Sam Farr

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to bestow congressional recognition on the National Steinbeck Center, a national cultural institution located in Salinas, CA, in the heart of my congressional district. The city of Salinas is John Steinbeck's hometown and the Salinas Valley is the setting for some of Steinbeck's most powerful writings. It is only fitting, then, that a national center be located in Salinas, dedicated to the preservation of the art of John Steinbeck and to the celebration of his works and ideas through a variety of historical exhibits and cultural programs. John Steinbeck was one of our Nation's greatest authors, a native son of California, Pulitzer Prizewinner, and Nobel Laureate. ``Grapes of Wrath,'' which become an American classic, earned him the Pulitzer Prize Fiction Award in 1940. In describing the journey of an Oklahoma family's migration to California during the Depression in the hopes of realizing a better life, Steinbeck achieved worldwide recognition for his keen observations and powerful writings of the human condition. With ``Cannery Row,'' published in 1945, Steinbeck wrote a lively story about life in the thirties in Monterey, a sleepy California fishing village, when life seemed to him to have more meaning, although the conditions were quite different. Steinbeck's fiction represents the character of our people, in particular their vitality and uniquely American qualities. As a resident of California's central coast, John Steinbeck's novels are rich in the portrayal of our region's abundant agricultural heritage, and the locales of his stories are reflective of life and the people of the Salinas Valley. In 1962 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature ``for his realistic as well as imaginative writings, distinguished by a sympathetic humor and keep social perception'' for his work. I join the State of California in proclaiming the National Steinbeck Center. The national center will be a world-class museum and cultural center dedicated to Steinbeck teachings and lore. It encompasses one of the largest existing collections of Steinbeck artifacts, papers, and photographs in the world, and commemorates the Salinas Valley's multibillion-dollar agricultural industry, an industry which has earned the valley the designation as the Salad Bowl of our country. The National Steinbeck Center hosts an annual Steinbeck Festival at the beginning of August, where visitors can immerse themselves in films, tours, panel discussions, and special events depicting Steinbeck's writings. The National Steinbeck Center is not only a tribute to Steinbeck's life and literary genius, but also a unique repository for American culture from the first half of this century. John Steinbeck's literary accomplishments make him an icon of our cultural heritage. In bringing the plight of the poor and disadvantaged to the forefront of our social consciousness, Steinbeck's writings are as contemporary to modern day societal problems as they were in previous decades. In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in 1962, John Steinbeck left each one of us with words to live by ``* * * celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit--for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation.'' I ask the Speaker and all my colleagues to join me in saluting the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, CA.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Studds amendment and let me tell my colleagues why. There is a problem that I think the author, the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Gilchrest], is trying to address. We all want to address that problem, and that is the problem of bycatch. But the bill, as written, really does not do that without harming dolphins, and that is why the Studds amendment makes the bill a better bill. It is very simple. In America we have what we call truth in labeling. For 6 years U.S. consumers have been buying tuna in the stores that say that it is dolphin safe. We all know what the word ``safe'' means, our constituents know what it means, school kids know what it means. They are confident that tuna labeled as ``dolphin safe'' has not been caught in a way that harms dolphins. The amendment that the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Studds] is offering only puts 6 words into law. If the bill goes through right now, however, dolphins that are chased and die can be labeled ``dolphin safe.'' Dolphins that are harassed and die can be labeled ``dolphin safe.'' Dolphins that are injured or encircled with nets and die can be labeled as ``dolphin safe.'' That is not truth in labeling, and that is the problem here. We need to have truth in labeling. I urge my colleagues, add these 6 words to this bill to make it a good bill, to make it a better bill, to make it a bill we can all vote for and support, because that is what the American people want. They do not want us in Congress to play tricks with labels on cans in order to enhance an industry that fishes way offshore from here. Changing the definition of ``dolphin safe'' now without a sound scientific basis for that decision not only risks undercutting the progress we have made in the last decade to protect dolphins, but it also misleads the Amercan consumers. Vote ``yes'' on this simple amendment. Restore order to this bill.