    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
    [May 7, 1993]
    [Pages 584-589]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Campaign Finance Reform and a Question-and-Answer Session
    May 7, 1993

        The President. Thank you very much. Mr. Vice President,
    distinguished leaders of the Congress, ladies and gentlemen from Close
    Up. I'm delighted to have the Close Up students sitting with us today at
    the White House. A little more than 30 years ago, when I was about your
    age, I came here, and the experience changed my life forever in terms of
    my dedication to try to do more to help our country work. Thirty years
    from now I hope that all of you will look back on this day and believe
    that you were witness to an event that helped to change the course of
    America, for on this day we seek to reform our political process, to
    restore the faith of the American people in our democracy, and to ensure
    that once again the voice of the people as a whole is heard over the
    voice of special interests in Washington.
        Today we're announcing the most comprehensive reform of the
    political system in the history of this country, a proposal that limits
    spending by candidates for the House and the Senate; a proposal which
    bans contributions to Members by lobbyists who lobby them; a proposal
    which curbs the power and influence of political action committees; a
    proposal that levels the playing field between challengers and
    incumbents and pays for it by taxing lobbyists and not the American
    people; a proposal that plugs loopholes in the financing of Presidential
    campaigns by eliminating so-called soft money contributions.
        We take these extraordinary steps in the bill proposed today and
    commit ourselves to adopting it into law for one fundamental reason.
    Without fundamental change in the way we finance campaigns, everything
    else we seek to improve in the lives of our people, from creating jobs
    to providing a secure system of health care, to educating our people
    better and enabling us to compete in a global economy, everything will
    be harder to achieve. Economic reform, health care reform, and political
    reform must go hand-in-hand. The system has to work to produce good
    results.
        Today, by one estimate, Washington, DC, has at least 80,000 people
    working directly or indirectly to lobby the National Government, a
    veritable influence industry. The more we seek to change things, the
    more we draw lobbyists to Washington to see if they can stop the change.
    To be sure, these lobbyists often represent points of view that
    genuinely deserve to be heard, and we in Government often benefit from
    their views. But there are times when these powerful interests turn
    debate into delay and exert more influence over decisions in Washington
    than the people we were elected to serve do.
        We're fighting hard to reform our health care system. Soon we'll put
    forward a plan to ensure health security for every American and to
    control the exploding costs of health care. Already, some special
    interests have gone beyond consulting about what the best way to do this
    is, to

