Tom DeLay

Mr. DeLAY

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

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is talking about me. The whole religious liberties constitutional amendment was to protect the First Amendment of freedom of religion. It had nothing to do, as the gentleman suggests, in shutting down freedom of religion. It is too big, two different things.

Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman will yield, the courts have held so.

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

Mr. DeLAY. No, no. The Supreme Court said that we could not practice openly and freely religion in the schools. You are right. We have as a body the opportunity to say, no, you are wrong. We are going to pass the constitutional amendment protecting the freedom of religion. It had nothing to do with shutting down the freedom of speech or religion.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman keeps referring to the fact that I introduced bills and voted for bills that had severability clauses. I do not know what that has to do with this case where we are making the case that when we are talking about an overall campaign structure, one affects the other. That is the case we are trying to make here; one affects the other.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman has received a lot of money, big money, $10,000 from a lot of unions, different unions, and I could go through them, but we do not have time because the gentleman does not have the time. My only point is, is the gentleman influenced by this big money that he received in his election?

Mr. DeLAY

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

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. DeLAY. Your side objected and I will not yield. This is just unbelievable. This is going to be a very long debate, I have to tell my colleagues. This is going to be a very long debate, and if my colleagues want to stifle debate and open discussion, then do so. You tried to stifle debate.

Mr. DeLAY. If my colleagues think this is overreaching and what I think is a repressive piece of legislation will pass constitutional muster, well, then fine. Then they will have no problem with an amendment that will take the whole bill down if just part of it is declared unconstitutional. This amendment is a nonseverability clause. It would provide that if a portion of the bill is declared unconstitutional, the entire bill is null and void. Now while the courts have not always regarded themselves as bound by severability clauses or the lack thereof, I think this amendment would serve as a powerful impetus for this bill to be upheld or overturned as a whole. Take, for example, what I think is a ridiculous and overdrawn provision dealing with the express advocacy clause. No one who has given this provision serious thought expects it to pass constitutional muster. Basically it would require an organization to report to government bureaucrats whether their campaign operation is an implicit advocacy of election or defeat of a candidate. The money spent to make these statements would be classified as political expenditures for the purposes of Federal election laws. Well, the problem is that most legislative advocacy groups are prohibited by law from making political expenditures and by classifying legislative advocacy as such Congress may well outlaw their statements in the very unlikely event this provision is upheld by the Court. So characterizations of an office holder's vote as pro-life, or pro- choice, or anti-gun might therefore be illegal. Well, there may be office holders who relish the prospect of being insulated from criticism on their legislative provisions, but I hope there is very few of us in this Chamber that would relish such a thing.

