[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
[September 13, 1997]
[Pages 1159-1160]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



The President's Radio Address
September 13, 1997

    Good morning. America has had a summer of significant achievement, 
as we are working to protect our values and prepare our people for the 
21st century. The balanced budget shows what we can do when we put aside 
partisanship and work for the public interest and our children's future. 
But America can't rest. One of the most important things we can do in 
the next phase of our progress is to pass long-overdue campaign finance 
reform.
    Since I became President, I've worked hard to reform the political 
system to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow. I've acted within 
my executive authority to limit the ability of important executive 
branch appointees to work for foreign governments when they leave 
office. I've worked with Congress to reduce the size of Government to 
its lowest level since President Kennedy was here and to pass sweeping 
lobby reform, limiting gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers. We've also 
gotten the line item veto so the President can cancel wasteful spending, 
but we haven't succeeded in reforming the campaign finance laws, though 
we've been trying for nearly 5 years.
    The campaign finance system we have now, which is over 20 years old, 
has simply been overwhelmed by the rising cost of campaigns, largely 
advertising and other communication costs, and the flood of campaign 
cash required to meet those costs. The amount of money raised by both 
political parties now doubles every 4 years. And the candidates 
themselves are caught up in a fundraising arms race, spending more and 
more time raising more and more money, which is bound to raise more 
questions in the public's mind. The campaign system is broken, and every 
one of us must take responsibility for fixing it.
    I'm doing what I can within the executive branch. I've asked our 
Federal Communications Commission to require media outlets to provide 
candidates with free air time, especially TV air time, which will reduce 
the need for more campaign money. I've also asked the Federal Election 
Commission to ban the large soft-money contributions to political 
parties from corporations, unions, and wealthy individuals. And the 
Justice Department has indicated it will go to court, when appropriate, 
to defend the constitutionality of limited campaign spending.

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    But there is no substitute for strong, bipartisan campaign finance 
reform legislation passed by the Congress. I proposed such reform when I 
ran for President, and I have backed reform legislation every year since 
then. And in every single year, reform has been blocked in the Congress 
by a filibuster in the United States Senate, a procedure by which only 
41 of the 100 Senators can stop a bill from coming to a vote. Now the 
special interests and their allies in Congress are poised to strike 
again, waiting to quietly smother reform with another filibuster. But 
this year they won't get away with it, at least quietly, because 
Senators John McCain, a Republican, and Russ Feingold, a Democrat, have 
pledged to bring their reform legislation to a vote in the Senate this 
month, and all America will be watching.
    On Thursday all 45 Democratic Senators--every single Democrat in the 
Senate--wrote to the Senate leadership in support. I'm very proud of 
them. I'm also proud that citizens' groups, spurred by business 
executives and civic leaders, have gathered one million signatures on a 
petition to Congress advocating campaign finance reform. I'm grateful to 
Presidents Ford and Carter and Bush, all of whom have called for reform. 
They are being joined by dozens of former lawmakers. And the American 
public clearly wants action.
    This is a time of testing for Members of the United States Senate. 
The opponents of reform are gearing up to keep it from coming to a vote 
at all. Let's be clear: A vote to filibuster campaign reform is a vote 
to keep special interest money and kill reform; a vote to filibuster is 
a vote for the status quo. A Senator who votes ``yes'' on a filibuster 
is voting ``yes'' to soft money and ``yes'' to keep the cost of 
campaigns exploding and ``no'' on reform. That vote will be hard to 
explain to the American people.
    This year, despite all the odds, we've got the best chance in a 
generation for reform. Throughout our history, the American people have 
overcome the resistance of entrenched interests to expand our democracy 
and to keep it strong in changing times. Let's make this autumn a season 
of reform in our campaign finance laws.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 6:36 p.m. on September 12 in the 
Roosevelt Room at the White House for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on 
September 13.