[Pages S10060-S10082]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT,
1999

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now
resume consideration of S. 2237, which the clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

A bill (S. 2237) making appropriations for the Department
of the Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year
ending September 30, 1999, and for other purposes.

The Senate resumed consideration of the bill.
Pending:
McCain Amendment No. 3554, to reform the financing of Federal
elections.

Amendment No. 3554

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will observe that the pending
amendment is numbered 3554.
Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, while we are on the Interior
appropriations bill, the current amendment is the McCain-Feingold
campaign financing amendment. Whether we will use all of the time of
the Senate between now and the time for a vote on a motion for cloture
on the amendment, I am not certain.
However, it is very unlikely, I say to my colleagues, that we will
debate contested amendments to the Interior appropriations bill before
we have completed debate on McCain-Feingold. However, we are available
to deal with amendments that can be worked out and agreed to which we
will send up and deal with if there are any short spaces of time in
which Members are not available to discuss the McCain-Feingold bill.
Members who have interests in the Interior appropriations bill who have
amendments that they think will be accepted or can be worked out should
be in contact with me or with staff of the Appropriations Committee,
and we will attempt to work them in whenever it is convenient to do so.
Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, first I mention a scheduling item. I am
confident that the agreement we reached yesterday was that there would
be a vote either late tomorrow afternoon or early evening. Now I am
told that there may be some Members on the other side who want to have
an earlier vote. Mr. President, I will not agree to such a thing. I
believe that we need more than 2 days' debate on this issue even though
we have been over this issue many times before. I just want to tell my
colleagues on both sides, but particularly on the other side of the
aisle, I understand there are personal commitments and we will try to
accommodate those, but to have a vote earlier than very late tomorrow
afternoon or tomorrow evening I think would not be in keeping with the
agreement that we reached yesterday.
This is not a happy time for America. It is not a happy time for the
institutions of government, especially the Presidency, but also the
Congress. We are going through a very wrenching and difficult episode
which already, I think most of us would agree, ranks in the first order
of crises that affect this country. And it affects us. As I have said
on numerous occasions, all of us are tarred by a brush when the
institutions of government are diminished and affected by scandal. But
it also points out the criticality of us addressing this issue of
campaign finance reform now rather than later. In today's newspaper,
``Reno Sets 90-day Clinton Probe'':

Attorney General Janet Reno yesterday opened a preliminary
investigation of President Clinton that could lead to an
independent counsel probe of allegations that he orchestrated
a plan to violate spending limits for his 1996 reelection
campaign. . . .The new Clinton inquiry was triggered by a
preliminary report last month from the Federal Election
Commission auditors. The auditors concluded that the DNC ads
about issues such as Medicare and the budget amounted to
``electioneering'' on the President's behalf, and the
Clinton-Gore campaign should be required to reimburse the
government for the entire $13.4 million it received in
Federal matching funds.

This morning, in most of the major newspapers in America, there is a
poll that is conducted by the Terrence Group and Lake, Snell, Perry and
Associates--one Democrat and one Republican polling group: ``What do
you think is the number one problem today? Moral-religious issues, 14
percent; crime and drugs, 14 percent; economy and jobs, 13 percent.''
Mr. President, perhaps moral and religious issues have been a No. 1
priority in America before, but I don't think there is any doubt that
that is the case today. ``Which of the following issues do you want
Congress to focus on? Restoring moral values, 22 percent; improving
education, 19 percent; reducing taxes and Federal spending, 13
percent.''
Mr. President, when 22 percent of the American people say they
believe that restoring values is the No. 1 issue they want Congress to
focus on, I don't believe they are just referring to the problems
concerning the Presidency and that crisis. I think they are talking
about the fact that they don't believe that they, as individual
citizens, are represented here in the Congress in the legislative
process. I think they believe that special interests rule. I believe
they are concerned that no longer are their concerns paramount, but
only those of major contributors.
The effect of this was manifested just yesterday in my home State of
Arizona in the primary that was held, as has been true throughout the
country. It was the lowest voter turnout, as a percentage, of any time
in the history of my State. I don't think that voters didn't turn out
to vote in the primary in Arizona yesterday because of their anger--
which may be justified--at the President of the United States; I think
they didn't turn out because they believe that the present system of
financing campaigns results in an exclusion of them in the legislative
process; their homes and their dreams and aspirations for themselves
and their families are no longer reflected here in the Congress of the
United States.
Mr. President, the amendment at the desk, which is commonly known as
the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation, is amended by
Senators Snowe and Jeffords. This amendment would begin to reform a
severely broken campaign finance system. Early last month, the Members
of the other body did what the Senate has failed to do, and that is to
pass genuine campaign finance reform. By so doing, they have given
Members of this body who support reform encouragement that Congress, at
long last, may accede to the wishes of the majority in both Houses of
Congress and to the wishes of the vast majority of the people we
represent by repairing a campaign finance system that has become a
national embarrassment and assails the integrity of the office that we
are privileged to hold.
I want to commend and thank Representatives Shays and Meehan, and
many other Members of the other body, whose courage and determination
have given us a chance to reclaim the respect of the American people. I
appeal to all Members of the Senate to listen to the majority of our
colleagues in the other body, and to the majority of Senators, and
seize this historic opportunity to give the Nation a campaign finance
system that is worthy of the world's greatest democracy.
Mr. President, no Washington pundit thought that the House would
actually

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pass campaign finance reform, but it did. It was not an easy fight. But
those in favor of reform prevailed. I hope the majority in the Senate
that favors reform will be able to prevail here. A majority in the
House passed reform because the American people demand it. Members of
the House recognized that the current system is awash in money,
exploited loopholes, and publicly perceived corruption. It is a system
that no Member of Congress should take pride in defending.
Before I discuss the matter more fully, I want to remind my
colleagues of three points. One, for reform to become law, it must be
bipartisan. This is a bipartisan bill. It is a bill that affects both
parties in a fair and equal manner.
Two, reform must seek to reduce the role of money in politics.
Spending on campaigns in current inflation-adjusted dollars continues
to rise. In constant dollars, the amount spent on House and Senate
races in 1976 was $318 million. By 1986 that total had risen to $645
million, and in 1996 it was $765 million. Including the Presidential
races, over a billion dollars was spent in the last campaign. As the
need for money escalates, the influence of those who have it
rises exponentially.

Three, reform must seek a level playing field between challengers and
incumbents. Our bill achieves this by recognizing the fact that
incumbents must always raise more money than challengers. As a general
rule, the candidate with the most money wins the race. If money is
forced to play a lesser role, then challengers will have a better
chance.
The amendment before the Senate achieves these three points. Is the
measure perfect? No. Is it a legitimate start for discussion? Yes. For
that reason, I hope my colleagues will support cloture and allow the
Senate to work its will, to improve the measure where necessary, and
begin a real dialog with the House on what can and should be sent to
the President for his signature.
I want to repeat that this is the Senate's opportunity to not only do
what is right but what is necessary. Washington has lately become
synonymous with scandal, but for all the recent scintillating
revelations, the real scandal--a scandal that will not go away--is the
money that is and has been corrupting our elections. Unless this Senate
finds the courage to act, that scandal will not subside.
Some will come to the floor and state that we do not need to reform
how campaigns are run. They will state instead that we should simply
enforce the laws that already exist. Mr. President, with all due
respect, this argument is specious. Republicans demanded that the
welfare system be reformed not only because it was the right thing to
do but because the system was riddled with loopholes and was being
abused and exploited. We didn't sit back and simply challenge the
executive branch to enforce the laws. We acted, we changed the law, and
we changed it in our society for the better. Let's do the same now.
I know that many colleagues think this refrain has become all too
familiar, and they are correct. This is not the first time our campaign
finance system has been in need of reform, and it will undoubtedly not
be the last, because as time passes, the flaws and loopholes in the law
become more evidence. It is at that time that the Congress has
historically done what is needed; it has passed campaign finance
reform.

The underlying purpose of this movement for the publication
of contributions made for campaign purposes is to limit
expenditures in political contests to legitimate purposes and
to lessen the use of money in political elections.

So said Senator Culberson in 1908.
Senator Culberson inserted into the Record many letters, many of
which could have been written today:

For some years there has been earnest agitation of the
question of enforcing campaign contributions relating to
national elections. A strong public sentiment has been
created in favor of this important regulation. In obedience
to this sentiment, a bill is now pending in Congress
providing for the desired publicity. The question is whether
the bill will be passed, defeated, or smothered.

The letter continues:

No party should be afraid to go before the country with a
record of its campaign financiering.
No candidate for office should hesitate to have the people
know the sources of campaign money. In other words, such
contributions should come only from legitimate sources, and
only money from such sources would be accepted, if the facts
had to be made public: Hence, the great importance of
publicity. The people do not want successful candidates to
owe their elections to special interests affected by the
subsequent administrations of such candidates. Such favors
and obligations they involve are absolutely against the
principles of honest government, whether that government be
national, State, or municipal.

In the House that same year 1908, Congressman Sulzer stated:

In my opinion, this publicity campaign contribution bill is
one of the most important measures before this House. It is a
bill for more honest elections, to more effectively safeguard
the elected franchise, and it affects the entire people of
this country. It concerns the honor of the country. The
honest people of the land want it passed. All parties should
favor it. Recent investigations conclusively demonstrate how
important to all the people of the country is the speedy
enactment of this bill.

Remember, this statement was made in 1908.

In every national contest of recent years the campaign has
been a disgraceful scramble to see which party could raise
the most money, not for legitimate expenses but to carry a
system of political iniquity that will not and cannot bear
the light of publicity. Political corruption dreads the sun
of publicity and works in the secret of darkness . . .
Napoleon said victory was on the side of the heaviest guns.
There are many thoughtful people in this country who have
been saying since 1896 that the political victory in our
Presidential contest is on the side of the campaign committee
which can raise the largest boodle fund.
This important bill for publicity of campaign contributions
is a nonpartisan measure. There should be no politics in it.
We should all advocate from patriotic motives; but some of
the gentlemen on the other side are injecting party politics
into it, and are doing everything in their power to prevent
the Members of this House who sincerely favor the bill from
having the opportunity to vote for it. . . It is a shame the
way this bill is being strangled to death.

In 1908, Congress went on to do the people's bidding. It passed the
campaign finance reform legislation.
In 1947, Senator Ellender stood on this floor, and stated:

It came to my attention as chairman of that committee--and
this feeling is shared by committee members joining me in
sponsoring this bill--that the present statutes dealing with
elections, campaign expenditures, and contributions, and
limitations thereon, are utterly inadequate and unrealistic
and as now in force and do not begin to accomplish the
purposes for which they were enacted. . .
I may state, Mr. President, that our committee last year
found that many corporations and some labor organizations had
spent thousands of dollars in Federal elections, but we could
not force them to report for the reason that the money
expended was not considered as contributions. So this bill
requires any money spent to be reported by whoever makes the
expenditure.
Experience has shown that some corporations and labor
unions have spent money directly on behalf of a party or
candidate and thus I invaded the application of the
prohibition upon contributions.

In 1947 the Congress, again, responded to the public's disdain for
the way our campaigns are financed and passed campaign finance reform
legislation.
In 1974, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, the Congress
again passed campaign finance reform legislation.
Mr. President, after what we know about the last election, it is time
again to pass campaign finance reform legislation.
Mr. President, recently there was given to me a memo that is public
knowledge: The Democratic National Committee, Democratic National
Committee Managing Trustee Events and Membership Requirements Events;
two annual Managing Trustee Events where the President in Washington,
DC, attended; two annual meetings, trustee event for the Vice
President, et cetera. It is kind of a standard thing that you see on
these kind of things. But the thing that is interesting about this is
the fifth one down, ``Annual Economic Trade Missions.'' ``Managing
trustees are invited to participate in foreign trade missions, which
affords opportunities to join Party leaders in meeting with business
leaders abroad.''
Another memorandum that was given to me of May 5, 1994, to Anne
Cahill from Martha Phipps:

White House Activities: In order to reach our very
aggressive goal of $40 million this year, it would be very
helpful if we could coordinate the following activities
between the White House and Democratic National Committee: 1.
Two reserved seats on Air Force

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One; and, 2. Six seats at all White House private dinners.

No. 4: ``Invitations to participate in official delegation trips
abroad. Contact: Alexis Herman.''
Mr. President, that is wrong. We know that is wrong. And the people
who did it knew that it was wrong at the time. That is not an
appropriate use of official trade missions.
This gives rise to all the speculation and allegations concerning the
transfer of technology to China. It makes it much more logical or
believable when you read about these kinds of things.
Mr. President, I know this legislation is not perfect. I know that if
given the opportunity to offer amendments, many Members would do
exactly that, and the measure could be improved.
For example, I think there would be a majority vote in this body that
would raise the individual spending limits to the level of $1,000,
which it was in 1974, that some here may not agree with. But I believe
the majority would.
I believe that the Snowe-Jeffords amendment went a long way towards
leveling the playing field as far as unions, businesses, and
corporations are concerned. I know that there are other ways we could
improve this legislation. I know that we can do that if my colleagues
would vote for cloture.
I appeal to my colleagues to muster the courage that led to reform in
1908, 1947, and 1974.
Mr. President, I ran for public office first in 1982. It was not the
kind of money in that campaign that I see today. When I meet a young
man or woman who is interested in public office nowadays--I used to ask
them, ``How do you feel about smaller government, taxes, less
regulation?'' We would have discussions of the issues. Now there is
only one question you ask a young man or woman who is interested in
seeking public office. And I might add it seems to be fewer and fewer.
The only question is, ``Where is the money? Where is the money?''
Because, if they don't have the money, obviously no matter how they
stand on the issues, no matter how principled they are, and how
impressive their resume might be, their chances of achieving public
office are dramatically diminished.
I know that many on this side of the aisle don't agree with all of
the provisions of the amendment. I know they recognize that there is a
problem--a problem that we have to address.
This is our opportunity, and if we opt to gridlock over results, we
will only fuel the cynicism of the American electorate.
I want to point out again, every political expert is predicting that
we will have the lowest voter turnout in this upcoming election than at
any time in history. I think that is a sad commentary.
I hope we will do what is right to take such steps as necessary to
pass meaningful campaign finance reform. Should we fail, we will have
only ourselves to blame for the low esteem in which we are held by the
American people. We will have done our part to degrade the high office
to which we have been elected. We will by our inaction contribute to
the alienation of the American people from the people who have sworn an
oath to defend their interests.
As I mentioned, Mr. President, yesterday was primary day in Arizona.
Turn out was an all-time low, indicating another record-setting low
turnout election day. I have no doubt whatsoever that the way in which
we finance our campaigns has in no small measure contributed to the
abysmal commentary of the health of our democracy. The people's
contempt--there is no more charitable way to describe it--for us and
for the way in which we attain our privileged place in government
cannot be sustained perpetually. We will someday pay a high price for
our inattention to this problem. We will forfeit our ability to lead
the country as we meet the complicated challenges confronting us at the
end of this century because we have so badly squandered the public
respect necessary to persuade the Nation to take the often difficult
actions that are required to defend the Nation's interests.
Our ability to lead depends solely on the public's trust in us. Mr.
President, people do not trust us today. And that breach, that
calamity, is what the supporters of campaign finance reform intend to
repair. I beg all of my colleagues to join in this effort and give our
constituents a reason to again trust us, and to take pride in the
institution we are so proud to serve.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Several Senators addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, some in the press have suggested there
is a sense of momentum for this issue because it passed the House of
Representatives. I would remind my colleagues that a measure similar to
this passed the House in the 101st Congress, the 102d Congress, and the
103d Congress. So it is not unusual, I would say, for the House of
Representatives to pass this kind of legislation. It has happened
before, and I would say it does not reveal any sense of momentum behind
a plan that is constitutionally flawed. Speaking of the Constitution,
we were on this same issue last fall and then we were on it again in
February. The outcome was the same during those debates, and in a sense
what we are doing is having the same debate once again.
There have been suggestions, particularly on the other side, that the
courts might be open to changing the Buckley case or revisiting it in
some way. So I think it is always appropriate, when we have these
periodic campaign finance debates, to bring my colleagues up to date on
what has been happening in the courts. As we all know, the so-called
reformers have been out around the country seeking to get new laws on
the books at various States and localities, some by referendum, some by
State statute. All of those, of course, are subsequently found in the
courts, in litigation. So what I would like to do here at the outset is
give my colleagues an update on what is happening in the courts; all of
these court cases, by the way, reaffirming Buckley in one way or
another.
I would remind everyone--I think everyone in this Chamber surely
knows the Buckley case, Buckley v. Valeo, the landmark case in the area
of campaign finance reform which has not been changed by any of the
courts over the last almost 25 years. In fact, court decisions have
deepened and broadened areas of permissible political speech over the
quarter of a century since this landmark case, widely thought to have
been written by Justice Brennan. So let me just run down a few cases
that have been decided just since April of this year, since there is a
good deal of litigation emanating from these State efforts to restrict
the rights of people to be involved in political activity.
On April 17, in Americans for Medical Rights v. Heller, the United
States District Court for the District of Nevada held that the Nevada
State Constitution could not be enforced so as to prevent issue
advocacy groups from contributing more than $5,000 to a ballot
initiative. This was a court response to an effort to try to shut up
groups in criticizing politicians--very similar to the measure
currently before us which seeks to make it essentially impossible for a
group to criticize a politician in proximity to an election.
On April 27, in Kruse v. Cincinnati, the United States Court of
Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that a Cincinnati ordinance placing
spending caps on campaigns for city council violated the first
amendment. This case is noteworthy. Here was a conscious effort on the
part of the city council in Cincinnati to get a court, some court, to
revisit the question of whether spending limits were permissible. This
is something the Buckley case struck down forthwith, and forthrightly.
That effort to get the court to reverse its decision was unsuccessful.
On April 29, in North Carolina Right to Life v. Bartlett, the U.S.
District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina held a State
statute that attempted to regulate issue advocacy groups as
unconstitutional. That is the same issue we have before us in the
McCain-Feingold amendment, the effort by the Government to try to
regulate constitutionally protected issue advocacy.
On June 1, in FEC v. Akins, the Supreme Court held that voters have
standing to challenge the FEC's dismissal of an administrative
complaint. Although the Court remanded the case for further
proceedings, the Court strongly suggested that a membership
organization's communications with