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, everybody in this Congress wants welfare reform. That is not the debate. But not everybody in the Congress wants to shift the cost from Federal Government to local government. We usually ask ourselves as lawmakers to look before we leap. I do not think we have done that here on the welfare reform bill. We have asked to be quoted by Governors, but Governors do not administer welfare, communities do. Counties and cities do. Has anyone asked the mayors and county supervisors? Well, I did. In California we are going to shift 230,000 people who are legal residents of the United States who are disabled. They are cut off. They live in our community. Where are they going to go? What will this bill do to help them? This bill goes on. It hurts the people in our neighborhoods, people who go to school with our children. What can we do with a bill that hurts children, that hurts the disabled, that hurts the elderly? In the Congress of the richest Nation in the world, what we can do is vote ``no'' on this bill and say we can do a better job. We want welfare reform, but a welfare reform bill that just plows the problem on the community is not reform at all. I ask for a ``no'' vote. Mr. Speaker, I insert the following material for the Record: County of Santa Cruz, Health Services Agency, Santa Cruz, CA, July 17, 1996. Re recommendation to oppose H.R. 3507 and S. 1795 denying eligibility for federal programs for legal immigrants. Hon. Sam Farr, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Congressman Farr: On behalf of Santa Cruz County, we are asking for your assistance and intervention in deleting from H.R. 3507 and S. 1795, requirements which deny eligibility for federal programs to legal immigrants. These two bills are moving forward under the heading of welfare reform and in their present form, are expected to save the Federal government $23 billion over seven years. At least $9 billion of this total would be achieved by eliminating services to legal immigrants in California. Santa Cruz County with less than 1% of the state's population, because of its population history, dependence on agriculture and demographics, expects an adverse financial impact far in excess of its population share. While the federal budget will experience some relief, the budgets of local governments, especially over-taxed budgets such as Santa Cruz's, will be severely impacted. These important issues demand thoughtful, coordinated planning and implementation to assure the least negative impact on those taxpayers who fund local government services and those residents who look to local government for care. These two legislative proposals, regardless of their noble intent, will savage local government and cause severe personal and societal disruption. For these reasons, we urge that you oppose these measures as long as they contain these unacceptable provisions which deny eligibility for legal immigrants. Very truly yours, Charles Moody, Health Services Administrator. Will Lightbourne, Human Resources Agency Administrator.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of House Concurrent Resolution 191, honoring the Filipino veterans of World War II, which the House approved yesterday. A number of my Filipino constituents are veterans from the Second World War, and served bravely in defense of our Nation. I can personally attest to their courage, strength of character, and love of country. However, I cannot help but express my concern that the House has yet to act on an important bill to help Filipino veterans: the Filipino Veterans Equity Act, which would provide all Filipino veterans full and equal benefits available to other veterans of the Second World War. Few people realize that thousands of Filipinos who served in World War II are not considered to have been in ``active service'', and are thus ineligible for full veterans benefits. Many of these same veterans served during the battle of Bataan, and were later subject to the horrors of the Bataan Death March. They also fought against the Japanese during their occupation of the Philippines. The Filipino Veterans Equity Act would end this unfair discrimination and allow Filipino veterans the same benefits as others who served during World War II. I and 70 of my colleagues in the House have cosponsored this important legislation; yet, after nearly eighteen months of consideration, the bill has yet to be enacted. Thousands of Filipinos risked their lives during World War II for freedom and democracy. We owe them the same benefits and privileges as other veterans who did the same. Let's enact real rights and recognition for Filipino veterans.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I rise urging my colleagues to support the bill that is under consideration, H.R. 3505. Mr. Chairman, this is a good bill. Let me tell the Members why. This bill imposes spending limits on political candidates. It reduces the influence on special interest money. It eliminates soft money. It corrals unregulated advocacy spending. It is a good bill because this is what the American people have asked for, and it is what they deserve: campaigns that are free of big money, free of powerful interests, and unregulated third party spending. It is a good bill because it brings sanity to an insane world of campaign finance reform. It is a good bill because it lets us say goodbye to the high-roller politics. Let us take a look at what is happening in America. Right now there are no spending limits, and certainly under the bill of the gentleman from California [Mr. Thomas], there are no limits. Candidates can spend whatever and however they want to spend. There is a $600,000 spending limit in a 2-year cycle under our bill. The American people want to see limits on what people spend in campaigns. They think there is too much money being spent in campaigns. Earlier this year the League of Women Voters ran a series of citizen assemblies focused on the issues of campaign finance reform and found overwhelmingly: ``The citizens feel it is obscene to spend so much money on elections in this time of scarce public resources.'' In the last election cycle we in this Chamber, the Members who got elected in this Chamber, spent a total of $230.8 million to get elected, $230.8 million, and that does not even count our opponents, the people who ran against us. Those who ran against us spent $300 million or so trying to defeat us. On the average, together, those who got elected and those who did not, we spent over $500,000 each to get here. That is a lot of money. The trend is for more money to be spent, not less. Over the last 10 years, the total amount spent by winning House candidates has just about doubled. Where are we going to be under the Thomas legislation 10 years from now? In the last 20 years, the total amount spent by winning House candidates has increased by more than 14 times. It is runaway. Not only is a lot of money being spent, it takes a lot of time to raise it. If we end the money chase, our elections will focus more on issues and on policy debates and less on the issue of collecting dollars. That is what my bill seeks to do, to end the money chase. We debate here daily about tightening our belts and reducing Government spending. How many votes in the last few days or weeks have been cast on the floor where we were cutting appropriations, limiting Government expenditures? Why can we not do that for campaigns? Why can we not cut, squeeze, and trim? The spending limits in the bill that I am offering are voluntary. They show a commitment on the part of the candidate to spend money wisely and responsibly. They put limits on the amount we can raise from PAC's. They put limits on the amount we can raise from wealthy people, on the amount of money a wealthy person can put into his or her own campaign. The opposition bill has no limits. We ask this of our government bureaucrats. We ask it of welfare recipients. We should ask no less of politicians. I urge an ``aye'' vote on my bill.

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Chairman, I ask my colleagues here on the floor to think about what is going on today, ask themselves what exactly is reform. Less money is certainly reform. More power to small contributors is certainly reform. Preventing rich people from buying public office is certainly reform. Eliminating soft money is certainly reform. Leveling the playing field is certainly reform. Limiting special influence in campaigns is special reform. Let me tell my colleagues what the President says about this: He says, Unfortunately the Republican leadership in the House appears determined to block any legitimate reform. The Republican leadership's bill, unlike your own legislation, would drive campaign financing in the wrong direction. Your bill would control campaign spending. The Republican bill would encourage dramatic increases in spending. Your bill reforms the soft money system. The Republican bill would place a premium on soft money contributions from the very wealthy. I would like, Mr. Chairman, to enter this letter in the Record: The White House, Washington, July 16, 1996. Hon. Sam Farr, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Sam: I want to commend you for the leadership you have demonstrated on a matter of major concern to the American people--campaign finance reform. The legislation you introduced in the House of Representatives, HR 3505, embodies principles that I believe are key to real campaign finance reform--effective spending limits, soft money reform, PAC reform, and less costly access to our nation's airwaves for political discourse. Your bill would reduce the influence of the special interests and the wealthy few in the outcome of congressional elections. In addition, HR 3505 would put a check on the out of control spending that plagues the current system. Although the Senate's recent failure to act on a bipartisan campaign reform bill was a terrible disappointment to the American people, the fight for reform did not end with the Senate's vote. The House of Representatives now has the opportunity to enact real campaign finance reform. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in the House appears determined to block any legitimate reform. The Republican leadership's bill, unlike your own legislation, would drive campaign financing in the wrong direction. Your bill would control campaign spending; the Republican bill would encourage dramatic increases in spending. Your bill reforms the soft money system; the Republican bill would place a premium on soft money contributions from the very wealthy. I remain committed to making true campaign finance reform a reality and look forward to working with you and other members of the House in a renewed effort to attain meaningful campaign finance reform. Sincerely, Bill. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise on the rule. This rule brings two bills to the floor. It brings the Republican bill, H.R. 3820, authored by the gentleman from California [Mr. Thomas], and it brings the Democrat bill, H.R. 3505, which I have authored. I have authored it as a substitute to the Republican bill. The rule, as it is designed in coming before us right now, reflects what the Republicans want, which is new law with no spending limits; no limits, no caps, and no reform. But, I say to my colleagues, we have a choice: true reform with limits, which is the alternative. It limits PAC's, limits large contributions, and it limits what rich candidates can put into their own campaigns. It allows small contributors to contribute and bring back into the role of choosing their candidates for public office. I support the rule and I urge my colleagues to support the rule. The rule is tight, but it is the only way that it allows us to debate campaign reform this year.