Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. The gentleman's opinion may or may not be reasonable.

Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. BLUNT. In response to my friend, the gentleman from California, the voter guides that include multiple candidates clearly do show the voting record. Those are the traditional voting guides under the law now. I think it is unlikely that that process would continue. I think it is unlikely that those organizations would be able to distribute those guides. I think the mechanics of putting the guidelines in place as to what was reasonable and what was not reasonable would be so prohibitive that what we are really saying here is that this is not going to happen, because anybody can take a voter guide and decide who that group was most likely for, whether it is the AFL-CIO or the Christian Coalition.

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

Mr. BLUNT. I think there are viable laws that do come into effect here. The Doolittle amendment specifically talks about voter guides. If the voter guide that some group sends out is untruthful, there is recourse in that. I think for the Congress to decide what organizations can say, that is the job of the courts, not the job of the Congress. The first amendment did not give to the Congress the right to determine what was truthful language and what could be said in a free society.

Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from New York for bringing this amendment to the floor. I think it clearly does what most Americans think is already the case. Some of my colleagues tonight have even said, I thought that is what the law already said, wondered why we passed this with such an overwhelming vote just a couple of months ago. Even the Shays-Meehan language tries to address this issue but I think does not adequately address the issue of expenditures. This amendment clearly takes foreign citizens out of our election process as contributors. We have seen that ability of foreign citizens living in the United States to use our system in a negative way in just the last cycle of elections. We have heard example after example after example of citizens of other countries living in the United States who gave money, a lot of questions as to where that money came from, some apparent proof that that money was funneled into our politics through these people living in the United States from other governments. But if this law was on the books, that would not be allowed. The House overwhelmingly voted to make this common-sense reform. This clarifies not only that people cannot give money to campaigns, they cannot independently spend money to affect campaigns, something that virtually all Americans believe to be the case today. This amendment avoids the problem simply by banning all expenditures by noncitizens. H.R. 34 amended the law by banning contributions from foreign nationals. This clarifies that. I urge my colleagues not to change their vote, not to have to explain why their vote 2 months ago is different than the vote they cast tonight but to be consistent on understanding this problem that has already seen abuses in the most recent series of campaigns, to change our laws so that those abuses cannot occur in the future, to make that part of any changes we make in campaign finance reform so that the laws are enforced, the laws are enforceable, and we do not continue to have the same kinds of problems that everybody understands were part of the last cycle of elections. I urge my colleagues to vote for this. Actually, I would be delighted just to see my colleagues who voted for it the last time to vote for it this time or to come up with a pretty good explanation when they go back and talk about this topic, to talk about why that vote was one way 60 days ago and another way today. I urge my colleagues to pass this. I think it will pass. I am grateful to the gentleman from New York for offering this amendment tonight.

Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman from California.

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

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Chairman, I think it is clear that the job of the Congress is not to be comfortable. The job of a Member of Congress is to represent the people of their district and for that, the way they do that, to be an item of public debate. Certainly, if people make up untruthful things and distribute them, there are laws that govern that, but the Congress of the United States is not in a position to enforce those laws. We are in a position to encourage that some of those laws be passed, though generally those are going to be State laws. We are not in a position to enforce those laws. That is for somebody else. What we are trying to do here is decide what is reasonable or not. What we are trying to do here is decide what is comfortable or not.