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its own members would not meet the definition of ``expenditures''
subject to regulation by Congress.
In another case, on June 1, in Right to Life of Dutchess County v.
FEC, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
joined a chorus of many other Federal groups in striking down--striking
down--an FEC regulation that prohibited corporate speech, even though
that speech stopped short of the ``express advocacy'' standard adopted
in the Buckley case.
Then on June 4, in Russell v. Burris, the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Eighth Circuit held that contribution limits of $300 to certain
State candidates violated the first amendment and that special
privileges to so-called ``small donor'' PACs violated the equal
protection clause.
On June 11, in State of Washington v. 119 Vote No!, the Supreme Court
of Washington held that a State statute which prohibits a person from
sponsoring, with actual malice, a political advertisement containing a
false statement of material fact to be facially unconstitutional.
On July 21, in Virginia Society for Human Life v. Caldwell, the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that a Virginia campaign
finance statute could not reach the conduct of groups that engaged in
issue advocacy.
On July 23, in Shrink Missouri Government PAC v. Adams, the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that a first amendment
challenge of a State statute limiting campaign contributions was so
likely to succeed that a preliminary injunction should issue preventing
Missouri from enforcing the statute.
On July 23, in Suster v. Marshall, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Sixth Circuit enjoined the enforcement of a provision of the Ohio Code
of Judicial Conduct which capped spending in a judicial election for
the Ohio Common Pleas Court at $75,000--again, a court decision
striking down spending limits.
On August 10, in Alaska Civil Liberties Union v. the State of Alaska,
the Superior Court for the State of Alaska granted summary judgment,
ruling Alaska's campaign finance reform legislation unconstitutional
and, therefore, null and void.
Finally, on August 11, in Vannatta v. Keisling, the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that an Oregon ballot measure passed
into law which prohibited State candidates from using or directing any
contributions from out-of-district residents and penalizing candidates
when more than 10 percent of their total funding comes from such
individuals does not survive scrutiny under the first amendment.
My reason for the recitation of these cases is these are cases just
since April, and every single one of them, at least three of which are
right on the point of issue advocacy, which is what we have before us
today, have ruled these government restrictions unconstitutional.
So there is virtually no chance--no chance--that the restrictions on
citizens' ability to engage in issue advocacy contained in McCain-
Feingold will be upheld as constitutional. There is certainly no
evidence that the courts are moving in the direction of allowing
governments at any level to restrain the voices of citizens at any time
in proximity to an election or any other time.
Mr. President, issue advocacy is, of course, as I said,
constitutionally protected speech. The New York Times, the Washington
Post, and USA Today are some of the most aggressive users of issue
advocacy. These multimillion-dollar corporations express themselves
without limitation at any point, both in the news sections and on the
editorial pages. They are the practitioners of the first amendment.
The problem with the New York Times, the Washington Post, and USA
Today is that they think the first amendment only applies to them. It
is amusing to look at the amount of space dedicated over the last 2
years by these three newspapers to their efforts to aid and abet those
who would shut up citizens and make it difficult for them to exercise
their constitutional rights.
Just looking at the New York Times, they have editorialized on the
subject of campaign finance reform between July 1, 1997, and September
9, 1998, 82 times. The average number of days between campaign finance
editorials in the New York Times is 8. On the average, every 8 days,
the New York Times is lobbying for campaign finance reform, which they
have a constitutional right to do. What is particularly amusing is the
way in which they do it, which is remarkably similar to issue advocacy
that groups engage in frequently on television.

The typical issue ad says at the end of the ad, ``Call Congressman''
so-and-so ``and tell him to either keep on doing what he is doing'' or
``stop doing what he is doing.'' I thought it was particularly amusing
that the April 21, 1998, editorial in the New York Times was just like
issue advocacy. The same opportunity they would deny to anyone else,
they engaged in themselves.
They opined here about the importance of passing their version of
campaign finance reform and then listed Members of the House and their
phone numbers--exactly the kind of thing they don't want anybody else
to do. Exactly the kind of thing they would prohibit every other
American citizen from doing in proximity to an election, they are doing
right here on the editorial page.
Of course, the newspapers are exempt from the Federal Election
Campaign Act. I think they should be exempt, but I find it disingenuous
in the extreme for them to engage in the very same practice. This is a
huge, multi-, probably billion-dollar, American corporation, a
corporation engaging in issue advocacy, putting the heat on elected
officials, putting their phone numbers in there, saying call them--call
them up and tell them to do this or not to do that. That is what they
don't want anybody else in America to be able to do.
Mr. President, part of what is at the root of this debate is: Who is
going to have the opportunity to express themselves, who is going to be
able to engage in political discourse, in this country? Just newspapers
and nobody else? Boy, that would be a good deal for them. That is
exactly what they have in mind, because they practice issue advocacy
every day, and sometimes it is remarkably similar to the issue ads you
see on television run by organized labor, or plaintiffs' lawyers, or
you name it. ``Call Congressman'' so-and-so, ``and tell him to do''
this or do that, it said in the New York Times of April 21.
The Washington Post has been not far behind, another megacorporation
which exists for the purpose of influencing political discourse in this
country. This big corporation, of course, like the other big
corporation I just mentioned, the New York Times, is exempt from the
Federal Election Campaign Act, and this big corporation, too, would
like to restrict the speech of other American citizens in order to
enhance its own views.
On the subject of campaign finance reform, going back to January 1,
1997, the Washington Post has written 53 editorials. The average number
of days between editorials on campaign finance reform in the Washington
Post is 12. So, Mr. President, every 12 days, this great, huge American
corporation is lobbying the Congress to take a particular position on
campaign finance reform.
I defend their right to do it, but I find it amusing--if not really
troubling more than amusing--that this kind of corporation should have
this kind of influence and everybody else in society in proximity to an
election would be essentially muffled from being able to mention a
candidate's name in proximity to an election.
So some big corporations would have an advantage; others a
disadvantage. That is what the Washington Post would like--more power
and more advantage. USA Today, another huge American corporation--
between January 1, 1997, and today, USA Today has run 25 editorials on
the subject of campaign finance reform. That is an average of one every
25 days--another major American corporation seeking to influence the
course of this legislation, which also supports McCain-Feingold, which
would make it impossible for anybody else to do the same thing in
proximity to an election.
The USA Today editorial just yesterday was remarkably akin to an
issue ad, Mr. President, remarkably akin to an issue ad, just like the
New York Times editorial back in April I mentioned awhile ago. They
state their case on the editorial page, and then they list all the
Republican Senators, and particularly they highlight those

[[Page S10064]]

who are up for reelection this year. And they put their phone numbers
by their names. Issue advocacy, Mr. President; within 60 days of an
election.
Under the bill they support, over at USA Today, nobody else in
America could do this, could mention a candidate's name within 60 days
of an election. So this big corporation would have its power further
enhanced by the quieting of the voices of everybody else in America who
sought to express themselves within 60 days of an election by maybe
saying something unkind about some Member of Congress.
So, Mr. President, there isn't any question; there is an enormous
transfer of influence and power to the part of corporate America that
owns and operates newspapers. Of course they are enthusiastic about
this kind of legislation. This industry, the newspaper industry, which
already has an enormous amount of power, would be dramatically more
powerful if the kind of legislation we have before us were passed.
Some would argue there is a media loophole in the Federal Election
Campaign Act because they are exempt from all of these restrictions
that currently apply to everybody else, and certainly would be exempt
of the greater restrictions that this legislation seeks to place on
Americans of all kinds.
Mr. President, there are some Americans who believe that newspapers
are a bigger problem, a bigger problem than campaign contributors.
There was an interesting article back on October 21, 1997--excuse me,
Mr. President, it is a Rasmussen poll, an interesting finding.

More than 80% of Americans would like to place restrictions
on the way that newspapers cover political campaigns. In
fact, restricting newspaper coverage is far more popular than
public funding of campaigns.

Restrictions on newspaper coverage is far more popular than public
funding of campaigns. This is the American people in a poll in late
1997 discussing the influence of newspapers on the political process.
Further, in the description of the poll finding, it says:

One reason for the public desire to restrict newspapers is
that Americans think reporters and editorial writers have a
bigger impact on elections than campaign contributions.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. McCONNELL. Not at the moment.

The Rasmussen Research survey found that 68% of Americans
believe newspaper editorials are more important than a $1,000
contribution. Only 17% think such contributions have a bigger
impact.
Americans may also support restrictions on reporters
because more than seven-out-of-ten believe personal
preferences of reporters influence their coverage of
politics. In fact, Americans overwhelmingly believe (by a 61%
to 19% margin) that a candidate preferred by reporters will
beat a candidate who raises more money.

Let me repeat that, Mr. President. This comprehensive poll of
American citizens on the influence of newspapers, in late 1997, found
that Americans, by a margin of 61 percent to 19 percent, believe that a
candidate preferred by reporters will beat a candidate who raises more
money.
Mr. President, I am making these points somewhat tongue in cheek
because, obviously, I am not advocating restrictions on newspapers. But
what I find particularly outrageous is newspapers advocating
restrictions on everyone else. Who are they to think that they are the
only ones who are to have influence in the American political process?
Richard Harwood of the Washington Post, on October 15, 1997, made
some interesting points along those lines. Mr. Harwood said:

It is fortunate for the press in the United States that the
voice of the people is not the voice of God or the Supreme
Court.
That is because Americans, in the mass, believe in ``free
speech'' and a ``free press'' only in theory. In practice
they reject those concepts.
That was the troubling conclusion drawn, ironically, from a
major study of public opinion commissioned in 1990 by
the American Society of Newspaper Editors as part of the
observance of the 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights.
. . .

.So this was a survey taken, I guess, by the Louis Harris
organization for the Center for Media and Public Affairs. And Mr.
Harwood points out the findings are, as he puts it, ``depressing.''
The first point in this survey of the American people, Harwood, in
talking about the American people, said:

If they had their way, ``the people''--meaning a majority
of adults--would not allow journalists to practice their
trade without first obtaining, as lawyers and doctors must, a
license.

The second finding of this survey:

[The people] would confer on judges the power to impose
fines on publishers and broadcasters for ``inaccurate and
biased reporting''. . . .

Third:

They would empower government entities to monitor the work
of journalists for fairness and compel us to ``give equal
coverage to all sides of a controversial issue.'' They also
favor the creation of local and national news councils to
investigate complaints against the press and issue
``corrections'' of erroneous news reports.

Harwood further points out, at the end of his article:

So press freedoms remain, as in the past, dependent not on
the goodwill of the masses but on the goodwill and
philosophical disposition of the nine men and women of the
Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. President, I make those points to illustrate that the principal
beneficiaries of the amendment before us are the huge corporations of
America that control the press. They almost uniformly support
legislation that would quiet the voices, at least in 60 days' proximity
to an election, of all other American citizens, thereby enhancing the
ability of newspapers to control the outcome of American elections.
The good news, Mr. President, is we are not going to pass this
legislation. The further good news is the courts would not uphold this
legislation if we did pass it. I just mentioned three cases that have
been handed down in the last 6 months indicating that Government
restrictions on issue advocacy, tried by State governments, is clearly
unconstitutional.
But what is truly disturbing in this free country, Mr. President, is
that these big corporations that own these newspapers are so
aggressively advocating efforts to quiet the voices of other American
citizens.
It is truly alarming that in 1998 these big corporations, which
already have enormous influence in our country, want to have even more.
In fact, they want to have a monopoly on influence in proximity to an
election. And as we all know, they are perfectly free to do editorials,
both on the front page and on the editorial page--and do--up to and
including the day before the election. And I defend their right to do
it.
But what is disturbing is they do not want to let anybody else have
their say. So this legislation, Mr. President, dramatically benefits
the fourth estate at the expense of other citizens in our country.
Now, finally, before going to Senator Byrd, I have heard it said that
we need to pass this kind of legislation. I have heard for over a
decade we need to pass this kind of legislation in order to restore the
faith of the American people in the Congress. In October of 1994, in
the waning days of the end of Democrat control of this Congress, only
27 percent of the American people approved of the Congress. As of this
past week, the congressional approval rating was 55 percent. Now, the
55 percent approval rating Congress has today comes after two Federal
elections, 1994 and 1996, with record spending, three intervening
filibusters of McCain-Feingold and its ancestor, Boren-Mitchell, and
even the Clinton-Gore fundraising scandal.
Clearly, Mr. President, there is no political imperative to pass
campaign finance bills that are unconstitutional. To suggest that the
Congress is still unpopular--which it isn't--or that when it was
unpopular it was somehow related to this issue simply cannot be
supported by the facts.
Bill Schneider, a reputable pollster who works for CNN, back in
February of this year had an interesting article in the National
Journal. This was when the approval rating of Congress began to turn
around. He pointed out in February 14 of this year:

For the first time in at least 25 years, a majority of
Americans approve of the way Congress is doing its job.
Congress--perhaps the most ridiculed institution in America
--has rarely gotten above a 40 per cent job-approval rating
since 1974. Now, it's at 56 per cent.

That was then; it is 55 percent now.
``What's going on here?'' said Bill Schneider.

A balanced budget, a booming economy and--not the least
important--a smaller government. ``We have the smallest
government

[[Page S10065]]

in 35 years, but a more progressive one,'' the President
said. Right now, trust in government is at its highest level
since the Reagan era, when it was ``morning in America.''

Now, we clearly do not need to pass this unconstitutional legislation
in order to deal with cynicism about the Congress, which enjoys a 55
percent approval rating.
I might say that at the end of the Congress in 1994, I was personally
involved in an all-night filibuster on September 30, 1994. I will never
forget it. It is the only real filibuster we have had here in 10 years.
It was an all-nighter. The cots were out. People were blurry eyed. But
it was a remarkably uplifting event for those of us who were involved
in it. We defeated Boren-Mitchell a mere 5 weeks before the greatest
Republican congressional victory of this century.
Suffice it to say, there is no connection between this issue and
electoral success. The responses you get on polls on this issue depend
on how you ask the question. This is an arcane, complicated subject,
and it is the obligation and the responsibility of Members of the
Senate to protect the Constitution, to protect political discourse in
this country, and to do the right thing one more time.
Mr. President, I am confident that, at the appropriate time, this
amendment will be defeated.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the distinguished Senator yield?
Mr. McCONNELL. Yes, I yield to the Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I wonder if I might get consent to speak on
another matter at the conclusion of the Senator's remarks?
Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Reserving the right to object, I wonder if the Senator
has any notion about approximately how much time he would consume?
Mr. BYRD. I guess it would be 45 minutes to an hour. It would give
Senators a chance to get lunch.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I would say
in all due respect to the most respected Senator from West Virginia, we
have a limited amount of time to debate this issue. There are Senators
who want to talk on it. I say in all respect to the Senator from West
Virginia, we have just begun this debate. We just had the first opening
statements. If we interrupt for 45 minutes to an hour, I think that
would certainly disrupt this entire debate, which is of the greatest
importance. I hope the Senator from West Virginia, in all great
respect, would understand.
Mr. BYRD. I do understand that. I have to be somewhere else from 1:30
on, for awhile. I had hoped that I might be able to speak out of order
earlier.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, let me indicate, if I may, I will not
object to this Senator's request. But let me say that after this
address I do intend to object to any other discussions about other
matters that do not have to do with the issue before us, before the
scheduled cloture vote. But in this instance I will not object.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator. I hope
that other Senators would permit me to proceed.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, could the Senator at least wait until
12:30, if he has to be someplace at 1:30? We just began. There have
been two statements that have been given on this very important issue.
I understand and appreciate the seniority and respect and dignity that
the Senator from West Virginia has, but this is incredibly disruptive,
which I am sure the Senator from West Virginia can understand.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, will the distinguished Senator yield so I
might reply?
Mr. McCONNELL. I yield to the Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I hope the Senator will remember that debate
on the Interior bill is being interrupted here. I have no objection to
that. And there was a request that there be no amendments until, I
believe it was Friday or Thursday, at some point, or until we vote on
cloture on this matter. I had no objection to that. But I could have
objected. That debate was interrupted. I don't interrupt in debates
very often. I hope the Senator will allow me to proceed in this
instance.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, and I will
not object because of the Senator from West Virginia, but the fact is
we are debating an amendment just as we normally do. And we are under a
unanimous consent agreement, which we normally do. The Senator from
West Virginia could object to us going into session--we all know that--
because we function by unanimous consent. I think it is very
unfortunate that when we have, really, now, a day and a half, and we
just initiated debate on this very, very critical issue, the Senator
has to do that at this time. I will not object.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BYRD. If the Senator from Kentucky will yield, I make the request
I be recognized, upon the conclusion of the remarks by the Senator from
Kentucky, for not to exceed 1 hour.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Hearing none, it is so
ordered.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. McCONNELL. I yield the floor.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. McCONNELL. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from
West Virginia is recognized.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to make brief
remarks before the Senator from West Virginia begins.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I repeatedly asked the Senator from
Kentucky if he would yield for a question about his statements about
the case law, and he refused on several occasions. That is regrettable
because I hope we will have a debate here, but I do appreciate his
review of the case law. I think it is helpful, and I do want to hear
Senator Byrd's remarks very shortly.
Let me quickly point out that I heard the Senator from Kentucky
discussing a Nevada case regarding restriction on spending on issue
advocacy. But the bill before the Senate has no such restriction. So
that case is not applicable to what is before the Senate.
The Senator referred to the Cincinnati spending limits case. The
problem is, our bill before the Senate does not have any spending
limits in it.
The Senator is arguing case law that has absolutely nothing to do
with what we are debating here today. I think that is regrettable
because this is supposed to be a debate about the amendment before the
Senate.
The Senator discussed a case involving in-state contributions. But
there are no in-state limits included in this bill. And the same for
the California case involving small donor----
Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. FEINGOLD. I will yield for a question, yes.
Mr. McCONNELL. The Senator from Kentucky--if the Senator from
Wisconsin was closely listening--didn't claim the cases were about
issue advocacy. What the Senator from Kentucky said is that all the
cases were further reinforcement of the Buckley decision and that
several of the cases were about issue advocacy.
Mr. FEINGOLD. None of the provisions that were specifically cited
with regard to those cases has anything to do with the legislation
before us. I will make the point now and continue to make the point
throughout this debate that when case law is cited, it ought to have
something to do with the matter before the Senate, or that clouds the
issue of constitutionality in a way that is a disservice. If the
Senator from Kentucky is going to make his arguments based on court
cases, he should at least recognize and acknowledge that this version
of the bill does not include many of the red herrings that he keeps
presenting before the Senate. As we say in the law, these cases are
readily distinguishable from the matter before us.
With that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add as
cosponsors to the McCain-Feingold amendment, in addition to Senators
Thompson, Snowe, Collins, and Jeffords, Senators Levin, Glenn,
Lieberman, and Wellstone, who are long-time and vigorous supporters of
this bill.

