    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [February 11, 1997]
    [Pages 145-146]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Campaign Finance Reform Legislation and an Exchange With
    Reporters
    February 11, 1997

        The President. In the State of the Union Address I asked the
    Congress to pass bipartisan campaign finance reform by July the Fourth,
    and I pointed out that delay would mean the death of reform, as it has
    in the last several years. I am very pleased to welcome to the White
    House today this bipartisan group of House Members who are now all
    cosponsors of the Shays-Meehan legislation. They are coming together in
    a bipartisan way to limit the influence of money in our campaigns for
    Congress and in financing the political parties and to level the playing
    field.
        And I feel very, very strongly that they have done a good thing for
    our country. I am supporting their efforts very strongly, and I want to
    do whatever I can to work with them to help this legislation pass.
        As soon as I leave here I'm going up to the Hill to a meeting of the
    bipartisan leadership of Congress, to which the Speaker and Senator Lott
    invited me after the State of the Union. And this is one of the issues I
    intend to raise there. I'm very encouraged by what I've heard here
    today, and we're determined to go forward.
        Mr. Vice President.

    [At this point, the Vice President, Representative Christopher Shays,
    and Representative Martin T. Meehan made brief remarks.]

        The President. Thank you all.
        Q. Isn't this blocking the barn after the horse has gone?
        The President. No. How can you say that? There will be a whole set
    of new elections up. There are elections in '98; there are elections in
    2000; there are elections in 2002. I hope there will be elections 200
    years from now.
        Q. Is this all a product of lessons learned from the last campaign?
        The President. No. Most of these people have wanted to do this for
    many years. Keep in mind, we had--in each of the last 4 years we had a
    serious campaign finance reform effort that died because of the
    parliamentary procedures in the Senate which permit 40 plus 1 to block a
    vote and because we didn't have more of this. I think this is the most
    important thing. The House is staking out a position--these Members
    are--that they're going to try to reach not only across party lines but
    across philosophical lines. I mean, just look around this table here and
    you'll see people who differ on a lot of substantive issues but want to
    change the rules by which they work in the public interest. That's
    really, to me, the most encouraging thing.
        If you look around this table you see not only party difference, you
    see people from every region in our country, you see people who are in
    various different positions on the substance of most of the major issues
    facing us. But they are united in wanting to change the rules. And I
    think that there can be an engine of bipartisan and grassroots reform
    here that we have not seen before. People have wanted to do this for a
    long time, but I think they've got a chance to break through the last
    dam and get the job done. And I'm going to support them every way I can.

    O.J. Simpson Civil Trial

        Q. Mr. President, how disturbing is it to you that black and white
    jurors and black and white Americans in general viewed the same evidence
    in the O.J. Simpson trial but came generally to drastically different
    conclusions?

    [[Page 146]]

        The President. Well, first of all, as to the jury verdict, I have
    nothing to add to what I said after the last jury verdict. We have a
    system here in this country which I think we should all respect. The
    only people who heard all the evidence were the people who were sitting
    in the jury box, in both cases. And civil trials and criminal trials are
    very different in different ways. So I have nothing to add to that. I
    respect the jury verdict.
        And in terms of the way Americans see the world differently,
    generally based on their race, that troubles me, and I spoke about it at
    some length at the University of Texas last year when we had the Million
    Man March here in Washington, and I was down there. I think the only
    answer to that is for us to spend more time listening to each other and
    try to put ourselves in each other's shoes and understand why we see the
    world in different ways and keep trying to overcome that.
        I would say that even though it's disturbing, we have succeeded so
    far in managing the world's most multiethnic, diverse democracy better
    than a lot of countries that are smaller than we are with fewer
    differences within them. And we just--this is a work that's never done--
    that our different attitudes, our different viewpoints in some ways are
    the great strength of America, but if they're too--if we're too
    estranged, if the divide is too great, then we can't hold the country
    together. And we just have to keep working on it. And I intend to--I've
    worked on it hard for 4 years; we're talking about what else we might
    do.
        But in terms of the jury verdict, that's the system we have in
    America. It's over as far as I'm concerned. We need to get on with other
    things. But we always need to be working to try to bridge these divides
    between us.

    Budget Negotiations

        Q. Mr. President, what are you hoping to achieve in the budget talks
    today? What are you hoping to achieve in budget talks this morning?
        The President. The next step of what we talked about--what I talked
    about at the State of the Union. I think we have got an enormous
    opportunity here to do great things together, because I think there is a
    consensus all across the country and among both parties that we have a
    lot of great challenges, some significant, indeed, unparalleled
    opportunities. And the whole system is kind of tending toward movement
    instead of paralysis again. And that's a good thing for America. And I'm
    going to do what I can to keep it going this morning.

    Note: The President spoke at 10 a.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White
    House prior to a meeting with bipartisan congressional cosponsors of the
    ``Campaign Reform Act of 1997.''