Mr. BLUNT. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I do not think that we have yet made the point of what happens with these voter guides. I think the problem is that, once again, we come into that problem of jeopardizing freedom of speech whenever we try to achieve some kind of change in the campaign finance system. Who is going to decide, in context, what is reasonable and what is not reasonable? At what point are they going to decide that? What is the timing going to be in which they decide that? Do they decide that after the organization has had these voter guides printed? Do they decide that after they have been distributed? Do they decide that the day before they are distributed, on the weekend before the election, when it is too late to replace them with whatever the objection was? Once again, we get right into the whole question of whether or not we want to limit the ability of people to make their points, their freedom of speech points that can be made. The groups that support the Doolittle amendment and the groups that consider the Shays-Meehan exception for scorecards bogus is a list that just goes on and on and on. Seldom do we see the same groups in agreement that we see in agreement supporting the Doolittle amendment. The ACLU, the National Rifle Association, the Christian Coalition, the National Right-To-Life Committee, all agree that the Doolittle amendment protects their right to express their view of how candidates have voted on issues. Who is going to decide? I know we are probably tired of seeing this voter guide of our colleague, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Greg Ganske), but the voter guide itself that was handed out said clearly at the bottom that this is a pro-family citizen action organization. Then if we look at the things they are reporting on, a reasonable person might very well decide that this advocates one of these candidates over another. Because they are pro-family, they are Christian, discussing taxpayer funding of abortion, homosexuals in the military, and we have one question here, promoting homosexuality to schoolchildren, and one candidate is seen as opposing that, and another supports that, I think it is pretty clear with this piece of literature that this group is likely to come down on the side of one of these candidates, even though they do not say that on this literature.

Mr. BLUNT. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I would say that I agree totally. I say that the greater point here is that who is giving the authority to ultimately decide that the FEC or some other location can decide that, in a manner that is very, very disruptive to people trying to freely express their view of the public debate in the country? If we decide that, are we going to have to get pre-clearance from the FEC? Do we expect the ACLU, the Christian Coalition, the National Right-To-Life Committee, to send in these things in advance? How long does that take? How many things happen after the time they sent their proposed literature in and the time that we would actually want to distribute it that we would in a normal context just simply add before it went to the printer? We cannot do that because we put this clearance idea in, that somebody has to decide what is reasonable and what is not reasonable. So we have this group of people who are supporting the Doolittle amendment. We have a group of people who consider the exemption we are talking about for scorecards bogus. That includes the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Conservative Union, two groups that do not agree very often on issues; the American Council for Immigration Reform; the Association of Concerned Taxpayers; the Abraham Lincoln Foundation, and the list goes on and on and on.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman from Texas. I would also say that when we put the word ``reasonable'' in the law itself, we really create a barrier to groups who do not want to throw their money away; to groups who clearly cannot spend all their time in court, and who see ``reasonable'' in the law, do not know what that means, decide they really cannot in all likelihood get their message across, so they just believe that their first amendment rights are gone, whether they are truly gone or not. Who knows what ``reasonable'' means? How is that defined in the law? Are we going to leave that up to the FEC to decide how that is defined in the law?