[[Page S10066]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I very much look forward to the remarks
of the Senator from West Virginia and appreciate his courtesy in
allowing me to speak.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from
West Virginia is recognized for up to 60 minutes.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator, and I
thank, again, all Senators for allowing me to speak at this particular
juncture.
(By unanimous consent, the remarks of Mr. Byrd, Mr. Gramm, Mr.
Feingold pertaining to another subject are printed later in today's
Record.)
Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). The Senator from Wisconsin.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, the McCain-Feingold bill was first
introduced in the fall of 1995, just about 3 years ago. To date, thanks
to the truly extraordinary efforts of our colleagues in the other
House, we are as close as we have ever been to passing that bill and
making a start on cleaning up the corrupt campaign finance system that
has seemed so intractable for so long. As we stand here today, only
eight votes stand between this bill and the President's desk--just
eight votes. Only eight Senators out of all Members of the Congress are
preventing this body from joining the other body in passing campaign
finance reform. Eight Senators are blocking the Senate from banning
soft money.
Mr. President, the time for excuses is over. It is time to finish the
job. It is time to pass campaign finance reform and send it on to the
President.
Let me first take a moment to remind my colleagues of what happened
in the other body the week after we in the Senate left for the August
recess. This campaign finance reform bill that all the pundits thought
was dead and constantly claimed as dead actually passed the other body
by a very strong vote. The vote was 252 to 179. That is right, Mr.
President, 252 to 179 in the House. It wasn't even close. By any
measure, the passage in the House of the Shays-Meehan version of the
McCain-Feingold bill was a landslide. Sixty-one Republicans, over one-
quarter of the Republican caucus in the entire House, voted for this
bill. Mr. President, I think that should answer once and for all the
allegation that the McCain-Feingold bill is a partisan piece of
legislation. It is not.
Sixty-one Republicans would not vote for a bill that is a Trojan
horse for the Democratic Party. No, this bill has now been shown in
both Houses to be a bipartisan solution to a bipartisan problem.
The House vote was the culmination of literally months of debate on
campaign finance reform. The debate actually started, if you can
believe this, on May 21 and did not conclude until August 6. There were
72 amendments offered to the House version of the Shays-Meehan bill.
There were a total of 41 rollcall votes on those amendments. The House
spent over 50 hours debating campaign finance reform, an amount of time
that is almost unprecedented to spend on one bill over there. I think
we do it fairly frequently here, but it is almost unprecedented in the
House.
The opponents of reform tried to take a page from the Senate playbook
and openly proclaimed that they were going to try to kill the bill with
amendments. Just like here, they offered poison pills and they tried to
overwhelm the reformers with just the sheer number of amendments. They
tried to drown them in amendments, but they failed, and they failed
miserably.
In the end, a reform bill emerged and passed the House that retained
all of the essential features of the McCain-Feingold bill--a ban on
soft money, improved disclosure of campaign contributions, codification
of the Supreme Court Beck decision, and provisions designed to deal
with campaign advertising that is dressed up as issue advertising.
After many months of debate in the House, the bill has come back to
the Senate. It is now on the calendar and is awaiting action.
The majority leader objected to bringing up the House-passed version
of McCain-Feingold, but, fortunately, that was not the end of the
matter. Because we have the right as Senators to offer amendments to
pending legislation, we were able to bring it up on this bill, and that
is exactly what Senator McCain and I have done. We would have been
delighted if the majority leader had agreed to bring up the House-
passed version of the bill, and some comments that he made on ``Meet
the Press'' this weekend suggested that he was going to do just that.
But by offering our amendment, we will assure that the Senate will
again vote on this issue, which is what the people of this country
want.
Once again, I want to say that I am very proud of the solid, 100-
percent support of the Democratic Senators for this bill. I am grateful
for the efforts of the minority leader, Senator Daschle, to keep this
issue on the agenda and line up our caucus in support of the McCain-
Feingold bill.
But we are not doing this for partisan reasons. We are doing this
because it is the right thing to do for our country. This campaign
finance system is sapping the confidence of the American people in
their Government. People have seen time and time again that these huge
soft money contributions do influence the congressional agenda. They
understand that we cannot act in the interest of average people if we
are spending too much time trying to woo the big contributors. They
know that soft money must be eliminated before it just totally swamps
our elections and our legislature.
It is absolutely critical that we finish the job now; that we finish
the job now before the end of this Congress, otherwise, we will
undoubtedly see an explosion of soft money fundraising as the parties
get ready for the next big show, and that is the next Presidential
election in the year 2000.
If we go home and allow this soft money system to continue into the
next Presidential election cycle, we will reap scandals that will make
the scandals of 1996 look pale by comparison.
Look at what has happened in this cycle already will give you a clue
as to what is going to happen. Already in this cycle, according to
Common Cause, the parties have raised a total of $116 million, and that
is the most ever in a non-Presidential cycle. Soft money fundraising
more than tripled from 1992 to 1996--from an already troubling amount
of $86 million to the now staggering amount of $262 million. Based on
that growth, some estimate that the parties could raise $600 million in
soft money in the year 2000 cycle--$600 million. Over half a billion
dollars in soft money is likely to be the consequence and the
disgusting display in the year 2000.
Mr. President, we already have a majority in this body, and with just
eight more votes in the Senate we can stop this escalation of soft
money. We can say to the political parties, Enough is enough. Go back
to raising money under the limits established in the Federal Election
Campaign Act. And then if somebody says, ``Well, we need more money,''
then start raising money from more people; get more people involved.
Don't just extort more and more money from the major corporations and
labor unions that are eager to curry favor with the Congress or the
President.
Mr. President, the American people are sick of tales of big money
fundraisers. It is a terrible turnoff for a citizen of average means to
read that people give $100,000, or $250,000 to sit at the head table
with the President, or have a special meeting with the majority leader
of the U.S. Senate. They do not want more stories like the story of
Roger Tamraz who gave $300,000 to the Democratic National Committee
hoping for the special access he needed to promote his pipeline
project. Tamraz told the Governmental Affairs Committee that as he
thought about it, the next time he would give $600,000 if he thought
this would help his business and that getting special access was not
just one of the reasons he gave to the DNC, he said it was the only
reason he gave the $300,000 and would give $600,000--for special
access.
But these kinds of scandals are bound to come back again and again
because our political parties, Mr. President, are addicted to soft
money. They cannot get enough of it. And the reason is that they have
found a way to make soft money work directly for them in Federal
elections. This is an incredible

[[Page S10067]]

twist of a loophole that was established by the FEC in 1978. Remember
that prior to 1996, most of the parties' soft money went into what were
called party building activities--get out the vote drives, voter
registration efforts, and the like.
But then in 1996, the parties discovered the issue ad, and it was off
to the races. Both Presidential campaigns directly benefited from these
kinds of ads--you know, the ones that do not explicitly say ``vote
for'' or ``vote against'' a candidate, but they are nonetheless
obviously aimed at directly influencing an election, obviously
intentionally intended to cause someone to vote specifically for one
candidate or another. And they used party soft money to pay for the
ads.
Now, here is an irony, Mr. President. Just yesterday, Attorney
General Reno announced yet another 90-day inquiry into the campaign
finance scandals of the 1996 campaign. It has to do with issue ads run
by the DNC, a portion of which were paid for with soft money. The
allegation is that it was improper for the President to have
participated in the development of that ad campaign. The McCain-
Feingold amendment that is before us makes it very clear that such ads
cannot be paid for with soft money and cannot be coordinated by the
parties with their candidates. Yet some of the very people who are
calling on the Attorney General to appoint this independent counsel are
staunchly opposed to this amendment anyway.
We also already have seen the parties and outside groups preparing to
exploit the phony issue ad loophole in this election. Over the next
month, more and more election ads will begin appearing around the
country, but because of that loophole, in many cases there will be no
disclosure either of the spending itself or of the identity of the
donors who are really behind the ads. These issue ad campaigns, Mr.
President, are blatantly targeted at specific elections, but again
their creators intentionally avoid the elections law, but avoiding the
so-called magic words of ``vote for'' or ``vote against.''
Here is an example. The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported in
July that the Republican Party is planning a $37 million issue advocacy
campaign to begin running after Labor Day designed to help Republicans
pick up seats in the House in November. Roll Call described the
campaign as follows:

Republican leaders are calling the plan ``Operation Break-
Out:'' a comprehensive strategy to blanket as many as 50 to
60 battleground districts with ``issue advocacy'' television
ads touting the GOP's success in balancing the budget,
cutting taxes and reforming welfare.

The story then states that Republican officials predict that if
Members help raise the $37 million, then the party will pick up as many
as 25 additional seats. So they are candid. They are very upfront about
the fact that this issue ad campaign is designed specifically to help
elect more Republicans to the House, not just to talk about issues.
So here you have the leaders of a national political party designing
a huge media plan specifically to elect candidates from that party, and
specifically planning to take advantage of the phony issue ad loophole
so they can at least partially pay for the campaign with soft money.
This is what the twin loopholes--soft money and phony issue ads--have
led us to. And, of course, Mr. President, neither party is exempt. I
have consistently maintained a bipartisan approach to this issue in my
work with the senior Senator from Arizona and in my other work on this
issue. And I will do so today.
A Democratic Party source is quoted in that same Roll Call story as
saying that the Democratic Party is budgeting $6 million for issue ads
and possibly a lot more. And, of course, the Republican Party justifies
its plan as a preemptive strike against the labor unions that spent
about $25 million on issue ads in the 1996 elections.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the entire Roll Call
story be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From Roll Call, July 23, 1998]

GOP Plans To ``Break Out'' in Fall Election, Leadership Wants $37
Million for Ad Campaign

(By Jim VandeHei)

Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga) and top GOP leaders have
devised a $37 million ``issue advocacy'' media campaign and a
detailed communications plan to deliver poll-tested messages
to dozens of targeted Congressional districts in coming
months, according to internal documents and several
Republican sources familiar with the strategy.
The $37 million media campaign, the centerpiece of the
Republicans' strategy, will be launched around Labor Day in
an effort to preempt an anticipated ad blitz by the AFL-CIO
and to define the agenda heading into November. Republican
Members are expected to contribute or raise $15 million to
$20 million total for the project, including $8 million in
hard money in the next few weeks.
Republican leaders are calling the plan ``Operation Break-
out:'' a comprehensive strategy to blanket as many as 50 to
60 battleground districts with ``issue advocacy'' television
ads touting the GOP's success in balancing the budget,
cutting taxes and reforming welfare.
Gingrich and National Republican Congressional Committee
Chairman John Linder (Ga) predict that if Members help raise
the $37 million, the GOP will pick up as many as 25
additional seats, according to GOP officials.
Operation Break-out, according to GOP leadership sources,
also includes a new communications regime and a legislative
agenda that caters specifically to the Republicans' financial
contributors off Capitol Hill. These contributors, once
placated, will be hit up during the August recess to help
bankroll the ad campaign.
While Gingrich insisted in an interview that a 40-seat gain
is possible, GOP strategists have determined that a net
pickup of 15 of 25 seats in ``eminently doable'' if Members
cough up millions of dollars for their colleagues before the
August break, according to a GOP leadership source close to
the effort.
Privately, top GOP leaders expect a net gain of five to ten
seats unless the Operation Break-out is implemented.
Gingrich and company rolled out the $37 million issue-
advocacy campaign to Members at a private meeting at the
Capitol Hill Club yesterday and plan to brief key Members and
staffers on the communications plan in coming weeks.
If Republican leaders can overcome internal opposition from
key Members--including Majority Whip Tom Delay (Texas) and
Conference Vice Chairwoman Jennifer Dunn (Wash)--the new
election plan will be the vehicle Gingrich and company hope
to ride to an expanded majority in November's elections, the
sources said.
``I have always felt that we get weak-kneed in the spring
and worry we'll lose seats,'' said Appropriations Chairman
Bob Livingston (La), who has pledged $500,000 for the
project.
``This is the best economy in 50 years, so it's the
incumbents' time. This (new strategy) will help expand (our
majority) even further.''
Democrats are not losing any sleep over the GOP's plan.
``Republicans will spend more than us, but we will be
competitive in the area of issue advocacy,'' said Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Dan Sallick, who
added that Democrats will budget more than $6 million for
issue advocacy and possibly ``substantially more.''
``As 1996 showed, we do not have to spend more money to be
competitive''

Shaking the Money Tree

As of today, there are roughly 170 Republican incumbents
who either have no opposition in November's election or token
opposition from an inadequately funded challenger who has
little chance of winning. Combined, these Members are sitting
on almost $60 million in campaign funds, according to GOP
strategists.
If Linder, Gingrich and the rest of the GOP leaders can pry
some portion of that money from these Republican incumbents,
they are confident that the NRCC can blanket as many as 60
Congressional districts with issue-based ads between Labor
Day and Election Day.
``We can sit back, do little on the House floor, get out of
here early and probably win five seats,'' said one GOP
operative. ``But if we can get Members and (outside groups)
to kick in $40 million more than we have budgeted, there's a
damn good chance we can expand our majority by 20 to 30
seats.''
That's the message Gingrich and Linder delivered to
Republican Members at the closed-door meeting yesterday.
And they promised to lead by example.
Gingrich, Majority Leader Dick Armey (Texas), Livingston
and Rep. David Dreier (Calif) all pledged to kick in $500,000
each. Linder promised $200,000 from his personal account and
Oversight Chairman Bill Thomas (Calif) pledged $100,000 and
will urge other chairmen to follow suit.
Deputy Majority Whip Dennis Hastert (Ill) stood up at
Wednesday's meeting and promised $150,000, and Reps. Tom
Davis (Va), Jim McCrery (La) and Larry Combest (Texas) vowed
to pump in $100,000 each. Even Rep. Chris Shays (Conn), a
moderate Republican who has worked closely with Democrats on
certain issues, pledged $50,000.
Top political strategists from the NRCC and certain
leadership offices are reviewing campaign data from every
Republican Member to determine how much money individual
Members can afford to ante up. While no

[[Page S10068]]

specific targets have been spent, any Republican who is a
cinch to win this November will be expected to contribute
significantly to the effort.
``Members will be leaned on to help the team,'' said one
leadership source.
Gingrich, Armey and Linder have formed a ``whip team'' of
about 20 Members who will make sure that Members and outside
groups are paying their fair share.
The whip team--which includes top GOP leaders and the
party's most aggressive money men, such as Reps. Mark Foley
(Fla) and Bill Paxon (NY)--will twist Members' arms for cash
and lobby wealthy business leaders for sizable contributions,
the sources said.
Their goal is to raise $8 million in hard money by August
to prove to business leaders that Republican leaders are dead
serious about expanding their majority. ``We know that
business leaders are investors. They put their money on the
party that will control this place. We want to show them that
investing in Democrats is not wise,'' said another GOP
leadership source.
By September, Gingrich and Linder predict that Members will
have kicked in at least $15 million to $20 million and that
corporate America and individual contributors will match that
amount.
The last thing they want, according to strategists, is a
repeat of the 1996 elections, when GOP Members sat $30
million-plus and the business community failed to raise one-
quarter of what it promised for issue-advocacy ads.

setting the agenda

A $35 million issues-based ad campaign financed by the AFL-
CIO is widely credited with helping Democrats chip away at
the Republicans' House majority in 1996.
AFL-CIO president John Sweeney picked about three dozen
competitive districts and flooded the airwaves with ads
hammering Republicans for gutting Medicare and blocking a
minimum wage. The ads, Gingrich and Linder believe, defined
the 1996 election before most candidates hit the campaign
trails and cost the Republicans nine House seats.
The NRCC fired back with a $20 million issue-ad campaign
and the pro-Republican Coalition dumped in $5 million more,
but it was too little, too late, Republicans say.
This year, GOP leaders plan to beat the AFL-CIO and the
Democrats' allies to the punch, Linder has told Members.
The reason for such an ambitious issue campaign, sources
said, was that internal polls found that the Republican
message on key issues like education and the budget were more
popular than expected in the most competitive districts.
Republican operatives picked the 28 most competitive
districts and tested the Republicans' positive message versus
the Democrats' positive message; on virtually every topic,
Republicans learned they could win a head-to-head debate,
sources said.
``The bottom line is . . . we are going to be competitive
with labor . . . and we are going to have the debate on our
turf,'' said NRCC spokeswoman Mary Crawford. ``And with these
two goals in mind we will determine where we need to run
these spots and when.''

the play book

In a recent interview, Gingrich admitted that
communications, internally and externally, has been a
disaster for Republicans at serveral points since winning the
majority in 1994.
The behind-the-scenes battle for control over
communications has soured Gingrich's relationship with
Conference Chairman John Boehner (Ohio) and has been a source
of friction during countless leadership meetings. As late as
a month or so ago, control over the message led to a nasty
fight between Boehner and Dunn, and their relationship
remains icy at best, according to several sources.
Congnizant that communications is the weakness, top
advisers for Gingrich, Armey and Boehner have spent the past
two months writing a Republican ``playbook,'' which will be
distributed to Members soon. The playbook, which provides
Members with the party line on a variety of topics, outlines
a unified message for the campaigning Republicans, according
to a draft copy of the document.
Top Republicans have also revamped the communications
structure to make sure the message is filtered down to rank-
and-file Members and broadcast outside to Republican
supporters and likely voters. Gingrich's office will schedule
Members for Sunday talk shows; Armey will control the message
on the floor; DeLay will use his whip team to distribute the
message du jour to Members; and Boehner will write the
overall communications message.
Armey's office is also responsible for making sure that
hard feelings between GOP leaders do not interfere with
disseminating the message. GOP leadership sources said that
will not be an easy task.
Already, there is concern among some GOP leaders that DeLay
and Dunn are spending too much time privately briefing
Members on a separate communications strategy that could
divert Members' attention away from the overall plan,
according to leadership sources. While most leaders are
confidant that that problem will be taken care of by week's
end, other sources said it shows that distrust and
competitiveness could hamper the leadership's campaign
problems.
But on Wednesday, DeLay spokesman John Feehery said: ``Mr.
DeLay supports what they are doing. I think he believes that
anything that helps him do his job, like getting more
Republicans, is something that should be done. A lot of our
concerns have been met.''