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    preparing to carve the plans to bits to make sure that the present
    system stays intact, which is good for the people they represent but bad
    for the public interest.
        We're fighting to ensure that the tax burden falls more fairly on
    those who can afford to pay and less on the middle class, whose incomes
    went down and tax burdens went up over the last 12 years. And already,
    special interests are clogging the halls of power, whispering that they
    deserve to continue the advantages which have pertained for too long.
        We're fighting to make it possible for every young person to go to
    college and to pay back your loans as a percentage of your income after
    you go to work so that you can never be bankrupted later by heavy
    student debts today. And already, banks and their allies are out in
    force, since they profit inordinately from the current system, seeking
    to frustrate our plans.
        It's quite clear, Government will work for the middle class and for
    the average American only if Washington is free to work for the national
    interests and not narrow interests. And that won't happen unless we
    change the way we finance campaigns in this country. It's time to curb
    the role of special interests and to empower average citizens to have
    their voices heard once again.
        Campaign finance reform is a tough issue to grapple with. It
    requires those of us who set the rules to change the rules that got us
    all here. That's not easy to do. Last year, Congress passed a good
    campaign finance reform bill only to see it vetoed in the past
    administration. As I promised, we would support campaign reform this
    year with a bill that is even tougher and better than the bill which
    passed the Congress and was vetoed last year. Particularly we have taken
    aim at the lobbyists who symbolize the reason that nothing ever seems to
    get done here in this city.
        And that's why I'm pleased to stand here with these congressional
    leaders, some of whom have worked for years and years and years on this
    issue, and others, including the leadership of the House and Senate, who
    have made it possible to us to bring this bill forward in a way that has
    a real chance of passage. We're moving forward with this. This bill is
    for real. Even if special interests object, even if they try to
    filibuster or delay, eventually I believe we will pass campaign finance
    reform, and I will sign it, because the people will support it and
    demand it.
        This plan will change the way Washington works, the way campaigns
    are financed, the way that politics is played. First, the plan will
    impose strict but voluntary campaign limits on spending in congressional
    campaigns as required by the United States Supreme Court. Spending has
    gone up too far and too fast. Last year alone spending on congressional
    campaigns shot up by 52 percent over the previous election. When
    campaign spending is out of control, candidates without access to big
    money simply cannot compete.
        Second, this plan will rein in the special interests by restricting
    the role of lobbyists and PAC's or political action committees. For the
    very first time, our plan will ban contributions from lobbyists to
    lawmakers they contact and lobby. It will even bar them from raising
    money for those officials they lobby. If enacted, this proposal will
    plainly change the culture in Washington in a very fundamental way. This
    proposal curbs the role of political action committees. It caps the
    amount of money any candidate can receive from PAC's. It limits PAC
    contributions to $1,000 to Presidential campaigns, to $2,500 for Senate
    candidates. And while it leaves the present limit on the House
    candidates, it limits the percentage of any candidate's budget which can
    come from political action committees, a dramatic change in the present
    system.
        Third, our political reform plan will open the airwaves and level
    the playing field between incumbents and challengers by providing
    communications vouchers to candidates who agree to the spending limits.
    This was an important part of my campaign last year. I think we have got
    to open the airwaves so that there can be honest debate and all the
    people who run, including challengers, have access to them. These
    vouchers can only be used to communicate with the voters through
    broadcast, print, or postage. Let me make clear, these vouchers, no
    matter what you will hear from the people who want to protect the
    present special interest system, these vouchers will not be paid for by
    middle class taxpayers. They will be funded by closing a major tax
    loophole that allows many businesses to deduct the cost of lobbying and
    the costs they pay for their lobbyists through repeal of the
    deductibility of lobbying expenses. Corporate lobbying, believe it or
    not, has only been deductible since 1962. It's time to close a 30-year-
    old loophole and instead use the money

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    to give the political process back to the American people. And there
    will be the voluntary tax checkoff, which will let citizens choose to
    have $5 of their income tax go to make this system work. It is entirely
    voluntary, but I think a lot of Americans will like this system better
    than the one we have.
        Our reform plan won't just affect congressional campaigns. During
    the Presidential campaign, I promised to propose legislation that would
    shut down the system of soft money that increases spending so
    dramatically in national campaigns. Today this legislation does exactly
    that. Make no mistake, this legislation will cost me and the Democratic
    Party, like the Republican Party, significant sums of money. But it is
    the right thing to do.
        We envision a new Democratic Party and a new party system built on
    the energy of millions of average citizens who believe that politics is
    once again a thrilling collective endeavor, who want to give the small
    amounts of money they can afford to give to the political process and to
    the party of their choice because they will know that that money will
    count and will not be overwhelmed by special interests.
        This proposal can change the status quo. And the special interests
    surely will mobilize against it. They don't want to see their ability to
    give campaign contributions curbed. The status quo suits many of them
    fine. The problem is that even when a lot of these people are making
    their voices heard in legitimate ways, the totality of their efforts has
    served to paralyze this process, to paralyze this city, and to keep
    meaningful change from occurring long after everybody acknowledges that
    it has to occur in fundamental areas of our national life, such as
    economic policy and health care.
        I believe the winds of change are too strong. At the beginning of my
    term, I imposed the strictest ethics restriction ever on my top
    officials. They'll be prohibited from lobbying their Agencies for 5
    years after they leave, and they can never lobby for a foreign
    government. We've already seen progress in the United States Congress.
    Earlier this week, the United States Senate passed a historic lobby
    disclosure bill, a bill which opens the activities of lobbyists to the
    sunshine of public scrutiny. If this bill passes the entire Congress
    now, every time a lobbyist spends more than a small amount of money to
    lobby a bill on any Member, it will all have to be reported. And this is
    the kind of thing that we ought to be doing.
        I worked for this sort of reform for a decade in my own State. I
    know how hard it is. Finally I had to take my proposals to a vote of the
    people to pass them. In the Presidential campaign, from the snows of New
    Hampshire onward, I talked about these kinds of changes. Now we see,
    from the vote in the Senate yesterday and from the strong support we're
    receiving on the campaign finance reform bill today, the prospect of
    real political reform in Washington. I hope the House will act quickly
    on the measure that the Senate passed yesterday on lobby registration
    and disclosure.
        I believe the season of political reform has finally arrived. Today
    we are here united in our commitment to enact these kinds of reforms. We
    need your help, your parents' help, the help of the people that you go
    to school with, the help of the people that you represent all across
    this country to overcome the resistance that inevitably accompanies this
    kind of change. But when we do overcome the forces of inertia, we can
    once again make our political system work--work more quickly, work more
    efficiently, work less expensively, and most importantly, work for the
    people who work hard and play by the rules.
        Thank you very much.

