Tom DeLay

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. So the point is that the Christian Coalition, NARAL, or anybody else would not, under the Shays-Meehan bill, be able to put out their voter guides.

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

Mr. DeLAY. Well, if the gentleman wishes to continue to yield, I would suggest he yield to the gentleman from California, because he knows more about his amendment on that particular point.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule, and I urge my colleagues to vote for an open and honest debate. Mr. Speaker, my response to the gentleman from Texas who just spoke is, what chutzpa. What chutzpa. The gentleman is now against the rule after calling for open and honest debate, because this rule does not reflect exactly the way that he wants the rule to reflect; therefore, we need an open and honest debate. Let me put this into perspective. After the last election, the Clinton administration violated campaign laws. Most people understand that, most people have seen it, using the Air Force One, Lincoln bedroom, raising money on telephones, going to temples, all of these kinds of things. In order to cover that, his party decided to call for campaign finance reform and have, for now well over a year, wanting open and honest debate right down here on the floor in this well. They have called for open and honest debate. They want open and honest debate. Well, this rule grants us the opportunity to have that full and complete debate on the state of our campaign laws. We feel that we ought to look at more than just limiting free speech, as the minority wants to do, but we ought to look at all of our campaign laws, those that have been broken, those that have the potential to be broken; look at everything about a campaign, not just finances. Some of my colleagues are now complaining, complaining that the debate will be too open, too comprehensive, too complete. Well, when we first announced that we would have an open rule, some of these colleagues were exuberant. The gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) on the other side of the aisle said, this is great, this is exciting, after he learned that we would bring an open rule to the floor. My friend, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) said it was a great day for democracy. Fred Wertheimer, Fred Wertheimer of Common Cause said it was a real breakthrough. But now the so-called reformers are complaining because this debate will be too open for their taste. Well, apparently, the only kind of open debate they want is the debate on their proposals. In their minds, the only reforms worth real discussion are their reforms. Well, I think this attitude is typical of the wider debate. The reformers believe that the campaign system is so corrupt, so broken that government has to step in and regulate political expression and freedom of speech. They are so convinced of the morality of their own position that they refuse to entertain other ideas of true reform. Today they want to limit debate on their own proposals, rather than open it up to the free market of ideas. And this rule allows that free market of ideas to work on this floor. I am looking forward to it. Now, in my view, the real reason we are having this debate at all is because of the abuses of the Clinton campaign in this last election. The administration wants to change the subject. They remind me of the boy who killed both of his parents and then begged for mercy because he was an orphan. The Clinton campaign brazenly broke the campaign laws, and then begged for mercy, claiming the campaign system was broken. We need to have debate on these laws that were broken. We need to have a better understanding of why we are here today so that we can better understand where we are headed. So I urge my colleagues to support and vote for the previous question and vote for this rule so that we can get to the debate.

Mr. DeLAY. Regular order, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the gentlewoman be granted an additional 5 minutes.