Mr. FEINGOLD. This arms race of soft money spending on issue ads has
to stop. And the way to do that is to ban soft money and bring these
types of ads within the election laws in a fair and reasonable way that
respects the constitutional rights of all citizens. That is what we
have done in the McCain-Feingold bill. Contrary to the completely
inaccurate and sometimes dishonest advertisements that have been run
across the country saying that we use a different approach, we, in
fact, maintain a clear respect for free speech, which both Senator
McCain and I strongly adhere to. We have addressed in our bill, which
is in the form of the amendment before us today, the two biggest
problems in our campaign finance system--soft money and phony issue
ads.
Mr. President, if we do not act on this bill, the exploitation of the
loopholes will continue to spiral out of control. In the year 2000, we
will see both Presidential candidates promising to limit their private
fundraising in order to receive public funds while their parties pursue
parallel or even intertwined campaigns with issue ads funded by as much
as $600 million in soft money.
Is that the kind of campaign we want to see in the first Presidential
election of the next century? I do not think so. We need to make the
next campaign a cleaner, less corrupt, less out of control Presidential
campaign. We do not want more of the same of what we saw in 1996.
Mr. President, all across the country the American people are telling
us that they do, in fact, overwhelmingly support the McCain-Feingold
bill. Recent polls conducted in eight States during the month of August
by the Mellman Group for the advocacy group Public Campaign showed that
strong majorities, ranging from 58 percent in Mississippi to 75 percent
in New Hampshire, are in favor of the McCain-Feingold bill. And this
support is constant --it is constant, Mr. President--across demographic
groups and across party lines. In fact, in seven of the eight States
polled, believe it or not, Republican voters were more likely to
support the bill than Democrat voters.
Editorial boards across the country are constantly calling on us to
act. And it is not just the Washington Post and the New York Times,
although they have been wonderful advocates for this much-needed
change; it is also the Hartford Courant, the Kansas City Star, the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch, The Tennessean, and the Charleston Gazette.
The message from each of these editorial boards is that this body,
the Senate, has one last chance to salvage some semblance of respect on
the issue of campaign finance reform. After all the investigations, all
the allegations, and all the finger-pointing of the last 2 years, this
is the chance to show that we care, that we think there is something
wrong with such a corrupt system. This is the chance.
Now, these writers know that McCain-Feingold is not perfect, and I
agree with that. But they think it will make a difference and that it
should be passed and that it should be sent to the President.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent recent editorials from each of
the fine newspapers I just mentioned be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From the Hartford Courant, Sept. 4, 1998]

Listen to the Public, Mr. Lott

After a monthlong summer recess, senators returned to
Washington this week to find a full agenda and only a short
time to work through it. High on the to-do list should be
campaign finance reform. But getting that legislation to the
floor for a vote will be a daunting struggle despite the fact
reform is favored by a majority of Americans.
Appalled by the fund-raising abuses in the 1996 elections,
the public wants change. Republican congressional leaders,
however, are comfortable with the status quo.
It would be a pity to let this opportunity to clean up the
political system pass by. Reformers must redouble their
efforts. Citizens who want the campaign finance cesspool
drained must let Congress know how they feel.
Before the August vacation, the House passed the Shays-
Meehan bill to eliminate soft money--the unrestricted,
unregulated

[[Page S10069]]

contributions (in effect, payoffs) from corporations, unions
and wealthy individuals that are corrupting politics. House
reformers triumphed because there were enough Democratic
votes and enough courageous Republicans such as Rep. Chris
Shays of Stamford to win the day.
As considerable risk to themselves, Republican House
members bucked their party leadership's opposition to change.
The Senate version of the soft-money ban, called the
McCain-Feingold bill, was favored by a majority of the 100
senators when the issue was taken up earlier this year. But
backers coundn't get the 60 votes needed to shut off a
filibuster mounted by Republican leaders.
Quashing a filibuster will again be difficult.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and other top Republicans
are ``dead set against reform,'' Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of
Connecticut observed recently. ``They don't feel that they
will suffer any consequences if they don't bring it up. They
feel that people just don't care.''
That isn't what the polls say. But people have to act on
the disgust they feel toward a system under which politicians
become the wards of favor-seekers with lots of money. The
public should apply pressure on politicians who scoff at the
idea of cleaning up the system.
Connecticut's senators--Mr. Lieberman and Christopher J.
Dodd--long have favored change in the way campaigns are
financed. They should assume high-profile, leadership
positions in making the case for the Senate version of
reform. These two Democrats should use their powers of
persuasion to bring reluctant colleagues of both parties
aboard the reform cause.
As Mr. Shays and his Democratic partner, Martin Meehan of
Massachusetts, proved, the good fight can be won even against
long odds.
____

[From the Kansas City Star, Sept. 3, 1998]

Vote Needed on Campaign Finance

A showdown on campaign finance reform is shaping up in the
U.S. Senate. The test will be whether a minority of the
Republican-dominated body can continue to block action on
legislation that would outlaw the scandalous fund-raising and
spending that occurred in the 1996 elections.
The access and influence bought by moneyed interests are
contaminating our political system. Ordinary citizens are
increasingly locked out of the policy-making decisions on
Capitol Hill.
The fight in the Senate is over the McCain-Feingold bill, a
measure considered dead until recent weeks. Earlier this year
a bipartisan majority of the Senate voted for McCain-
Feingold, which is co-sponsored by Sens. John McCain, Arizona
Republican, and Russell Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat.
Despite that vote, a GOP-led filibuster prevented the
Senate from a final decision on the bill. Reformers,
including all Democrats and some Republicans, failed by eight
votes to get the 60 necessary to halt the filibuster. Thus a
minority of Republicans blocked a measure that would bring
genuine reform to the way campaigns are financed.
The issue was revived when the House passed a bill last
month similar to McCain-Feingold, setting the stage for new
action in the Senate.
Based on previous performance, no help is expected from
Missouri and Kansas senators. They seem satisfied with the
current arrangement.
The McCain-Feingold bill and the House-passed measure would
prohibit ``soft money,'' the funds that are contributed by
corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals to the
political parties. Soft money funding, which is not limited
or regulated, is supposed to be used for party-building
activities, but not specific candidates. This rule was
largely ignored in 1996.
The majority votes for campaign finance reform in both
houses of Congress this year reflect broad support for
change. That sentiment disputes the contention of many
members of Congress that the public is not interested in the
issue. Opinion polls also show overwhelming public support
for reforms.
That is why the Senate Republican leadership is obligated
to allow a new vote on campaign finance reform before
adjournment.
____

[From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 31, 1998]

Do The Right Thing

If the two gentlemen running for the U.S. Senate would stop
kicking each other in the shins, each would see a monumental
opportunity to serve the public good while serving his own
political interest.
Attorney General Jay Nixon should sit down at the
negotiating table and not get up until he has a settlement in
the St. Louis school desegregation case. A settlement would
be good for the schoolchildren and would mend political
fences with African-Americans upset by Mr. Nixon's extreme
opposition to the desegregation program.
Meanwhile, Sen. Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo., should go back
to Washington this week where he holds a key vote for
campaign finance reform. Passage of the McCain-Feingold bill
would restore people's faith in the political process and
spotlight Mr. Bond's willingness to occasionally stand up to
misguided GOP leadership.

Desegregation

The Missouri Legislature provided Mr. Nixon with the tools
to work out a settlement of the school desegregation case
with the NAACP, which represents African-American children.
The Legislature passed SB 781, which would provide $2 in new
state aid to the St. Louis schools for every additional $1
raised locally in taxes. This would enable the city to fund
desegregation programs, like the magnet schools.
SB 781 also continued the transfer program under which
about 12,000 black children from the city attend suburban
schools.
In this way, SB 781 took away Mr. Nixon's main legal
arguments. Across many years and in many courts Mr. Nixon has
argued that the transfer program has never been legal and
that the state obligation to help fund desegregation programs
in St. Louis should end soon.
Legally disarmed, Mr. Nixon should be able to settle
pronto.
There have been recent rumblings that some suburban school
districts are causing problems behind the scenes by making
unreasonable demands to get out of the transfer program.
Mr. Nixon should simply sidestep that sideshow and settle
the case with the NAACP. Those two sides should be able to
obtain a final judgment from the court.
Mr. Nixon has complained recently that his civil rights
record is actually better than Mr. Bond's. Yet some African-
American leaders seem to want to judge Mr. Nixon on his deeds
rather his words.
There is one way for the attorney general to counter: Do
something. Settle the case.

campaign finance

Distressingly, Mr. Bond joined the GOP leadership to kill
the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill earlier this
session.
The bill had majority support, but needed eight more
Republican votes to escape a filibuster. At the time the bill
was killed in the Senate, it didn't look as though it would
pass in the House. But in Phoenix-like fashion, the House
version of the bill--Shays-Meehan--passed this summer.
Mr. Bond now has an opportunity to reconsider in light of
the changed circumstances. Mr. Nixon, who supports the bill,
should keep the heat on this issue.
When Mr. Bond helped kill the bill, he said he was acting
on First Amendment concerns. Although the free speech
questions are not frivolous, the bill appears to be
constitutional. The bill would ban ``soft'' money--the huge
gobs of dough that political parties raise for campaign
purposes from corporate and union treasuries, wealthy
individuals and foreign nationals.
Federal law now bars ``hard'' money contributions to
individual candidates from corporations, unions and foreign
citizens. Extending this ban to soft money simply recognizes
that soft money is used for electing candidates, too. There
should be no First Amendment problem.
The other main part of the bill regulates issue ads within
60 days of an election or when the ads are clearly intended
for campaign purposes. Politically active organizations--like
those for or against abortion rights--could not use
organization funds for these issue ads. They would have to
set up political action committees. That would require
disclosure of donors and $5,000 contribution limits. Issue
ads are clearly at the core of protected speech, but the
Supreme Court has given Congress latitude in regulating
speech when it is for campaign purposes.
Frankly, Mr. Bond, the First Amendment arguments do not
justify the GOP leadership's morally bankrupt position on
campaign finance. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott talks a
lot about President Bill Clinton's campaign abuses, but he
won't reform the system that allowed them.
The GOP claims that Mr. Clinton's abuses were illegal. But
most of those big $100,000 contributions were legal, soft
money contributions, obviously intended to buy access and
favorable consideration--and maybe a night between the sheets
in the Lincoln bedroom.
In the end it comes down to the voters. Holding Mr. Bond's
feet to the fire on campaign finance reform and Mr. Nixon's
on school desegregation would be a lot better use of this
election than sitting idly by and watching the attack ads
that distort, demogogue and demean the entire process.
____

[From the Tennessean, Aug. 31, 1998]

Salvage Sorry Session With Campaign Reform

The U.S. Senate comes back from recess today with a long
agenda, a short calendar, and an even shorter list of
accomplishments to date.
It's already snuffed out anti-smoking legislation. It has
shoved to the back burner President Clinton's proposal to
expand a self-financed form of Medicare to early retirees. It
has largely ignored the administration's call to provide more
teachers and more federal money to public schools. The
prospects for reaching consensus on a massive bankruptcy bill
or the so-called Patients Bill of Rights are slim indeed this
year.
And with five weeks left on the Senate calendar, some
members might be satisfied just to pass the necessary
appropriation bills and head for home.
But such a minimalistic approach from the Senate, however,
would shortchange the public. The Senate can still salvage
this unproductive year by focusing its energy and effort on
one extremely worthy area, the McCain-Feingold campaign
finance bill.
Since this bill's House counterpart has already passed, the
Senate adoption of

[[Page S10070]]

McCain-Feingold could send the reform measure to the
President's desk.
The heart of the bill is a ban on ``soft money,'' which is
now largely unregulated and can therefore be given in
unlimited quantities by individuals, unions or corporations.
The elimination of soft money would greatly reduce the
aggregate amount of political money.
A majority of the Senate is already on record in support of
McCain-Feingold. The obstacle, however, comes down to eight
votes the number of Republican senators who need to switch
their votes on cloture so the bill can come up for a vote.
The opponents to this bill, led by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-
Ky., believe they have made it through the August recess
without any defections. And in truth, the opponents are
counting on public apathy to help kill the measure. McConnell
has remarked on several occasions that the public doesn't
really care about campaign finance reform.
It's not too late to prove him wrong. Although the public
may not know the intricacies of campaign law, it cares deeply
when it sees its leaders kowtowing to big money while they
ignore average citizens.
Sen. Fred Thompson has been a strong supporter of McCain-
Feingold from the start. Tennesseans who want to see a
measure of reason restored to the campaign finance process
should contact Sen. Bill Frist, and ask him to vote for
cloture on this issue.
The McCain-Feingold bill would not cure all that ails the
U.S. political system. But it would greatly weaken the ties
between big money and politicians. The result would
necessarily be a more responsive government. Eight additional
votes needed for cloture.
____

[From the Charleston Gazette, Aug. 27, 1998]

Political Cash Clean Up the Cesspool

Americans have turned cynical about Congress, assuming that
big-money pressure groups buy influence by lavishing cash on
senators and representatives.
High-cost campaigning forces Congress members to be ``bag
men,'' carrying home loot from every lobbying interest
wanting legislation. Republicans get most industry money, so
they resist every attempt to dam the cash river. But they've
lost a few battles--and another victory for the public seems
within reach.
On Aug. 6, the House strongly passed the Shays-Meehan
campaign finance reform bill, which bans unlimited ``soft
money'' gifts to political parties. Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-
Ga., and other GOP leaders fought it, but 61 Republicans
defected and voted with Democrats to pass the bill.
(Disgustingly, West Virginia Democrats Nick Rahall and Allan
Mollohan jumped the other way and joined the Republicans.)
Now it's in the Senate, which returns from summer recess
Monday. Passage in the Senate is tougher because a GOP
filibuster is likely, and a three-fifths majority is needed
to break a filibuster. Twice before, attempts to ban soft
money were killed by Republican filibusters despite unanimous
Democratic support.
But this is an election year, and GOP senators don't want
voters to see them as defenders of the cash sewer. Perhaps a
few more will switch sides, creating the three-fifths
majority. We surely hope so. After the House victory, the New
York Times said: ``The House action was a milestone in a
journey that began with the first disclosure of campaign
fund-raising excesses in the 1996 presidential election.
Hearings into those abuses last year were clouded with
partisan acrimony. But on Monday Republicans and Democrats
showed they could work together.
``Gingrich and his henchmen, especially Tom DeLay, tried to
portray the legislation as revolutionary. In fact, it simply
closes loopholes in the existing law by banning unlimited
`soft money' donations to political parties from
corporations, unions and rich individuals.'' The newspaper
said the House vote ``kindles genuine hope that Congress does
listen to the public's yearning for a more accountable
political system. Members of the House or the Senate will now
ignore that message at their peril.''
Exactly. Any senator who opposes the Shays-Meehan bill is
voting to keep the money flood pouring--in effect, voting for
disguised bribery. We hope that election-year pressure is
enough to push through the cleanup.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, again, we are down to 8 votes out of 535
Members of Congress. After a clear demonstration that a bipartisan
majority in both Houses support this bill, we are just down to eight
votes, eight votes to break the filibuster that is holding up this
important reform bill.
This isn't one of those situations where we haven't had votes to see
if there might be a majority. We have. We had the votes in March, in
February, and it was clear that a bipartisan majority of this body
supports McCain-Feingold. So it is only the filibusterers, a minority
of this body, who are standing against the majority of this body and
the other body. We will soon see whether eight more Senators are ready
to do what so desperately needs to be done.
Time and time again the senior Senator from Arizona and I have said
we are more than willing to entertain changes to our bill that will
allow us to get those eight votes, as long as the basic integrity of
the bill remains intact. We reached that kind of agreement with
Senators Snowe, Jeffords and Chafee, and it led to our proving that a
clear majority in this body supports McCain-Feingold.
I say to all of my colleagues, but especially the 48 who have not yet
joined the majority, if you are one of the potential eight votes, if
before the end of this year you want to show that you do care about the
corrupting influence of money in our political process, and if you have
a particular concern or problem with the amendment that is on the floor
now, please come talk with us. I have had several fruitful
conversations with some of these potential Senators and I look forward
to more of them. Let's try to come to some agreement that will allow us
to give the American people what they so desperately want from this
Congress--a campaign finance reform bill that will make the first
election of the next century one of which we can all be proud.
I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the American body politic has a disease. It
is a serious disease that some would argue is a critical disease. It is
called ``the money chase.'' No party and few candidates are immune from
it. The good news is that it is curable. The bad news is that there may
be enough Members in this body--the Senate--who want to block the cure
so that the cure cannot succeed.
To inoculate our democratic system against this disease, we passed a
series of laws in the 1970s to limit the role of money in Federal
elections. It was our intent at that time to protect our democratic
form of government which relies so heavily on the interchange of ideas
and actions between the government and the private sector and to
protect our form of government from the corrosive influence of
unlimited and undisclosed political contributions. We wanted to ensure
that our elected officials were neither in reality nor in perception
beholden to special interests who are able to contribute large sums of
money to candidates and their campaigns. These laws were designed to
protect the public's confidence in our democratically elected
officials.
For many years those laws setting limits on campaign contributions
worked fairly well.
The limits that they set were respected, and these limits, indeed,
are still on the books today. Those same laws that purportedly set
limits on how much people can contribute to campaigns are on the books.
And here is what they say.
Individuals aren't supposed to give more than $1,000 to a candidate
per election, or $5,000 to a political action committee, or more than
$20,000 a year to a national party committee, or $25,000 total in any
one year. Corporations and unions are supposed to be prohibited from
contributing to any campaign. Contributions from foreign countries,
foreign citizens, and foreign corporations are prohibited. And
Presidential campaigns are supposed to be financed with public funds.
That is the law. That is what it says on the law books today. Yet in
the last few years we have heard story after story after story about
contributions of hundreds of thousands of dollars from individuals,
corporations, and unions, and even about contributions from foreign
sources. And we have heard stories about Presidents and Presidential
candidates spending long hours on fundraising tasks.
Now, how is that possible? Well, what has happened is that a pretty
good law setting limits on the size and source of contributions had
some soft spots which, over the years, both parties took advantage of.
Both parties pushed up against those soft spots and created holes in
the law, big loopholes that allowed the big money to pour in.
So now there are effectively no limits at all. That is why we hear
about a $1.3 million contribution to the RNC from just one company in
1996, and a half-million dollar contribution from just one couple to
the DNC the same year.

