Pete Domenici

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Chair. (The remarks of Mr. Domenici pertaining to the introduction of S. 638 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. DOMENICI. I ask unanimous consent I may proceed as in morning business for 2 minutes.

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

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, today I had the honor of presenting a personal letter to Mr. Hiroshi H. Miyamura at an event honoring Mr. Miyamura and commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War. Mr. Miyamura is a native New Mexican, a Medal of Honor recipient, and a true American hero. In honor of Mr. Miyamura and in recognition of the events surrounding his contribution in the Korean War, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my letter to him and a short historical sketch about Mr. Miyamura be printed in the Record.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce my own version of campaign finance reform, the Common-Sense Federal Election Reform Act of 2001. I am again introducing straightforward reform legislation to deal with six principal areas: (1) the super-wealthy candidate; (2) party soft money; (3) inadequate hard money limits; (4) increased disclosure for certain communications; (5) paycheck protection; and (6) unlawful fundraising activities. This bill addresses the issues that I have raised over and over again on the floor of the Senate whenever we have debated campaign finance reform. As I've said before, the biggest problem with our elections is that they no longer belong to the voters. My bill makes six fundamental changes to existing campaign finance laws. First, it helps solve the wealthy candidate problem. Over the past decade we have witnessed the growing tide of multi-millionaire candidates financing their campaigns and effectively shutting out other qualified candidates through the sheer power of their own wealth. Something must be done to stem this tide so that the electorate hears the voices of all the candidates and not just those with extraordinary personal wealth. The teacher, police officer, military man or woman, and the like must have an equal chance to participate as candidates in our dynamic political process. Perhaps more importantly, if the current system is allowed to stand, the public will hear only the views of the super- wealthy. Elections will become, even more than today, nothing more than a choice between two Wall Street financiers or two corporate magnates. My bill helps ensure that a candidate prevails on the strength of his ideas not the size of his personal bank account. The bill tackles the problem without offending the First Amendment. Indeed, there are no limits on the wealthy candidate's right to spend his or her own money on his or her campaign. Rather, the bill simply levels the playing field by increasing the outdated individual contribution limits for the opponent of the self-financing candidate. Let me explain in very general terms how it works. In New Mexico, if the wealthy candidate spends personal funds on his or her campaign in excess of approximately $400,000, the opponent could raise contributions from individuals at three times the current limit or $3,000 per election. If the wealthy candidate exceeded $800,000 in personal expenditures, the opponent could raise individual contributions at six times the current limit or $6,000. Finally, where the millionaire candidate spends in excess of $2,000,000 of personal funds, the party coordinated expenditure limits are eliminated for the opponent candidate. This does not violate a wealthy candidate's constitutional right to use personal funds on his or her own campaign. It merely enables the non-wealthy candidate to participate in the process so that the public hears the opinions of all the qualified candidates regardless of their personal fortune. Another important aspect of this provision states that a candidate who incurs personal loans in connection with his or her campaign cannot repay himself or herself in excess of $250,000 with contributions received after the election. It creates a perception of impropriety for a candidate, who once elected, uses the prestige of office to raise contributions to repay personal debt incurred during the campaign. In addition to the wealthy candidate problem, the bill addresses the soft money issue. It caps soft money contributions at $50,000 per individual during each election cycle. I have long felt that Congress should limit soft money to reduce the perception that extraordinary wealthy people can buy influence through substantial, unregulated contributions to the political parties. Third, my bill modestly increases the regulated or ``hard" money individual contribution limits that are now 25 years old. For example, under this legislation, individuals can contribute $5,000 to a candidate rather than the current $1,000 limit. These increases are long overdue. Campaigns are very expensive and it takes too much of a candidate's time to raise the necessary money at the outdated $1,000 limits. This bill will permit candidates to spend more time presenting their views to the public and less time attending fund raisers. Certainly, no one can argue that in today's world $5,000 is enough to buy influence. Fourth, my bill increases disclosure requirements for certain communications. The legislation calls for the disclosure of certain information by anyone who spends more than $25,000 or more on radio or television advertising that mentions a federal candidate by name or likeness. I have long felt that disclosure is the best way to pursue campaign finance reform. Disclosure is the best policy because it does not infringe the constitutional rights of individuals and groups to engage in political speech. Fifth, the bill deals with the use of union dues for political activities. Mr. President, I can think of no other campaign activity that is more un-American than the mandatory, compulsory taking of union dues for political purposes. The essence of democracy is that political speech must be voluntary. For many union workers, that is not the case. Indeed, unions are made up of forty percent Republicans, and yet nearly all the union money that is spent on political activity goes to the Democratic party. My bill requires the unions to get the prior, written permission of all members before using their dues for political purposes. Finally, my bill addresses illegal fundraising activities. It clarifies that soft money is a ``contribution'' under federal election laws. Thus, it makes absolutely clear that government officials cannot use federal property to raise any campaign funds, including soft money. The bill also provides increased criminal penalties for violations of the foreign national provisions and for contributions made in the name of another. My record is clear. Today, for at least the fourth time, I am introducing a comprehensive campaign finance bill so that my constituents in New Mexico know where I stand on campaign finance reform.