Tom DeLay

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. I am glad to yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman will yield, I said I would, and I would be glad to.

Mr. DeLAY. Reclaiming my time, I knew the gentleman from Connecticut would try to do that.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, it is amazing how this town works, as the gentlewoman has just said. In this whole fiasco of abusing the White House and other illegal campaign finance issues, no one has ever stood up on that side of the aisle and said the President was wrong, the DNC is wrong, they were wrong in what they did. All they do is say well, they may have been wrong, but the Republicans were just as bad. Well, today we are going to talk about the Wicker amendment, and that applies to the White House and what has been going on for the last 6 years. For over 6 years, or 6 years ago, I remember President Clinton, or then candidate Clinton, promised the American people that he would establish the most ethical administration in the history of the United States. Now, I would submit to the President that he has personally done more to ensure that his administration is one of the least ethical in the 220 year history of the office of the presidency. In orchestrating the most massive fund-raising campaign in the history of the United States, the President and the Vice President personally oversaw the use of the White House as fund-raising headquarters. Not meetings, not talking to constituents, not even coming and discussing policy, but using the White House as a fund-raising headquarters. Every politician understands that it is illegal to raise campaign funds on Federal property, yet the President and the Vice President and the First Lady made it their personal mission to use the White House as a chit in a ``cash for perks'' scheme of unprecedented proportions. President Clinton himself oversaw and orchestrated overnight stays in the Lincoln bedroom and personally attended a series of so-called coffees, and we have seen all of those on videotapes in pursuit of campaign contributions. During Operation Lincoln Bedroom, 938, 938 guests stayed overnight in the Lincoln and the Queen's bedrooms. The President, of course, claims that the Lincoln bedroom was never sold. However, more than one-third of these guests gave money to Clinton or the DNC. The bedroom visitors and their companies gave at least $6 million to the DNC and a total of $10.2 million to the Democrats. Now, according to the presidential press secretary, Mike McCurry, the Lincoln bedroom was a special way of saying ``thank you'' for services rendered. Now, I think everyone in this Chamber knows exactly what services Mr. McCurry was referring to. Sadly, it does not stop there. Concurrent with the Lincoln bedroom scheme, the Clinton administration orchestrated a series of coffees.

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

Mr. DeLAY. I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, there is no denying what went on. There is a lot of spin going on around this town trying to spin it the other way and blame other people and blame the Republicans, even, for setting up the White House. But even with the coffees, there were 1,528 individuals, 1,528 individuals who were invited to 103 coffees. My goodness, they drank a lot of coffee. Mr. Chairman, 358 of these individuals or the companies they represent gave $27 million to the DNC, and approximately $8.7 million was collected during the month before or after a personal coffee with the President or Vice President. There cannot be any question in the mind of any reasonable person that the administration used the White House, Federal property, as a quid pro quo for campaign contributions; and it is already against the law now to raise campaign funds on Federal property. And because of the Clinton administration, we need to ensure that the White House is never, ever again used as a prop to leverage campaign contributions. I ask that my colleagues support the Wicker amendment, because the White House belongs to the American people and not the Democrat National Committee.

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

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

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I would like to answer this. That is one of the reasons I have a problem with the Shays-Meehan language. They say it exempts voter guides, as long as they present information in an educational manner solely about the voting record on the campaign issue of two or more candidates. The gentleman is absolutely right. If an organization wants to take on one Congressman and talk about his voting record and send out a voting guide, even if he is unopposed, even if he is unopposed, Shays- Meehan prohibits that from happening.

Mr. DeLAY. Okay.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say, if that is the case for the gentleman from Iowa, then he ought to support Doolittle because Doolittle is very clear. In fact it uses Supreme Court language as his amendment that says that we can do voter guides unless we specifically advocate the election or defeat of a candidate. There is no in-between, and Shays-Meehan is very ambiguous.

