Christopher Dodd

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I am about to yield to my colleague from Michigan. We on this side, the opponents, have been talking about labor unions. I want to make a point as I read this amendment. People buy and sell stock with some regularity. You can buy one share of stock, as I read this amendment, for one day and technically be defined as a shareholder of a corporation, even if you held the stock for only 15 minutes. As this amendment is crafted, if there was then an internal communication by that corporation during that year of some political message, despite the fact that I may have held one stock for 15 minutes as a shareholder, that corporation is then required to send me all this disclosure information about that corporation's political activity. That is incredible to me. It doesn't distinguish how long you are a shareholder, so a shareholder for 15 minutes, who bought and held the stock for 15 minutes and then sold the stock again, would be required to get this information. We talk about the negative effect on organized labor. If you are a corporate shareholder and this amendment is adopted, you ought to shudder, in terms of the amount of information you will be getting. But let me yield 3 minutes to my colleague from Michigan.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, yesterday the Senate appropriately rejected the original amendment requiring corporations and labor organizations to get prior consent from shareholders and their members in order to use their general treasury funds for political activities. That proposal was appropriately rejected rather overwhelmingly--69-31--in this body for reasons explained in a bipartisan fashion. The Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Nickles, and Senator Kennedy pointed out this was a cumbersome, almost unworkable proposal that would have literally placed businesses and unions in a very precarious position. We made the suggestion if the amendment was going to be seriously considered by this body, of which corporations and business would have vehemently opposed, it would have required them to engage and perform certain functions and duties that never before had been required of them. There is no parity for a democratic organization such as a labor union, where Federal laws require the opening of books, the revealing of financial data information, the free election and secret balloting of officers, and a corporation where none of those union requirements pertain to a corporation management structure. The same could be said in many ways about this amendment. While this amendment is simpler than the original amendment, the failure or the problems with this one are not much different. This is a tremendously cumbersome mandate that will make it very difficult for some of these businesses and corporations to comply. There are different levels of activities as well. According to the Federal Election Commission, in the area of contributions since 1992, as a general matter, corporations have outspent labor unions in Federal elections by almost 16-1. So there has been a huge disparity in the amount of money contributed to candidates. On the other hand, we have labor unions and labor organizations, and their members engage in grassroots political activities, and corporations historically do not. This amendment is not a balanced in its approach to corporations and labor organizations. All of a sudden, this amendment attempts to penalize organizations that are trying to get people to participate in the political life of the country. It says to them, we are going to start demanding this kind of minutia and disclosure of information. As a matter of fact, there is no parity in asking corporations to do the same kind of disclosure when they don't engage in the activities that require the disclosure at issue. This amendment is truly not a balanced request or approach. Second, there are many other types of organizations that engage in political activities. While the Federal campaign law governs these organizations to a certain extent, this amendment completely excludes them. Membership Organizations, such as the National Rifle Association, the National Right to Life organizations, Sierra Clubs, and other groups are also subject to certain provisions of the FECA. This amendment does not address those organizations nor require them to disclose any detailed information regarding disbursements, contributions or expenditures with respect to their political activities. This amendment is impermissible ``selective application.'' It would only apply to one group of people, those involved in organized labor in the country. I understand my friend from Utah doesn't like organized labor. He doesn't like labor unions or labor organizations. He disagrees. These are people who take positions on the Patients' Bill of Rights, prescription drug benefits, and minimum wage, and a whole host of issues involving child care. I have a long list of items that working families, through their leadership, support. My good friend from Utah has usually disagreed with them on these matters. However, you don't go out and discriminate against one organization that is engaged in encouraging people to participate in the political life of the country by attaching a set of obligations and burdens on them that has the effect of discouraging political participation. We ought to be encouraging more participation. Finally, this amendment should be primarily opposed because it serves as a ``poison pill'' for the entire McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation. For those reasons and others my colleagues will identify, we strongly oppose this amendment. This destroys the McCain-Feingold bill. I see my colleague from Wisconsin. I yield to him 3 minutes.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be allowed to proceed for about 3 minutes. If the Chair will advise me when 3 minutes expires.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. If my colleague will yield for a minute, I had the pleasure of briefly meeting Father Jim Nadeau this morning downstairs. I welcome him to the Senate. I thank him for his beautiful prayer this morning. It is good to have a New Englander opening the Senate with us this morning. I thank our distinguished colleague from Maine for extending the invitation and sharing with us an inspiring story about Father Nadeau's family and his contributions to the State of Maine and this country. We thank him immensely for all the wonderful work he has done. I thank my colleague from Maine.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, let me yield 4 minutes to my colleague from Wisconsin.

