Tom Allen

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. If the gentleman will yield just briefly, often, PAC money comes from organizations that are based in the district.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate UNUM Corporation, headquartered in Portland, Maine, on its 150th anniversary. UNUM was founded as Union Mutual Life Insurance Company on July 17, 1848, which makes UNUM one of the 10 oldest insurance companies in the United States. UNUM has pioneered the development of long term disability as an insurance product and has continued its leadership and innovation with the creation of long term care, group life, employee benefit and other insurance and reinsurance products. UNUM's leadership in the insurance business and its importance to Maine's economy is obvious. But what really distinguishes UNUM from other companies, and what really deserves recognition, is its dedication to UNUM employees. UNUM provides more than a good job with good pay; it provides employees with a family-friendly workplace, and serves Maine and other states in the U.S. as a good corporate citizen. UNUM has received several awards recognizing its dedication to its employees. UNUM was named as one of the ``100 Best Companies to Work for in America'' by Fortune magazine; among the ``100 Best Companies for Working Mothers'' by Working Mother magazine; as one of the ``Top 30 Family-Friendly Companies'' by Business Week; and among the ``Top 50 Employers'' by Equal Opportunity magazine. It can certainly be said that UNUM is one of the country's most progressive employers. UNUM is also a valued member of the communities in which it does business. To celebrate its 150th anniversary, UNUM planned a series of community activities that culminate today in a ``Day of Sharing.'' This past Monday, UNUM Chairman and CEO James Orr rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. UNUM sponsored a demonstration of wheelchair rugby in front of the Exchange. The event also included a demonstration of games and the coaching of children with disabilities. UNUM's day-long effort, ``A Day of Sharing, A Lifetime of Caring,'' involved more than 3,400 UNUM employees working on 270 community service projects which will touch the lives of over 1.2 million people in six countries. UNUM truly is an outstanding corporate citizen. Mr. Speaker, UNUM is a business leader in the field of insurance, an employee and family-friendly employer, and a valued member of the community. I am extremely pleased and proud to have UNUM Corporation's headquarters in my district in the State of Maine. On behalf of the people of Maine, and all the communities that UNUM serves, I congratulate UNUM on its 150 years of service and wish it another 150 years of success.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this sadly misnamed Child Custody Protection Act. This bill does not encourage young women to ask a trusted adult for much-needed assistance. Instead this bill will cause some young women to face decisions about their pregnancy alone. Parental involvement in a minor's decision about her pregnancy is the ideal. And for 75 percent of teens in this country, it is also the reality. But some teenagers, for various reasons, simply cannot or will not confide in a parent. This bill will make criminals of some grandmothers, aunts or other relatives that help pregnant teenagers exercise their legal rights. This bill would endanger the health and lives of young women who for a variety of reasons, including fear of abuse, are unable to involve a parent in their decisionmaking. We have heard several times comments over here about how what you do need parental consent for, but you do not need parental consent to give birth. You do not need parental consent to give a child up for adoption. This bill is about politics, not sound legislation. Four months away from an election, this bill is designed to strike contrasts between two sides rather than to enact good legislation. What we should be talking about today, following the suggestion of a Republican Member, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood), is how to involve adults in the decisionmaking process. We should look at policies that work, like the Adult Involvement Law that exists in my home State of Maine. The Adult Involvement Law recognizes that parental involvement and guidance is ideal for young women facing decisions regarding a pregnancy. However, when parental involvement is not possible, teens should not be alone. Maine's Adult Involvement Law allows young women to turn to a trusted adult for advice and counsel. The young woman considering an abortion may turn to a parent or another family member, such as an aunt or grandmother or a judge or a counselor. A counselor may include a physician, psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, clergy member, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, guidance counselor, registered nurse or licensed practical nurse. The counselor must discuss with the young woman all of her options, including adoption, parenting and abortion. In Maine, all minors seeking an abortion must receive counseling, even if that young woman has the consent of another adult. This provides the maximum guidance and support for the young woman. That is the kind of law we ought to be considering here today. This Child Custody Protection Act is designed to restrict a young woman's access to abortion, not to ensure the involvement of an adult in her decisionmaking process, because in many cases she simply cannot or will not go to a parent if there is a parent in the picture. I urge my colleagues to oppose the so-called Child Custody Protection Act.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. If the gentleman will yield for one further question, I actually agree with that. That if we get through the Shays-Meehan substitute in a timely fashion, the speed with which we deal with these issues may pick up. But the fact remains that there are so many amendments to the Shays-Meehan substitute that it seems to me unless we allocate enough time for that, it will take us several weeks to get through Shays-Meehan. So my concern is there is not enough time allocated next week, and then the question, of course, rises what happens the following week, because this is, after all, the most amendments and the most substitutes we will have to deal with on any bill this entire year.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, if I could follow up on that inquiry. As the gentleman from New York knows, H.R. 2183, the base bill for the debate, the campaign finance reform debate, has 11 substitutes. We have now worked through one of those substitutes. We are working on the second substitute. Am I correct in understanding that the time on Tuesday would be the only time during the week that we would be dealing with that particular issue?

