John Doolittle

Mr. DOOLITTLE

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I just love the circuitous reasoning here. The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) just said they have no impact whatsoever on these voter guides, and then he went on to talk about sham issue ads and how those are bad and, of course, we have got to ban sham issue ads. Well, the point is are they sham issue ads or is this the constitutional right of people to speak? Under Buckley versus Valeo and all the cases that have followed, this is people having their constitutional right to speak. They are not subject to regulation by the FEC. And yet this bill makes them subject to regulation arguably by causing them to hedge and trim and fashion their language in such a way that the federal czar cannot intervene and sanction them for things that they said. All I am saying is let us have a bright-line test so that nobody is in doubt as to what the standard is. If they say vote for or vote against or if in some way they convey that clearly to vote for or vote against, that is prohibited and subject to regulation under the present law. We do not want the situation, though, where the author of the voter guide is subjectively determined, after the fact, to have crossed that line. We just think, why put people who are American citizens exercising their constitutional rights, why put them in jeopardy? For that reason, I object to the present language. Mr. Chairman, I am going to close simply by saying, if, as is represented, there is no intent to affect voter guides, what is the matter with this amendment? It just makes clear that people can continue to do the voter guides and not be subject to the Federal bureaucratic czar, to his whim, to make it clear, as is present law, that they can continue to speak during these campaigns. I ask for an ``aye'' vote.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the gentleman that the campaign finance reform system is a mess. But they want to make it even more of a mess by piling on more regulation. This amendment at least tries to remove some of the pressure from money to go elsewhere other than from the contributor to the candidate by allowing an adjustment for inflation for the limits. And then even some of our Republican speakers stand up here and mouth the idea that it is outrageous for us to triple the limits. Well, what about inflation? Why is it outrageous to maintain the purchasing power of the limit? After all, if it was reasonable in 1976, then at least that level ought to be maintained today, and that requires this adjustment. I mean, if we could just get people to think about this issue and quit mouthing these mantras about the evils of money and politics. Money is going to be in politics as long as we have a properly elected government. So instead of trying to pretend it does not exist or to command a control of regulations, why do we not let the voters decide? Why do we not let them contribute to the candidate and simply disclose it? The amendment that I am offering is a reasonable amendment. If it is going to be revisited by the supposed stewards of pure campaign finance reform, one has got to question their sincerity. And I do question their sincerity. I guess I would just observe the Washington Times refers to this as campaign finance charade. Earlier I quoted from the Nevada candidate. The Nevada candidate was a lady named Sue Del Papa, and this is what she said as she was withdrawing from running for the Democrat nomination for Senate in Nevada. She quoted from the Wall Street Journal. They called the political process a game that ``rewards those who will spend hours and hours each day raising money rather than seeking solutions.'' That is what the Republicans talk about raising money. Please vote for this amendment.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment to make certain that the voter guides can be published without fear of hedging or the chilling of any speech, which I believe will occur if we enact the law as it is proposed in the Shays-Meehan bill. The Shays-Meehan bill takes a situation where it is a bright-line test; it is very clear what is and is not permitted, and blurs it. They say that is not their intent to prevent the voter guides. I believe that we should enact my amendment so that there is no doubt about what can happen. Otherwise, the person making the speech is not really going to know and is subject to sanction by the Federal Election Commission bureaucrats if he unknowingly steps over the line. Let me just quote from the Buckley decision. I think this goes right to the heart of it. This is back in 1976 in the Buckley versus Valeo decision, which has been repeatedly upheld by the courts in subsequent decisions. ``So long as persons and groups eschew expenditures that in express terms advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate, they are free to spend as much as they want to promote the candidate and his views.'' I would like to ensure that that freedom continues unfettered. Now, the authors of Shays-Meehan will tell us that, more or less, it is okay to do but they just have got to be viewed as a totality and there are some qualifications and so forth that they make the test subjective, whereas now it is clear. And, as anybody knows, do they really want to get out there and engage in speech and maybe be compelled to hire an attorney, go through 3 years of discovery and litigation and spend a $100,000 or more on attorney's fees because some bureaucrat in Washington might argue that, in the totality, arguably they violated the regulation? I just want a clear test. Let me offer this from Buckley versus Valeo: ``Whether words intended and designed to fall short of invitation would miss the mark is a question both of intent and effect. No speaker in such circumstances safely could assume that anything he might say upon the general subject would not be understood by some as an invitation. In short, the supposedly clear-cut distinction between discussion, laudation, general advocacy, and solicitation puts the speaker in these circumstances wholly at the mercy of the varied understanding of his harriers and consequently of whatever inference may be drawn as to his intent and meaning. Such a distinction offers no security for free discussion. In these conditions, it blankets with uncertainty whatever may be said. It compels the speaker to ``hedge and trim'' and, therefore, chills speech and, therefore, is unconstitutional. Therefore, I ask for the adoption of this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, this is why debating this issue with these folks is so maddening. They tell us about all the problems of soft money. It is clear that we have these problems because of the limits that they refuse to adjust on hard money. Then when we attempt to adjust them for hard money, they talk about how unreasonable it is that we triple the limits. Well, inflation tripled. If that was reasonable, why can we not adjust the limitation? We vote to do that every year for Social Security recipients, federal retirees, everybody. Why is that unreasonable when it comes to campaigns? Look at this. Lamar Alexander, when he ran for president in 1996: ``Contribution and spending limits forced me to spend 70 percent of my time raising money in amounts no greater than $1,000.'' That is outrageous. That is what the guy in Vermont does not understand. Let me tell my colleagues, he expects us, knowing what we know, to make the right changes. That is why we need to pass this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time remains on each side.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I have how much time remaining?

