 
somebody takes 10 minutes? Then somebody else is going to lose out. 
Campaignspeak is like that too because people in this country are only 
willing to listen to a certain amount of campaign rhetoric, and then 
after that point, they turn off their minds. They don't want to hear 
any more. The folks with the biggest money get out there. They fill the 
airwaves, and they fill your mailboxes, and they have people knock on 
your doors. Pretty soon, you don't want to hear any more, so the guy 
with the lesser money is losing freedom of speech. So I think it is a 
freedom of speech issue. Those are some of the issues I have.
  With PACs and Super PACs and dark money--this is an interesting one--
campaigns are no longer going to be controlled by the candidates. You 
could have a situation in which Super PACs and PACs have five times 
more money than the candidate himself or herself, in which case they 
are controlling all of the levers in the campaign. So those are some of 
the issues that, I think, are caused by the excessive spending in our 
campaigns.
  I again yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) to 
take up the case here.
  Mr. JONES. I thank the gentleman. I appreciate listening to you, and 
it reminds me of a conversation I had on the floor of the House last 
week.
  As you know, I have been here 20 years. I came with Newt Gingrich, 
and Bill Clinton was the President. We did some good things for the 
American people, so I am kind of an older man, so to speak. I vote my 
conscience up here, and it gets me in trouble. I voted twice against 
the Speaker of the House, and it got me in trouble, but I do what I 
think is right.
  I was sitting on the floor, and this gentleman--I will not say his 
name or where he is from because I don't have permission to do that. He 
came up to me and said, ``Walter, I am probably going to--'' He is 20 
years younger than I am. I am 72 now. He said, ``I am probably going to 
be like you,'' and he is a Republican. He said, ``I will probably be 
like you and will never be a chairman or a ranking member of anything 
because I cannot do anything that would dampen or threaten my 
integrity.''
  I said, ``What do you mean?''
  He said, ``Well, in January, I was told that I could be a 
subcommittee chairman, but I would have to raise $300,000.''
  The point that you are trying to make tonight--and you are doing a 
good job--with John Sarbanes' bill, H.R. 20, which I hope people look 
up, as well as with your resolution, is that too oftentimes--and I will 
say in both parties--we have people in leadership who say you have to 
raise X amount of dollars if you want to be a chairman. What happens to 
that person in eastern North Carolina, where I am from, who makes 
$35,000 or $40,000 a year who can't buy influence in Washington?
  That is what you are trying to do tonight, and that is why I wanted 
to be with you, and I admire you for taking the floor tonight. Where 
are their spokesmen? We are the people's House, and all of a sudden, 
everything is about money, winning reelections with money--big money. 
The average citizens are beginning to be turned off by the fact that 
they don't have much influence, and that is why what you are doing 
tonight is very special.
  I was thinking about the gentleman who said to me, ``I will be like 
you,

[[Page 7361]]