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

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, it is amazing to me that the gentleman would want to stop an American citizen from putting out anything that they wanted to have the opportunity to say, that Neal Smith is a terrible Congressman. I am not advocating defeat or anything.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield further on that point right there, the gentleman interrupted me, let me interrupt the gentleman on a point, because the gentleman claims it is soft money. No, it is money raised by Americans who want to participate in the political process and express themselves about positions or votes taken by Members of Congress or people wanting to be Members of Congress that the gentleman is trying to prohibit.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, there he goes again. The President of the United States is trying, once again, to go around the American people to implement his liberal agenda. He signed an executive order that greatly expands affirmative action programs in the Federal Government to include sexual orientation as a protected class. Now most Americans believe that every human being has basic rights, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but why should someone's sex life be a reason for special status in our government? Mr. Speaker, the President is out of touch with the American people. The American people do not want quotas, they do not want special preferences, and they certainly do not want affirmative action based on sexual orientation. Like the President's efforts to put homosexuals in the military, this executive order should be resisted. The American people stand for fairness, not for special breaks for special interests.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the issue of freedom of speech and campaign reform, the New York Times and so-called ``reformers'' take a curious position. They ignore the warnings of the ACLU and argue the Shays/Meehan bill is constitutional because former leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have changed their position and now support overturning the Buckley decision. The attached statement by the current ACLU leadership sets the record straight. On the issue of campaign reform and freedom of speech the current board of the ACLU is absolutely correct--overturning Buckley is a threat to the First Amendment of the Constitution. These former ACLU leaders are pushing proposals that run counter to our first freedom-- freedom of speech. These former leaders do not have the support of the ACLU's national board and do not represent the over 250,000 members of the ACLU. These former leaders are wrong. ACLU Campaign Finance Position Protects Free Speech (Statement of Nadine Strossen, President; Ira Glasser, Executive Director; and Laura W. Murphy, Legislative Director) Washington.--Nine former leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union today released a statement saying that they have changed their positions on campaign finance and now disagree with legal scholars, Supreme Court Justices and the ACLU's longstanding policy to seek the highest constitutional protection for political speech. In their statement, these leaders argue that the Supreme Court misread the First Amendment in 1976 when it issued its ruling in Buckley v. Valeo, which struck down legislative limits on campaign expenditures in a holding that reflected many legal precedents and has been repeatedly reaffirmed. Our former ACLU colleagues say that our opposition to current legislation allows members of Congress to hide behind an unjustified constitutional smokescreen. We are untroubled by the questions they raise and believe that it is they who allow members of Congress and President Clinton to hide behind so-called reforms that are both unconstitutional and ineffective. As long as measures like McCain-Feingold or Shays-Meehan are allowed to masquerade as reform, neither Congress nor President Clinton will get serious about adopting true reform, which we believe lies in the direction of fair and adequate public financing. Just last year, we offered Burt Neuborne, a former ACLU Legal Director and one of the principal opponents of our campaign finance policies, the opportunity to argue his position before the ACLU's 83-member National Board. After hours of debate and discussion, Neuborne completely failed to shift the ACLU Board to his view. Many Board members in fact argued that Neuborne's position was in direct conflict with the First Amendment rights that form the foundation of our democracy. Ultimately, the one Board member who had offered a motion to radically alter our long-standing policy withdrew it rather than allowing it to come to a vote. Yet our former ACLU colleagues persist, offering sweeping proposals that would constitute a wholesale breach of First Amendment rights and that ignore the real-world impact of limits on speech. They speak approvingly of efforts to impose ``reasonable limits on campaign spending'' without saying specifically what such regulations would do. But when we look at those consequences it becomes clear that current campaign finance measures would do immeasurable damage to political speech. The devil as the cliche goes, is in the details. A key provision of both McCain-Feingold and Shays-Meehan would, for example, establish limits that effectively bar any individual or organization from explicitly criticizing a public official--perhaps the single most important type of free speech in our democracy--when the official is up for re- election within 60 days. If that kind of law had governed the recent New York City mayoral election, it would have effectively barred the ACLU (and other non-partisan groups) from criticizing incumbent Mayor Giuliani by name on the subject of police brutality in the wake of the horrific Abner Louima incident precisely during the pre-election period when such criticism is most audible. That prohibition would have gagged us even though the ACLU has never endorsed or opposed any candidate for elective office and is barred by our non- partisan structure from doing so. Similarly, anti-choice groups like the National Right to Life Committee would be effectively barred from criticizing candidates who support reproductive freedom. Yet such criticism of public officials is exactly what the First Amendment was intended to protect. In contrast, there are many reform measures the ACLU supports that would protect and increase political speech. These include instituting public financing, improving certain disclosure requirements, establishing vouchers for discount broadcast and print electoral ads, reinstating a tax credit for political contributions, extending the franking privilege to qualified candidates and requiring accountability of and providing resources to the Federal Elections Commission. None of those proposed reforms would run afoul of the First Amendment. Still, our former ACLU colleagues press proposals that would inevitably limit political speech. We continue to shake our heads, wondering how such measures can be regarded as ``reforms'' by anyone who is genuinely committed to the First Amendment.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. The gentleman is absolutely wrong. He is reaffirming the express advocacy affirmed by the Supreme Court through Buckley-Valeo, Colorado, and many other decisions.