Mr. ALLEN. I thank the gentleman for his comments.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just want to say to the gentleman from Massachusetts Mr. McGovern), the gentleman from Rhode Island Mr. Weygand), the gentlewoman from Michigan Ms. Stabenow) and the gentlewoman from Texas Ms. Jackson-Lee) that what you are all doing in terms of home health care is very important, not just for the people in your district, for people all around the country. The gentleman from Rhode Island was right. This is at the end of the day not just about a few agencies and not just about the Federal Government. This is about some of our most vulnerable citizens. I have been thinking about this issue a little bit and thinking of so many people that I run into in Maine. I have to say that of the people who come through my office, probably 25 percent of them are concerned in one way or another with health care. When I go out to seniors events or senior centers or talk to senior groups throughout the State of Maine, health care is always right at the top of their agenda. For most people that I talk to who are on that borderline, where the question is, can I continue to stay and live at home, or do I need to move into some sort of facility, almost all of them want to stay at home as long as they can. That seems to be an almost universal desire. The service that allows them to stay at home is some form of home health care. So I find, I believe, that not only is home health care critically important to how well we manage costs at the Federal budget level, but it is also critically important to all of those people, unlike us, for whom this is a real issue in terms of their health, their quality of life and their future. Last year we took aggressive action to balance the Federal budget and through the Balanced Budget Act deal with the rapid growth and perceived fraud and abuse in Medicare's home health benefit. I wanted to say a few words about some of the conversation that is going on. If we look back at the Balanced Budget Act, we were trying to get control of runaway costs in part of our health care system. It was not irrational to do that. We have to control fraud and abuse. We have to control the explosion of costs in our health care system. I want to go back and just look at what was going on. I think all of us have seen some figures about the growth of home health care in different States around the country. In every State, it has been significant. There has been significant growth. But the growth has varied dramatically from State to State. You can think about that growth in several ways. First in terms of the number of home health care agencies. In just the last 4 years, in some States there has been a 20 percent increase or a 40 percent increase. But in some States, the increase has been several hundred percent in just 4 years, an explosion in the number of health care agencies. Second, you can look at the number of visits to an individual patient. In some States it is a fairly modest increase and in some States it is a very rapid increase. Third, you can look at the cost per visit. Again in some States it is fairly modest and in other States it is a dramatic increase in the cost of visits. So what the Congress did was to say, ``Wait a minute, put the brakes on, let's try to deal with this, because if we can't get control of home health care costs, we are in big trouble in terms of what is happening to the Federal budget.'' So we took some action. But that action has included unintended consequences for people who are receiving home health care benefits and for the agencies that provide that service. We have to weed out fraud and abuse in this system. We have to find ways to cut costs in the Medicare system. But it is wrong to make cuts at the expense of our most vulnerable citizens, our homebound seniors who are relying for health care services provided in their home. I want to talk about three of those services right now, or three of the changes we made. First, the removal of blood drawing as a Medicare covered service, what is called venipuncture. That is one. Second, there is a requirement of surety bonds. The gentlewoman from Michigan referred to that. That is an added cost for home health care agencies. Sometimes it may be appropriate, but other times it is simply an added expense which is not covered. And, third, the new interim payment system. Those three, I believe, are changes we have made where we have really gone too far and we need to fine-tune those changes. That is really what the McGovern bill does and why I am a cosponsor. I want you to think about Maine for a moment, not just because it is the State I represent but because it highlights some of the issues that we have here. If you are in Portland, Maine, you are closer to New York City than you are to the northern communities in Maine. If you drive an hour north to Augusta, the capital city, you are still closer to New York City than you are to the northern Maine towns of Mattawamkeag and Fort Kent. It is a very big State. It is a rural State, like so many in this country, and you cannot have a hospital on every corner. So what you have is home health care agencies across the State which have sprung up to provide services to seniors, many of them in rural areas, and for many of whom a trip to the hospital is quite a hike. So I think it is unreasonable to require seniors to take a one-hour or two-hour trip to a hospital just to have blood drawn once a week when you can have a home health care nurse moving through a community providing this kind of service to many people who need it. And for many people, the drawing of blood, the testing of that blood is essential to monitoring their medications. Really it is a very important health care service. It is too expensive for them. It is too inconvenient for them. I believe we need to support the restoration of venipuncture as a Medicare covered home health benefit. The second issue, the gentleman from Rhode Island referred to it in particular, the new Interim Payment System, IPS, bases Medicare reimbursement rates on agency and regional costs in 1993. Let us look at that for a moment. We have, in Maine especially, nonprofit agencies which have been around for a long period of time which, of necessity, have had to hold their costs down. You look at the cost per visit or the