Christopher Dodd

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Yes, we would provide that.

Mr. DODD. Reserving the right to object, I would like to get a copy of the modification.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, if I may, Senators have the right to modify their amendments. I thank my colleague. Mr. President, I am prepared to yield 5 minutes to my colleague from North Carolina, Senator Edwards.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, we have an amendment. Amendment No. 160 Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of Senator Kerry, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. DODD. I ask unanimous consent reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, this is an amendment that has been agreed to by both sides. It is one of these amendments we can move out of the way very quickly. I gather the majority has seen it and approves as well.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. DODD. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. But we have been here together for those many years. In those days, statewide races in Iowa and Connecticut were a fraction of what they are today. If we extrapolate those numbers and advance them 20 years or so down the road, we are doubling it, which would probably be around $10 to $13, $14 million to seek a seat in Iowa or Connecticut in a contested contest, maybe more. Imagine how difficult it would be for some young person, some young man or woman in Iowa or Connecticut today, thinking one day they might like to be a candidate for the Senate. We ought to tell them today, if they are thinking about it, in the absence of the Harkin amendment being adopted, they had better be prepared to finance themselves or have access to something in the neighborhood of $10 to $15 million. The pool of people I know in my State and, I suggest, in Iowa--and the Senator knows his State better than I do--is a relatively small number of people who could even think about coming to the Senate under that set of circumstances. I applaud the Senator for this amendment. I urge my colleagues to support it. I am fearful we are not going to get very far with this. I hope I am wrong on that, but I tell the Senator from Iowa, if we don't pass this today, someday we will. It will take some other outrageous set of circumstances, much as it did in 1974, to provoke this institution to do what it should have done before then. Unfortunately, it will probably take that happening again to bring this body and the other Chamber around to the point the Senator from Iowa has embraced with this amendment. I commend him for it. I support it. I am hopeful our colleagues will join him in adopting the amendment. This will add immensely to the label ``reform'' on the McCain-Feingold legislation.

Mr. DODD. Before my colleague from Iowa speaks, I wonder if we might do this. For the purpose of informing our colleagues who are inquiring as to when this vote might occur, is it a noon vote? Is that how my colleague feels about that, another half hour?

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, my colleague from the State of Maine wishes 10 minutes. I am happy to yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Maine.

Mr. DODD. Yes. What I suggest is that this requires unanimous consent as we go along. I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Ohio be recognized for a half hour for the purpose of offering his amendment and speaking on his amendment, and that at the hour of 3:30, the Senate would revert to a quorum call.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. DODD. I don't know if I have any other people who wish to be heard on this amendment, so I will take a couple of minutes and close. Let me say to my friend from New Jersey that my hope is that also we will find some level that we can support. I said that last evening; I said it again this morning; I say it again this moment. There is a difference. For those of us who have long supported McCain-Feingold and variations of that and other such suggestions over the years, it would be a great tragedy, in our view, to finally close the door on soft money and then open up the barn doors on the other side for a flood of hard money. To paraphrase Shakespeare, a rose by any other name is just as sweet. A dollar coming through one door or another door still poses the same problem. What I reject is the idea that there is too little money in politics or there must be some inevitable, unstoppable increase in the cost of campaigns. Unsettled as I am about that, what really troubles and bothers me is who we are excluding. I said it last evening, and I will repeat it. As we go and seek out these larger contributors, which is what we do every time we increase those amounts, we get further and further and further away from what most, the overwhelming majority of Americans, can participate in. I think that is unhealthy in America. If we end up saying $50,000 per individual per year--$2,500--Mr. President, there are only a handful of people in this country--last year there were 1,200 people out of 280 million who made contributions of $125,000 to politicians; 1,200. And we are saying it is not enough; we have to raise those amounts even further. As we do that, we get further away from the average citizen of Virginia, Connecticut, Tennessee, and New Jersey. As we get further away from that individual who can write the $25, $50, $100 check because we are not interested in them any longer, it is no longer valuable for our time to seek that level of support. That is dangerous when we start excluding people from the process. My concern about this amendment is not just that it puts us on a track that we are going after bigger contributors, giving more access, but it is also whom we exclude--de facto, whom we exclude, and that is people who cannot even begin to think about this kind of level of contribution. That is dangerous for the body politic. It is dangerous for democracy, in my view, when we or those who challenge us will only be going after those who can write these huge checks. And they are huge. Only here could we be talking about $2,000 as a modest increase. Who are we talking about? How many Americans could sit down and write a check for that amount--for anything, for that matter, let alone for a politician? I am supposed to somehow believe this is reasonable, when we ought to be doing everything we can to engage more people in the process. I accept the reality there is going to be some increase. My plea would be to the author of this amendment and to those who also seek increases, to see if we cannot find some agreement that will be acceptable, but please don't try to convince me there is just an inevitable path we have to go down that continues to ratchet up the cost of these campaigns, shrinks the pool of those who can seek public office, and further excludes the overwhelming majority of Americans from financially participating in the political life of this country. That is a dangerous path. That is a very dangerous path. I suggest we will come to rue the day in the not too distant future of having traveled this road, closing the soft money door and swinging wide open the hard money door and suggesting somehow we have achieved a great accomplishment. We have an opportunity this morning to do both, to have a modest increase in hard money and to close down that soft money door. And then we can truly say we have reformed this process after 25 years of bickering about it. And I believe the President would sign it. With all due respect to my colleague from Tennessee, I will oppose this amendment and urge my colleagues to do likewise. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. DODD. I think there is going to be a tabling motion. Maybe my colleague would like to complete his argument and then have Senator Feingold make his and move to table. Do you want to yield back?