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, a little earlier in the day, a very distinguished Senator from West Virginia and a very good friend--and I say that in all honesty--came to the floor and talked a little bit-- more than a little bit--about the budget resolution and the current chairman of the Budget Committee. Not in negative terms. I happen to be that person. They were not negative at all. There were a few things the distinguished Senator said that I seek to clarify. I did not do this without telling him. I sent him a copy of the budget schedule for the winter-spring of 1993 because one of the points the Senator from West Virginia made was we are moving ahead to bring a budget resolution up on April 1 or April 2. I believe one of his major points was we do not yet have a detailed budget from the President of the United States, George W. Bush. I will soon put this schedule in the Record, but here is what happened in 1993 when President Clinton was elected President. One of the big differences was they had 54 votes on that side, and we had 45 votes on our side. Understand, they could do what they wanted with the budget resolution with or without a President's budget. They could order reconciliation instructions to increase taxes with or without Republican support. This Senator finds himself in a very different position. We have 11 Republicans and 11 Democrats, and they just happen to call me chairman, but I do not have any votes. I am one of the 11 Republicans and there are 11 Democrats. The distinguished Senator said we were proceeding even without a detailed final budget from the new President of the United States. Here is the budget schedule for the winter-spring of 1993: February 17, the President issues a preliminary budget overview called a ``Vision of Change for America.'' We looked at that. It is very much like what George W. Bush sent us maybe a month ago. It was a very minor document when it comes to detailed budget documents. On March 3, the CBO gave some preliminary estimates on that. Just look at this schedule: On February 17, the President sends us this vision, this document of a few pages, and by March 12, less than 1 month, the Senate Budget Committee, on partisan lines--namely, they had the majority, we had the minority--guess what. They reported out a budget resolution. Then the House Budget Committee did that by March 15, less than a month. Then on March 18, 1 month after the issuance of the ``Vision of Change for America'' proposal--and I call it a proposal--the conference report was filed on the 1994 budget resolution. The House agreed to the conference report, and on April 1 the Senate agreed to a conference report on the 1994 budget resolution. Guess when the Senate in 1993 got the budget of the President of the United States. On April 8, 8 days after they had already approved everything, including a budget resolution. I only state that because it was suggested that it was sort of untoward and maybe not the best thing for us to do the budget resolution before we have the President's final documents, the detailed documents. President Bill Clinton asked his democratically controlled Congress that they approve a budget resolution before he sent them the budget, and they did. That is all right with me. I was a member of the opposition. I argued as much as I could against what I thought was not the right thing to do, but understand that by April 1 everything was finished in both Houses on a budget resolution aspect, following on with the President's plans, and the President had not yet put his budget together in detail. We have as much detail today, I assure you, Mr. President, as the Senate and House Budget Committees had when they produced budget resolutions less than 1 month after the President issued his vision plan, a rather flimsy document, not much of a budget document, much like our President produced. We do not call that little vision document a budget; they are still working on it. I want everyone to know it will not be untoward. It will be very much in accord with the way we have done things, to follow our Democratic brethren and do the very same thing. The President will not have his budget in detail. We will have a budget resolution. It is not a detailed budget either, if anybody thinks it is. People say: You must know about every program in the Federal budget, as if in every budget document we deal with every program in the Federal Government. It will come as a shock, but we do not. We deal in large functions, large pieces of the budget, because that is all we have jurisdiction over. Nobody gave us jurisdiction over the details. I sent this to Senator Byrd since he spoke about the chairman of the Budget Committee and wondered why we could do a budget resolution before we had a budget. I repeat--they are pretty good role models on the other side of the aisle--that is what they did for their President. We are going to try very hard to do that for our President. The only difference is we do not have 54 votes that carry ``R'' after the name; we have 50. We are trying very hard to ask our Democratic friends--some of them--to help us do for our President what the Congress did for their President when he was first elected to the Presidency; that is, help us get a budget resolution out and not just wait around for a budget; do it quickly; do it as fast as we can. I have a commitment from the leadership that we are going to take this budget resolution up as quickly as we can under the very rigorous schedule we now have. I know we are not going to get huge cooperation on the other side, although I hope a couple Senators will help us, because it still has to be filled in by the committees. We just want to lay the groundwork that President Bush deserves to get his budget considered in exactly the same way President Clinton did. The only thing he can hope for is that he have 54 votes as President Clinton had. Then he would get his plans adopted in both bodies in less than 1 month from the time he issued just his few pages of ``here is what I want to do in the future.'' It wasn't a budget. It wasn't a budget by either President. With this budget resolution, we want to do it as quickly as possible, April 1 or April 2, for 4 or 5 days. In addition, we want a big piece of that budget to be economic recovery. That means we are going to propose, hopefully--I haven't worked it out with everybody yet--$60 billion of the 2001 surplus; there is a big surplus sitting there this year. That $60 billion will be allowed in a bill, in a composite bill, to give back to the taxpayers because it is surplus that we ought to return to them. I don't know what way to return it to them. That can be debated. I don't think there can be any debate with what we see in the American economy. Expediency is a rule. Economic recovery ought to be our first venture and our paramount venture going in. We will propose a $60 billion surplus be given back to the American people in the most judicious and prudent way possible. And we pass the President's marginal tax cut along with it. We won't ask for all the rest of the taxes in that first round. People are worried about it being too big. This will be a package made up just of the marginal rates and the $60 billion this year. It will send a signal, if we can get cooperation to do this. It will not only send a signal that we are responding to the economic conditions, whatever plant closures, whatever responses there are out there, and the marketplace. The business executives are thinking, at least we can act quickly, and we have an economic recovery part of this plan which is pretty good. I say to any person who thinks the marginal rate reduction should not be part of whatever return of surplus we have for this year, they just ought to ask those who really know about what will send a positive signal to the American economy as nothing else. That is in addition to the refund, rebate, tax cut, whatever you want to call it, giving back $60 billion. If you reduce the marginal rates permanently and tell the American people it is done, they will say, for once they did something quickly, they did something right, and our hats are off to them. That will be their hats off to us. If we can't do that and somebody thinks we can fix it all with a $60 billion return of surplus and put off the rest, you can't do that and have any big impact on this economy. Let me repeat, if the only package is to return a portion of this year's 2001 surplus, you cannot have an impact on the American economy. It is not big enough, even though it is $60 billion. And you get no permanency built into the notion that the marginal rates for the American taxpayers--that means everybody's tax rate--should be reduced from the top brackets to the lowest brackets. That is about the way things are today. I am very pleased the Republican leadership, at least as I read them, as I made this presentation to a group of Republican Senators--not everyone; some Senators were busy on the floor--I saw a willingness to move, to do something, to let the tax-writing committee quickly sit down and decide to do this. We will say you have free reign to do this in these particular dimensions I have just described. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the budget schedule for winter/spring, 1993.