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Madam Speaker, I rise today to address this House regarding campaign reform day. That is the legislation that is going to be on the floor, and the choice today is between the two R's, between reform, which the Democratic side of the aisle is promoting, and the rich, which is what the other side is promoting. The Speaker asked not long ago for more money to be delivered to political campaigns, and today the law allowing him to do it will be delivered to the floor. They claim that there is reform in their bill, but for whom? It hurts women, hurts minority candidates. The Democratic bill is the only bill that responds to the American public. It sets limits. It sets limits on PAC's, sets limits on the rich, and it sets limits on wealthy candidates. Colleagues, we have a choice today. We can reform for the rich interest or we can reform for the American public. Reject the Thomas bill. Support the alternative Democratic Farr bill. I ask for your vote.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to reflect on what was accomplished here on the floor of this House today where we finally got around to what was labeled last week as reform week but came down to essentially reform hours, about 2\1/2\ hours of reform, a discussion on campaign financing reform. I think those who were in the Chamber and who participated today saw again history being made by Republican leadership in being able to defeat campaign reform. It was an interesting saga today because it started off with a reflection on the history of where campaign reform had been. In 1987 Congress passed campaign reform. That was the 100th session of Congress. The Republicans filibustered the campaign finance bill in the Senate and were able to kill it in that year. Then in 1989 the House passed in the 101st Congress a bill that the Republicans delayed action in 1990 in the Senate until it was too late to appoint the conferees so that they could settle the differences between the House and Senate version, again a defeat by Republican leadership. Then in 1991 the House and Senate passed bills and later in 1992 a final conference report. That bill got to the President. The President then was George Bush, and he vetoed the bill. So from beginning in 1987, working its way up, campaign reform on this House being dealt with and being defeated. Then again in 1993 the House and Senate passed bills. But in 1994 the Republicans blocked appointing the conferees so that the differences again between the House and Senate version could not make it to the President. At that time we had elected Bill Clinton as President. Had that bill gotten to the President's desk, it would have been signed. Today what we saw was that the Democrats came back again with a bill that I happened to author. The bill had bipartisan support. Unfortunately the Speaker came down to the floor and argued very strenuously to defeat the Farr bill and to pass the Republican version, the Thomas bill. An interesting vote took place. First, on the substitute, the Democratic substitute was defeated. Then the vote was taken on the underlying bill, the Thomas bill. Really surprisingly, historically surprising is that that not only was defeated by almost 100 votes, but it was defeated by Members of the Speaker's own party. So what we have seen here in the last several years, dating back to 1987, is the inability for Congress to get sufficient votes to enact campaign reform. I think one of the difficulties is that that campaign reform movement had always been moving as the Democratic bill did today with one of setting limits on what Members of Congress could spend in campaigns. It limited it to a specific amount. Then it said, even though the Supreme Court has indicated that you cannot really limit people in what they spend because of the interpretation of the free speech, article 1 of the Constitution, but the courts have never commented on whether you voluntarily get up and say, as a candidate for office, that you would limit your expenditures, which is what our bill did. It said, if you go that route, then you can put limits on a Member. We put the amount at $600,000, quite a bit of money to run for Congress. Frankly, that is about the average that the winning Member of Congress had to spend. So if we are going to reform something, we have got to start with where we are and begin from there. In addition to limiting the amount of money, it also put in provisions for how much you could raise and where you could raise it from. It began with PAC's, which are very controversial. Always in campaign reform, some people want to eliminate PAC's. We think that that is probably unconstitutional. What we did in our bill is we said, all right, we will limit the amount that PAC's can give to the candidate. And in addition we will limit the amount that candidates can spend, the first time we had limits on PAC contributions. The second part of the provision said that not only will we limit PAC's but we will limit the amount that wealthy individuals can contribute. We defined a wealthy contribution as any amount $200 or more. We said that only one-third of your money could come from wealthy individuals. Then the third category was individuals donating less than $200, essentially small contributions. In that area we indicated that you could raise as much as you wanted from small contributions, essentially bringing the issue back to the constituents, back to people participating in the election of Members of the House of Representatives. There was no limit on the amount you could raise from small contributions just as long as the aggregate amount did not exceed the cap which we had put on Members who were voluntarily limiting themselves to $600,000. I think the most interesting part of the campaign proposal was the part that limited how much wealthy candidates could contribute, wealthy persons running for Congress could contribute to their own campaign, $50,000. This is a limit that we think brings the level playing field between