[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13900]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM

  (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, here we are a few short weeks before 
national elections, so it is a good time to take account of the 
outlandish flood of money pouring into the Presidential campaign. The 
American people don't want this out-of-control spending anymore.
  Why should it cost 16 times more to conduct an election in 2016 than 
it did in 1980 in inflation-adjusted dollars? The last time I looked, 
we still have just one President, 100 Senators, and 435 Congressional 
Districts. So why the outlandish increase in campaign spending?
  The public gets sick and tired of the TV campaign ads. It costs a 
fortune. All the while, the public is becoming more disillusioned and 
distrustful of our very instruments of government.
  We need campaign finance reform. It is far too much that candidates 
have to raise today. Actually, in 1980, it cost $107 million for 
President Carter and President Reagan to conduct that Presidential 
campaign. Already this year, $1.6 billion has been spent--16 times as 
much as 1980.
  It is no surprise that, of the largest givers of the financial 
industry, not one of them has gone to jail after the financial crash of 
2008.
  My constitutional amendment, H.J. Res. 38, grants Congress and our 
States the power to set limits on the amounts of contributions and 
expenditures with respect to candidates in Federal, State, and local 
elections.
  So when the Presidential candidates pass through your town, ask them 
exactly what they intend to do about out-of-control campaign spending 
and when they intend to do it. How about making campaign finance reform 
the first bill they send up to Congress in 2017 as H.R. 1.

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