Mr. DeLAY. I thank the Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Democrat side once again objected to an open discussion that we were having that we asked to extend one time and then a second time, again. Now, my colleagues cannot have it both ways. First, my colleagues ask for open and honest debate, many vote ``present,'' do not want to participate in a debate that they have been demanding for over a year; and it just amazes me that because they do not want one particular person to be speaking or to extend the time for a short period of time, because they may be inconvenienced and they have been standing there for all of 7 minutes, they want to stifle debate and stifle discussion. Well, fine. We can operate that way. And if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle do not want to show their colleagues courtesy, then we will operate that way. Now, Mr. Chairman, if I could finish my statement, that I was attempting to make before I was so rudely interrupted by those that would like to stifle debate and do not want open and honest debate, we are seeing the true colors right now, what has been going on for quite a while. So in order to try to regain where I was headed, I am just trying to say that the Shays-Meehan amendment substitute may well have the practical effect of insulating Congress from criticism, and this is the kind of thing they want to happen. They do not want to be criticized. They do not want issue advocacy groups out there criticizing their votes; they want to hide it by regulating free speech. That is what this is all about. If the First Amendment does not prohibit this sort of abomination, exactly what does rise to the level of its scrutiny? So the severability amendment before us would put this challenge to the draftsmen of the Shays-Meehan gems such as this. To those proponents of Shays-Meehan, I would say this. If you believe your bill is constitutional, you should have no problem allowing it to rise or fall as a whole. If you do not believe your bill is constitutional, what exactly did you mean when you took your oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States? And to the Members of this body I would just say, if you believe that the Bill of Rights is a crapshoot where Congress has no responsibility for the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the bills that it enacts, do not vote for the severability amendment. If you believe that squashing legislative advocacy groups is so important that it overrides your oath of office, then do not vote for this severability amendment. If you believe in cases of constitutional doubt that the presumption should lie against the Bill of Rights, do not vote for this amendment. If you believe it is a sound practice to enact legislative wads of constitutional scraps in the hope that perhaps the Supreme Court may have a bad day when it adjudicates your bill, do not vote for this amendment. On the other hand, if you believe, like I do, that the First Amendment was intended to protect, above all, the marketplace of political and legislative ideas, then we welcome your voice and your vote. But if you believe, like me, that it is a travesty to use the legislative process to attempt to shut down political opposition, as exhibited on the floor already tonight, then we welcome your vote and your voice. And if you believe, like me, that the First Amendment is at the core, about the vibrancy of political, legislative and philosophical debate, debate which would be gravely threatened by this misbegotten bill, then we would welcome your voice and your vote.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, the point here is that honesty does not come from a bureaucrat or from a law. I have said it before and I will say it again, I do not know one Member of this body that is corrupted by money. As the gentlewoman said, we ought to lift all boats. Under Shays-Meehan and other kinds of restrictions, she would not be elected. She would not be able to get 58 percent of her money from PACs, because they would eliminate PACs. They would eliminate soft money. They would not be able to elect a woman and let her get in a boat and be lifted. That is what we are trying to say here.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, would the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield to me first?

Mr. DeLAY. This is just incredible, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DeLAY. I cannot yield. I do not have the time, and I am trying to finish so the other gentlemen can use the time. You would not yield to me, so I just have to keep moving. Mr. Chairman, the point I am trying to make here is, real reform is opening up the process, not shutting it down in favor of incumbents. That is what they are trying to do. This is all interconnected. The Thomas amendment is saying that if one part of this is struck down, then it all should be struck down, because the Shays-Meehan bill is connected and interconnected. Therefore, I beg Members to vote for Thomas. Because if you are for real reform and not shutting down the process, if you are for real reform and opening up the process and inviting more people in, then you would not only pass the Thomas amendment but defeat the Shays-Meehan bill.

Mr. DeLAY. Now we have not only does the other side, Mr. Chairman, not allow us to extend time----

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

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I want to clear the record. The gentleman from Massachusetts totally misrepresented what was going on here. I know the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Rivers) was overseen by the Chair, and I apologize for that. But the point was the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker) had yielded to the gentleman from Massachusetts for a discussion and then ran out of time and was asking for an extension of time, and the other gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) ran down and objected to the time, cutting off debate from the gentleman from Mississippi. Mr. Chairman, that is what happened on this floor. It is really unfortunate.

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

Mr. DeLAY. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. The gentleman from Massachusetts asked if we supported the 1974 law that was passed after the Watergate hearings. You bet we did not. Because there were things in there like limiting the expenditure of campaigns to $70,000. I mean, a whole campaign spending $70,000, trying to reach the voters. In the Senate they limited it to 8 cents per voter, 8 cents per voter. Do you know why they did all that? I say to the gentleman from Massachusetts, it is so they could stifle challengers and give advantages to incumbents. That is exactly why we oppose the 1974 law that, most of it was struck down by the Supreme Court over time, and that is why we are very concerned about the severability of this one. We do not want another law like the 1974 Watergate incumbent protection plan, because it is all interrelated, it is all put together, and the gentleman from Massachusetts says, if we put one unconstitutional amendment here, it is a poison pill. Well, one more poison pill in a bottle half full of poison pills will not make a difference.

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

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think this has been a pretty good debate, although Members do not want to seem to yield to questions. I think that is unfortunate, so I am going to try to put this in perspective and bring us back to Earth. There are two different kinds of campaign money. One is hard money, one is soft money. The hard money that we are talking about is money that goes directly to candidates to elect or defeat candidates. That is heavily regulated and supported by the Supreme Court to do so. What the Shays-Meehan bill wants to do is stop the soft money. Now, the gentlewoman from Texas talks about the Lawyers for Civil Liberty.