[[Page S10071]]

Some in this Chamber like it that way. They don't want any limits.
The majority leader has said it is ``the American way.''
I disagree. We have got to plug those loopholes. We have to make the
law whole again and, in making it whole, to make it effective. If we
don't do that, we risk losing the faith the American people have that
we represent their best interests.
Soft money has blown the lid off the contribution and spending limits
of our campaign finance system. Soft money is the 800-pound gorilla
sitting right in the middle of this debate. Some want to pretend that
it is not there, but it is. Soft money is at the heart of this problem.
All soft money means is money which is unregulated and unlimited that,
for one reason or another, crawls through that loophole that has been
pierced by both parties in our campaign finance limits.
Look at the most recent data. In the 1996 election, Republicans
raised $140 million in soft money contributions, while Democrats raised
$120 million--almost as much. In the first 18 months of the 1998
election cycle, Republicans have raised about $70 million, and
Democrats have raised about $45 million. That was double the amount
that both parties raised in the first 18 months of the 1996 elections.
That money currently is legal, and it is legal because of the loopholes
in the law that we must close with the McCain-Feingold bill.
The way both parties have gotten around the law of the 1970s has been
to establish a whole separate world of campaign finance. It is the
world of soft money--contributions that are not technically covered by
the limits under current law. Once that soft money loophole was opened,
once the loophole was viewed as legitimate, the money chase was on by
both parties. Couple that with the high cost of television advertising,
and you have the money chase involving just about all candidates.
The chase for money has led most of us in public office or seeking
public office to push the envelope, to take the law to the limits, to
get the necessary contributions.
The money chase led the head of the Republican National Committee,
Haley Barbour, to use a subsidiary of the RNC, the National Policy
Forum, to obtain some $750,000 in what, practically speaking, became a
foreign contribution from a Hong Kong businessman to run ads in key
congressional races.
The money chase drove the actions of Roger Tamraz, a large
contributor to both parties who, during last year's investigation,
became the bipartisan symbol for what is wrong with the current system.
Roger Tamraz served as a Republican Eagle in the 1980s during
Republican administrations and a Democratic trustee in the 1990s during
Democratic administrations. He was unabashed in admitting his political
contributions were made for the purpose of getting access to people in
power. Tamraz showed us in stark terms the all too common product of
the current campaign finance system--using unlimited soft money
contributions to buy access. And despite the condemnation by Members of
Congress and the press of Tamraz's activities, when asked at a hearing
to reflect on his $300,000 contribution to the Democrats in 1996,
Tamraz said, ``I think next time I'll give $600,000.''
What happened to the limits? What happened to the $1,000 limit and
the $5,000 limit on PAC contributions, and the overall $25,000 limit
per year? What happened to the intent of this Senate and the House of
Representatives back in the 1970s to establish limits on contributions
to candidates? How is it that a Roger Tamraz can unabashedly appear in
front of a Senate committee and say, ``Yes, I gave $300,000 to the
Democrats. I did it to gain access.'' And when asked, ``Would you do it
again?'' indicated that, next time, he'll give $600,000, if necessary.
Now, what do we believe the public feels and senses when they hear
and see that? What do we think goes through the average person's mind
when they see a Roger Tamraz unabashedly, boldly, without any shame,
saying, ``Hey, I can give you guys $300,000, I can give you $600,000,
using that loophole, and I will do it again''?
Is that what we want our election system to be--when we have passed a
law which says $1,000 to a candidate, $25,000 overall in a year, that
somebody can just appear in front of a Senate committee and say, ``Yes,
I gave $300,000, nothing illegal about that. I used the soft money
loophole, folks. If you don't like it, close it. If you want to put
limits on how much money I can give, close the loophole. But until you
do it, I am going to keep on giving it''?
That is the Tamraz challenge to us. That is the gauntlet that he has
laid down in front of us, both parties. Answering his challenge cannot
be done on a partisan basis. There is no way we are going to reform
these laws unless enough Democrats and enough Republicans come
together, as they did in the House of Representatives, and say enough
is enough. We intended limits, we intended limits to apply, and we are
going to close the loopholes which have obviated those limits,
destroyed them, undermined them and, in the process, undermined the
confidence of the American people.
The money chase also pressures political supporters to cross lines
they should not in order to help their candidates get needed funds.
The money chase led a national finance chair of Senator Dole's
presidential campaign, Simon Fireman, to engage in a 5-year money
laundering scheme which funneled $120,000 through a secret Hong Kong
trust to his employees who contributed to the candidates he supported.
Similarly, the money chase led members of the Lum family, a father,
mother and daughter, to funnel $50,000 through company employees and
stockholders to Democratic candidates they supported, resulting in the
first guilty pleas in the Justice Department's ongoing campaign finance
fraud case.
The money chase led a foreign corporation, Korean Airlines, and four
U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations from the same country to
funnel illegal contributions through their employees to a Republican
Member of Congress Jay Kim, resulting in $1.6 million in corporate
criminal fines.
The money chase in political campaigns is a serious disease that has
become chronic and too many of us have been affected by it. Too many of
us have spent too much time fund-raising and in the process, pushing
the fund-raising rules to their limits. Most of us know in our hearts
that the money chase is a bipartisan problem and the bipartisan
solution is the McCain-Feingold bill.
But we have been here before. During my career in the Senate I have
lost count of the number of times that this body has debated the need
for campaign finance reform, been presented with reasonable bipartisan
proposals, yet, in the end, failed to get the job done.
Will this time be different?
The Senate has before it a bipartisan campaign reform bill, the
McCain-Feingold bill, that would do much to repair our campaign finance
system. It is not a new bill. It has been before this body for years
now and has received sustained scrutiny from Members on both sides of
the aisle.
It is a bill that recognizes that the bulk of troubling campaign
activity is not what is illegal, but what is legal--what is currently
legal because of the soft money loophole. The McCain-Feingold bill
takes direct aim at closing the loopholes that have swallowed the
election laws. In particular, it takes aim at closing the soft money
and issue advocacy loopholes, while strengthening other aspects of the
federal election laws that are too weak to do the job as they now
stand.
I have heard experts and my colleagues condemn the excesses of the
1996 elections. I've also heard people bemoaning the lack of tough
civil and criminal enforcement action against the wrongdoers. But there
is an obvious reason for the lack of strong enforcement--the existing
Federal election laws are riddled with loopholes and in many respects
unenforceable. And as much as some want to point the finger of blame at
those who took advantage of the campaign finance laws during the last
election, there is no one to blame but ourselves for the sorry state of
the law.
The soft money loophole exists because we in Congress allow it. The
so-called issue advocacy loophole exists because we in Congress allow
it to exist. Tax-exempt organizations spend millions televising
candidate attack

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ads days before an election without disclosing who they are or where
they got their funds because we in Congress allow it.
It is time to stop pointing fingers at others and take responsibility
for our share of the blame. Congress alone writes the laws. Congress
alone can shut down the loopholes and reinvigorate the Federal election
laws.
The Federal Election Campaign Act was first enacted 20 years ago, in
response to campaign abuses uncovered in connection with the Watergate
scandal. Congress enacted a comprehensive and tough system of laws,
including contribution limits and full public disclosure of all
campaign contributions and expenditures.
At the time they were enacted, many people fought against those laws,
claiming they were an unconstitutional restriction of First Amendment
rights to free speech and free association. The laws' opponents took
their case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court issued the Buckley
decision, which held both contribution limits and disclosure
requirements were constitutional.
I want to repeat that, because Buckley is thrown around quite a bit
on this floor, so I want to just repeat that last statement. Buckley
upheld the constitutionality of contribution limits.
There are those who say we should not, or cannot, limit the amount of
contributions. We do limit the amount of contributions, and Buckley
said that we can. The question now is whether we close the loopholes
which have destroyed those limits. But in terms of the
constitutionality under the first amendment, Buckley upheld the
constitutionality of limits on campaign contributions.
The Buckley court wrote specifically--relative to disclosure
requirements, by the way--that:

While disclosure requirements serve the many salutary
purposes discussed elsewhere in this opinion, Congress was
entitled to conclude that disclosure was only a partial
measure and that contribution ceilings were a necessary
legislative concomitant to deal with the problem.

And the court held in Buckley that:

We find that under the rigorous standard of review
established by our prior decisions, the weighty interests
served by restricting the size of financial contributions to
political candidates are sufficient to justify the limited
effect upon first amendment freedoms caused by the $1,000
contribution ceiling. Congress was justified [the Buckley
court wrote] in concluding that the interest in safeguarding
against the appearance of impropriety requires that the
opportunity for abuse inherent in the process of raising
large monetary contributions be eliminated.

That is Buckley explicitly holding that Congress can set and enforce
contribution limits, and that the first amendment does not preclude us
from doing so. The Buckley court also wrote:

It is unnecessary to look beyond the Act's primary
purpose--to limit the actuality and appearance of corruption
resulting from large individual financial contributions--in
order to find a constitutionally sufficient justification for
the $1,000 contribution limitation. Under a system of private
financing of elections, a candidate lacking immense personal
or family wealth must depend on financial contributions from
others to provide the resources necessary to conduct a
successful campaign. . . . To the extent that large
contributions are given to secure political quid pro quo's
from current and potential office holders, the integrity of
our system of representative democracy is undermined. . . .
Of almost equal concern is . . . the impact of the appearance
of corruption stemming from public awareness of the
opportunities for abuse inherent in a regime of large
individual financial contributions. . . .

Roger Tamraz spent $300,000 buying access and said, ``I'll double it
next time.'' Buckley, the Supreme Court, said:

Of almost equal concern . . . is the impact of the
appearance of corruption stemming from public awareness of
the opportunities for abuse inherent in a regime of large
individual financial contributions. . . .

Congress [the Buckley court held] could legitimately conclude that
the avoidance of the appearance of improper influence . . . is also
critical . . . if confidence in the system of representative government
is not to be eroded to a disastrous extent.
That is Buckley. That is Buckley ruling on contribution limits. That
is Buckley saying that Congress could legitimately conclude, to use its
words, that ``the avoidance of the appearance of improper influence . .
. is also critical . . . if confidence in the system of representative
government is not to be eroded to a disastrous extent.''
That is Roger Tamraz' challenge to us.
And when he and others say, ``I can give $300,000 because of that
soft money loophole, and I'll double it next time,'' the Supreme Court
says that Congress can legitimately conclude that the avoidance of the
appearance of improper influence ``is also critical . . . if confidence
in the system of representative government is not to be eroded to a
disastrous extent.''
The Buckley Court also upheld the disclosure limits that we had in
the law. In upholding both the contribution limits and the disclosure
requirements, the Supreme Court used a balancing test that weighed the
first amendment rights against the integrity of Federal elections, and
the Court ruled that the integrity of our elections is so compelling a
Government interest that contribution limits and disclosure
requirements are constitutionally acceptable.
Some have argued that McCain-Feingold is an unconstitutional
restriction of free speech, but that analysis leaves out several key
legal considerations.
First, although Buckley is often cited in support of that argument,
Buckley, as a matter of fact, is the decision that upheld contribution
limits and disclosure requirements. Buckley did strike down spending
limits, but not contribution limits which Buckley affirmed. Spending
limits were stricken by Buckley, but no one is talking about mandatory
spending limits in this bill. What we are talking about is contribution
limits and disclosure requirements, exactly what Buckley said is a
constitutional means to protect the integrity of our elections, to
deter corruption and the appearance of corruption, and to inform
voters.
Some have correctly cited other court decisions holding that only ads
which contain a short list of so-called magic words can be subjected to
the Federal election law requirements and limits relative to
contributions, but that analysis leaves out a decision in the ninth
circuit in the Furgatch case which holds that the list of magic words,
which those other courts cited, ``does not exhaust the capacity of the
English language to expressly advocate the election or defeat of a
candidate.''
The analysis by some relative to issue ads also leaves out, in
addition to ignoring the ninth circuit Furgatch case, the fact that the
Federal Election Commission has reaffirmed, on a bipartisan basis, its
commitment to a broader test that goes beyond the magic words to unmask
ads that claim to be discussions of issues but which are clearly
intended to advocate the election or defeat of a Federal candidate.
The Supreme Court has yet to rule on the Federal Election Commission
regulation or whether the magic words must be present before Federal
election laws can be applied to ads that clearly attack or support
candidates.
Despite attempts to depict the constitutional picture as providing
crystal clear support for unfettered speech, no matter how corrupting
of our electoral system, that is not the state of the law. To the
contrary. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the integrity of
our elections is a weighty concern which Congress can consider. The
question is how to balance that concern for the integrity of elections
against the free speech concerns in the first amendment.
How do you balance the two? In Buckley, the Court balanced them by
saying contribution limits are constitutional; disclosure requirements
are constitutional; spending limits, expenditure limits are not. That
is what the Buckley Court ruled. This bill, our bill, is consistent
with Buckley, consistent with Furgatch, and consistent with the Federal
Election Commission s reaffirmation of the broader test for candidate
advocacy.
The problem with our campaign laws is that candidates and parties
have pushed against the limits of the law and found loopholes to such
an extent that the law's limits are no longer effective. We intended to
establish limits after Watergate. Those limits have been destroyed by
the soft money loophole.
The Supreme Court said we can, in fact, limit contributions. The
issue before us is whether we will restore those limits on
contributions. Individuals can now give parties hundreds of thousands
of dollars, millions of dollars at a

[[Page S10073]]

time, claiming that they are providing soft money rather than the hard
money that has to meet the legal limits. Corporations, which are not
supposed to make direct contributions at all, now routinely contribute
huge sums to both parties, millions to both parties. While those
contributors claim to be providing money that is simply for party-
building purposes and not for candidates, the issue advocacy loophole
allows parties and others to televise ads that clearly attack or
support candidates while claiming to be discussions of issues beyond
the reach of the election laws, but which are indistinguishable from
candidate ads which are subject to contribution limits and disclosure
requirements.
To show the absurd state of the law, at least in some circuits, we
can just look at one of the 1996 televised ads that was paid for by the
League of Conservation Voters and which referred to House Member Greg
Ganske, a Republican Congressman from Iowa, who was then up for
reelection. This is the way the ad read:

It's our land; our water. America's environment must be
protected. But in just 18 months, Congressman Ganske has
voted 12 out of 12 times to weaken environmental protections.
Congressman Ganske even voted to let corporations continue
releasing cancer-causing pollutants into our air. Congressman
Ganske voted for the big corporations who lobbied these bills
and gave him thousands of dollars in contributions. Call
Congressman Ganske. Tell him to protect America's
environment. For our families. For our future.

The ad sponsor claimed that was an issue ad, an ad that discussed
issues rather than a candidate, and so could be paid for by unlimited
and undisclosed funds. If one word were changed, if instead of ``Call
Congressman Ganske,'' the ad said, ``Defeat Congressman Ganske,'' it
would clearly qualify as a candidate ad subject to contribution limits
and disclosure requirements.
In the real world, that one word difference doesn't change the
character or substance of that ad at all. Both versions unmistakably
advocate the defeat of Congressman Ganske. But the ad sponsor claims
that only one of those ads must comply with election law contribution
limits and disclosure requirements. That doesn't make sense, and
McCain-Feingold would help close down that interpretation of the law.
This is not the first time that loopholes have eroded the
effectiveness of a set of laws. It happens all the time. The election
laws are just the latest example. Congress is here partly to oversee
the way that laws operate, to close loopholes that have been
discovered.
The question is, What are we going to do about it?
The time for crying crocodile tears about campaign fundraising is
over. Folks should wipe away those crocodile tears from their eyes,
because if they do, they will see a public disgusted with both parties
for allowing unlimited fundraising and contributions in our Federal
elections. Seventy-three percent of American people in a poll conducted
by the Los Angeles Times believe both parties committed campaign
finance abuses in the 1996 elections; 81 percent--81 percent--of the
American people believe the campaign fundraising system needs to be
reformed; 78 percent of the American people believe we should limit the
role of soft money.
Campaign finance reform is an issue that can convert a dedicated
optimist into a doomsayer, but we have before us a bipartisan bill that
provides the key reforms, that has passed the House and that the
President will sign.
We have before us a bipartisan bill which a majority in the Senate
support, and we have a bipartisan coalition that is willing to fight
hard for this bill.
So let us stop complaining about weak enforcement of the election
laws when the wording of those laws make them virtually unenforceable.
Let us stop feigning shock at the laws' loopholes while allowing them
to continue. It is time to enact campaign finance reform. That is our
legislative responsibility. Otherwise, we are going to be haunted by
the words of Roger Tamraz that in the next election it will be $600,000
instead of $300,000.
Mr. President, I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
Mr. WELLSTONE addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. McConnell). The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, let me thank my colleagues. I thank
Senator Levin for his remarks. I thank him for his unbelievable
dedication in trying to push through reform legislation. He has been at
this a long time. This is the time to do it; I agree with my colleague.
We have an opportunity. We have a bill that was passed on the House
side. It is a bipartisan measure. We have a public that is calling for
the change. And I agree with you, I say to the Senator; now is the time
to pass this legislation.
I also thank my colleagues, Senator McCain, Republican from Arizona,
and Senator Feingold, Democrat from Wisconsin. I have a special kind of
affection for both of my colleagues. I think Senator McCain is
principled; he speaks out for what he believes in; he is a courageous
legislator. I think Senator Feingold has emerged here in the U.S.
Senate as a leading reformer. He is my neighbor. I am a Senator from
Minnesota, and I tell you, people from Minnesota who follow Russ
Feingold's work have a tremendous amount of respect for him. I am
honored to be an original cosponsor of this legislation.
I do not know exactly where to get started. It is interesting.
Senator Barry Goldwater told it like it is. I went to Senator
Goldwater's service in Arizona, not because I was necessarily in
agreement with him on all the issues. As a matter of fact, some of my
good friends, Republican colleagues, who were on the plane with me kept
giving me Barry Goldwater's book ``Conscience of a Conservative'' and
kept telling me if I had read that book when I was 15 I would be going
down the right path. I told them I did read the book when I was 15. I
just reached different conclusions.
Senator Goldwater about a decade ago said:

The fact that liberty depended on honest elections was of
the utmost importance to the patriots who founded our nation
and wrote the Constitution. They knew that corruption
destroyed the prime requisite of constitutional liberty, an
independent legislature free from any influence other than
that of the people. Applying these principles to modern
times, we can make the following conclusions. To be
successful, representative government assumes that elections
will be controlled by the citizenry at large, not by those
who give the most money. Electors must believe their vote
counts. Elected officials must owe their allegiance to the
people, not to their own wealth or to the wealth of interest
groups who speak only for the selfish fringes of the whole
community.