Mr. DODD. There is an indication and perhaps a willingness to support that arrangement, along with the recommendation of having Senator Helms propose an amendment and maybe debate it this evening and make it the first vote tomorrow. We are discussing it on this side. I am using the opportunity to let people know with what I am going to ask them to agree. It sounds like a good schedule to me. If Members have some objection, they ought to let us know. In the meantime, we can go to Senator Landrieu.

Mr. DODD. This is an important debate. I certainly yield 10 minutes or so, whatever.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and friend from Oklahoma. As the Senator from Michigan pointed out, this may be not unlike the amendment yesterday where we are arriving at the same result with maybe a slightly different rationale for doing so but the end result produces the same answer, and this is probably better out of the bill than in the bill. Despite the good intentions of Senator Feingold and Senator McCain, in their view and in mine, there needs to be some clarification or codification of what the Beck decision said. But rather than debate that, that is what is going on at the NLRB. The Supreme Court decisions are not unlike where we craft legislation and then usually have boilerplate language that leaves to the respective agencies the right to make decisions pursuant to legislative intent. Many times they do that and we object to what they do; that it goes beyond what the congressional intent was. That is how Supreme Court decisions are written, and then it is up to the NLRB, in this particular case, to deal with the myriad questions that come to it as to whether or not something is in order under the Beck decision. The Beck decision says: supporting political activities unrelated to collective bargaining. I think that is the language of the Beck decision. All of these various requests come to them as to whether or not something falls within that particular sentence. There is a rich history since the adoption of the Beck decision made by the NLRB when such questions have come to them. That is where it belongs. I think that is what my colleague from Wisconsin is saying and my colleague from Oklahoma is saying--in effect, that we are not really the best venue for making those decisions. We best leave it to those who deal with these matters every day rather than trying to legislate it. I agree with the proposal of the Senator from Oklahoma to take this section out of the bill. But I wouldn't want to characterize this as being either bogus Beck or absolutely Beck. I think we have all come to the conclusion those decisions are best left to the NLRB. Some might claim that McCain-Feingold is a bogus-Beck bill. It is not. McCain-Feingold codifies the Beck holding, which has been interpreted through scores of NLRB and court decisions. As Chief Judge Edwards of the District of Columbia Circuit has observed, this is appropriate, and precisely what the Beck court intended; in his words, ``[i]t is hard to think of a task more suitable for an administrative agency that specializes in labor relations.'' Thomas v. NLRB, 213 F.3d 651, 675 (D.C. Cir. 2000). NLRB decisions implementing Beck have generally been upheld in the courts. Beck held that objecting nonmembers have the right to object to the payment of a portion of their contractually required agency fees. McCain-Feingold says the same thing. Whether they implement Beck or McCain-Feingold, therefore, the NLRB and the courts will be free to reach the same results. Nothing in our vote on the Nickles amendment today should change their analysis. I wouldn't want the Record to show what I hope will be overwhelming support for the amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma as anything but that. Lastly, let me say to my friend from Oklahoma that I appreciate his statement that we have come to an end, I hope, of the so-called paycheck protection amendments. I think we have had good debates on them. The Senator from Oklahoma and I agreed yesterday--I think he was right--as well that we are getting much too complicated in some of these efforts dealing with shareholders, and we felt the same on the second Hatch amendment where someone owns a stock for 15 minutes, and all of a sudden they are going to be deluged with information about the campaign's activities with that particular company going beyond what we intend to achieve in legislation. With that, unless there are others who want to be heard on this amendment, I am prepared to yield back the couple of minutes we have. We said 3:30 we would start the vote. We have one other amendment we are going to consider this afternoon by Senator Landrieu, if that is appropriate with my friend from Kentucky.

Mr. DODD. Do we want a recorded vote on this?

Mr. DODD. I commend our colleague from Louisiana. She worked very hard on this issue. I think it is very timely. I believe it is going to be of great assistance to Members as well as the expediting of the information that will contribute significantly to the McCain-Feingold bill. She has made a significant and worthwhile contribution to this process. I commend her for it.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, the Senator from Kentucky has described appropriately and properly that Senator Landrieu has an amendment. It might only take 10 minutes to explain the amendment. We might even hope for a voice vote rather than having a recorded vote on that amendment. I can tentatively tell my colleague from Kentucky that with respect to the Specter amendment, there has been some discussion about having an hour's worth of debate on that.