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

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentlewoman from Kentucky's remarks, and she is dead on, and if I could just take a moment to complement what she just said, although I am certainly not as eloquent as the gentlewoman is. This is so important, and I wish we could do this all day and all night and every day because frankly this is a good debate to be having. It is one of the few debates in the long time I have been here that we are actually having, and frankly it is why most of us came here. But in particular this amendment is vitally important because when we talk about campaign financing and campaign laws, mostly it is all sort of intertwined and related in one way or another. It is also we have a little problem with one group having an advantage over another group; that is why we have such a problem in the kinds of laws, FEC laws in 1974 that were totally written to protect the incumbents, and we all know that in fact that is why most of it was struck down by the courts. And so when we start regulating, we are picking winners and losers. Just like we would be regulating reforms or regulating anything else, we are picking winners and losers, and we are taking advantage based on who may have the votes. But throughout the debate on this particular bill the proponents of Shays-Meehan have assured us throughout the debates that we already had in press releases and everything else that there are no constitutional problems with their proposal. Their curbs on speech in violation of the First Amendment have the Good Housekeeping seal of approval, or so they say. This amendment would give them a chance to put their money where their mouth is.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, we are finally here, and I rise in strong opposition, unless my colleagues are surprised, to Shays-Meehan and their bill. Last week this House defeated a constitutional amendment that was authored by the minority leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) that would allow Congress to limit spending for the first time. He got 29 votes. Fifty-one Members of this House voted present, and I do not know about other Members, but I did not come here to vote present. I came here to vote yes or no, to do the people's business. But there is a lot of shenanigans going on, and all the shenanigans can be put aside because now we are into the meat of the issue. Now the author of the constitutional amendment, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), said the amendment was necessary because neither Congress or the States have any constitutional authority to limit expenditures, independent issue advocacy or uncoordinated. The current explosion in third-party spending is simply beyond our ability to legislate. This is what the minority leader has said, yet Shays- Meehan does just that. It attempts to legislate control of political spending and political speech, spending and speech that we are told by the minority leader was constitutionally beyond our reach to legislate. Now the Shays-Meehan bill is nothing short of an attempt to gut the First Amendment in my opinion. It is nothing short than an effort to prohibit our constituents from knowing where we stand on the issues. Like most of these campaign reform bills, those bills passed by the Democrat majority over the last few years, the Shays-Meehan bill is incumbent protection. It gives the advantage always to the incumbents. Now what does the Shays-Meehan bill do? Well, the Shays-Meehan bill bans scorecards. That is right, those voter guides that are passed out in churches and in union halls that track how the incumbents vote on critical issues would be subject to a regulation by the speech police and the bureaucrats of the Federal Election Commission. Shays-Meehan also places a gag rule, a gag rule, on independent expenditures and the ability of citizens to criticize incumbent politicians, a gag rule that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) and the minority leader told us that was not permissible in a free society. And the worst legislative assault that comes in Shays-Meehan attempts to shut down discussion on issues in this country. Mr. Chairman, this bill brings us back to the days when a person placing an ad in a newspaper criticizing the President was hauled into court by the Justice Department. This actually happened in four separate places. The Shays-Meehan bill would regulate speech even if it avoids the constitutional standard of express advocacy. No one even mentioning the name of a politician can feel safe that he might not have violated a federal law. That is what is in this bill. Now, the final attack on freedom in this bill comes in the form of severe government restrictions on the use of soft money by political parties and other organizations, money that is used to get out the vote activities, voter registration, issue advocacy; that is what the soft money is that is so maligned on this floor. The bill also federalizes for the first time State election law. I want Members on this side of the aisle to listen to this. This bill federalizes State election law. Now, finally, this bill does nothing about the millions of dollars of forced union dues taken from working people every year and used for political causes they may oppose. Sure, the bill does have a provision that is pretending to enforce the Beck decision, but to take advantage of the Beck decision, workers would have to resign from the union, resign from the union and give up their rights to vote on collective bargaining agreements and other important workplace matters. So, Mr. Chairman, we have been down this road before. In the early 1970s, the minority has bragged, after passage of a campaign reform bill, the Nixon administration brought a group of dissidents into court for putting an ad in the New York Times