    [At this point, Senator George J. Mitchell, Speaker of the House of
    Representatives Thomas S. Foley, Senator David L. Boren, and
    Representative Sam Gejdenson made statements in support of campaign
    finance reform legislation, and the Vice President invited questions.]

        The President. We'll take some from the students. But I'll take a
    couple from the press and a couple from the students.
        Q. [Inaudible]
        The President. As you know, I favor a smaller PAC limit, and I
    wanted--in our legislation we go to $1,000 in Presidential campaigns,
    which is more broadly dispersed. I think there were two reasons. One is
    the House Members believe they have less access to raise funds on a
    Statewide basis, particularly those who come from very poor
    congressional districts, and obviously very limited ability to raise
    money beyond their States. So they were insistent on keeping the limit
    higher. But they did do something that I never proposed when I ran for
    President that I think provides an equally important limitation on the
    influence of PAC's, and that is to set a very strict limit on the
    percentage of total

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    campaign contributions which could come from PAC's, one which is, as
    Senator Boren has already noted, is lower than the average that Members
    of Congress received last time in running for reelection. So they have
    agreed to dramatically reduce the impact of PAC money on their campaign
    treasuries over and above what they have been getting. And I thought
    that was a reasonable agreement.
        The Vice President. And the lobby contribution----
        The President. And of course, they also, the leadership and the
    sponsors of the bill, have also agreed to a dramatic change--I want to
    emphasize this; this is new from the last bill--to say that lobbyists
    give money to or raise money for Members of Congress whom they have
    lobbied within the previous year. And if they do that, then they cannot
    lobby them for a year after this. That is a very significant change. Did
    you say I got the facts right?
        Q. Mr. President, you have no Republicans here. I know you have been
    trying to get some bipartisan support. Do you think now this is fated to
    be filibustered and won't----
        The President. Why don't I ask maybe one of the Senators to discuss
    that. Senator Boren and I have already talked about it. Senator
    Mitchell.
        Senator Mitchell. We've reached out to Republican Senators. Senator
    Boren and Senator Ford have met individually with a large number of
    Republican Senators. And as you know, yesterday a group of five of them
    sent me a letter detailing concerns they have and principles they hold
    with respect to campaign finance reform. And we're going to continue our
    dialog with them. Having received the letter, it's my hope that we can
    shortly meet with them, talk with them, and work together to try to
    achieve a bipartisan bill.
        Q. Well, is the issue of public financing negotiable?
        Senator Mitchell. Well, we think that the bill the President has
    presented is the right way to go. Obviously, we're going to listen to,
    consider thoughtfully and seriously suggestions made by anyone,
    especially and including the Republican Senators who sent the letter and
    others. We hope very much that we can reach a bipartisan agreement. We
    passed this bill last year with Republican Senators' votes. We hope we
    can do so again this year.
        The President. I'd like to make two points, if I may. First of all,
    the House Members reminded me in response to the previous question that
    this bill also does something that we don't do now. This limits the
    contributions from individuals that House Members can get above $200 to
    one-third of the total, which is a pretty dramatic change.
        Secondly, I think we ought to hone in on the question you just
    asked, Andrea [Andrea Mitchell, NBC News], in terms of the expressed
    reservations. And I had talks with Senator Boren and Senator Ford as
    well as Senator Mitchell before we came out here. The people who will
    oppose this bill and will say, well, this is public financing, and we're
    against public financing, and we have so many other needs, how can we
    spend tax dollars on it--I want to make two points. First of all, this
    bill will be financed entirely by repealing the lobbyist tax deduction
    and voluntary contributions from the American people. No taxpayer who's
    paying anything now will pay any more to finance this bill. No
    expenditure now going to the education and welfare or national defense
    of this country will be diverted to pay for this bill, not one red cent.
        The second point I want to make is this: If you wish to limit the
    expenditures on congressional races, as we limit the expenditures in
    Presidential campaigns, it can constitutionally only be done if it is
    tied to the receipt of public financing, because the Supreme Court has
    ruled that a millionaire or a billionaire can spend as much money as
    they want and that anybody can spend as much money as they can raise on
    any campaign, unless there is some benefit tied to it. Correct? So there
    is no way, we will never limit spending in national races unless we can
    tie it to a broad-based stream of financing, accountable to all the
    people. That's why some Republicans voted for this bill 2 years ago.
    They understood this--or last year. And I hope they will again.
        Yes, sir.
        Q. You're stressing no public support here, but on the Presidential
    checkoff and presumably the congressional checkoff and also the loss of
    a deduction of lobbyists, wouldn't that revenue be useful for things
    such as jobs programs and other areas that you favor? How is it not
    public support? Could you go into that a little more deeply?
        The President. Well, that's only if the individual taxpayers want it
    to be diverted to that. If they make a decision to do that in the
    context