Mr. DOMENICI. If we can do it as quickly as this bill, but I don't think we can. Wherever I said 54 Senators, my friend says it is 56. I just come from little old New Mexico. I thought it was 54. But in any event, they had good majority and proceeded with great dispatch. I will try to do that, although we only have 50/50. I will ask the American people, and I will have the President ask them, do you want to get this done or dillydally? Do you want to get both pieces done, give the public back $60 billion and cut the marginal rates, or wait around? Wait around until when? I am not answering the question. It is so obvious that a markup will do no good; as this Senator sees it, it will split every vote, 11-11. I am not willing to say we will do that before we put this package before the American people. I just don't think that is what we have to do. So nobody will be confused, the other side of the aisle says the public ought to have a chance to participate in this committee deliberation. That is a wonderful thought. It is probably what all of us would like to think about our committees when they work, but I think the American people will get a real version of this when they get 5 days on the floor of the Senate. When you can offer all kinds of amendments, you can offer three budget resolutions if you like. We offer the President's as a starting point. If the other side would like to offer theirs, that is different; they can. If they amend the one we can produce, whenever it is, they can do that. It will be full, hour to hour, minute to minute, on TV. It is not assured that will occur with a markup in committee, but we will have it, full time, every moment we speak. Having said that, we will put together this budget as quickly as we can. We will try to share it with all the Members and eventually, as soon as we can, we will share it with the other side of the aisle. But essentially, they will have ample time in the 5 days we debate this, 50 hours. Do you know how long that is? We won't get out of here before Easter. We might meet through the night one of those nights and we will get out of here before Easter.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. The Senators involved in this with their staff worked very late last night. The amendment is very complicated and it is being drafted, and it has just been received. We cannot help that. It is now being looked at and it is practically ready. It is a very lengthy amendment. They think they have found some unintended words and they are trying to fix that. We have been explaining the amendment. Senator DeWine explained the state-by-state formula very much in detail. I explained the intent and the basic ideas, and as soon as we get it, we will introduce it and then there will be additional time until we vote.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DOMENICI. First of all, there is no soft money in this amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. May I also say to you, if you are worried about the person who wants to put in their own money, and it will trigger raising the personal caps, you understand that before we are finished with the McCain amendment, it is going to be amended in terms of caps. Caps aren't going to remain at $1,000. You understand the caps are going to be raised.