calling for the impeachment of the President. What was the charge? The ads were a ``sham'' and violated campaign laws. Well, my friends, issue speech, sham or otherwise, cannot be regulated. The Buckley court anticipated these arguments when it said, and I quote, It would naively underestimate the ingenuity and resourcefulness of persons and groups, designed to buy influence, to believe that they would have much difficulty devising expenditures that skirted the restriction on express advocacy or election or defeat, but nevertheless benefited the candidate's campaign. Those who would regulate campaign speech hope, and it is a desperate hope, that the Supreme Court will look at 20 years of election activity since Buckley v. Valeo and decide things differently. But it is more likely that the court will go just the other way, toward my view and those who think that the First Amendment is America's premier political reform, not the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974. Mr. Chairman, I would just remind my friends to look around them, just look around. In the past month, in the last 30 days, four, that is right, four Federal courts have struck down campaign speech laws similar to those contained in this bill. Four. Now, the Supreme Court was emphatic in Buckley that issue advocacy and political speech was at the very core of the First Amendment. To regulate it in any way is simply unconstitutional and, more importantly, it is wrong. The true issue here is speech, I say to my colleagues. Will we vote to prevent union members or churchgoers to give information on how an incumbent votes on raising the minimum wage or banning partial-birth abortion? Well, Shays-Meehan does this. Would one vote to gag a citizens' group from buying an advertisement criticizing a Member of Congress? Shays-Meehan does that. Would one vote to blur the line of freedom of the Supreme Court that allows a speech with review by the speech police at the Federal Election Commission? Well, Shays-Meehan does that. I ask that we oppose Shays-Meehan and let our constituents speak.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I wish the gentlewoman from Connecticut would have yielded to me, because I wanted to ask a question. It is all well and good to point out the contributions; and I appreciate the contributions, although her side claims all these contributions are corrupt. She failed to point out that Ted Sioeng that sells Red Pagoda cigarettes, Chinese cigarettes, gave money to her party and to the President of the United States when he was running for reelection. A little vignette that she failed to bring up.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman from Colorado would yield, I just say everything the gentleman says I totally agree with, but the problem here is that the corrective action that the gentleman might want to take, and there are other Members of this House who want to take the kinds of corrective actions that the gentleman claims are abuses, we cannot do because the openness of the minority has been thwarted. They are thwarting open rules because they will not allow us to pass a rule that allows the amendments that the gentleman might be able to offer in order to correct these abuses.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I appreciate the gentleman from Arkansas being here and talking about this because he is being honest and forthright about his position. And I have complimented him in the past even though he and I do not agree on his bill. He has been very honest about the fact that we need to move forward and open up this debate. I think it is very cynical, and I know what is going to happen. You are going to have my friend from Connecticut and others go to the press and say, Oh, my goodness, it's not moving as fast as we think it was. There's so many amendments. We know what they're trying to do. They're trying to bring dilatory amendments to the floor and trying to stretch out the process. The point here is that the process that they demanded, open and honest debate, forced us, not just us that are against the Shays-Meehan bill, but as the gentleman from Arkansas says, other Democrats and everyone to protect ourselves, making sure that we bring every amendment that we can think of to the floor because the process said you had to put it in the Record, your amendment in the Record, so that the Committee on Rules could look at it and give you a waiver from a point of order on germaneness. So of course there are going to be a lot of amendments. No one says that every amendment is going to be offered. But Members will protect their rights to offer amendments by putting them into the Record. So to hide behind this notion that there is 200 amendments, so many, and then they do not want those amendments to be brought to the floor because they want a new process, a whole new rule, they want it their way, is hiding behind the fact that they do not want an open process because they are scared to death about standing up in the light of day. You know, when we called their bluff, their turning tail and running, that is what is happening here. They are running from an open and honest process, a process that they have demanded, and I think it is really sad that we have come to this point in this whole process.