Christopher Dodd

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. I yield 15 minutes to my colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry.

Mr. DODD. If the Chair will notify me when 10 minutes expires. I say to my colleague from Tennessee, his chart looks like a chart made up by a heart surgeon. It looks like a pulmonary tract following various arteries and capillaries. Let me repeat what I said last evening to my friend from Nebraska. I have great respect for him, as I do the junior Senator from Nebraska, the Presiding Officer. I disagree with them on this amendment. There is a fundamental disagreement here. Aside from the mechanics of the amendment and how much hard money is raised and how much soft money you cap and who gets disclosed or not disclosed, it seems to me to be an underlying, fundamental difference in not only this amendment but others that have been considered and will be considered. That underlying difference is whether or not you believe there is too much money already in politics or not. If you subscribe to the notion that politics is suffering from a lack of money, then the Hagel amendment or various other proposals that will be offered are your cup of tea. I think that is the way you ought to go. If you truly think there is just not enough money today backing candidates seeking public office, truly you ought to vote for this amendment or amendments like it. If you believe, as I do as many Members on this side that there is too much money in the process--that the system has become awash in money, with candidates spending countless hours on a daily basis over a 6-year term in the Senate, over a 2-year term in the House, literally forced to raise thousands of dollars every day in your cycle to compete effectively in today's political environment then you believe as I do that we must move to put some breaks on this whole money chase. It has been pointed out in my State, the small State of Connecticut, you have to raise something like $10,000 almost daily in order to raise the money to wage an effective defense of your seat or to seek it as a challenger. In California, in New York, the numbers become exponentially higher. I happen to subscribe to the notion that we ought to be doing what we can to slow this down, to try to reduce the cost of these campaigns and to slow down the money chase that is going on. But all these amendment are just opening up more spigots, allowing more money to flow into a process that is already nauseatingly awash in too much money. I believe that, and I think many of my colleagues do as well. I know most of the American public does. If you want to know why we are not getting more participation in the political process, I think it is because people have become disgusted with it. Today it is no longer a question of the people's credibility or people's ability, but whether or not you have the wealth or whether you have access to it. My concerns over the Hagel amendment are multiple. First of all, as has been pointed out by Senators Feingold, Schumer, and Kerry, and others who have spoken out on this amendment, this is codifying soft money by placing caps on it. Caps which we all know are rather temporary in nature. Caps that are only to be lifted. So even if you subscribe to the notion that you are going to somehow limit this, the practical reality is we are basically saying we ought to codify this. That as a matter of statute, soft money ought to be allowed to come into the process, most of it unlimited, unregulated, and unaccountable. I think that would be a great mistake. We are allowing a $60,000 per calendar year cap on soft money contributions from individuals to the national parties. It would be the first time in literally almost 100 years, since 1907, when Teddy Roosevelt, a great Republican reformer, thought there was just too much money coming out of corporations into politics. So Congress banned it. It was one of the great reforms of the 20th century in politics. For the first time since 1943, with the passage of the Smith-Connally Act, and again in 1947 with the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, Congress would be allowing the use of union treasury money in Federal elections. For almost 60 years we banned such funds from unions, almost 100 years from corporations. Now we are about to just undo all that. We are suggesting that we allow it up to $60,000 per year. We will cap that right now in the Hagel bill, but there are also proposals here that would allow for indexing the hard money limits for future inflation. It is stunning to me we would include the indexed for inflation factor in politics. We index normally in relationship to the consumer price index, for people on Social Security or for people who are suffering, who are trying to buy food, medicine, clothes or pay rent, so we index it to allow them to be able to meet the rising cost of living. We are now going to index campaign contributions so the tiny minority of wealthy Americans can give more than $1,000--in this case, $3,000 per election or $6,000 per election cycle. Such indexing will enable the wealthy to have a little more undue access and influence in the political process. That is turning the consumer price index on its head. The purpose of it was to help people who are of modest incomes to have an increase in their benefits to meet their daily needs. We are now going to apply it to the most affluent Americans. Those contributors who want more access and more control in the political process will get the benefit of the consumer price index. That, to me, is just wrong-headed and turning legitimate justification for such indexing on its head. The hard money provisions are also deeply disturbing to me. Here we are going to say that no longer is a $1,000 per election limit the ceiling. We are going to raise that per election limit. Under the Hagel amendment, the individual hard dollar limit for contributions to candidates has been increased to $3,000 per election. This means an individual may contribute $6,000 per election cycle. A couple could contribute double, or $12,000 per election cycle. Let me explain this to people who do not follow the minutiae of politics. All my colleagues and their principal political advisers know this routinely. There we say $3,000 per individual per election. What we really mean is that an individual may contribute $6,000 per election cycle, because it is $3,000 for the primary and another $3,000 for the general election. Normally when we go out and solicit campaign contributions we do not limit it to the individual. We also want to know whether or not their spouse or their minor or adult children would like to make some campaign contributions. As long as such contributions are voluntary, then those individuals may contribute their own limit, all the way up to the maximum of $6,000 per year. So here we are going from $1,000 or $2,000--because the ceiling is really not $1,000, it is a $2,000 contribution that an individual may make to both a primary or general election--and we are now going to pump this up to $6,000 per year. Basically, that is what it works out to be. It could also be $12,000 per year for a couple. How many people get to make these amounts of contributions? I find this stunning that we are talking about raising the limit because we are just impoverished in the process. It is sad how it has come to this, that we are hurting financially. A tiny fraction of the American public--it has been pointed out less than one-quarter of 1 percent--can make a contribution of $1,000 per election. Last year, 1999-2000, there were some 230,000 people out of a nation of 80 million who wrote a check for $1,000 as a contribution for a campaign; a quarter of a million out of 280 million people actually made contributions for $1,000. There were about 1,200 people across the country who gave $25,000 annual limit. That is the present cap, by the way under current law. Let me go to the second case. Under present law, you can give a total of $25,000 per year. Again, I apologize to people listening to this. There are actually people out there who write checks for $25,000 to support Federal candidates for office. Understand, we think this is just too low. This is just too low. We are struggling out here; I want you to know that. We are impoverished. We need more help. So $25,000 from that individual, 1,200 of them in the country--1,200 people out of 280 million wrote checks for $25,000. But, you know, we do not think that is enough. This bill now raises it to $75,000. How many Americans can write checks for $75,000 per year? There is a disconnect between what we are debating and discussing and what the American public thinks about this. The chasm is huge. We are talking about people writing checks that are vastly in excess of what an average family makes as income a year to raise a family. And our suggestion is there is too little money in politics. We spend more money on potato chips, I am told.