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    of a very large budget, it would be a tiny amount that they can divert.
    But their lawmakers will not divert it; the taxpayers can do it. The
    taxpayers won't pay extra. They can say, well, we'll spend up to $5 of
    our money on this. But that is their decision. That's not our decision.
    I like that. I wish we could give people more control over their lives,
    not less. So I think that's an advance.
        Q. Mr. President, on a different subject, now with the Christopher
    mission over, can you tell us what you and the Europeans have
    accomplished? The impression is that despite all of his diplomatic
    skills, that nothing on the ground in Yugoslavia or Bosnia is going to
    change, at least for the foreseeable future.
        The President. I'll be happy to answer that, but if I might, can I
    just answer--and I'll come back to you before I leave, but could we--if
    there are any other questions on this subject from the press, on the
    campaign finance reform. Yes.
        Q. Mr. President, how do you intend to convince the public to spend
    tax dollars on Federal election campaigns? Because, back to Frank's
    [Frank Murray, Washington Times] question, they haven't been checking
    off that dollar. One of the reasons it has to be raised to $5 is because
    the fund is running out of money.
        The President. Why don't you answer this?

    [At this point, Representative Gejdenson, Senator Mitchell, and Senator
    Boren each responded to the question on the voluntary taxpayer checkoff,
    and the Vice President commented on public support for campaign finance
    reform.]

        The President. One of the reasons that I think people will
    participate, by the way, is exemplified by the enormous way that lobby
    registration and disclosure bill carried through the Senate yesterday. I
    think that when it finally got on the floor it was 95 to 2. The only
    argument against this will be, well, there's public money involved. But
    people are smart enough to know that we're paying for it by repealing
    the lobbyist deduction. The public knows that they're not going to get
    the money in their back pocket, and they're not going to get the money
    spent on their favorite program. We're either going to repeal the
    lobbyist deduction and do this and open up this system, or we're not.
    And I think we ought to.
        Let me also say that I think one reason more people will participate
    is, they can see some tangible evidence of political reform which is
    worth their money. I remind you, we had a big outpouring of voters in
    the last election. I don't take full credit for it; they voted for all
    three candidates. But there was a big increase in voter participation, a
    huge increase in voter participation among young people. This White
    House has already received more letters in 1993 than came into the White
    House in the entire year of 1992. People are interested now. They're
    concerned. They want their country back. They want their Government
    back. And I think they will seize this opportunity if we give it to
    them.
        Now, we had a couple of young people who had questions there on
    this. Go ahead.
        Q. I was wondering, because incumbents don't have to spend as much
    money as their challengers, how are you going to make that equal for
    everyone?
        The President. Well, the truth--you can't give the challengers more
    than the incumbents, but--I have two responses. One, as a practical
    matter, what often happens is the incumbents hugely outspend the
    challengers unless the challengers are very well-known or independently
    wealthy, 4 to 1 is the average. So this will even it up. That's a long
    way from 4 to 1.
        The second thing is that all of us who have run in elections know
    that there is a core, a threshold amount of money you have to have to
    make sure your voice is heard. After that, if somebody's got a little
    more, it's not as important. But this will even up the spending, number
    one; and number two, it will bring everybody to that threshold where
    they can be known by the voters and their message can be heard.
        Q. My question is this: Do you feel that PAC's like Emily's List
    that aren't funded by big business and big corporations should be exempt
    from your proposal?
        The President. That's a hot issue up here. The answer is, I don't,
    from the bundling proposal. The question is whether Emily's List or any
    other list not tied to a specific interest group like labor or
    manufacturers or whatever but instead tied to a set of ideas should be
    able to go and gather up contributions from people all over America and
    then send them to the candidates of their choice who may or may not be
    known to the people who gave the money to Emily's List. I can only tell
    you this bill does not explicitly address that.
        My own view is--and I really appreciate the