number of visits of those agencies, and then compare them to some of the newer, for-profit agencies around the country, and there is a dramatic contrast. That dramatic contrast is one that represents a case where we should say to the nonprofit, well-established, low-cost agency, ``You are doing a great job. Keep it up.'' But what have we said? No. We have said in 1998 through this IPS system, ``You've got to go back to the cost you had in 1993 or 1994 and we're going to base what you get paid now on what your costs were then, not on what the costs are across the region, but on what your individual costs were back then.'' There is a problem there. Because if you have inflated costs, if you are a new agency, a for-profit agency or an agency which for whatever reason has inflated costs, you are going to get compensated for your current costs. If we are going to be cost- effective, what we need is a formula that will reward cost-efficient agencies, those agencies that provide quality care at an appropriate price. We need a formula that does that. That is why I support the McGovern bill, the Medicare Home Health Equity Act of 1998. It provides a fairer formula for reimbursement to efficient home health agencies. I really believe that the bottom line is this. We have got to root out fraud and abuse in this system. We have got to contain costs, but we have to be smart about it. When it comes time, as it has, to look back at what we did last year and fine-tune that product and make it work better for home health care agencies and for seniors who are homebound, we need to do it. We have no business penalizing reputable providers and the seniors that their programs serve. That is why I am very glad to be here tonight with all my colleagues and to urge the Republican leadership in this House to bring this issue up, because time is a-wasting, our home health care agencies are hurting, our seniors need the assistance, there is no time to waste, we can do it now, we have got the time, and we should move ahead.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, it is tough to move from basketball back to health care. Perhaps the connection is that last night the congressional baseball game was held and it was injury free, a very remarkable feat. Mr. Speaker, there is a crisis of confidence in American health care today. A majority of consumers believe that insurance plans often compromise the quality of care to save money. Managed care must be more than managed cost. I am concerned that we are going to see a fig tree growing in the House of Representatives, proposals from the other side, from the Republican leadership, that are no more than fig leaves. We have seen it with campaign finance reform. We can see it coming with tobacco. It may come with HMOs as well. The solution to our problem is the Democrat-sponsored Patients' Bill of Rights Act of 1998. It provides access to necessary care. It ensures access to specialists. It provides direct access to a specialist for patients with serious ongoing conditions. It would allow women to see their obstetrician or gynecologist without prior authorization, and it requires access to and payment for emergency room service. It also provides a fair and timely appeals process when health care plans deny care, and it provides protections for the patient-provider relationship. It does that by banning gag clauses. It protects providers who advocate on behalf of their patients, and prevents drive-through mastectomies. I urge my colleagues to supported the Patients' Bill of Rights Act of 1998.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, the point the gentleman makes is actually the right point, because nothing that happened in that election broke existing law. The fact is that the gentleman would like to change the law as with respect to labor dues. So he would seek to change existing law. But the fact is, what we are here about today is to try to deal with the influence of money in politics. That does not mean that there is some level that is so big that we have to deal with it. What happens with bubble gum, what happens with yogurt is irrelevant. What we are talking about and what the reformers are saying is this, we need to break the link between Federal candidates, Federal office holders, national parties, agents of the national parties, and giant contributions.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) for yielding. I want to get back away from some of this rhetoric about free speech back to what the Court itself has said. I want to get back to what the Court itself said in Buckley v. Valeo. We know this debate is degenerating when we start talking about individual Members and what individual Members raise and whether there is actual corruption with respect to decisions made by any individual Member. What the Supreme Court has said very clearly in Buckley v. Valeo, that the Congress has the constitutional right to regulate elections in order to minimize corruption or the appearance of corruption. And the Court said 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 contribution limitations. The question was raised earlier, I believe by the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield), what is wrong with soft money? I will tell my colleagues what is wrong with soft money. Right now we have a system, what is left of it after Buckley v. Valeo, that imposes individual contribution limits for individuals and for PACs in the amount of money that can be given to Federal candidates. Since 1907 in the case of corporations, and 1940s in the case of labor unions, neither corporations nor labor unions can give to individual candidates. Soft money is no longer a loophole, it is a highway. It is the means by which very large contributions, hundreds of thousands of dollars from some corporations, millions or up to millions of dollars in some cases, are funneled to the national parties. Then they are used for television ads. Those ads may be issue advocacy, as the gentleman from Kentucky said. But what do those ads say? Watch them in the last cycle. They say: Congressman So-and-so is voting against the environment. Congressman So-and-so is doing this or such. Call him and tell him to stop. Those are ads intended, they are absolutely intended to have an effect on an election and they are the reason why we need to ban soft money.