Let me just start out with some examples. I was involved in a debate
here on the floor of the Senate last week which was emotional. It was
kind of heart rending. You had a small group of people who were sitting
where some of our citizens are sitting today. And they were from Sierra
Blanca. They were disproportionately poor. They were Hispanic. And you
know what? They were saying, ``How come when it comes to the question
of where a nuclear waste dump site goes, it's put in our community? How
come it always seems to be the case that when we figure out what to do
with these incinerators or where to put these power lines or where to
dump this waste, it almost always goes to the communities where people
don't make the big contributions? They are not the heavy hitters. They
are disproportionately poor, disproportionately communities of color;
thus, the question of environmental justice.

This was a debate where you had the interests of big money, big
contributors, corporate utilities, versus low-income minority
communities. I would argue different colleagues voted for different
reasons, and some voted because it was not their State and they felt a
certain kind of, if you will, deference to Senators from other States.
I understand that. But my point is a little different.
I tell you that all too often the conclusion is sort of
predetermined. Those who have the clout and those who make the big
contributions are the ones who have the influence, and those are the
ones we listen to. All too often, a whole lot of citizens--in this
particular case, the people from Sierra Blanca--are not listened to at
all. Big money prevails, special interests prevail, for the same reason
that the people in Sierra Blanca cannot get a fair shake in Texas. That
is to say, they do

[[Page S10074]]

not give the big contributions, they do not have the political clout.
For the same reason, they could not get a fair shake here in the U.S.
Senate.
In about 20 minutes I am going to be at a meeting with some
colleagues from the Midwest. We have an economic convulsion in
agriculture. Let me wear my political scientist hat. I really believe
that when people look back to 1998, 1999, going into the next century,
and raise questions about our economy--because I fear that we are going
to be faced with some very difficult times--they are going to be
looking at this crisis in agriculture as a sort of precursor.
What has happened in agriculture is record low prices. Not everybody
who is watching the debate comes from a State where agriculture is as
important as it is in the State of Minnesota, the State I come from.
But let me say to people who are listening to the debate, if you are a
corn grower and you are getting $1.40 for a bushel of corn, you can be
the best manager in the world, you can work from 5 in the morning until
midnight, but you and your family will never make it. You will never
make it. Record low prices. People are having to give up. They are just
leaving. The farm is not only where they work, it is where they live.
It is interesting that we had a farm bill, the 1996 farm bill. It was
called the Freedom to Farm bill. I called it then the ``freedom to
fail'' bill. It was a great bill--I am not saying anything on the floor
of the Senate that I have not said a million times over in the last 2
years. It was a great bill for the grain companies because what this
piece of legislation essentially said to family farmers is, ``We're no
longer going to give you a loan rate. We're going to cap the loan rate
at such a low level that you won't have the bargaining power.''
This sounds a little technocratic, but to make a long story short,
you have family farmers faced with a monopoly when it comes to whom
they sell their grain to. If they do not have some kind of loan rate
that the Government guarantees that brings the price to a certain
level, they have no bargaining power in the marketplace.
Not surprisingly, the prices have plummeted. There is no safety net
whatsoever. And now we see in our part of the country, in the Midwest,
a family farm structure of agriculture which is in real peril. We see
an economic convulsion. We see many family farmers who are going to be
driven off the land.
We are going to be coming to the floor of the Senate--you better
believe we are going to be coming to the floor of the Senate--and we
are going to be saying to our colleagues, ``Look, you could have been
for the `freedom to fail' bill or not, but there's going to have to be
a modification. You are going to have to cap off the loan rate, and
we're going to have to get the prices up for family farmers.''
I would argue that in 1996--and I hope this will not be the debate
again--what was going on here was a farm bill that was written by and
for big corporate agribusiness interests. That is what it was. It was a
great bill for the grain companies, but it was a disaster for family
farmers.
So we are going to revisit this debate. And once again, is it going
to be the grain companies and the big food processors and the big
chemical companies and the transportation companies, or is it going to
be the family farmers? I hope it will be the family farmers. I hope our
appeal to fairness and justice will work on the floor of the U.S.
Senate.
But I tell you, all too often, as I look at these different issues in
these different debates, it is no wonder, as Senator Levin said, that
people are so disappointed and disillusioned with both political
parties. It is no wonder that people do not register and do not vote.
Because you know what? They have reached the conclusion that if you
pay, you play, and if you do not pay, you do not play.
They have reached the conclusion that this political process isn't
their political process. I mean, my God, what happens in a
representative democracy when people reach the conclusion that they are
not stakeholders in the system, that when it comes to their concerns
about themselves, about their families and their communities, their
concerns are of little concern in the corridors of power in Washington?
This is really dangerous. What is at stake is nothing less than our
very noble, wonderful, 222-year experiment in self-rule and
representative democracy. That is what it is really all about.

(Mr. FRIST assumed the Chair.)
Mr. WELLSTONE. Now, let me give some other examples. We went through
a debate about whether or not we were going to do anything to provide
our children with some protection from being addicted to tobacco. Guess
what happened? Tobacco companies, huge contributors, individual
contributions to Senators and Representatives, big soft money, hundreds
of thousands of dollars of contributions to the party, and guess what
happened? As a special favor to those big tobacco interests, we didn't
even provide our children with sensible protection.
I fear as a special favor to the big insurance companies we are not
going to eventually provide patients with the kind of protection that
they need. I fear that as a special favor to those bottom dwellers of
commerce who don't want to raise the minimum wage, we are not even
going to raise the minimum wage for hard-pressed working people.
What I see over and over and over again is a political process
hijacked by and dominated by big money. I tell you, that is the
opposite of the very idea of representative democracy, because the idea
of representative democracy is that each person counts as one and no
more than one.
What we have instead is something quite different. Let's just think
for a moment about what is on the table and what is not on the table,
because I think this mix of money and politics, this is the ethical
issue of our time. We are not talking about corruption as in the
wrongdoing of individual office holders; we are talking about
systematic corruption. What systematic corruption is all about is when
too few people have the wealth, the power, and the vast majority of
people are locked out. Some people march on Washington every day and
other people have a voice that is never heard.
Let's just think a little bit about what is on the table and what is
not on the table. I think quite often money determines who runs for
office. I will talk about who wins, what issues are put on the table,
what passes, what doesn't. Let's talk about what is not on the table
and maybe should be on the table. What is not on the table is the
concentration of power in certain key sectors of our economy which
poses such a threat to consumers in America.
Think for a moment about the concentration of power in the
telecommunications industry. If there is anything more important than
the flow of information in a democracy, I don't know what it is. This
is so important to us. Now, we had a telecommunications bill that
passed a couple years ago, which, by the way, I think has led to more
monopoly. What was interesting is that the anteroom right outside our
Chamber was packed wall to wall. You couldn't get in here if you tried
to get through that anteroom. Personally, I couldn't find truth, beauty
and justice anywhere. There was a group of people representing a
billion dollars here, another group of people representing a billion
dollars over there. You name it.
What is not on the table is a concentration of power in financial
services or a concentration of power in agriculture or all the ways in
which conglomerates have muscled their way to the dinner table and are
taking over the food industry. What is not on the table is a
concentration of power in the health care system, the way in which just
a few insurance companies can own and control most of the managed care
plans in the United States of America.
Again, I would say that we are moving toward this new century. I hope
the brave new world isn't two airline companies. I come from a State
where we now have a strike. In Minnesota we don't have a lot of choice.
We can't walk from Minnesota to Washington, DC. Northwest Airlines has
85 percent of the flights in and out. What are we going to have--two
airlines, two banks, two oil companies, one supermarket, two financial
institutions, two health care plans? It is interesting that this isn't
even on the table here. Could it be that these powerful economic
interests are able to preempt some of the debate and some of the
discussion by virtue of the huge contributions they can make with the
soft money loophole that can

[[Page S10075]]

add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars?
What is not on the table is, I argue, a frightening maldistribution
of wealth and income in America. The goal of both political parties,
the goal of political leaders, ought to be to improve the standard of
living of all the people. Since we started collecting social science
data, we have the greatest maldistribution of wealth and income we have
ever had in our country. You don't hear a word about it. It is
important for people, if they work hard, to be able to participate in
the life of our country. It is important for people to be able to
receive the fruits of their labor.
We have this huge maldistribution of wealth and income. We are not
even going to discuss it. Could it be that some of the people who are
the most hard-pressed citizens in this country have basically become
invisible? They are out of sight; they are out of mind. They don't have
lobbyists. They don't make the big contributions. They don't even
register to vote because they don't think either political party has
much to say to them. They think both parties have been taken over by
the same investors. Unfortunately, there is some truth to that.
Unfortunately, we have given people entirely too much justification for
that point of view.
What is not on the table? What is not on the table is a set of social
arrangements that allow children to be the most poverty-stricken group
in America. One out of every four children under the age of 3 is
growing up poor in America. One out of every two children of color
under the age of 3 is growing up poor in America today. That is a
national scandal. That is a betrayal of our heritage. Certainly we can
do much better.
Now, there are organizations like the Children's Defense Fund. They
do great work. But it is a very unequal fight. It comes to whether or
not you are going to have hundreds of billions of dollars of what we
call tax expenditures--tax loopholes and deductions, corporation
welfare, money that goes to all sorts of financial interests, some of
the largest financial institutions, some of the largest corporations in
America--or whether or not we are going to make a commitment to make
sure that every child has the same opportunity to reach his or her full
potential. This is the core issue. I am convinced that so many good
things that could happen here get ``trumped'' by the way in which money
dominates politics.
Now, the House has passed a good campaign finance reform bill, the
Shays-Meehan proposal. It is not everything that some of us would have
liked. As a matter of fact, what is interesting is that the original
McCain-Feingold bill applied to Senate races. I thought that was one of
the most important things. We had voluntary spending caps--you can't
mandate it--and at the same time an exchange for media time. That is
gone. That was really important. So we are talking about a proposal
that is a milder proposal, but it is an enormous step forward. It is an
enormous step forward.
There are other things that are going on in the country that I am
excited about, that I wish for, that I think eventually we will get to.
The clean money, clean election bill that some of us have introduced
here on the Senate side is an exciting proposal. We have a lot of
energy behind it at the State level. I think New York City will pass
it. I think the State of Massachusetts will pass it. The State of Maine
already did pass it. The State of Vermont passed it. There are
initiatives in other States.
Basically, with the clean money, clean election proposal, we get the
big private money out. You say to the citizen, listen, for $5 a year,
would you be willing to contribute to a clean money, clean election
trust fund? And then those candidates who abide by spending limits and
don't raise the private money, this money goes to their campaigns. You
have a level playing field, and you own the elections, and you own your
State capitol, and you don't have all of this mix of big money in
politics. A lot of people in the country really like this proposal. I
think the political problem here is we are not ready for it yet because
the system is wired. It is wired to people who can raise the big money,
and quite often, they are the incumbents. And a lot of people don't
like to vote out a system that benefits them. But the McCain-Feingold
bill represents a very important step forward--following on the heels
of a really exciting victory in the House of Representatives. It is
very important, very similar. It bans the soft money as my colleague,
Senator Levin--and there is nobody with more intellectual capital in
this area--discussed. Senator Levin knows all of the specifics. I am so
impressed with him as a legislator, with his ability. He talked about
it. I will just say that this is a huge loophole. It is all very
amorphous.

Corporations and unions can make these huge soft money contributions.
We all end up calling for this money now because everybody is trapped
by the same rotten system. It restricts issue advocacy, these phony
issue ads that are disguised as not really election ads. I went through
this. I don't mean this in the spirit of whining, but it started in
1996, in the spring in Minnesota, and it went on all summer. There were
all of these ads that would come on TV and they bash you for this and
bash you for that, but they don't say ``vote against'' whether you are
Democrat or Republican; they just say ``call.'' It is unbelievable.
They could be financed by soft money. A huge loophole, huge problem.
This bill codifies the Beck Supreme Court decision requiring unions to
notify their dues-paying members of their right to disallow political
use of their dues. It improves disclosure and FEC enforcement. This
bill would represent a substantial step forward.
Mr. President, there is a wonderful speech that was given by Bill
Moyers in December of 1997, the title of which is ``The Soul of
Democracy.'' I want to quote from part of Bill Moyers' speech:

If Carrie Bolton were here tonight, she could speak to
this. The Reverend Carrie Bolton from North Carolina. You'd
have a hard time seeing her because she is only so high and
her head would barely reach the microphone. But you would
hear her, of that I'm sure. The state legislature in North
Carolina established a commission to look at campaign
financing, and Carrie Bolton came to one of the hearings. She
listened patiently as one speaker after another addressed the
commissioners. And then it was her time. She spoke softly at
first. Then the passion rose, and her words mesmerized her
audience. When Carrie Bolton finished, they stood and
cheered. This is what she said; listen to what Carrie Bolton
said:
``I was born to a mother and father married to each other,
who were sharecroppers, who proceeded to have ten children. I
picked cotton, which made some people rich. . . . I pulled
tobacco. . .I shook peanuts. . .I dug up potatoes and picked
cucumbers, and I went to school * * * with enthusiasm. And
with great enthusiasm I memorized the Preamble to the
Constitution of the United States, I learned the Pledge of
Allegiance to the flag, and I was inspired to believe that
somehow those things symbolized hope for me against any odds
I might come upon.
``I am a divorcee, a single parent divorcee, and I earn
enough money to take care of my two children and myself. And
I have managed to get a high school diploma, a bachelor's
degree, two master's degrees, and do post doctoral work.
``I am energetic. I'm smart. I'm intelligent.
``But a snowball would stand a better chance surviving in
hell than I would running for political office in this
country. Because I have no money. My family has no money. My
friends do not have money.
``Yet, I have ideas. I'm strong, I am powerful (with her
right hand she lifts her left wrist)--people can feel my
pulse. People who are working, and working hard, can feel
what I feel.
``But I can't tell them because I don't know how to get the
spotlight to tell them.
``Because I have no money.''
Anyone who believes Carrie Bolton's cry isn't coming from
the soul of democracy is living in a fool's paradise--a rich
fool's paradise.

That is from Bill Moyers' speech. He is my hero journalist. I think
he has done some of the finest work. He concludes his speech by saying
this:

I have three grandchildren--Henry, 5; Thomas, 3; and 10-
month-old Nancy Judith. I want them to grow up in a healthy,
civil society, one where their political worth is not
measured by their net worth.