Mr. DeLAY. I wanted to quickly point out, Mr. Chairman, the fact that the gentleman from Massachusetts, when he brought this ad up, has nothing to do with the gentleman's amendment. What we are talking about are voter guides. That is what his amendment addresses and has nothing to do with what the gentleman from Massachusetts is trying to portray. We are talking about voter guides here. And the point I would make is a different point than the gentleman was pointing out. The gentleman from Connecticut failed to read, if he had read the last of his bill, where it says, ``no reasonable meaning other than to urge the election or defeat.'' And I pointed out that in the voter guide I held up, the Christian Coalition guide, if we took that guide and distributed it in a church, then a reasonable meaning person would describe that as advocacy for the person that was against abortion, against homosexual type things that are on that voter guide.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me. He is a dear friend of mine, and I appreciate my dear friend's well intentions. But we are debating the Doolittle amendment that exempts certain groups like the Christian Coalition from this bill and allows the Christian Coalition to pass out their voter guides. The gentleman made two statements, and I ask him to clarify them for me. The gentleman said these groups should be held accountable. My question is, by whom? Second, that these groups are corrupting. They are corrupting. What about the Christian Coalition is corrupting the process by handing out a voter guide?

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

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

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

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a resolution expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that President Clinton should immediately withdraw his appeal of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia's recent decision rejecting the fabricated ``protective function privilege.'' Judge Johnson correctly observed that this new privilege, which would prevent Secret Service agents from testifying, is not based in the Constitution, statute or common law. In short, there is no legal basis for a protective function privilege. The fact that this administration would assert such a specious privilege is deeply troubling for a number of reasons. First, the president has apparently decided, contrary to his public pronouncements, that he will not cooperate with the grand jury investigation. I recall President Clinton looking the American people in the eye and proclaiming that the ``American people have a right to get answers'' regarding questions about the Monica Lewinsky investigation? He said it was his intention to supply more information rather than less, sooner rather than later. Does any one recall his promise to give ``as many answers as we can, as soon as we can, at the appropriate time, consistent with our obligation to also cooperate with the investigations.'' Instead, the President has decided to hide behind an army of lawyers, most of whom are paid with taxpayer money. President Clinton and his attorneys have decided to throw as many legal obstacles in front of the investigation as possible. They have apparently been instructed to go so far as to claim the newly fabricated ``protective function privilege.'' The Attorney General should be ashamed that she is now part of the conspiracy of obstruction and silence. Mr. Speaker, I am also concerned about the assertion of this privilege because of the signal it sends across America. President Clinton is demonstrating that if one has enough money and power, one can use the legal system to delay, obstruct, and avoid accountability. The President is willing to abuse America's justice system to avoid coming clean with the American people. Like so many of his liberal friends, the President and his lawyers urged the court to legislate a new law where there was none. That is not the appropriate use of our court system. Only Congress can make new laws in this area as Judge Johnson so aptly noted. If the President is so concerned about harm to himself or the Secret Service, he should propose legislation to Congress not abuse our judicial system. Mr. Speaker, I urge the President to direct the Attorney General to immediately withdraw her appeal of Judge Johnson's correct decision. The time has come for the President to fulfill his commitment to the American people. I also ask that the resolution, various editorials, and a letter from Professor Jonathan Turley on behalf of former Attorneys General Barr, Thornburgh, Meese, and Bell be included in the Record immediately following this statement. H. Res.-- Whereas the Office of the Independent Counsel and a Federal grand jury are investigating allegations of personal wrongdoing and possible crimes in the White House; Whereas certain Secret Service agents asserted a ``protective function privilege'' and refused to answer questions before a Federal grand jury (In Re Grand Jury Proceedings, Misc. No. 91-148 (NHJ), redacted version at 1, (D.D.C. May 22, 1998) (hereinafter referred to as ``Grand Jury Proceedings'')); Whereas ``n]one of the questions at issue relate to the protective techniques or procedures of the Secret Service'' (Grand Jury Proceedings at 1); Whereas Federal Rule of Evidence 501 provides that evidentiary privileges ``shall be governed by the principles of the common law as they may be interpreted by the Courts of the United States in the light of reason and experience''; Whereas the Supreme Court has interpreted Rule 501 to require courts to consider whether the asserted privilege is historically rooted in Federal law, whether any States have recognized the privilege, and public policy interests (Grand Jury Proceedings at 2, citing Jaffee v. Redmond, 518 U.S. 1, 12-15 (1996)); Whereas the Supreme Court has emphasized that it is ``disinclined to exercise [its] authority [under Rule 501] expansively'' (University of Pennsylvania v. EEOC, 493 U.S. 182, 189 (1990)) and has cautioned that privileges ``are not lightly created nor expansively construed, for they are in dereogation of the search for truth'' (U.S. v. Nixon, 418