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I am the designated presenter of this amendment, and I offer amendment No. 2 for the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield).

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I am, Mr. Chairman. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this is a corollary to the last amendment that we took up. This is the aggregate for what large donors can give, adjusting it for inflation, as the last amendment adjusted the individual limit. This is important. I hear people get up and say, well, gee, there is no problem raising the $1.8 million at $1,000 a pop. Well, that is not what most people say. In fact, good candidates have thrown up their hands in despair. We just had a couple, a Republican in New Jersey for the U.S. Senate and a Democrat in Nevada, they both just pulled out in part because of this problem of the limits. In fact, I will see if I can find quickly the quote here. I am not going to find it, so I will have to use it later. She just basically felt like the present limits were just demanding so much consumption of time. This was the Democrat from Nevada who decided not to run for the Senate, that it was not worth making the effort. Mr. Chairman, this is what we are increasingly seeing. Why are we creating the system and tolerating the system that allows only the wealthy or in a sense only the wealthy to run. They spend all of their own money they want. They do not have to raise a dime. But, boy, if one does not have wealth, one has got to go out and grind it out at $1,000 a pop. For U.S. Senate races in large States that is $20 million or more. So, yes, we are discouraging people of average means from running, from exercising their First Amendment rights. This amendment here is intended to modify the system, to give effect to what even many on the other side say, yes, it is reasonable, we ought to allow the adjustment of the limits for inflation. It is allowing that to occur and doing it with reference to the aggregate, individual contribution limit. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I believe I have the right to close.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, unfortunately when these amendments were drafted, and there will be, I believe, other requests, the page numbers and line numbers do not match up with what in fact is the base bill. So that is the purpose of asking to make this modification.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the modification I placed at the desk be adopted.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. May I inquire, Mr. Chairman, how much time does each side have remaining.

Mr. DOOLITTLE

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg).

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson).