Mr. DODD. I ask for 2 additional minutes.

Mr. DODD. I am told by one of my colleagues we spend more money on potato chips than we do on politics. Maybe that is a good analogy, because I think too many Americans think this has become potato chips, in a sense. It has almost been devalued to that as a result of this disgusting process. I regret using the word ``disgusting,'' but that is what it has become, when we are literally sitting around here and debating whether or not--with some degree of a notion that this is a reasonable debate--to go from $25,000 a year to $75,000 a year. If you take this amendment in its totality, that same individual with soft money contributions and hard money contributions could literally write a check for $540,000 to support the candidate of their choice in any given year. That is, in my view, just the best evidence I could possibly offer that this institution is out of touch with the American public, when it tries to make a case that there is too little money in politics today. Put the brakes on. Stop this. Reject this amendment. We can live with these caps that we presently have. There is absolutely no justification, in my view, for raising the limits. What we need to do is slow down the cost and look for better means by which we choose our candidates and support them for public office. This is about as important a debate as we will have. I know the budget is coming up. I know health care and education are important, but this is how we elect people. This is about the basic institutions that represent the people of this Nation. We are getting further and further and further away from average people, and they are getting further and further away from us. I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and support the McCain- Feingold proposal. It is not perfect, but it is a major step in the right direction. I urge rejection of the amendment.

Mr. DODD. I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Edwards.

Mr. DODD. Make it 1 minute.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Minnesota.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Florida, Mr. Graham.

Mr. DODD. Parliamentary inquiry: The opponents have 8 minutes remaining?

Mr. DODD. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Rhode Island. I believe Senator Thompson of Tennessee would like to be heard and we will close with 3 minutes from the Senator from Arizona, just to inform my colleagues of the remaining allocation.

Mr. DODD. I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Wisconsin.

Mr. DODD. Senator Thompson of Tennessee was going to try to get to the floor but is unavoidably detained. He would oppose the Hagel amendment on constitutional grounds. Mr. President, what time remains now?

Mr. DODD. The remaining time I yield to my colleague from Arizona, the author of the McCain-Feingold bill.

Mr. DODD. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President: What was the request?

Mr. DODD. What was the request of the Senator from Nebraska?

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

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, may I make a further parliamentary inquiry? I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to address the Chamber for 1 additional minute.

Mr. DODD. Second, are motions to table in order?

Mr. DODD. I thank the Chair and thank my colleague.

Mr. DODD. I yield to the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. DODD. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DODD. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Vote on Division III, Subtitle C, Soft Money of National Parties; State Party Allocable Activities

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, just to notify the Chamber, the next amendment to be offered will be by Senator Kerry of Massachusetts. I ask unanimous consent that the recess be extended until the hour of 2:30 p.m. today.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Ten minutes.