Mr. ALLEN. The law is silent.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me. Before the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) leaves the hall, I would just like to raise a question. The gentleman stated that one of the things we should do is to obey existing law. I agree. I agree with that. The gentleman was not in any way suggesting that money spent in any individual campaign of any Member was not consistent with existing law, was he?

Mr. ALLEN. The gentleman has had his time. We are trying to break the link, because as the Supreme Court has said on several occasions, we can, this Congress can enact reform in order to prevent appearance of corruption or corruption. What the Court has also said in another case is that it is because of the risk that corporations that accumulate wealth in the course of their business activities, because of the risk, that those corporations, big money in this society, could unduly influence elections. The Court has said it is appropriate to regulate or to bar contributions from corporations.

Mr. ALLEN. Most recently, in the Colorado Republicans case, which was the case dealing with hard money limits, the Court said, if it appears to Congress, if it appears to Congress that the existing hard money limitations could be circumvented because of contributions to the political parties, i.e., soft money, then the Congress could rethink whether or not it wanted to change limits or create limits on contributions to the national parties. That is why we are here. Because what used to be a loophole is now a highway because there is too much money in this system, soft money. It is being used to influence Federal elections. We need to shut down this system. It is, in fact, soft money, these unlimited contributions from corporations, from unions, from wealthy individuals to the national parties in the last cycle that is subverting our political process. That does not mean that you go to any one individual and say this result was influenced by big money. What we have got in this system, in this country right now is a political system gone awry. We need to change it. What we have got with the Thomas amendment is an attempt to subvert the Shays-Meehan bill. That is what is going on here. The folks who are trying to improve the Shays-Meehan bill with this amendment, with this proposed amendment, are not supporters of reform generally. They are trying to undermine reform. There is no question about it. It may be an argument about free speech, may be an argument about other forms of money. But the fact is that we have got to have campaign reform. We have got to have it in this session. It means a ban on soft money. It means voting down the time.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I want to get back to the subject of amendment 132, proposed by the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) and deal with that, and then come to some of the allegations that have floated through this Chamber again about how we are impinging on free speech. The chairman was right when he referred back to Buckley v. Valeo and how it was handled by the United States Supreme Court. Because in Buckley v. Valeo, the court made a distinction between contributions and expenditures, and we wound up with half of what the Congress had passed. So there is always a risk when an amendment is brought before this body when we seek to pass legislation, there is always a risk that a portion of that legislation may be held unconstitutional. But in trying to avoid the problem created by Buckley v. Valeo, we are really undermining our chances of campaign finance reform. What we are trying to do here is to pass a soft money ban. I disagree with the gentlewoman from Kentucky (Mrs. Northup). We can read all the reports we want. We know who gives money to the national parties. If we can just look at the reports of the Republican Party, we will see $6 million or $7 million in money from the tobacco companies coming to the Republican Party, and that is soft money because it comes from corporations. Corporations have not been able to give to Federal candidates for decades, and yet, they can give money to the national parties, and that money can be used for issue ads that will go out and will affect Federal elections. That is wrong. That is why we need to ban soft money. Both the freshman bill and the Shays-Meehan bill do that. They have effective soft money bans. It is disingenuous for people to stand up and say they believe in a balanced bill. They believe it is constitutional. Therefore, we should simply go ahead and adopt a nonseverability clause. Nonseverability clauses are the exception rather than the rule. What is going on here? There have been innumerable efforts to kill campaign finance reform, real reform in this hall, in this session. What is going on now is an attempt to adopt an amendment that would have a chance of killing in the courts any campaign reform, either Shays- Meehan or Hutchinson-Allen, that passes this particular body. We do not want that to happen. Amendment 132 should be voted down. We do not want a nonseverability clause. If you simply look at the people who are advocating for this particular reform on the Republican side, they are not sponsors of Shays-Meehan; they are not sponsors of Hutchinson-Allen. Now, let me go back for a moment to the claims that are made periodically here that we are infringing on free speech. Let us go back to Buckley v. Valeo. That court held clearly that in order to prevent corruption, or the appearance of corruption, the Congress could act to impose restrictions on campaign contributions. It is absolutely clear from