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me and I really appreciate the gentleman from Colorado taking this special order. What he is doing is so right. The best part of what the gentleman from Colorado is doing is he is trying to participate. I think it is rather fascinating that we are here tonight when we should be debating campaign reform under an open rule process, where every Member can have the opportunity to offer the kinds of amendments that that Member cares to offer and every Member get to offer their own substitutes, unfortunately we are not doing that. What we are doing is we are in special orders talking about an issue that is very important to both of us. But we are being held hostage once again by what I think quite frankly is a situation that the Democrats have found themselves in. It is the same sort of situation when the dog chases the big dump truck down the street and catches the dump truck, he does not know what to do with the dump truck. Well, we have been criticized by the Democrats and some organizations for not having open and honest debate on campaign reform for months, mainly in my opinion to cover up the fact that the administration and the Democrat National Committee have broken campaign law, and so it is an old political ploy that you go from breaking campaign law, and the way to shift the focus of the American people is to all of a sudden be great reformers of campaigns and campaign law. But here we are in a special order as the gentleman knows. I just asked the question, why do the Democrats not want to support an open rule on campaign reform? I mean, we had every intention of bringing a rule to the floor this evening that would open up the process, allow all kinds of amendments, really have an open debate in this House, and frankly it started with a very good debate last week. I thought it was very helpful. The gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) who has the base bill presented his side, everybody was presenting their sides, we were getting ready to have this debate. Yet all of a sudden the rule is not good enough. Members of the minority party asked for an open process in campaign reform. They even demanded it. And when we first announced that we would have an open rule, my colleagues were exuberant. The gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), Mr. Speaker, said, and I quote, this is great, this is exciting, after learning that we would bring an open rule to the floor. The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) said it was a great day for democracy. Fred Wertheimer of Common Cause said, and I quote, it was a real breakthrough. But now these same so-called reformers are complaining because this debate will be too open for their tastes. Apparently the only kind of open debate that they want is debate on their proposals and no other proposal of Members of the House. In their minds the only reforms worth real discussion are their reforms. This attitude is typical of the wider debate that is going on here. The so-called reformers want to shut down this political discussion in America. Now they want to shut down discussions of issues on this House floor. In my view, the real reason we are having this debate at all is because of the abuses that the Clinton campaign had in the last election. In my opinion, Democrats oppose this open rule for one reason and one reason only. It will allow us to vote on reforms dealing with the Clinton scandals of 1996. Mr. Speaker, the Clinton Democrats 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 campaign laws and then begged for mercy claiming that the campaign system was broken. This open rule that we wanted to bring to the floor earlier this evening would have allowed us to vote on an amendment that would prevent fund-raising in churches and in temples. The open rule that we wanted to bring here earlier this evening would have allowed us to vote on an amendment that will demonstrate that controlling legal authority prevents politicians from raising money in government buildings. The rule also would have allowed an amendment closing a huge loophole in the Shays-Meehan substitute that would allow donations from foreign nationals to State and local campaigns and non-Federal PACs. That rule would have allowed us to fix that gaping hole in the Shays-Meehan bill. The rule would have also allowed us to deal with the problem of illegal foreign money and illegal foreign voting. In short, this rule would have allowed us to debate a whole host of issues dealing with so- called reform. Mr. Speaker, Shays-Meehan is not synonymous with reform. It is synonymous with suppression. Now they want a new rule, written on their terms, allowing only them to debate what they want to debate. I do not think this House is going to stand for this kind of inconsistency. Last week we defeated a constitutional amendment authored by the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the minority leader, that would have allowed Congress to limit spending for the first time. The gentleman from Missouri, the author, told us a constitutional amendment was necessary, because, in his words, ``Neither Congress nor the States have any constitutional authority to limit expenditures, independent issue advocacy or uncoordinated expenditures. The current explosion in third-party spending is simply beyond our reach to legislate.'' Yet Shays-Meehan does just that. It attempts to legislate control of public spending and speech. We should debate this bill in an open process. We should be able to amend this bill in a manner that the rule allows. We should not let the Democrats cover up the Clinton-Gore scandals. We should support this rule and the previous question that allows Members of this House to do their job, to bring to this floor amendments and substitutes that reflect their position on campaign reform, whether it be the position of the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson), who has taken a very constructive approach in the freshman bill being carried by the gentleman from Arkansas, or any other piece, the substitute of the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Bob Schaffer). We should have open and honest debate. That is what we wanted to do. But now all of a sudden, in the 11th hour, when we were about to start 20 hours of debate, tonight until midnight, tomorrow from 1 in the afternoon until midnight and all day Friday, all of a sudden we cannot pass a rule because it does not fit in somebody's little box. I just think it is really unfortunate that we had an opportunity to start this debate and now we are stymied by it.