That is one of the reasons Bill Moyers goes on to argue that this is
his passion, this is his work. He is right. This is the core issue.
Now, Mr. President, I don't know that I would have the eloquence of
Carrie Bolton, but I conclude this way because I see other colleagues
who may want to speak. I can't forget my own experience. It is not
quite Carrie Bolton's experience, but I ran for office in 1990, and it
was amazing. I mean, you don't come to the floor to brag, but you don't
run for office if you don't

[[Page S10076]]

think you have the character and ideas. Basically, everywhere I went,
the argument was made, ``you don't have a chance.'' I was a teacher, so
I didn't have much money. My father was an unsuccessful writer. My
mother was a cafeteria worker, a food service worker. My family didn't
have any money. My wife Sheila worked in the library at the high
school. Everywhere I would go--including on the Democrat side, not just
the Republican side--people were trying to decide whether or not I was
a viable candidate. It had nothing to do with content of character,
nothing to do with ideas, nothing to do with leadership potential, and
it had nothing to do with positions on issues. People just wanted to
know how much money you raised. You were viable or you weren't viable.
You were a good candidate or you were a bad one based upon how much
money you yourself had--and I didn't have it--or how much money you
would raise.
It is unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable. There are so many people
who can't run for that reason alone. I was lucky. I come from
Minnesota, and I am emotional about how much I owe to them. They were
an exception to the rule. We were outspent six or seven to one, and we
won. Sometimes it happens--if you have a great green schoolbus to
campaign in and a great grassroots organization.
I am the son of a Jewish immigrant who fled persecution from Russia.
We have had a 222-year, bold, important experiment in self-rule in
democracy, representative democracy. That is what is at jeopardy here.
I have talked to people about potentially running for office. They
don't want to. A lot of people, good people, don't want to run for
office any longer because they can't stand the thought of this money
chase. They can't stand doing it. Moreover, if you combine what the
money is used for, with communication technology becoming the weapon of
electoral conflict, people using the money for poison politics, all the
attack stuff on TV, a lot of very good, sane people don't run.
I think what is happening is a lot of good people aren't going to be
involved in public affairs. A lot of young people are not going to get
involved in public affairs. You get to where people are either
millionaires or they have to raise millions of dollars. I think you get
into this awful self-select where a whole lot of good men and women
aren't going to run at all. I am not going to cite the polls because we
have the evidence for this. Everybody knows it. Every Democrat and
Republican knows full well that people are disengaged and disillusioned
with politics in this country, and this is one of the central reasons.
So, Mr. President, I simply say to my colleagues that we have a piece
of legislation on the floor that follows up on an exciting victory in
the House of Representatives, and we need to pass this legislation. I
also say to my colleagues--Democrats and Republicans alike--frankly, I
can't figure out the opposition. People want to see this changed.
People just hate the way in which they feel like money dominates
politics. Those of us in office, and even those of us who are
challenged for office, hate it. We hate raising the money; we hate this
system. I would think if we wanted the people we represent to have more
confidence and faith in us, more confidence and faith in this political
process, more confidence and faith in the U.S. Senate, we would vote
for the McCain-Feingold piece of legislation.
So the debate will go on. We will have this vote.
I say to my colleagues on the other side--which doesn't mean just
Republicans because there are some Republicans who support this
legislation--that I think they are making a big mistake filibustering.
From my point of view, this should go on and on for the next however
many weeks it takes. I don't think we should drop this one. This is the
core issue. This is the core question. It speaks to all the issues that
are important to people's lives. It speaks as to whether or not we are
going to have a functioning democracy or not.
As a Senator from Minnesota, from a good government State, from a
reform State, from a progressive State, there is no more important
position that I can take than to be for this reform legislation.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. DURBIN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagel). The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me say at the outset that it is tough
to follow the Senator from Minnesota. Senator Wellstone brings to this
body extraordinary talent, and more than that, a conviction and fervent
commitment to principle that all of us admire so greatly.
His first campaign for the U.S. Senate was legendary. He was a
college professor, I believe, in a small college in Minnesota. He put
himself on a school bus--an old, beaten up school bus--and traveled all
around the State of Minnesota. He was dramatically outspent by a
gentleman who had formerly served in the U.S. Senate, and, yet,
prevailed.
His presence on the floor of the Senate indicates his reelection to
the U.S. Senate and to the fact that there are Members of the Senate
who can basically break the rules. He wasn't supposed to win. You are
not supposed to have a chance when somebody outspends you 6 or 7 to 1.
It might raise some question in some people's minds. Why we are even
debating this if someone like Paul Wellstone can win when he is being
so dramatically outspent? Why do we need campaign finance reform? It is
just because of the fact that Paul Wellstone, unfortunately, is the
exception to the rule. The rule is that at the end of a campaign, if
you take a look at the amount of money spent by a candidate, in most
instances--the overwhelming majority of instances--the candidate,
whether it is the incumbent or the challenger, who spends more money
will prevail, will win the election.
That really tells the story of why this bill--the McCain-Feingold
bill--the only bipartisan campaign finance reform bill, is so
important, because it strikes at the heart of this money chase.
Think about this last Presidential election in 1996--incumbent
President Bill Clinton v. Senator Robert Dole, two extraordinarily
talented men with a background in public service running for the
highest office in the land. They traversed America from one side to the
other. They were on every newscast every night. They debated with
frequency. There was a great exchange on issues, and a real difference
of opinion on many important questions.
We in America--at least the politicians--were focused on a daily
basis.
Then came the election in November of 1996. Something historic
occurred. I am not talking about who won and lost. What was historic
was the fact that we had the lowest percentage turnout of eligible
voters casting ballots in the Presidential election than we had in 72
years in America. Think of it. Despite all of the publicity, and all of
the attention, when the election day came, Americans--American voters--
stayed home.
Let me amend that for a moment.
The reason why 72 years applies is that 72 years before 1996 was the
first election in American history when women were eligible to vote,
and many did not. If you would take that particular election in 1924
out of the picture, you have to go back into the early part of the 19th
century to see a lower turnout of eligible voters. Is that important?
Does it mean anything that voters stayed home; that they have decided
for the most important election in America that they wouldn't
participate? I think it means everything in a democracy, because the
voters--the citizens of this country--will not even come forward to
express their choice in an election. It is not only a sad commentary on
our democracy. It is a threat to our democracy.
The McCain-Feingold bill goes to the heart of the problem. Why did
people stay home? Did they assume they already knew the results? That
is possible. But I think a lot of them were sickened by this political
process. They looked at the way that, in this case, men ran for
President; and men and women ran or not for the House and Senate. They
basically said, ``We don't care to participate in it. Our family is
going to stay home.'' And they did.
What was it about those election campaigns? Was it the groveling that
all of us as candidates who were not independently wealthy had to do to
raise the money to be viable? I think that is part of it. I think that
is the big part of it. They wonder how a man or a woman aspiring to
serve in this body,

[[Page S10077]]

or the House, can raise literally millions of dollars without dirtying
themselves in the process, without sacrificing their own principles and
values. They become increasingly skeptical of politicians in general,
and the candidates up for election in particular.

There is another element, too--the advertising that we put on
television during the course of the campaign. A lot of people are
turned off by it. Most campaigns hire sophisticated people to make
those ads. They hire pollsters who go out and take legitimate samples
of American opinion--samples within a given State--and convert those
samples into messages; 30-second messages that go up on television.
Some of the messages are positive. Some are negative. It is the
negative ones that unfortunately give us the bad name and lead a lot of
people to say that this process itself is so fundamentally flawed.
This McCain-Feingold bill has one more aspect. And one important
aspect of that says when it comes to these so-called independent
expenditures--the issue advocacy ads--at the very minimum let us find
out who these people are that are paying for the ads. That is not too
much to ask. Let me give you an illustration.
The last time we debated this bill on the floor, I left the debate to
go to a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee before which we had
witnesses who were testifying on a variety of subjects, including the
question of term limits. The term limits issue is fairly obvious. It
says that we should limit--at least those people argue--that we should
limit the number of terms served by Members of the U.S. Senate and
Members of the House of Representatives. There is some surface appeal
to this that has become a hot issue in a variety of elections. I know
the issue myself personally, because in the closing days of my Senate
race in the State of Illinois they spent about a quarter of a million
dollars on TV ads criticizing me because I opposed the term limits
proposal. And those ads were fairly effective. I won. But I had to deal
with the criticism that they raised.
So there sat before me this gentleman representing the term limits
movement who said he agreed with the opponents of McCain-Feingold that
we shouldn't reform our campaign finance system. I said to the
gentleman representing the term limits movement, ``Please, since I as a
candidate have to disclose every penny that I raise, the source of the
amount, and my political party has to do the same, I would like for
your term limits movement, having spent millions of dollars to defeat
or elect candidates to office, to do the same. Are you prepared to
disclose to the American people the sources of the money that paid for
those TV ads?'' His answer in a word was ``no.''
Why wouldn't he make a full disclosure? His argument was--follow this
one, if you will--that there would be retribution from elected
officials whom they disagreed with. I don't buy it.
Men and women organizations come forward on a regular basis to
contribute to political campaigns. They understand they have taken a
position for a man or woman running for office. The fear of retribution
is part of the concern. But it is an illustration of how an
organization with some high-sounding purpose like limiting terms for
Members of the House and Senate can literally spend millions of dollars
of mystery money and never make a full disclosure; never make any
disclosure as to the source of those funds.
Is it important? It could be. Who knows who is financing term limits
in America? Is it one person? Is it one company? Is it one special
interest group? That is a legitimate question. I can guarantee you that
you will not see the term limits movement people standing around the
shopping centers of America with kettles and bells asking for quarters
and dimes. They don't do business that way. They deal in big checks
from big players, big expenditures, to make a big impact on the system,
and they are totally, totally unregulated. That to me is shameful. It
is disgraceful.

What is going on here in this debate on McCain-Feingold is an attempt
to change the system, to clean it up, and to restore some character to
our political process. I am at the same disadvantage as Senator
Wellstone of Minnesota and Senator Feingold, one of the cosponsors, of
Wisconsin. I was raised in a family that was not wealthy. I had a
wealthy background in terms of values and education but not a lot of
money. Fortunately, with good education and some good friends, I was
able to start a career in public service. But now we find this new
emerging phenomenon in American political life on both sides, Democrat
and Republican, the so-called middle-aged, crazy millionaire who shows
up on the scene bored with his life who decides he is tired of
practicing law, he is tired of making lots of money in business and now
has dreams of being Governor or Senator or you name it. They then take
their personal wealth and, under the existing law, spend it to
basically buy a campaign, buy their way into office.
I think there are some genuinely good people who have done this, but
I think we have to ask ourselves what will happen to this political
process if more and more of this sort of person become the
Representatives and Senators of America. I think we will lose
something. We would lose something like a Patty Murray, who is a
Senator from the State of Washington, who has a background of teaching
in a classroom. I am glad Senator Patty Murray is on the floor of the
Senate. When we discuss educational issues, I turn to Patty Murray.
Time and again, I want her perspective because she has been there. She
comes from a family of modest means, but she makes a great contribution
because the voters in the State of Washington have allowed her to come
to this floor. And when you look around this Chamber you find others,
Democrats and Republicans, of similar backgrounds. Unless we are
prepared to reform this campaign finance system, I am afraid it will
become more elite, more plutocratic, if you will, and limited in terms
of the types of people who do serve it.
Let me also, in closing, note the procedural issue that we face here.
This is an important issue. It was brought up before the Senate once
before, and it was stopped. Some 57 Senators, if I am not mistaken,
Democrats and Republicans, came forward saying they supported it, but
in this body it really takes 60 in order to stop the filibuster. Sixty
votes were not there. Campaign finance died. The House went through
heroic efforts to bring this to the floor over the opposition of
Speaker Gingrich. After weeks of debate, weeks of amendment, they
passed it, and now this bill sits ready for our approval.
Will we vote on it? That would seem the obvious thing. Let's vote on
campaign finance reform, up or down. We are going to have it or we are
not. If we can pass it, let's send it to the President. Let's try to
make sure that we achieve at least one thing in this legislative
session. And yet it is not likely we will ever see that opportunity. It
is not likely because under the rules of the Senate procedurally you
can basically stop a vote. I hope that doesn't happen. I hope we have
an opportunity for the yeas and nays on this question, an up-or-down
vote. Let the Senators of both parties be on record before they go
home. Are they in favor of reform or would they want to obfuscate this
issue, cover it up with rhetoric? Try to say to the voters back home:
You just don't understand; it is much more complicated.
I hope that doesn't occur. I hope that we will have the up-or-down
vote. I hope the men and women of the Senate, Democrats and
Republicans, will cast their vote on this issue of campaign finance
reform. I do believe what is at stake here is more than just a
bipartisan bill. Senator McCain of Arizona and Senator Feingold of
Wisconsin are the chief sponsors. At stake here is the question of the
future of this democracy. We are just a few scant weeks away from an
important election, an election which will ask the American people to
make their choices again.
I guess it sounds almost hackneyed now to talk about the legacy that
we have in this country, that we so often take for granted.
I can recall just a few years ago when I was given an opportunity to
visit the tiny country where my mother was born, the country of
Lithuania. Lithuania, which has for over 50 years been under Soviet
domination, was given for the first time a chance at democracy, the
first time in half a century. I was there as then-President Gorbachev
sent

[[Page S10078]]

in the tanks in an effort to quell this democratic movement, and,
fortunately, he was not successful. People of that country risked their
lives. They certainly risked their political futures because they
wanted to vote. They wanted to elect their leaders. It was gratifying
that they would invite me and others from the United States, because we
represented to them what this was all about--democracy, the people
speaking.
I found it curious. As each one of these leaders would emerge in
these new countries, they would visit around the world, but the first
stop would always be right here in this building, on Capitol Hill,
before a joint session of Congress. Whether it was Lech Walesa, Vaclav
Havel, the leaders of the Philippines and other places, in order to
validate their democratic experiment, in order to come to what they
considered to be the cradle of liberty, they came here to this
building. They recognized in our country what many of our citizens are
failing to recognize--what this democracy really means and what it is
all about.

There are some who will argue this issue and say that the speech I
have just made is too idealistic, it is way beyond practical politics.
They are right. It is about ideals. It is about the democratic ideals
that are at stake if we don't reform this system. I hope those who
oppose this bill will in all fairness give us a chance for an up-or-
down vote.
Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the first amendment to the Constitution of
the United States reads in relevant part:

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech
or of the press.

No law, Mr. President, and I pick up this relatively long and
detailed proposal for a new law, and I read the title of one of the
sections, the title appearing on page 16: ``Prohibition of Corporate
and Labor Disbursements for Electioneering Communications.'' Let me
read that once again, Mr. President. Section 200B of this bill is a
``Prohibition of Corporate and Labor Disbursements for Electioneering
Communications.''
Now, what is an electioneering communication? According to the bill,
and again I quote, ``electioneering communication means any broadcast
from a television or radio broadcast station which refers to a clearly
identified candidate for Federal office; is made or scheduled to be
made within 60 days before a general, special, or runoff election for
such Federal office.''
Mr. President, I go back to the first amendment. The first amendment
says:

Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech
or of the press.

It is impossible for me to see how the proponents of this legislation
can claim that these detailed restrictions on what corporations or
labor unions and within the body of the bill, individuals, political
parties or organizations, can do when they are communicating about an
election and so much as naming a political candidate.
The American Civil Liberties Union, in writing about this provision
in connection with last February's debate, wrote:

This unprecedented provision is an impermissible effort to
regulate issue speech which contains not a whisper of express
advocacy simply because it refers to a Federal candidate who,
more often than not, is a congressional incumbent during an
election season.

This argument doesn't even go to the desirability of such a provision
but simply to the fact that it is clearly a violation of the first
amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
One can go beyond that and wonder why this phrase ``electioneering
communication'' only applies to radio and television. I think at the
time of our previous debate the definition was broader than that. But
here we have a situation in which a particular form of communication
about public issues--of speech about public issues--is banned but an
identical speech about the same public issues using the same words is
not banned or controlled in any respect whatsoever--radio and
television; not newspapers, not handbills, not direct mail. I believe
it is likely that these provisions would be found unconstitutional if
only because of that distinction without a difference between forms of
communication; that if one form of communication is allowed, how can
you possibly prohibit another form of communication?
The rationale, I believe, is that the sponsors of this provision
believe that radio and television communication is somehow more
effective than other forms of communication and so they will ban it
only. But the fundamental position of the opponents to this bill is
that this whole section, the whole subtitle dealing with independent
and coordinated expenditures, dealing with what can and cannot be done
within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of the general
election, clearly abridges the ``freedom of speech'' clause of the
first amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
In both Congress and the courts, there have been frequent appeals to
certain limitations on certain forms of speech and the broadest
definition of that word when that speech is asserted to be obscene.
Much of that debate revolves around whether or not James Madison and
the Founding Fathers would have protected certain forms of speech--
obscenity, even advertising and the like. We debated that issue in
connection with proposed tobacco legislation earlier this year. But
clearly the draftsmen of the first amendment, the Founding Fathers,
were absolutely certain and clear in their belief that political
speech, the debate about political ideas, be absolutely free and
unfettered. And they succeeded in doing just exactly that.
In Buckley v. Valeo, the Court said:

A restriction on the amount of money a person or group can
spend on political communication during a campaign
necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting
the number of issues discussed, the depth of their
exploration, and the size of the audience reached. This is
because virtually every means of communicating ideas in
today's mass society requires the expenditure of money.

I may return to this issue in a few moments, but it does represent
only one-half--one section of this bill. The other element of the bill,
the prohibition of what is called ``soft money,'' probably is not
subject to the same constitutional strictures. It is simply
overwhelmingly undesirable. Congress, in 1974, in a portion of its
campaign finance regulations passed in that year, limited the amount of
money that one individual could give to another individual's political
campaign for Federal office. That portion of the 1974 statute was found
to be valid, though the limitations on actual expenditures by a given
candidate from that candidate's own money or from other sources was
found to be invalid, under the Constitution, for the very reasons that
I have just read, from the Supreme Court's opinion in Buckley v. Valeo.

What has been the inevitable result of those restrictions? What has
been the inevitable result of those restrictions as the limitations
passed in 1974 have shrunk by the operation of inflation in our society
so that the $1,000 per individual per campaign limitation in 1974 is
worth roughly $380 or $390 today? Mr. President, the response on the
part of people who feel strongly about political ideas and about
political campaigns has been to cause them to switch a great deal of
their support from individual candidates to the political parties under
whose aegis those candidates run for office.
Now, I think that this is, at least, a modest step in the wrong
direction. Why? Because, of course, every dollar spent by a candidate--
whether that candidate has written a check out of his or her own pocket
or whether or not that money has been solicited from others--every
dollar spent by an individual candidate on a communication is subject
to criticism from the newspapers, television stations, and from other
candidates to exactly the extent that it is deceptive or dodges the
perceived real issues in a political campaign. Each candidate, in other
words, can be held responsible, and candidates are generally held
responsible, for the quality of their own communications. A candidate,
however, cannot nearly so easily be held responsible for communications
coming from that candidate's party. So to exactly the extent that we
have limited--have choked off the ability of candidates other than the
wealthiest of those candidates to raise--
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

[[Page S10079]]

Mr. GORTON. Yes.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Let me first express my admiration for the Senator from
Washington's interest in first amendment and free speech issues, and
his very careful presentation.
I would just like to ask, in light of his earlier comments, if he
believes the Buckley v. Valeo decision was correctly decided?
Mr. GORTON. He does, though in this case I am not sure that Buckley
v. Valeo would have been so decided, even with respect to the
limitation on contributions to individual candidates, had those
limitations been, say, $380 or $390 today. That is to say, a
restriction or a limitation that is constitutional under one set of
circumstances could easily find itself to be unconstitutional under
another set of circumstances, if the Court deemed those limitations to
be unreasonably restrictive.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I recognize the point that in Buckley v.
Valeo the Court did suggest that there was some magnitude of
contribution that might be needed to constitute a corrupting influence
on the political process. But the Senator apparently accepts the notion
that it is constitutional to have some kind of limitation on what a
person can give to a candidate.
Mr. GORTON. That is the decision in Buckley v. Valeo, and while I
question the wisdom of the limitation, I don't question the
constitutionality.
Mr. FEINGOLD. I think the Senator has been--if I can continue, Mr.
President--has been very candid on the floor as to whether it would be
constitutional to prohibit soft money contributions. I think you have
spoken to that. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe you have
indicated you believe that, under Buckley v. Valeo, it would be
constitutional to do that although it may not be wise to do so. Is that
a fair statement of the Senator's position?
Mr. GORTON. The Senator is correct.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
Mr. GORTON. The point the Senator from Washington was making was
simply this, Mr. President: That limitations, constitutional as they
may be, on the ability of candidates, other than those who can finance
their own campaigns, to solicit money from others, has forced that
money into a channel in which the electioneering communications are far
less the responsibility of the individual candidate than they are when
that candidate spends for himself.
From a public policy point of view, it is the view of this Senator at
least that money spent by political parties is less desirable because
there is less responsibility for it than money spent by individual
candidates. But of course those aren't the only two alternatives for
spending money for political purposes.
As and when these limitations on contributions to political parties
become law, to the extent they are found constitutional, the interest
of those who feel a vital necessity to communicate political ideas to
advance causes of either ideas or for candidates is not going to be
eliminated, it is not even going to be diminished.
What do we have under those circumstances, Mr. President? Under those
circumstances, we have the individual who can no longer give a
significant amount of money to a candidate of his or her choice, can no
longer give what he or she considers a sufficient amount to the
political party of that candidate engaged in one or two other political
activities: Either in independent expenditures on behalf of an
individual candidate or an idea or in issue advocacy. Under those
circumstances, the communications are even less the responsibility of
the candidate who benefits from them than they are when the money is
spent by that candidate's political party.
The political party is not responsible for the content of any such
electioneering communications either, but we then get to the very
unconstitutional limitations on express advocacy that are included in
this bill. The sponsors of the bill run up against the fact that the
limitations that they can impose constitutionally simply force money
used on politics into areas that they cannot constitutionally touch
because the Constitution says Congress shall make no law abridging the
freedom of speech.
The amount of money spent on political ideas and political advocacy
is no less--in fact, in many respects it may be more--it is simply that
it is, for all practical purposes, impossible to criticize a candidate
for money that is, for all practical purposes, being spent on behalf of
that candidate.