Mr. DODD. How much time does my colleague need?

Mr. DODD. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DODD. And that would be the amendment under consideration.

Mr. DODD. The Senator earlier temporarily laid aside the amendment. I think the Senator needs to ask unanimous consent to modify her amendment.

Mr. DODD. It is a modification?

Mr. DODD. Is this a modification?

Mr. DODD. Then we can debate that amendment tonight. I understand there will be no further rollcall votes tonight; is that correct? Ms. LANDRIEU addressed the Chair.

Mr. DODD. If I might make a unanimous consent request, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate convenes at 9 a.m. tomorrow, there be up to 15 minutes of debate on the pending Helms amendment, equally divided in the usual form, with a vote on or in relation to the amendment to occur at the use or yielding back of that time.

Mr. DODD. We might be able to inform our colleagues----

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. I thank my colleague for that clarification. Let me emphasize again how much I appreciate his efforts and the efforts of the Senator from Maine and others who have been so involved in putting this amendment together. At first blush you might say this ad is designed to probably help an incumbent because it is the incumbent's record that can be attacked. It is not a question of people disagreeing with our existing voting records. It is the personal attacks that so often are the most disturbing, not to the candidates themselves but the voters. We have seen too often that the effect of negative ads isn't so much to do damage, although it does to the reputations of good people by distorting some minor difference and magnifying it beyond all sense of proportion, but the larger harm done is that it has a tendency to discourage people from voting. There is ample data in various races around the country where there has been a deluge of negative campaigning that voter participation declines. People get disgusted by it. They do not necessarily blame one candidate or another when they see negative ads. It has the effect of saying: Politics is such a dirty business that I don't want anything to do with it. I am not going to encourage it, but I am not even going to vote. That is my great concern and why I believe this amendment has such value. It is not to protect people who hold themselves out for public office from being criticized. We understand that occurs if you hold yourself up for public office. We have hundreds of votes, and there are many which divide us as to what is the proper course of action to take. Someone may stand up and say: I disagree with Senator Dodd on how he stands on child care, or education issues. It is a perfectly legitimate activity in a campaign. We need the debate so people can have a better clarification. The authors of this amendment, as I understand it, are in no way suggesting that healthy debate and criticism of candidates ought to be removed from politics. They are saying, if you are going to do that, those who are making the criticism need to let people know from where it is coming. They believe--and I think they are correct--that this will have the dual effect of people being less inclined to attack people on a personal level where their picture is going to be displayed; secondly, it will encourage more constructive criticism, which is perfectly legitimate and which we ought to invite in a good campaign. The effect of that goes to the very heart of what this amendment is likely to do; that is, to encourage people to vote and participate. I applaud both of my colleagues for this amendment because I think it will encourage more people in the final analysis to engage in the political life of our country. I mentioned yesterday how we were applauding, in a sense, that we had done better than anticipated when 50 percent of the eligible voters in this country voted in the last Presidential election. We thought that was good news because it was better than what we had anticipated. What a sad commentary it is that 50 percent of the eligible Americans who have a right to choose who will be the President of the United States do not participate despite all of the ads and activities. I suspect that a significant percentage of that 50 percent stayed away not because they forgot, not because they were not interested in the decisions that the next President might make, but I think they didn't participate because they were so disgusted by what they saw on television, what they heard on radio, and what they saw being spent, which goes to the heart of what Senator Feingold and Senator McCain are talking about and why we are debating campaign finance reform. To have that discussion and not include this element would be a mistake. I, again, applaud my colleagues for adding this. Again, I can't say for certainty this will increase participation. But I think the American public will applaud this effort and politics will be the better for it, in my view. Maybe we will see more people voting in the next election because candidates will be more reluctant about saying some of these things they wouldn't dare say otherwise about themselves, and articulate it in a sense by requiring that a photograph be included in that ad. I think they will be a little more cautious about the things that have been said in campaigns in the past. I applaud my colleagues' efforts. I am happy to yield to my colleague from Michigan.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous consent the time be charged equally.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. That is not part of the unanimous consent request.

Mr. DODD. With a vote at 6 p.m.

Mr. DODD. Reserving the right to object, this is on Monday?