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    work that Emily's List has done--is that you can't just make an
    exemption for Emily's List. Anybody who says, we stand for certain ideas
    and certain values, whether you like them or not, could do the same
    thing. So I think there's a way that can be compromised. I think, you
    know, you might have Emily's List, for example, or any other similar PAC
    be able to send specific envelopes to their contributors and have the
    contributors send them directly. But my own personal view is that the
    law should be the same for everyone.
        Q. My question is, with the bill that was passed through the Senate,
    and if it is passed through the House, would that hurt or will it help
    your bill if it is passed through legislation?
        The President. It will help. Let me tell you what the difference is.
    The bill that the Senate passed yesterday requires much more extensive
    registration by people who lobby the Congress, so that the press will be
    able to find and tell you who is lobbying on what issues, who they are
    and where they live and what they do. It furthermore now requires the
    Senate and the House Members who receive any kind of benefit like a
    trip, a hunting trip or something like that, that is over a certain
    amount of money, that that has to be disclosed. I think it's over $20,
    isn't it? Over $20. There has to be a record made of that. That will
    almost certainly discourage a number of those things. And if they occur,
    then you'll know what kind of lobbying is really going on. A lot of
    money is spent on that every year. So getting that into the light of day
    is a big deal. If that were to pass the House, that would not--I think
    it would help to pass this, because that bill only deals with the
    activities of lobbyists. It doesn't deal with the activities of
    lobbyists and spending limits and political action committees in
    campaign financing. So I see these two things as going hand-in-hand.
        When I ran for President, I said I wanted to have lobby reform and
    campaign finance reform and motor voter registration and a lot of those
    things which will all fit together to open the system to the people. So
    I think it will help. If the Senate bill passes the House, I think it
    will help campaign finance reform.
        That's a very intelligent question, by the way.
        The Vice President. They're recommending that you just take one more
    because of the group from the----
        The President. They say I can--go ahead. I have a crowd waiting for
    me. I'm sorry. And then I've got to answer your question.
        Q. If the bill doesn't pass, what aspects of it would you be willing
    to change, if any?
        The President. Well, I don't want to say that, because if I do that,
    then the people who don't want it will try to go to the lowest common
    denominator. Senator Boren I think made the comment, or Senator
    Mitchell, one of them talked about the letter that was received from the
    five Republican Senators. So we will see what they have to say as we go
    along. But let's see, first of all, let's see if it can pass the House.
    Let's see how the Democrats feel about it and whether there are some
    Republicans who favor it. And if we can pass it, then we'll go forward.
        I think the key thing, frankly, is whether you could say we
    shouldn't spend taxpayers' money on this when there are so many other
    needs. If that can really be presented, then the opponents will have won
    an enormous victory. They will just keep the system just the way it is.
    When the truth is that we're going to pay for it with voluntary
    contributions and repealing the lobbyist deduction that they've enjoyed
    for 31 years. I think if people see this as a way of controlling
    spending, limiting lobbyists, and limiting PAC's, then the support for
    it will be overwhelming. And that's why we've been so careful in the way
    it's been drawn up.

    Bosnia

        Now, to your question. First, when Secretary Christopher gets back,
    I expect to see him. I also expect to see Senators Nunn and Lugar at a
    minimum from the representatives of--the three Republican and three
    Democratic Senators who have been in the area. Secretary Christopher and
    I will meet with the other members of our national security group, and
    we will see where we go from there.
        But I've been keeping up with this trip as well as with events and
    been making some calls overseas myself. I expect we will be able to
    reach a consensus fairly shortly on which approach to take. And as soon
    as we do, we will announce it and go forward.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:40 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White
    House. A part of the question-and-answer session could not be verified
    because the tape was incomplete.