Walter Jones. I will probably never be a chairman or a ranking member 
because you are trying to keep your integrity in place.'' If we had a 
system that you are proposing and John Sarbanes is proposing that would 
have a system for those who don't want to be bought and paid for by 
special interests, they would have an alternative by raising their 
money in the State and in the district, and they would be rewarded for 
raising their money in that State. Then their allegiance would be to 
the State and the district.
  Again, I am going to stay a few more minutes, but I want to 
compliment you on what you are doing tonight.
  Mr. McNERNEY. I thank the gentleman. I don't know of anyone who has 
more integrity in this institution than you do, so I am honored that 
you would come down here and talk with me tonight about this important 
issue.
  Now, the American people, as far as I can tell, are clearly in favor 
of reducing campaign money, campaign spending. I have some Gallup Poll 
numbers here that were taken by The Huffington Post from November 7 
through November 9, 2014, which was during the last election or right 
after the last election.
  The first question:
  Would you support or oppose amending the Constitution to give 
Congress more power to create restrictions on campaign spending?
  In favor of that was 53 percent; opposed was 23 percent; and not sure 
was 22 percent. So it was a very strong majority in favor of a 
constitutional amendment like I am going to discuss in a little while.
  The second question:
  Do you think limiting contributions to political campaigns helps to 
prevent corruption in politics, or does it have no impact on 
corruption?
  The question is will corruption be curtailed by limiting campaign 
spending. The answer that it helps prevent corruption: 52 percent; no 
impact on corruption: 28 percent; and not sure: 20 percent. Again, 
people feel strongly about this issue.
  The last question that I will read is:
  Which of the following statements do you agree with more: Elections 
are generally won by the candidate who raises the most money? The 
answer is 59 percent of Americans believe that; 18 percent don't 
believe that; and 23 percent are unsure. So I think this is a strong 
issue that we should be talking about.
  How do we move forward?
  Unfortunately, the Supreme Court appears to have a strong bias toward 
more money in politics, and it has consistently issued rulings to that 
effect. The Supreme Court even sought out, they even asked for, the 
infamous Citizens United case to be brought forward to them. Then, 
ultimately, they ruled that corporations have the same rights--free 
speech--as individual citizens do, as individual people do. The meaning 
of that decision is that corporations can use their treasuries to 
finance campaigns.
  I can't think of anything more corrosive or destructive to our 
democracy than that. The system was already bad before the Citizens 
United decision, but this thing made it much worse. Unfortunately, the 
Citizens United decision is just one of a series of decisions that 
allows more and more money into politics, and I truly believe that this 
is a threat to our cherished democratic and republican institutions.
  This trend is not confined to the Supreme Court. Earlier this year, 
the Republican-controlled Senate, in concurrence with the Republican-
controlled House of Representatives, passed legislation that increased 
the total individuals could contribute to political parties by a factor 
of 10--going from $35,000 to over $300,000.
  What can we do about it?
  The good news is that there are really a number of very good ideas 
that have been proposed, and I think it is important for us to go over 
some of those ideas. My friend Walter Jones has mentioned John 
Sarbanes' idea, and I will go into that in a little bit of detail. But 
there are others, and I think it is important that the American people 
be aware of some of these proposals out there and what they might offer 
and to let them decide, let the American people decide.
  Do they want to see a legislative approach like John Sarbanes' great 
approach?--I support it--or a constitutional amendment like mine and 
others that I will bring up as we go forward tonight? These proposals 
all have merit. They are all worth studying and thinking about, and I 
would be happy to support any of the ones that I am going to talk about 
this evening and to consider other ones that may not have been brought 
forward yet. The proposals, again, fall into two categories--
legislative proposals and constitutional amendments.
  Legislative proposals are a little bit easier to enact, but they are 
subject to Supreme Court and lower court overturning. So you can work 
hard, and you can get it passed and then have the Supreme Court or some 
other court overturn it. The constitutional amendment has a very high 
bar. It is very difficult to get a constitutional amendment passed, and 
it should be. You don't want people just willy-nilly passing an 
amendment to change the Constitution. It requires a two-thirds vote in 
the House of Representatives, a two-thirds vote in the Senate, and 
three-quarters of the State legislatures throughout the country to pass 
that amendment for it to become part of the Constitution; but once it 
becomes part of the Constitution, the courts can't touch it. They can 
interpret it, but they can't overturn it.
  There is legislation that I would like to talk about, but some of my 
colleagues who were going to be here tonight couldn't be because of a 
change in schedule. I think one of the important approaches, mostly 
championed by Chris Van Hollen from Maryland, is the disclosure and 
transparency approach, which is that people who donate ought to be 
disclosed quickly and broadly so that people know where money is coming 
from. That is a very important idea.

                              {time}  2000

  Also, Government By the People, John Sarbanes' approach, which I will 
talk about in a little while; and there is also legislation that would 
create public finance, and I think that is a very good approach, too.
  There are two constitutional amendments, one by Donna Edwards, a 
colleague of mine from Maryland, that overturns Citizens United, and 
there is one by Ted Deutch, a colleague of mine from Florida. Ted 
Deutch from Florida would basically allow Congress to enact laws on 
campaign financing that could not be overturned by the Supreme Court. I 
think that is a good approach. I support that. In theory, it has got a 
beauty to it.
  Then there is my approach, which basically would eliminate PACs and 
do other things. I would like to talk in some detail about my 
resolution now, and we will get the board up to talk about it. This is 
called H.J. Res. 31, and again, it is a proposed constitutional 
amendment. As you can see, it has four parts.
  The first part, I think, is probably the most important, and it says 
basically that money that comes in to political election campaigns to 
support or oppose a candidate for office can only come from individual 
citizens and only go to the campaign controlled by the candidate or the 
principal campaign controlled by the candidate or from a system of 
public election financing.
  So what does that mean? That means that when money comes in, it can 
only come from individual citizens. It can't come from corporations; it 
can't come from any other sources. It just comes from individual 
citizens, and it can only go to the campaign controlled by the 
candidate. That means that it can't go to political action committees, 
PACs; it can't go to super-PACs; it can't be dark money. The only money 
that can influence elections directly or indirectly to support or 
oppose a candidate has to come from individual citizens. It has to go 
only to the candidate, to the campaign controlled by the candidate. 
That is a very strong requirement. It is probably the strongest 
requirement out there right now, but I think it is important.
  By the way, the first requirement applies to elections for individual 
candidates at all levels of government,