Mr. DeLAY. I appreciate it. Then they come, and this is amazing, Mr. Chairman: If we are going to have an open and honest debate, we need to extend time particularly when the gentleman just yielded time to the gentleman from Massachusetts to get into the debate, and then the other gentleman from Massachusetts walks on the floor and objects to an extension of time after the gentleman has been very courteous to yield time back and forth. This is really strange. It is such a lack of courtesy. And then for the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Rivers) to stand up and demand time, it is just they have got to be kidding. I think it is really strange, Mr. Chairman, that now after the gentleman from Massachusetts has objected to the gentleman from Mississippi getting extra time, now he wants us to yield to him. This is unbelievable, and I hope the American people are seeing what is happening on this floor. They want to cut down debate; we want to open debate, and we want an honest debate in exchange. Mr. Chairman, I will be glad to exchange with the other side of this issue, and with that I will yield back to the gentleman from California so the gentleman from Mississippi can finish his thought.

Mr. DeLAY. The Lawyers for Civil Rights under Shays-Meehan could not raise the money to advocate the kinds of issues the gentlewoman advocates under Shays-Meehan. They would be regulated. I do not understand why she would support Shays-Meehan. She talks about leveling the playing field. The Supreme Court said that the concept that government may restrict speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the first amendment. We are not trying to level the playing field here. What they want to do in the Shays-Meehan bill, they want to ban soft money. Ban it altogether. And, therefore, bring moneys under the hard money type of regulations. They want to recognize people like Lawyers for Civil Liberty; if they want to run ads against Tom DeLay because he does not support their advocacy, they want to call those sham type ads and they want to regulate those, too. I do not want to regulate your group. I want them to be able to come at Tom DeLay and let us have a discussion of the issues. They want to codify Beck. But the problem is that you have to remove yourself from the union in order to take advantage, you have to resign from the union to take advantage of their Beck codification. This is all tied together. This is all part of what we are talking about here. The gentleman from Georgia is absolutely right. Honesty does not come from a bureaucrat. Honesty does not come from the Shays-Meehan bill. You cannot bring honesty to this Chamber, and I might say, this Chamber is not corrupt. This Chamber is not corrupt.

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

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, would the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman refuses to answer the question. I just wonder, since if we add up all the money that was spent on congressional House races in the last campaign, it amounted to about $218 million. That breaks down to about $3.80 per voter who voted in the election. $3.80. That is less money than we spent on bubble gum in this country. The gentleman from Wisconsin, every time he talks about corruption and money corrupts keeps talking about the fact, and every time he says that he denigrates every Member of this House. Mr. Chairman, he raised money just like we all do, and he is claiming that somebody in this House is affected by the money being raised. He will not answer the question, will not answer the question if he is affected by the tons of money he raised. I am not affected by the money I raise. The gentleman talks about tobacco money. When the tobacco interests and the companies came to me to talk about the settlement that they made and the agreement they made with the President of the United States, I told them not only no, but hell no. I was not about to do what the tobacco companies wanted me to do. So this whole notion that money corrupts. Then the gentleman has got to look at himself and look at himself in the mirror. Look in the mirror. Look how much money he raised. Has it corrupted him? No, it has not. He is a fine gentleman. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is a fine gentleman and he is very much involved in this process. So the point I am trying to make is that the Shays-Meehan bill and others are trying to restrict people's involvement, restrict their involvement in the political process as much as they can. For what reason? Frankly, they have good intentions, but the result of their intentions is incumbency protection.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled last week that taxpayer-financed vouchers payable to parochial schools are constitutional, and today we will pass legislation that will allow parents to set up tax-free education savings accounts that they can use to send their children to the school of their choice. The top priority of parents has always been to get the best education for their children. Now our Nation is moving in the right direction when it gives parents more choices and when it makes the schools more accountable, and many of our public schools are the best in the world but others need to be improved so that our children can get the kind of education that will help them realize the American dream. As the debate progresses, let us remember that the reason we have schools is to educate our children. It is not to support labor unions or to give bureaucrats more money. So let us support education savings accounts so parents can help their children get the best education possible.