that decision and from other decisions that it is constitutional to ban soft money. In a recent case, the court said if it appears that soft money is being used as a way to avoid hard money limits, then the Congress could reconsider what it has done so far on soft money. Let us talk about what that means in the real world. In the real world, an individual can only give $1,000 to a candidate, but they can give $100,000 or $500,000 to a political party, and that money can be used for issue ads to affect a Federal election. That is wrong. It needs to be stopped. We have got to contain the influence of big money in politics, and we cannot be diverted by arguments that we are jeopardizing free speech. I believe Shays-Meehan is constitutional. I believe the freshman bill is constitutional. But in any bill that we pass, there is always some risk. There is always some risk. And so what we ought to do is stop all the posturing and simply say what we want is a bill to come out of this Congress that will not only pass the House and pass the Senate and be signed by the President, but will withstand constitutional scrutiny, and when it is done, will not be ruled in its entirety unconstitutional because of some minor provision.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise in opposition to this bill, but not because I do not think it has merit. And I commend the gentleman from Washington (Mr. White), the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn), the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) for their efforts on behalf of campaign finance reform. But we need reform now, not later. As a co-chair of the freshman bipartisan task force, I want to say that one of the appealing things about this bill is that it reflects very much the process that we went through as freshmen. There were six Republicans and six Democrats. We sat down, we learned together, we all shared the experience of the 1996 campaign when the airwaves were flooded with the results of more soft money than had ever been raised or spent in any cycle and with more issue advocacy money than had ever been raised or spent in any cycle. So I understand the importance of this bipartisan process. But the way the commission bill is coming up now is this: It will, if passed, if it gets enough votes, block a chance to ban soft money now. It is reform later, not reform now. It will block a chance to get real control over issue advocacy now, not later. Both the Shays-Meehan bill and the Hutchinson-Allen freshman bill deserve to come up for a debate and deserve to have a real vote. They represent real reform. They represent reform now; the kind of bill we could send to the Senate and expect them to act on during this session. So I want to urge everyone who may support the commission bill to vote ``no'' or ``present'' and to give real reform a chance. Finally, I would say this. An earlier speaker, the gentleman from California, said the problem is government regulation. I disagree. The problem is big money in politics. And whenever we hear the words ``free speech'', we have to be careful, because sometimes they mean ``big money''. The gentleman from California is a sponsor of a provision that would take all the limits off, hard money limits off, so that individuals could give $50,000, $100,000, $500,000, $1,000,000 to an individual candidate. That is not the law now and it is simply wrong to drag the red herring of free speech across this debate when what we are really talking about is big money. We need to contain the influence of big money in politics and we do that by banning soft money and by banning it now.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. It is not author; offer. But what is going on here is real simple. The debate about this constitutional amendment is an attempt to drag a red herring across this whole debate, it is a chance to confuse big money and free speech and to defend big money in the name of free speech. And the analysis put forward by the gentleman from Missouri a few minutes ago had everything to do with expenditures, about expenditures and the constitutional problems of regulating expenditures. Well, there is a problem. The Shays-Meehan bill does not regulate expenditures. It deals with contributions. The Hutchinson-Allen bill does not deal with expenditures, it deals with contributions. Both of these bills are constitutional. It is constitutional to enact a soft money ban, it is constitutional to regulate issue advocacy. This debate is a fraud. It should stop now.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, the brief answer is labor. Whatever ads the AFL-CIO ran in my district were legal, they were accurate, and they were part of this debate. As we know, all of us who were involved in the 1996 elections, there was a great deal of outside money on all sides. In my particular district in the last month of the campaign there were no AFL-CIO ads. There were, however, a vast number of ads run by the Republican National Committee. The truth is, I say to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), that in the last 3\1/2\ weeks, I will be exactly specific, there were no AFL- CIO ads run against my opponent. There were, however, up to $50,000 a week of ads run by the Republican National Committee. This is a democracy. These outside ads are constitutional. It is entirely proper that they be run. The important point is that neither Shays-Meehan nor the Hutchinson-Allen bill would prevent these ads from being run. It is perfectly appropriate to have that kind of discussion.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ALLEN. He did not offer it to the Committee on Rules.