[[Page 7362]]

from the President on down to the Congress, the Senate, State 
governments, city governments, and so on.
  The second measure is similar to the first. This requirement, money 
to support or oppose a State ballot initiative to change a State 
constitution or for other purposes can only come from individuals who 
are able to vote for the measure or from a system of public election 
financing. I think that is important because you have ballot 
initiatives in my home State of California, for example, and you see 
millions of dollars coming in from out of State. Why would somebody 
from out of State have an opportunity to influence a State ballot 
initiative in California? I think it is wrong, and I think that this 
would take care of that problem.
  The third requirement is that Congress, the States, and the local 
jurisdictions must establish limits that an individual can contribute 
to any one election campaign, including limits on the amount a 
candidate may contribute to his or her own campaign. Now, for that 
particular requirement, we already have that in the U.S. House and U.S. 
Senate. The limit at this point in time is $2,700 per election. So 
every time your voters can go to the booth for you, people can 
contribute, individuals can contribute $2,700, so the primary election 
and the general election. In the House of Representatives elections are 
every 2 years, so you can collect an amount of $5,400 over the election 
cycle for your campaign.
  Now, if you collect $5,400 before the primary and you lose the 
primary, then you are going to have to give back the money that was 
donated for the general election. So that would be you would have to 
give $2,700 back to the donors that gave that to you.
  Also, it is important that it requires governments to limit the 
amount a candidate can spend on their own campaign. Some of our 
candidates are extremely wealthy. They have millions or hundreds of 
millions or more. They can buy their seat in Congress easily, and this 
would limit that. I think, again, this is very, very important.
  The last is probably one of the more controversial of the four, but 
it says that the total of contributions to a candidate's campaign from 
individuals who are not able to vote for the candidate cannot be 
greater than the total of contributions from individuals who can vote 
for the candidate. Now, geographically what that would mean is that 
money coming from outside of your congressional district, or from your 
State if you are a Senator, can't exceed money that comes from inside 
your district if you are a congressional candidate or State if you are 
a Senator. It wouldn't affect the Presidential race as much because 
everybody in the United States is in the President's district, but it 
would also affect local districts as well. With that, that wraps up the 
discussion of my proposed constitutional amendment.
  I want to talk a little bit about John Sarbanes' bill, and I think it 
is a fine bill. It is not a constitutional amendment. What it does is 
it gives you a tax credit for money that you can contribute to a 
campaign. So if you can contribute $50 to a campaign, then you get a 
tax credit of $50, which means money back on your income tax return; 
the same amount that you contribute, you get back. But also it matches 
that contribution by 6 to 1. So you will end up giving the candidate 
quite a bit more than you are actually contributing. It is a good 
measure. It is a good proposal. It would sort of even out the effect of 
PACs. I find myself supporting that.
  Again, my colleague, Ted Deutch, has a couple of constitutional 
amendments in the 114th Congress. One of them is called Democracies for 
All, H.J. Res. 119, and also H.J. Res. 22 that creates funding limits 
and creates a distinction between individuals and corporations, but 
what it really does is allows Congress to limit, to enact laws that 
will be enforceable and not overturned by the Supreme Court.
  We have Van Hollen in the 114th Congress, H.R. 430, and what this 
does is it requires disclosure so that when campaign contributions are 
made, we can determine who made those contributions--very important. I 
think it would make a big difference.
  Then we have a number of proposals to create public financing. My 
colleague from Kentucky, John Yarmuth, had one in the 113th Congress, 
Fair Elections Now Act. In the 114th Congress, which is this Congress, 
David Price has H.R. 424, which establishes a system of public 
financing.
  These are all good. I think I would be supportive of any of these 
kinds of approaches. I think the American public needs to be protected. 
I think our cherished Democratic and Republican institutions are a 
threat here, whether it is because candidates are bombarded by negative 
ads, whether it is because candidates are influenced by big donors, 
whether it is because more and more money is coming in to these 
elections every single cycle. There is a lot of reasons why we need to 
look at campaign financing and select one of these approaches and go 
with it and change the system that we have to a system that really does 
respond to the American public.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________