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the message of the President, together with the accompanying bill, H.R. 2709, be referred to the Committee on International Relations.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I support the rule. I do not think we can have campaign finance reform outside of the context of election reform. There are certainly those in this House who would like to talk about only one element of what is wrong with our campaigns. This rule allows more than that to happen. How do we enforce the laws we have? The White House has done a great job since November of 1996 talking about the fact that the reason they violated the laws that we had was because we did not have enough laws. Nobody believes that. The worst thing we can do when people do not obey the rules is create more rules. Mr. Speaker, if we have teenage children at home and they are not obeying the rules, the last thing we do is say we are going to double the number of rules. We have to debate in this context how we enforce the rules. Enforcing the rules matters. That has to be part of this discussion. Somebody raised the issue of motor-voter, whether that related to campaign finance reform. We have really made it impossible for local jurisdictions that used to do a good job maintaining the integrity of their voter rolls to do that. Money is spent to turn out votes of people who are not on the voter rolls. That is definitely an election reform, it is a campaign finance reform. Certainly this rule is an open rule, but it is going to end in 7 weeks. We heard that commitment. This debate is going to go on as we have time for the next 7 weeks. Seven weeks is an important amount of time to talk about the future of the election process in America. We clearly do not talk about this very often. We are talking now about reforms that were made a quarter of a century ago. We can spend 7 weeks talking about the reforms that are likely to be the reforms for the next quarter of a century. We need this open rule. We need a broad debate. We need this rule. I support it.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, it is time to scrap the Tax Code. ``Scrap the Code'' has been a slogan for tax reformers for years now, but today we have an opportunity to take the first step toward its realization. Today on the House floor is an opportunity to vote the Tax Code Elimination Act, a bill that will sunset the Tax Code on December 31, 2002, and require the Congress to come up with a new, simpler, fairer, revenue-neutral Tax Code. This bill will make fundamental tax reform a major issue in the 2000 presidential race and will force this issue to the top of the national political agenda. Lawmakers have been talking about reforming the Tax Code for too long. It is time to act. This bill will show our willingness to act and our willingness to listen to the millions of Americans who have been calling for an end to our Tax Code for many years. Fundamental tax reform should be a bipartisan issue. Democrats and Republicans both have an interest in the Tax Code that is fairer, simpler and less complicated. The time to act, Mr. Speaker, is now.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I want to talk for just a few minutes tonight about the amendment itself. I came over here to encourage opposition to the amendment and as I listened to the debate, nobody is for it and so maybe I do not need to do that, but I would like to review why this amendment was introduced and what it would have done. I think I heard that the sponsor, the gentleman from Missouri, was going to vote ``present'' on this amendment. I heard the cosponsor, the gentleman from Massachusetts, say that he was no longer for the amendment and it should have taken more time in the committee process and the amendment that they had drafted was not the amendment that he could support today. But I have a letter here that the whip has already referred to that was sent out February 7, 1997 that encourages support of this amendment. It says, ``The current explosion in third-party spending is beyond our ability to legislate.'' It says, ``Legislating where we have constitutional authority to do so is necessary.'' Then it says, ``This amendment is necessary beyond that.'' It also says that this amendment would not only allow the Federal Government to regulate spending in Federal elections and set spending limits, it says this amendment would allow State governments to regulate spending in State elections. So suddenly we move not only beyond what controls Federal elections but now we have decided we are going to see what we can do to control State elections as well as we would with this amendment. This amendment, as proposed, says to promote fair and effective functioning of the democratic process with respect to elections for Federal office and States. This is not just an amendment that the gentleman from Texas made up and brought up here today. It is an amendment that was filed. It was an amendment that the authors at the time said was necessary to solve the problem of money in politics and that the way to solve that problem was this amendment that would allow the Congress to regulate contributions, would allow the Congress to regulate speech. The gentlewoman from Idaho has mentioned that quote at the same time that the letter was circulated to our colleagues who were here in 1997. That quote was that we have two important values in direct conflict, freedom of speech and our desire for healthy campaigns and a healthy democracy. Then it says, ``You can't have both.'' You cannot have both free speech and healthy campaigns? I think that is out of Time magazine, February 1997. And so this amendment would be necessary to do the things that today we are saying can be done in legislation. In February of 1997, two attorneys, two constitutional scholars, two leaders in the House, said this could not be done with legislation; that in fact it would take a constitutional amendment to limit third- party spending; that you could not legislate that under any authority we had at that time, that it would take this amendment to legislate that. And what did this amendment do? This amendment decided in the balance between free speech and what the sponsor calls healthy campaigning that free speech would be what would have to go. This amendment is designed to create a hole in the Buckley v. Valeo case. This amendment is designed to do what that case says you cannot do. The Buckley v. Valeo case said you cannot limit spending, so we come up with a constitutional amendment that addresses that very decision and says, no, you can limit spending if we go ahead and resolve this conflict by limiting freedom of speech and saying to the Congress, you can limit spending. Then again in that letter our colleagues received, it says that not only can we limit spending here, we will even allow the States to limit spending, allow the States to limit speech, allow the States to do what the Supreme Court has said they cannot do. Amending the first amendment in this way would give Congress sweeping and unprecedented powers that it has never had before. If you can begin to limit speech, I think as the language of the amendment read, the language of the amendment said to limit speech in a way that the Congress did not feel would interfere with elections. What does that mean? How could you possibly do that?