Mr. ALLEN. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, the longer this debate goes on tonight, the weirder it gets. If my colleagues listen to the last few speakers here, some might think that we are engaged in a great legislative debate to defeat a constitutional amendment that required all of the resources of this body to come in here and debate and defeat. We would not even be discussing this amendment if the majority whip had not brought it to the floor. Almost everyone who has spoken here tonight is opposed to this amendment. This is not a debate about this particular amendment. The Committee on Rules in this case brought to the floor the freshman bill, the Hutchinson-Allen bill, H.R. 2183. The Committee on Rules of this House authorized 11 substitutes to that piece of legislation. This amendment was not one of them. The Committee on Rules authorized hundreds of amendments to this particular piece of legislation. We have plenty of opportunity to discuss campaign reform. Instead, the majority whip, the gentleman from Texas, brings to the floor a proposal that is a constitutional amendment that no one, the author himself, did not offer; and we are here, in his words, trying to defeat an amendment that we would not have to defeat if it had not been brought to the floor.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Mr. Chairman, I rise tonight in opposition to this amendment, but I do not for 1 minute want to suggest that this debate is about the amendment. What is going on here? We have the majority whip on the Republican side bringing forth a proposed constitutional amendment by the Democratic leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), and then saying he is going to vote against it. What is going on here? I will tell my colleagues what is going on. The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. DeLay) said that he wanted to frame the debate. I will tell my colleagues what is going on. This is an attempt to drag a red herring across this whole discussion. What is going on here is this: Since campaign reform was brought back to the floor, the free speech coalition, so-called, is in full gear, is in overdrive. It really should be called the free speech/big money coalition. Every time the antireformers say ``free speech,'' they really mean ``big money.'' The antireformers cannot defend big money on its merits. The American people would not buy it. So they cloak the rhetoric in the terms of free speech. Members of the free speech/big money coalition claim that all campaign finance reform is unconstitutional. These folks claim that money and speech are one and the same. They argue, since money is equal to speech, reasonable limits on contributions are unconstitutional. They are wrong. Antireformer free speech arguments are simply cynical attempts to confuse the issue of campaign finance reform. I want to deal with two issues, one a soft money ban. Until tonight, I had never heard Buckley used as a way to suggest that a ban on soft money would be unconstitutional. Some antireformers claim that soft money is constitutionally protected under the Colorado Republican Party decision. Wrong. That decision dealt with hard money, not soft money. In fact, the Colorado court said it ``could understand how Congress, were it to conclude that the potential for evasion of the individual contribution limits was a serious matter, might decide to change the statute's limitations on contributions to political parties''; in other words, contributions of soft money. In other words, Congress can ban soft money. Take the second issue. Antireformers contend that the Supreme Court has said disclosure of issue advocacy is unconstitutional. And they sometimes hold out the case of McIntyre v. Ohio Board of Elections. McIntyre involved an individual handing out fliers advocating a position for a local election. The flier did not have a disclaimer, and, yet, the Ohio elections board argued that the State's disclosure law had been violated. The court held that small-scale anonymous pamphleting is constitutionally protected, but they said this applies only to printed materials, not to television or radio. So the court did not find that this Congress could not require disclosure about radio and television issue advertisements. There are two primary constitutional arguments used by the free speech/big money coalition. They are both baseless. Soft money can be banned, and information about issue ads can be disclosed. Both of the major pieces of legislation before this body right now, the Shays-Meehan bill and the Hutchinson- Allen bill, the freshman bill, both ban soft money, and both have restrictions requiring disclosure on issue advocacy. Antireformer arguments about free speech are red herrings. They are designed to confuse, to cast out. When antireformers say ``free speech,'' they mean ``big money.'' They want to protect big money, and they use the rhetoric of free speech. That is what this debate is all about. Free speech in this democracy does not equal big money. The antireformers are wrong.