That, Mr. President, is the fundamental reason that even those
portions of this bill which are arguably constitutional are highly
undesirable. They will not lessen the amount of money spent during the
course of political campaigns. They will make the spending of that
money less responsible than it is at the present time. They have
nothing to do with an argument about corruption, other than to
encourage the kind of subterfuge which so marked the 1996 elections.
If, for example, the money spent in 1996 could have been legally
given directly to the candidates and disclosed at the time, we wouldn't
be in the midst of one more search for an independent counsel to
examine the results of those elections.
The net results of this bill, it seems to me, are twofold: They are
to force political money into less and less responsible channels in
which disclosure is less than it is at the present time and, to the
extent that they attempt to control those expenditures, to come afoul
of the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States. No,
Mr. President, we would be far, far better off in encouraging, rather
than discouraging, contributions directly to candidates and requiring
their immediate disclosure, and in encouraging rather than discouraging
support of our political parties.
Most of us who are engaged in partisan politics through most of our
careers have been exposed to the academic proposition, at least, that
one of the shortcomings of the American political system, in comparison
with the parliamentary systems of most other democracies, is the almost
total absence of party discipline and party responsibility. We are
often criticized for the fact that each one of us as an individual--
that a voter cannot be at all certain when he or she votes for a
candidate of the Republican Party, or the Democratic Party, for that
matter, that they will get what they believe to be the platform of that
political party adopted, because the candidates, in each case, are
independent agents.
Most academics would ask us to increase the power, the degree of
influence, of political parties over their members, especially over
their elected officials, so that we could have a brighter line of
distinction between the parties and their platforms, so that voters
would have what they consider to be a more significant choice.
I may say that I don't necessarily buy that argument. I am not sure I
buy it at all. But there are few arguments put forward by either
academics or, I think, by practicing politicians that political party
organizations of the United States should be weaker and of less account
than they are today.
This bill, to the extent that it is constitutional, weakens,
marginalizes, almost eliminates, the effect of political party
organizations, and it does so to exactly the extent that it increases
the authority and the influence of nonparty organizations of the most
narrow of special interest organizations in political campaigns.
No, Mr. President, we should strengthen the candidates'
organizations. We should require candidates to be more responsible for
the money that is spent on their behalf, and we should probably be
strengthening political party organizations at the same time.
What we do in this bill is to continue the weakening of the
candidates, to add to that the weakening of the parties, and we
encourage, because of the unconstitutional nature of the second part of
this bill, the portion of spending in our political system for which
the spenders and the political parties and the candidates are least
accountable.
This bill is no better than it was in February when it was defeated.
It is no better than it was nearly 2 years ago when it was defeated.
The comments during the course of the debate a year ago last fall
from George Will are as applicable today as they were then. And I will
conclude by quoting him:

Nothing in American history--not the left's recent campus
``speech codes,'' nor the right's depredations during 1950s
McCarthyism, or the 1920s ``red scare,'' not the Alien

[[Page S10080]]

and Sedition Acts of the 1790s--matches the menace to the
First Amendment posed by campaign ``reforms'' advancing under
the protective coloration of political hygiene.

That was true last year. It is true this year. It will be true next
year. It is the fundamental reason that this bill violating first
amendment rights of free speech should be rejected by this body once
again.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. GORTON. The Senator has yielded the floor.
Mr. FEINGOLD. I was wondering if the Senator would briefly be willing
to continue the discussion of the constitutional issues.
Mr. President, I appreciated the Senator's candid responses on the
relationship of the Buckley v. Valeo decision to the issues of
contributions. He also talked a little bit about corporate and union
spending and what should be done there.
Does the Senator have a constitutional problem with the current law's
ban on corporate union spending in connection with Federal elections?
Mr. GORTON. This Senator has some question on that subject, but this
Senator is completely convinced that, as undesirable as he regarded the
political campaigns in 1996 by labor unions, that they were, are, and
will remain completely constitutional, totally within the rights of
those unions, and that they cannot be restricted in any respect
whatsoever by the Congress.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Is the Senator aware that since 1904 corporations have
not been able to make contributions directly, and since 1943 labor
unions cannot? That is current law.
Mr. GORTON. That is current law, but that has to do with the direct
contribution to a candidate. It has nothing to do with the express
advocacy that is covered by the second part of this bill.
Mr. FEINGOLD. If the corporation or union simply ran campaign ads,
the prohibition would apply as well, would it not?
Mr. GORTON. It is very difficult to see the difference between what
was done during the course of the 1996 elections in direct campaign
ads, and they were distinctions without a difference.
Mr. FEINGOLD. That is exactly the point.
To continue, is that not a reason that a majority of this body, as
expressed in the Snowe-Jeffords amendment, believes that this is a very
simple and logical extension on the ban of corporate and union
campaigning by saying that a corporation and union cannot directly fund
issue ads that directly mention a candidate's name in the last 60 days?
Is that not simply an extension of, in effect, what has always been the
law?
Mr. GORTON. No, I do not believe under any circumstances that it is.
There is an absolute prohibition against so much as mentioning the name
of a candidate in a 60-day period before an election in this bill. I
simply refer the Senator to the first amendment. If that is not a law
abridging the freedom of speech, we could not pass a law abridging the
freedom of speech. Any other limitation or restriction would be valid.
It flies directly into the teeth of the plain meaning of the first
amendment.
Mr. FEINGOLD. It is interesting that the Senator makes that comment
because a few years ago, for example, there was no question that Philip
Morris could not write out a million-dollar check and run ads like
that, but somehow now it is almost standard practice. Somehow the law
has been moved away from almost a century-long prohibition on corporate
spending in connection with Federal elections to the ability to have
unlimited spending on Federal elections through the ruse of pretending
that an issue ad is an issue ad when it actually does everything but
say the words, of course, ``vote for'' or ``vote against'' a certain
candidate.
Isn't that just, in effect, eliminating the whole corporate
prohibition that has existed for such----
Mr. GORTON. The quarrel that the Senator from Wisconsin has is not
with this Senator but the Supreme Court of the United States and the
first amendment.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, that is exactly what we would hope to
determine with the passage of this bill. We would find out if in fact
the Supreme Court would find that an ad that does everything to promote
a candidate or attack a candidate but say ``vote for'' really is an
issue ad. That would be a matter for the Supreme Court to determine.
Mr. President, I appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from
Washington in responding to a series of questions.
I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Nevada, Mr. Bryan, be
added as a cosponsor of the McCain-Feingold amendment before the body.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BRYAN addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Wisconsin, and I
thank him and the senior Senator from Arizona for their leadership on
campaign finance reform. They have been faithful to the cause. They
have been leaders on the floor and they have, I think, engaged the
American people at long last in a colloquy so that I believe, as I will
comment later in my remarks, the American public now has a better
understanding of what is at issue here.
Mr. President, I rise today as a cosponsor and strong supporter of
the legislation brought to the floor by Senators McCain and Feingold. I
must say that I am pleased--``overjoyed'' may be an understatement--
that the Senate has at last an opportunity to revisit this issue.
Although campaign finance reform has been derailed in the past by a
perennial filibuster, the event of passage of the Shays-Meehan
legislation in the House has provided us with a golden opportunity to
move past the procedural maneuvering that has obstructed this important
legislation for far too long.
The volume of evidence from our most recent Federal elections clearly
demonstrates that our current system has spiraled completely out of
control. It is no longer a system of rules but a system of loopholes,
and through these loopholes has poured a staggering amount of money
that continues to escalate each and every campaign cycle.
We no longer have a system in which candidates are encouraged to
debate their records and their positions on the issues. We no longer
have a system in which candidates are encouraged to look for votes by
shaking hands at a coffee shop or greeting workers at a factory gate
and knocking door to door at residents' homes.
Sadly, the system in place today encourages candidates to look not
for votes but for money. It is a money chase, Mr. President. And all of
us are part of this unsavory system. And only we can change it. It is a
shameless and demeaning system. And that just speaks to the
extraordinary sums of money that candidates themselves are required to
raise and spend.
Add to that the millions and millions of dollars raised and spent by
the national political parties and outside special interest groups who
have perfected the art of saturating an entire State with political ads
months and months before the election day.
Mr. President, those who continue to oppose meaningful campaign
finance reform must be living in a different world. I simply cannot
fathom how anyone can look at the chaos of our past and current
elections and suggest that the response of the U.S. Senate should be to
do nothing.
During the recent August recess, I had the opportunity to travel
widely throughout my home State of Nevada and to meet face to face with
thousands of my constituents. In fact, by automobile I traveled more
than 3,000 miles through Nevada, visiting with some of the smallest
communities in our State and holding 17 townhall meetings during the
course of this recess.
Time and time again, the issue of campaign finance reform was raised
at these townhall meetings. It was deeply unsettling to see firsthand
how disgusted the American people are with the absolute scandal taking
place in our campaign finance system. These were not politicians
talking about the need for reform. These were ordinary people who have
become so disillusioned with our political process that they no longer
feel any sort of connection to our democratic system. This is a
dangerous threat to democracy itself.

Let me also point out that as often as this issue was raised, not a
single person, not one, expressed opposition

[[Page S10081]]

to the McCain-Feingold bill on campaign finance reform. No one.
Absolutely no one.
Thankfully, the House of Representatives has provided us with the
opportunity to at least stop the hemorrhaging of our current finance
system. Several weeks ago, on a strong, bipartisan vote, the House
passed the Shays-Meehan bill which was modeled on the McCain-Feingold
legislation before us today. This was not just a handful of Republicans
voting with Democrats to pass this legislation. In point of fact, one
quarter of the entire House Republican conference voted for that
bipartisan bill which passed by a margin of 252-179.
Now, I have heard some of our colleagues, in expressing opposition to
campaign finance reform, argue that just because the House has passed
this legislation, it does not mean we should do so. I must say I have a
different interpretation of the present situation. Shame on the Senate
for not passing campaign finance reform in the past; shame on the
Senate if we refuse to do so now when we have the opportunity to do so.
Some of us, myself included, would have preferred more comprehensive
reform legislation than McCain-Feingold offers. But it is an important
step, a vital step, on the road to campaign finance reform. Its
centerpiece is the ban on the so-called soft money. Banning these
unlimited and unregulated contributions would represent the most
important political reform enacted by the Congress in more than two
decades. Let me repeat this: Banning these unlimited and unregulated
contributions would represent the most important political reform
enacted by the Congress in more than two decades.
Despite the 3-year long filibuster of this legislation, we have heard
very few opponents come down to the floor and stand up and defend the
virtues of a $250,000 in soft money contribution or more. Soft money is
an embarrassment to the American political system. It is the mother of
all campaign finance loopholes and perhaps the most ingenious money-
laundering system in history. Soft money as we know it refers to the
unlimited and unregulated contributions from corporations, labor unions
and wealthy individuals that flow to the political parties, unchecked
and unregulated, outside the accepted contribution limits and reporting
requirements of Federal law. This soft money, with little or no
disclosure, is then poured into what have become known as issue ads, a
nickname given to television and radio advertisements that skirt
Federal election laws and fall under no regulations. This money is
raised and spent with virtually no limits and no disclosure.
How much soft money can be contributed? Sadly, the sky is truly the
limit. In fact, there are no limits to this incredulous, bizarre
system. In 1992, just 6 years ago, the two parties raised and spent a
combined $86 million in soft money. In just 4 years, soft money more
than tripled, exploding from $86 million in 1992 to $262 million in
1996; $260 million that was raised and spent, completely outside the
scope of Federal election law.
Perhaps the only thing worse than to know how this soft money is
raised is to know how this soft money is being spent. In recent years,
the airways have been bombarded, saturated with political ads paid for
with soft money. These political ads specialize in shredding various
candidates without telling the viewers who paid for the ad, where the
money came from, and who was responsible for its content.
It should come as no surprise to any of us that more and more
Americans are repulsed by these anonymous assaults and the sheer volume
of money pouring into our election system. As a consequence, they are
distancing themselves from the political process. That is the greatest
tragedy of all. Americans are so turned off by our political system
that they don't even vote on election day. When they do vote, often it
is not the sense of voting for the better of two candidates; it is a
perception that they are voting for the lesser of two evils on the
ballot.
With a tidal wave of campaign cash flowing into our political system,
the torrent of negative advertising on the airways, and the lack of
meaningful disclosure or accountability, it is becoming increasingly
difficult, almost impossible, for the American people to feel good
about any candidate, or their participation in the democratic process.
Just last week, in my home State of Nevada, we had a critically
important primary election. Not only is there an open gubernatorial
seat in a hotly contested primary, there were primaries for the U.S.
Senate, an open House seat, and a number of seats in the State
legislature. I am sad to report that only 28 percent of all registered
voters in Nevada turned out for this election--28 percent. Let me make
an important distinction. That is not 28 percent of all Nevadans who
were eligible to register and to participate in the system. That is 28
percent of those who are actually registered. This is a tragedy. It is
not good for our system. Seventy-two percent of all registered voters
in Nevada did not vote. And Nevada is not alone.
I have heard it said that if one looks at the entire primary election
cycle this year--and I presume they are factoring in those who are
eligible to register and chose not to do so, as well as those who are
eligible to vote, having registered but chose not to vote--less than 17
percent of the people in America have participated in the electoral
process this year. This is a disaster wherever one comes down in the
political scale. Whether one registers himself or herself more closely
aligned with Democrats or Republicans, independent Americans or
Libertarians, wishes to revive the old Know Nothing party, would like
to see the old Whig party revived, or want to be part of the avant
garde 1990s and become a member of the vegetarian party, wherever one
comes down on the political spectrum, 72 percent of those registered to
vote not participating is a system that we cannot sustain and still
have a representative democracy in America.
In addition to cutting down the soft money system, the McCain-
Feingold proposal would place significant restriction on the issue ads
which I have just described. Under the Snowe-Jeffords modification, if
a radio or television advertisement mentions a candidate's name within
30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election, the
funds used to pay for that advertisement must be raised under Federal
election law and must be fully disclosed. Some outside organizations
have suggested that they have a constitutional right to freely discuss
an issue with the electorate. I agree. In fact, under this legislation,
any organization can run an advertisement on any issue they want--
whether it is health care reform, gun control, or any other issue--with
no restrictions.
That is a true issue ad and a sort of communication that the Supreme
Court has said is free from government regulation, and properly so. The
Supreme Court has also said that we can regulate advertisements that
are not meant to advocate issues, but instead are meant to advocate
candidates. That is what this legislation provides. True issue ads
would be exempt from this legislation. However, if an organization
chooses to run an ad in the weeks before an election, and if that ad is
clearly designed to advocate for or against a particular candidate who
is involved in that election, this legislation will define that
activity as election related, and the money used for those ads will be
required to be raised and spent under the provisions of Federal
election law.
Finally, in addition to banning soft money and enacting tough
restrictions on candidate ads, the legislation includes a number of
provisions that will improve the disclosure of fundraising activities
and provide the Federal Election Commission with greater tools to
detect and to investigate campaign finance abuses.
Unfortunately, it appears that once again it will require 60 votes to
move this important legislation through the U.S. Senate. I, for one,
would like to see us move past these procedural games and start having
real votes and real issues and debate campaign finance reform on the
merits, on the substance. Let's vote on whether or not we should ban
all soft money. Let's vote on whether these thinly disguised attack ads
should be considered election and campaign ads subject to Federal
election law, and let's vote on whether we should strengthen our
disclosure requirements under the Federal Election Commission and
provide that Commission with greater tools to ensure that

[[Page S10082]]

all candidates and all parties and outside groups are playing by the
rules.
After the outrageous amount of money spent in the 1996 election,
after all the charges and countercharges of abuse, impropriety and quid
pro quo, and after what we have already witnessed in the opening months
of the election season this year, it would be appalling, in my
judgment, if the 105th Congress were to adjourn without passing a
single reform of this deplorable system.
Madam President, I urge my colleagues to support the McCain-Feingold
legislation and begin the process of restoring a sense of integrity and
confidence to our democratic process.
I yield the floor.
Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Collins). The Senator from Washington is
recognized.
Mr. GORTON. Madam President, I note that at least two Senators are on
the floor who wish to introduce a resolution on another subject, a
subject that I think is appropriate. At this point, I yield to the
Senator from Missouri.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at the
conclusion of the remarks of the Senator from Missouri, I be granted
time to express my support for what he is about to do.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Missouri is recognized.

____________________