Mr. DODD. I yield a half minute to my colleague from Michigan.

Mr. DODD. I yield 1 minute to the Senator from Wisconsin.

Mr. DODD. I apologize to the Senator. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds.

Mr. DODD. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 151, as modified

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I gather the opponents of this measure have 15 minutes; is that correct?

Mr. DODD. Will the Chair advise me when I have consumed 4 minutes?

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I say to my friend from Tennessee, as I said last evening, I have great respect and admiration for him as a colleague and as a Member of this body. I remind my good friend from Tennessee that the McCain-Feingold bill, of which my friend from Tennessee is a supporter and of which I am and a majority of us are, has a $1,000 per capita limitation on hard money contributions. That is what McCain-Feingold says. McCain-Feingold does not raise the hard dollar contributions at all. It limits PAC contributions to $5,000; contributions to parties to $10,000; $20,000 to national parties; and raises the aggregate limits from $25,000 to $30,000. There are increases in hard dollar contributions in McCain-Feingold. But our colleague from Tennessee is suggesting we increase the hard dollar contribution by 150 percent, from $1,000 to $2,500. The practical realities are, it is $2,500 for the primary and $2,500 for the general, so we are talking a $5,000 base in that contribution; and as we solicit the contributions from families, a husband and wife, that is really $10,000. We are going from $4,000 to $10,000. That is a significant increase. I realize costs have gone up in the last 24 years, but this jump from $1,000 to $2,500, the net effect of going from $4,000 to $10,000, is a rather large increase. When we take the aggregate limits from $25,000 to $50,000, that is a 100-percent increase, $50,000 per individual per calendar year. That is a large amount of money. If you subscribe to the notion that there is too much money in politics, that we ought to try to get less or slow it down, so we don't have the chart my friend from Tennessee showed last evening where the costs have gone from $600,000 for a statewide race in 1976 to in excess of $7 million in the year 2000, 10 years from now, if you extrapolate the numbers, we are looking at $13 million for the average cost of a Senate race. When does this stop? When do we try to reverse this trend that I don't think is a part of natural law? This is not natural law. The cost of campaigns has to go up exponentially? There are those who believe there should be some increase--I accept that--in the hard dollar. I am not happy, but I understand there should be some increase. My plea is the one I made last evening to my friend from Tennessee, who I know is a strong supporter of McCain-Feingold and has been for several years; he is not a Johnny Come Lately to the reform effort. We ought to be able to find some common ground between his proposal and those who agree with McCain-Feingold, who believe and understand there should be some increase, and to find some number we can support. There are many people who support the amendment of the Senator from Tennessee who ultimately will vote against McCain-Feingold. I think they are hoping to get this number up so high that there will be people on this side who do support McCain-Feingold but can't in good conscience if the number is so high that it makes a mockery of reform. There is sort of a three-dimensional chess game going on here. My appeal to my colleague from Tennessee is, while we will vote on his amendment in 15 minutes, I suspect there will be a tabling motion, and I suspect there is a possibility the tabling motion may prevail. If it does, that may be a time in which we can begin to sit down and see if we cannot resolve some of this issue. I don't think the differences have to be that great; There can be some common ground. My plea would be for those who support McCain-Feingold, to try to seek that level of increase that is acceptable, although not something many of us would like to see but certainly a more moderate increase than what is proposed. I know we have several other colleagues who want to be heard on this amendment. I will yield 5 minutes to my colleague from Minnesota.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, that 30 minutes is to be equally divided between the two sides.