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I hate to talk about myself as an example but I think I will, just to illustrate the point of view that I have about this. I could talk about Eugene McCarthy, the Senator who was able to run for President, was not subject to this because this law did not exist in those days. I think he said he raised a million dollars from ten people. It was enough money to basically successfully move out of the presidential race the incumbent President Lyndon Johnson. He definitely made a huge impact on the affairs of the Nation by the step that he took. I think many, looking back, would view what he did as a positive step for the Nation. I could talk about Senator James Buckley who has authored an excellent article, and it is interesting because this is the plaintiff in the famous Buckley versus Valeo case, who is now a senior judge with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. If I have time, I will quote from this article, but it is in the current issue of National Review. September 27 is the date; great article. It is an interesting perspective by the author. Let me just talk about why I am so opposed to the other approach, the big government one, the increased regulatory approach, which I submit has never worked and cannot work and will not work, which I also submit is largely unconstitutional and would be struck down by the Supreme Court under the precedents that have been set, but even beyond that is highly undesirable because it is going to have the effect of curtailing political speech before elections, which is just when we want to have all the information and speech that we can get. Yes, people are cynical, I acknowledge that as well, but unfortunately this sort of failed approach piling on more of the same old failing approaches is not going to relieve the cynicism. The Washington Times correctly refers to this as a campaign finance charade; and unfortunately, I believe that is correct. Let me just go to my own case. When I ran for office in 1980, no one had ever heard of me. I had never held any political office of any kind, but I cared about crime and education and taxes and I ran and I was able to get support from a relative handful of people that were willing to put in substantial amounts of money just like they did for Senator McCarthy. Had I been forced to run under the present laws we have today, I would never have been successful; I could not have been because when one does not have any name ID or any notoriety, one cannot get lots of contributions from the general electorate just by sending out a mailing. Nobody has ever heard of his name. So one needs the ability, as a challenger, to be able to go and raise seed money. It is not because money buys elections. Money does not buy elections. That has been demonstrated time and time again. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) very accurately stated the realities there. However, one can never win an election without money. Money is what gives one the opportunity to present their views to the electorate. I just think the arguments are so circuitous; it is like black is white and white is black when I listen to this debate. I am taking the position I am taking because I want the average person to be able to run for office. The wealthy can already run for office. In fact, they are the only ones in the whole country that have no spending limit under the present law. They can spend whatever they choose to get elected. It is only the rest of us that are limited in terms of the contributions that we can receive. Existing government regulation of campaigns is poisoning our system, and yet despite that fact, despite the fact that soft money is a symptom of the problem, it is not the problem, it is being treated as the problem. What happens with a patient? I am not a doctor but I have been sick and we all know people who have been. What happens when the doctors treat the symptom rather than the problem? The patient is not cured. This problem has been misdiagnosed for 25 years. We have been piling on more and more and more regulations. It is like the doctor that gives a prescription and the patient is still sick so he doubles the dosage. The patient comes back sicker yet. He doubles it again. Voter participation has continued to decline coincidentally, though not a coincidence in my view, with the enactment of the 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act, the very law that we are faced with today. The more we pile on regulation, the more we discourage people from participating; the more we reward the wealthy and those who have notoriety. What is the matter with a person of average means being able to run for office and going and getting some other people who have greater means to back him, or back her, and get those views out? Money does not buy the elections but money is the means of communicating the views to the electorate and then the electorate can decide. I ask for an ``aye'' vote.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the distinguished House majority whip.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, we have heard an awful lot about the problems of the present system. I would like to present what I believe are the problems with the system. I think it has tremendous problems. They are intolerable and they cry out for reform. It is just that the nature of the reform that I would favor is much different than the advocates of Shays-Meehan would favor. I believe that today's campaign finance system requires current and prospective office-holders to spend too much time raising money and not enough time governing and debating issues. Today's system has failed to make elections more competitive. And indeed, since the 1974 amendments, the disastrous system we have that was created by those amendments, voter participation has actually declined. Today's system allows millionaires to purchase congressional seats and inhibits the ability of challengers to raise the funds necessary to compete. Today's system hurts taxpayers by taking nearly $900 million collected in federal taxes and subsidizing the presidential campaigns of all sorts of characters, including convicted felons and billionaires. Today the system hurts voters in our Republic by forcing more contributors and political activists to operate outside of the system where they are unaccountable and consequently more irresponsible. That latter fact is what causes the advocates of Shays-Meehan to focus upon soft money because that is one of those areas. But they fail to understand that what is driving soft money is the unadjusted limits on hard money, never changed in 25 years. Justice Thurgood Marshall in Buckley v. Valeo observed that one of the points on which all members of the court agree is that money is essential for effective communication in a political campaign. David Broder, not known I do not think as a Republican, this is not a conservative, but he wrote in the Washingtonian 3 years ago and said the following: ``Raise the current $1,000 limit on personal campaign contributions to $50,000. Maybe even go to $100,000.'' I note parenthetically, we could not even go to $3,000 tonight let alone 50 or 100 like Mr. Broder has recommended. ``Today's limits are ridiculous given television and campaigning costs. Raising that limit with full disclosure would enable some people to make really significant contributions to help a candidate.'' My campaign finance reform goals are the following: we should encourage political speech rather than limit it, like the supporters of Shays-Meehan want to do. We should promote competition, freedom, and a more informed electorate, not limit their information at the time when people are coming awake and paying attention to politics, namely, 60 days before an election. We should enable any American citizen to run for office, not just of the wealthy, not just the well connected. And that tends to be the trend if we continue down this road of regulation, like Shays-Meehan. We should increase the amount of time candidates spend with constituents in debating issues rather than raising money. Just last week we lost a couple of candidates for the Senate because of this very thing. They could not put themselves through the absurd race to raise money that the present law requires. And lastly, we should make candidates accountable to their constituents for the money they accept. I propose to achieve those goals with the Citizen Legislature and Political Freedom Act embodied in H.R. 1922, which is the substitute I bring before my colleagues now. This legislation repeals limits on how much individual and political action committees may contribute to candidates or parties. It repeals limits on how much parties can contribute to candidates. We think political speech is good, and we think those limits have got to go. This bill also terminates the horrid taxpayer financing of presidential election campaigns that we have in place today. This legislation requires political parties to distinguish between federal and nonfederal funds and requires that each State party file with the FEC a copy of the same disclosure form as filed with the State. That way we do not add any bureaucratic requirements to what the States have to do, but we make the information available for people to see. We require electronic filing of campaign reports, and we require those reports to be filed every 24 hours within 3 months of an election. With the advent of the Internet, any person with a computer and access to the Internet will be able to access this information. The media, of course, will do that and it will be available for all to see. That is why we call ours the full disclosure act because we get right to the heart of it, and we make this information available to the electorate rather than empowering a new government information czar. We require the FEC to post all campaign reports on the Internet. They do not have to go down to the government office and get the Xeroxed copy of the report somebody mailed in months after the election. They will have it right there on the Internet. By the way, we also bar acceptance of campaign contributions unless specific disclosure requirements are met. We repeal, if you will, the best-effort rule. That is what the legislation does. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DOOLITTLE