Mr. DOMENICI. It will happen because that $1,000 is 26 years old with no interest or inflation added, and it remains the most significant cap on Senators and Representatives. And it is too low. You have to spend all your time raising money, which is the other side of the equation. If it gets raised, also the person who had an idea of putting his own money in can look at it again and say, well, if I can raise $3,000, or $6,000, whatever it is changed to, and the PACs are changed to double, it might be that they will choose not to put their own money in because they could actually have a shot at financing. When you put in all of the negatives that exist today in terms of the bias of big money, I think this bill is a good effort to try to equalize that. Is it equal in every respect? No, it is not. Does it take care of the fact that an incumbent may have already raised some money? No. But let me tell you when you have a situation that says to somebody who is, as was defined here, a super spender, who gets up into the 10's, 20's, 30's, 40's, or 50's of the super spenders, to tell you the truth, I don't have an awful lot of concern about them, in fact, not having a fair shake in this election. They are going to spend enough money to make sure they do. They know that. They assess it and their money. They say they are going to put in whatever is necessary to get a fair shake. I am more worried about them putting in their money and the person running against them, say, in the northeastern United States, is not an incumbent; the person running is a challenger. There is no way, under current law, that person could raise enough money to become known and do what somebody who spends $40 million can. That is the kind of person I am worried about.

Mr. DOMENICI. I would like to ask you about one other subject. I think you should know what we are doing, respectfully, which is to say that anybody who puts in their own money, however they got their own money, when they get elected, they cannot use their Senate seat to raise money to pay off what they put in an election. You raised one where somebody mortgages their house and puts in the money. If they mortgage their house, they still have to put in this threshold money, which is a lot of money to be from a home mortgage.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, after a long night and legislative counsel drafting this amendment and then all of our collective staffs working on it to make sure we had a draft we could offer, we are now at that point. This amendment may need some technical and drafting changes as we move through this process, and that will be done. Essentially, Senator DeWine has explained the technical part of this bill. I want to, once again, talk about why this bill is imperative for the United States. While we are here on the floor debating a McCain bill to change the campaign laws of America because we are concerned about excess money coming from sources--soft money, hard money, too much of this, too much of that--and I am not sure I agree with everyone, but I am saying where we are there is a new and growing situation that involves this amendment and what we are trying to do. That is the right of wealthy Americans, men or women, to spend as much of their own money as they desire in a campaign. Nobody is going to change that. This amendment cannot change that. The Supreme Court has said that is a right. That right is being exercised in growing numbers by those who put not a few thousand, not a few million, but tens of millions of dollars of their own money into campaigns. What is wrong with that is not that they can put up $10 million, but their opponent is bound by 26-year-old caps that are so low that to match somebody who puts $10 million of their own money in, in a middle- size State, the opposition must spend days upon days seeking $1,000 contributions per election and seeking $5,000 per election from political action committees. I never have figured out how much a person would have to spend of their time to match a $10 million contribution from a wealthy person or superwealthy contribution. It is an enormous amount of time. It is frequently fruitless because you can't raise enough money to match. I am not concerned today about making sure the candidate who puts up millions is treated precisely as the person running against him, whether the person is incumbent or otherwise. However, what we do is say the man or woman running against the big contributor--the $5 million, the $3 million, the $20 million, we even had over $50 million of their own money spent--the opposition candidate has to have a change in those $1,000 cap restraints and the $1,000 has to be raised substantially. The hard money that can come from parties has to also be changed substantially so the person running against a wealthy candidate who spends a lot of their own--and I just described that; the other side of the aisle described it also, somebody on the other side of the aisle said as much as $50 million--in a simple way raise the level of funding that the opponent can raise from the American people, citizens of their State and from their party. That is fair. If it turns out in the process you do not match equal dollars, that is all right with this Senator. We tried very hard to make sure the person running against the wealthy candidate gets a fair share. Amendment No. 115 I send an amendment to the desk for myself, Senators DeWine, Durbin, Ensign, Feinstein, and Collins, and I ask it be immediately considered.