Mr. BLUNT. Then if the Congress later decides that they want to limit the speech of the news media, why could you not do that? Why could you not limit the coverage that news organizations give in the last days of the campaign? Why could you not require that they list their advertisers, list their owners, list all the information that the Congress might decide needs to be listed as part of the speech of the media? This is an amendment that the sponsor said was necessary to do many of the things that the legislation that we will be dealing with in the next few weeks would do. But now nobody is for the amendment. The sponsors are not for the amendment. They are going to vote ``present.'' They are going to vote ``no.'' Nobody is for the amendment that only months ago was seen as a necessary element to do the kinds of legislation that we are talking about doing today.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the concurrent resolution just agreed to.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, we are going to hear a lot of things today about what this amendment does, what it says. I would encourage our colleagues to read the amendment. There is nothing in the amendment that allows funding of religious institutions. There is nothing in the amendment that establishes a church that has particular access to government monies. There is nothing in the amendment that requires anybody to participate. What this amendment does is restore the Constitution to its practices for the first 175 years. We certainly want to look at the intent of the Founders of the Constitution; and when we look at the intent of the Founders of the Constitution, we do see that they did not want to establish a church. What we also see is that they clearly did not want to remove religion, did not want to remove God from our public discourse, from our public ceremonies, from our public institutions. In fact, right here in this House this morning, as has been the case every day since the Congress began, we started with prayer. We started with prayer, and now we have a debate as to why we could not have prayer at high school graduations. We started with prayer, and now we have a debate as to why we could not have a prayer before a football game. We started with prayer, and now we have a debate as to why we want to not allow city councils to do that same sort of thing in their public institutions. ``In God We Trust'' is emblazoned above your head, Mr. Speaker, as we debate every day in this House. We cannot go back to the writings of the people who wrote the Constitution, we cannot go back to what George Washington did as our first President, in putting in our public discourse and our public ceremonies the clear understanding that religion and morality were cornerstones for the kind of government we wanted to have, and not see that that was their intent. In fact, it was their intent until 1962 when the Supreme Court, on a series of decisions that were, as often as not, five-to-four. A five- to-four decision means that even the Supreme Court was not very certain as to what they were doing and wondered what the Constitution might have said. In 1962 the Supreme Court began to say these things that for 175 years we believed the Constitution to say and we believed the Constitution to allow, it no longer would allow, beginning at that time. We had a high school class invite a Jewish Rabbi to pray at a graduation, and a student decided to sue, and suddenly prayer at high school graduation, one of the cornerstones of those ceremonies from the time we began to have high school graduation, is suddenly unconstitutional. Many of our schools, many of our communities have chosen, as in some ways we might even say the Congress has chosen, to ignore that prohibition. I encourage we support the rule and support this amendment.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Chairman, today we have really started what can be a great debate in this House. We are often frustrated by how long the Senate takes to talk about the ideas that they talk about. We are also often frustrated by the fact that we do not have the time to chase important ideas to an important conclusion. The law of unintended consequences seems to particularly appeal every time we try to change our campaign finance laws. In fact, many of the things we will talk about in this debate will be why the reforms after Watergate have not worked. Many of the things we will talk about is why we cannot enforce the laws we have. If there is a smoke and mirrors problem, like I just heard that term used, in our law today, the smoke and mirrors problem is why we cannot enforce the laws we have and how we turn that into a debate about why we need more laws. But we do have time for this debate. This is a debate that goes to the core of our process. It goes to the core of what the next generation of folks who run important public office are likely to deal with. We can take the time. We have the time. We are going to talk about important things. I just heard a moment ago the need to rewrite the First Amendment. I am not opposed to revisiting the Constitution. In fact, I was for revisiting the Constitution recently when we talked about the need to have a balanced budget amendment in the Constitution. But many of my colleagues who now want to rewrite the First Amendment said, it is way too dangerous to talk about an amendment, a new amendment that would protect the way we spend taxpayers money, but we are going to have a debate on whether it is too dangerous or not to talk about the way we protect the speech of voters and citizens. These are big issues. This is a debate that deserves the attention it is going to have. I am grateful that we have an opportunity in this debate that we seldom have on this side of the Capitol to have a full and free exchange of ideas. I am pleased to see it start here today.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I rise in strong support of this amendment, Mr. Chairman. I think, as exactly as the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. Smith) said, it is about keeping our word. This amendment does not keep our word, but it is a step in the right direction. It is a step in doing what we ought to do. We need to look harder for the resources necessary to do exactly what we told veterans we were going to do. Mr. Chairman, I urge strong support of this amendment.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 2431, the bill just passed.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Every poll I see, if the gentleman would yield, indicates that 98 percent of Americans believe in God.