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Chairman, I find it fascinating to hear these same canned speeches given again and again identifying the so-called problem as a lack of adequate regulation. These people that are bringing to us today Shays-Meehan, it is these very same people and their philosophy which created this very problem. But for their regulation, we would never have heard of soft money. Does anyone remember a few years ago? I certainly do because it was an issue in my campaign in 1990 and in 1992. Then the focus of their attack was hard money and the form of PACs, the political action committees, another spawn of the regulation that they gave us. This does not work, and it will never work, and Shays-Meehan is trying to tighten the screws a little further and put more limitations over here and box people in over there, and it will not work. The Supreme Court recognized that years ago in the Buckley case. I will just quote from it. It said it ``would naively underestimate the ingenuity and resourcefulness of persons and groups desiring to buy influence to believe that they would have much difficulty devising expenditures that skirted the restriction on express advocacy of election or defeat but nevertheless benefited the candidates' campaign.'' The Supreme Court anticipated this very clearly, and obviously the profusion of soft money has fulfilled what they anticipated. But they did not write the statute, the Congress did. It is their limits on hard dollars that have never been adjusted, that have been eroded by two- thirds the purchasing power of the dollar that has given rise to soft money. Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with soft money. It is the constitutional rights of groups to engage in political debate and in free speech. That is not a loophole. But big-government liberals like Senator Bradley, for example, has repeatedly talked about this problem of involvement in the political process as keeping ants out of the kitchen. Do my colleagues know what we do with ants that are in the kitchen? We wipe them out, and that is what Senator Bradley and Vice President Gore and all the other big-government thinkers would like to do to Americans' precious right to engage in unfettered political speech, the very thing the First Amendment was designed to protect. Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, and Senator McCain and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and Mr. Finegold and Senator Bradley and a host of others have come forth with bills designed to do exactly that, to abridge our precious, God-given freedom of speech. It would be a nightmare to pass a law that placed in doubt whatever political communication we had. It would be a complete disaster, such as the Shays-Meehan bill does, to make it in doubt whether what is being said falls within what is permissible because it is subject to a totality test or reasonableness test. Indeed, this will severely crimp political debate at the very time when people most want to get information, and in this information-weary age, when people tune out from politics just about the whole time except just before the election, Shays-Meehan kicks in and severely restricts what kinds of communications can go on. I would just call to everyone's attention, and I have distributed here a great editorial especially for people who think of themselves as conservatives or Republicans called Campaign Finance Charade. This article details why this whole scheme of regulation is really designed to disadvantage conservative ideas and to advantage left wing ideas. That is what the present regulation we have was designed to do, and it worked great for 20 years. Mr. Chairman, this is a charade. Big-government regulation does not work anywhere. We know that. And it certainly does not work in campaigns. If it did work, we would not be having this debate today because everything would be fine in this country, and the fact of the matter is it has become a Rube Goldberg network of complication that will only be worse and made more complicated by Shays-Meehan. I urge defeat of that proposal and passage of the one proposal that takes us in the other direction, which is H.R. 1922.