Mr. DOMENICI. What would be the status of the Domenici amendment? If we would set it aside, it would be an amendment that has not been tabled, and that is subject to amendment pursuant to the unanimous consent agreement. Is that correct?

Mr. DOMENICI. I assume we are going to do that right now. Are you going to try to table it? You are going to lose.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I would like to proceed. I believe it is 12 pages long. We have counted it. We have had hours in that Cloakroom with staff from every Senator who is interested. The amendment we started with was rather lengthy. We just added to it. But we have added what all of these Senators wanted as if they were sitting in there in terms of modifying the Domenici amendment to make it a real Domenici- DeWine amendment which includes the state-by-state formula that he wants as well as proportionality that other Senators sought. I want a vote up or down when the time comes. I hope it will come quickly. If it doesn't, we will vote at whatever time this time expires. If somebody wants to table it, I would now, here and now, urge that we not table it. It is a very good amendment. If you want to fix it up, you can fix it up a little bit. It still has to go to conference. But essentially a vote to table this is a vote not to do anything about the growing situation of extremely wealthy Americans using their own money while, for the most part, the person running against him is encumbered by statutes in terms of what they can raise that are totally unreasonable versus a candidate who puts in $10 million, $20 million, $30 million, or $40 million. That is the issue. At this point, I yield the floor and hope we will vote soon.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment.

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Texas is here, and I yield her as much time as she needs off our side.

Mr. DOMENICI. I ask the Senator, are you in favor of the amendment or against the amendment?

Mr. DOMENICI. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. DOMENICI. It is 12 pages.

Mr. DOMENICI. Thank you very much.

Mr. DOMENICI

Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss a serious and effective use of new technologies in our military operations. While I will focus on a specific directed energy technology, the Joint Non- Lethal Weapons Program Office is involved in many other research areas that provide innovative solutions to our military men and women in their daily missions. Recently, the Marines unveiled a device known as Active Denial Technology, ADT. This is a non-lethal weapons system based on a microwave source. This device, mounted on a humvee or other mobile platform, could serve as a riot control method in our peacekeeping operations or in other situations involving civilians. This project and technology was kept classified until very recently. The Pentagon noted that further testing, both on humans and, evidently, goats will be done to ensure that it truly is a non-lethal method of crowd control or a means to disperse potentially hostile mobs. The notion that the Pentagon is using ``microwaves'' on humans, and especially on animals, has inflamed some human and animal rights groups. Among others it has simply sparked fear that a new weapon exists that will fry people. This is not the case. And, unfortunately, few of the media reports offer sufficient detail or comparisons to clarify the value of such a system or put its use in perspective. While ADT is ``tunable,'' the energy cannot be ``tuned up'' to a level that would immediately cause permanent damage to human subjects. The technology does not cause injury due to the low energy levels used. ADT does cause heat-induced pain that is nearly identical to briefly touching a lightbulb that has been on for a while. However, unlike a hot lightbulb, the energy propagated at this level does not cause rapid burning. Within a few seconds the pain induced by this energy beam is intended to cause the subject to run away rather than to continue to experience pain. Such technologies have never before been used in a military or peacekeeping endeavor. Therefore, there is naturally suspicion or fear of the unknown and usually the worst is imagined. I believe this is unwarranted, especially when one considers the currently available options in these types of military situations. Think of 1993 in Somalia. The U.S. lost 18 soldiers and somewhere between 500 and 1,000 Somalis were killed on the streets of Mogadishu. The Somalis used children as human shields, and our military was forced to fire on angry crowds of civilians, some civilians having automatic rifles and grenades. Peacekeeping operations are not void of lethal threats. Oftentimes our military is confronted with armed civilians or situations where unarmed, defenseless civilians are intermixed and indistinguishable from persons possessing lethal means. Regardless of the new Administration's approach to involvement of the U.S. military in non-traditional operations, I believe these types of missions will continue to be a staple of our military's daily operations for a long time to come. Further, these missions often involve situations that render U.S. soldiers vulnerable or threaten the lives of innocent civilians. I believe that the applications of directed energy technologies in these and other operations can provide a more humane and militarily effective approach. Active denial technology is merely one device on a list of research and development endeavors currently underway by the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program. I would encourage my colleagues to get briefed on the mission and projects in the Non-Lethal Weapons Program. Further, I believe that the tunability of microwave and laser technologies will offer a palette of readily available options to address operational needs in both traditional and non-traditional military operations, and I fully support further funding of research in this area.