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, as we begin the debate on so-called campaign reform, my colleagues should take a moment to read the following column from Dennis Byrne of the Chicago Sun Times. He has it exactly right-- reformers think the First Amendment is a ``loophole'' that must be closed. [From the Chicago Sun-Times, June 10, 1998] Bill of Rights no obstacle to `reform' (By Dennis Byrne) When the House last week defeated a constitutional amendment to strengthen religious freedom, its opponents argued that we shouldn't be messing around with the Bill of Rights. House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri joined many fellow Democrats in defeating the amendment based on the logic that the First Amendment already protects religious freedoms. So, guess who has introduced an amendment to change the Bill of Rights? That's right, Gephardt. He would allow Congress to restrict the First Amendment by limiting what Americans can say about political candidates and issues. But as the debate is joined on campaign finance reform, a Gephardt spokeswoman said he would vote ``present'' on his own amendment. Democrats charge that Republicans are calling for a vote now on the amendment to embarrass the Democrats. They should be embarrassed. It was bad enough that many Democrats, along with a few Republicans, were pushing a version of campaign finance ``reform'' that would fly in the face of Supreme Court rulings limiting how much Congress can restrict Americans' political speech as expressed through their campaign contributions. Now their favorite bill, McCain-Feingold, is being topped by a worse version, Shays-Meehan (HR 3526), backed by President Clinton, Common Cause and the League of Women Voters. Get a load of some of its proposals, according to an analysis by the National Right to Life Committee: It would impose year-round restrictions on what incorporated citizens advocacy groups that are not political action committees can say about issue and candidates. They wouldn't be allowed to publish anything that mentions a lawmaker in connection with judgment about his actions or beliefs. For example, a community organization would not be able to note approvingly that Rep. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.) opposed the recycling of napalm in East Chicago. Any group that ``coordinated'' with a candidate, even to the point of having the same printer, would be banned during the year from even naming a candidate ``for the purpose of influencing a federal election,'' a test that is so vague as to be unconstitutional. Such a group couldn't issue any communication having ``value'' to the candidate, even if the candidate isn't named. ``Coordination'' also would include the common practice among groups of sending a written questionnaire to candidates and then disseminating the results. It also would include ``policymaking discussions'' with a ``candidate's campaign,'' which could rule out lobbying. Within 60 days of a congressional primary campaign, such groups couldn't mention the name of a candidate, even in ads that alert citizens to upcoming votes in Congress. Groups could obtain an exception for putting out materials about voting records and positions, but the information must be presented ``in an educational manner''--another unconstitutionally vague test. There's more, but this is as much as I can take. The meaning of the First Amendment is clear: In the interest of hearty debate, government can't restrict the people's right to talk about the government. Instead, campaign finance ``reformers'' would have government decide what people are allowed to say about their elected officials (read: their government). The answer to campaign finance abuse is to enforce the laws we already have--would that Attorney General Janet Reno ask for an independent counsel to investigate presidential fund- raising shenanigans. The constitutional answer is to strengthen free speech by removing the arbitrary restrictions now imposed on campaign donations, while requiring complete, clear and immediate disclosure. But if ``reformers'' get their way, the rules will become so complex and arcane that Americans first will have to consult their lawyers to find out what government allows them to say about government. The answer will be: Not much. Dennis Byrne is a member of the Sun-Times editorial board.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman spoke of inconsistencies and took a shot at the gentleman from Texas, and I just wanted to question her about the inconsistencies she called. First let me say I hope the gentlewoman will submit for the record all the legal scholars and the written opinions that she claims support her position.

Mr. DeLAY. I did not make the claim.

Mr. DeLAY. It is very clear. Reclaiming my time, it is very clear in Buckley versus Valeo. They are very clear that if we collect moneys that is used in support of an idea or in the support of a particular issue, then we cannot limit the expenditures of the contributions of those moneys. The gentleman makes a statement and then does not even have the courtesy to allow someone to answer the statement. The point is that they were very clear in the fact that we can do anything in support of an issue, but we cannot specifically say that we are advocating the election or the unelection of a particular candidate. So I say that the reason that the minority leader has bought a constitutional amendment to the floor is to show the fact that we have to manipulate and shred the first amendment of the Constitution in order to have the kinds of bills like Shays-Meehan, and the gentleman has his own time. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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