wealthy candidates and those who do not have those kinds of resources. Earlier this year, or in November, actually, of last year, the Speaker of this House said, and I quote: ``One of the greatest myths of modern politics is that campaigns are too expensive. The process in fact is underfunded, not overfunded.'' Mr. Speaker, what we saw today was a bill sponsored by the gentleman from California [Mr. Thomas] that would allow that process of getting more money into campaigns to be amended into law, to lift the current law's limits and to provide a greater expenditure of funds. So I think what the public interest groups and so on were very instrumental in bringing to the attention of every Member of Congress, and particularly to people watching this issue and concerned about this issue, that this was not reform at all; it was moving in totally the opposite direction than anyone had ever intended, and that message was heard loud and clear when the vote was taken, with the Speaker's bill being defeated by, as I said earlier, by almost 100 votes. So where are we? We have again, in the 104th Congress, discussed campaign reform, developed two contrasting pieces of legislation, giving Members of this House the option to vote for one or the other, and in this case, both of them were rejected. I think that there is good news and bad news in that. The good news is that the bad bill did not get out. The bad news is that the good bill did not get out, either. But there is some hope because I think this Congress is beginning to realize, as we move toward the end of the 104th Congress, that we are not going to be able to accomplish reforms of the institution or reforms of this Nation without doing it in a bipartisan fashion, that there is no win-win by strictly taking a partisan approach to problemsolving. So what we found out from the double defeat today was the fact that we need to pull together in a bipartisan fashion, and I think that I have seen in the last several weeks as we tried to work these votes out that there is a coming together. But the coming together is going to be much closer to what was called the bipartisan bill, which was very, very close to the one that I offered today, had minor differences. And I think the differences between that bipartisan bill and the bill that I authored can easily be worked out, and hopefully next year when we come back as a new Congress, one of the first items of the new Congress will be a reform package that will address some of the reforms that we still need to do internally, but also will incorporate those reforms into something we need to do externally. And externally is revising and reforming how Members of the United States Congress are elected. So, Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that we are getting closer to the solution, and I am very pleased and thankful for the numerous Members of the opposite side of the aisle who helped me on the vote today. I just want the record to show that even though we lost, we think we were successful in bringing the issue to the House and to demonstrate that the American public has been heard in the U.S. Congress on campaign reform, and that is that they do not want to see, and this House has supported them by not supporting a bill that would go for more money in campaigns and lift the lids that have been voluntarily placed on it. So next year we come back and hopefully put together a meaningful bipartisan campaign reform that will be a little bit of a modification between the Farr bill and the bipartisan bill and hopefully, given time to reflect on it and given support across this Nation, and given the fact that when we are deliberating this bill, it will not be just before an election. I believe that we can pass such legislation and get it to the President's desk for his signature. So again I want to thank my colleagues for supporting my bill, I want to thank the Republicans that helped support it, as well. I look forward to working with everyone next year to make a meaningful campaign reform, not just a discussion, not just a debate, not just a vote but a reality.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, if I may, on the remainder of the time of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Rangel], I wanted to give this time because when I arrived here, I just wanted to say that one of the Members that I remembered first meeting was Hamilton Fish. The reason that I remember it so distinctly is that his cousin Stuymie Fish lives out in California and as anybody who has ever been on the Monterrey Peninsula knows, the Fish Ranch is this beautiful piece of property that everybody can see. So you have the Fish family well known all the way from New York to California and from Monterrey and Carmel all the way back to the East Coast. It was a pleasure to be able to give you some time since you could pay this tribute to a well-respected friend of us all and even friend to those like me. He was only here a short while while I was here but I was very impressed and we got to talk a little bit about the family relationship between the East Coast and the West Coast.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to bring to the attention of this House that there is a war of words being waged in this House on the issue of campaign finance reform, and the No. 1 form of ammunition is the Dear Colleague letters that are going back and forth. I know, because I have sent several of these missives myself, and also been the recipient of a couple of them. I would like to call a truce, if only temporarily, and will include the Congressional Research Service Report No. 96-628 GOV for the Record. I do this, Mr. Speaker, so that all the Members and the public can see laid out in chart style on a side-by-side comparison of the Thomas-Gingrich campaign finance bill and the Farr campaign finance bill, along with the current law. The CRS report is done in its usual nonpartisan, unbiased style, and I commend it to everyone for solid information on the two bills that will be up for a vote next week before this body. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the report. CRS Report for Congress campaign finance bills in the 104th congress: summary and comparison of major provisions of h.r. 3760, h.r. 2566, and h.r. 3505 This report summarizes and compares major provisions of three campaign finance reform bills offered in the House during the 104th Congress. It provides capsule summaries of those sections which address the central focus of the reform debate: regulating the flow of money in federal elections through adding, deleting, or adjusting limits on expenditures and funding sources. These bills also contain provisions to improve disclosure and enforcement of federal election law; these and most miscellaneous provisions are omitted from the comparison. H.R. 3760, the Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1996, was introduced by Representative Bill Thomas on July 9, 1996 and ordered reported by the House Oversight Committee on July 11, 1996. It is co-sponsored by the House Republican leadership. It represents a significant departure from Democratic- sponsored bills which passed the House in recent Congresses, which sought a voluntary system of spending limits and cost- saving benefits (or public funding) to complying candidates. H.R. 3760 seeks to promote greater competition and more broadly-based funding by augmenting the role of political parties and local citizens in the financing of campaigns. It thus attempts to offset the role played by wealthy candidates and political action committees (PACs) in recent elections. H.R. 2566, the Bipartisan Clean Congress Act of 1995, was introduced by Representatives Linda Smith, Martin Meehan, and Christopher Shays on October 31, 1995. This bill is based on recent House-passed bills which offered a system of voluntary spending limits in House elections, in exchange for certain benefits. It departs from previous bills in replacing public funding with cost-reduction benefits to participating candidates. A prohibition on PAC contributions and expenditures in federal elections is another prominent feature. H.R. 3505, the American Political Reform Act, was introduced by Representative Sam Farr on May 22, 1996. Co- sponsored by the House Democratic leadership, it closely resembles the House-passed bill of the 103d Congress (H.R. 3). Like H.R. 2566, it features voluntary spending limits and cost-saving benefits. Unlike that bill, it offers an aggregate PAC receipts limit and lower PAC contribution limit, rather than a PAC ban in federal elections.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. I think the biggest tragedy that would be caused by a vote on the Republican bill, if that ever became law, is that I think it would kill the very dream that people have when they come into this building that they or maybe a relative or son or daughter, and certainly as I talk to, I know you talk to all the school children that we meet with every week, and I would like to instill in them that there are ordinary people serving in Congress, and that they too, maybe not even knowing it at young school age or high school age or a young student in college, that they could someday serve in the United States Congress, because if they look around, that is what this Congress has been made up of. I think that the bill that is being debated in the Committee on Rules to be brought to the floor as the major bill, as the Republican leadership bill for campaign reform, would kill the opportunity for ordinary people to become Members of Congress. That would be the greatest tragedy we could ever perform on this institution that we are so proud of.

Mr. FARR of California. I think history will show as we end this debate here that the Democratic caucus with bipartisan support in the past has passed campaign reform out of this House, in the 103d Congress, the 102d Congress, the 101st Congress, and the 100th Congress and in every one of those instances, that action has been thwarted by Republican actions either in the Senate or a veto by a Republican President. It is obvious that the campaign reform that we are talking about that the American public wants and has supported these number of years is about to be thwarted by actions in this House as well, It is a tragedy. It is a tragedy that Reform Week has diminished into this kind of strained effort to not have effective campaign reform. I thank the gentleman for coming down tonight and being in the well and sharing his thoughts with me as one of the leaders in campaign reform in America.

Mr. FARR of California

Mr. FARR of California. We have a bill on the floor, as the Committee on Rules just indicated, and I hope we can gain your support. Thank you very much.

Mr. FARR of California. I think that is for the voters to decide in your district, frankly. If they do not like where your money is coming from, you have to publicize it. It is a public record, and the newspapers pick it up the moment it is of public record. And we see that because our campaign reports, everybody in this House had to file them, and I think they become public record any day now, and you will see the stories all next week about where contributions are coming from. That gives the voters in the District an ability to decide whether they like what they are seeing or not. I am not sure that is so broken that it needs that kind of fixing, because I think that if you do not put limits on what the individual can contribute, the advantage all goes to the wealthy, and I do not think that is fair. I do not want to take any more of the gentleman's time. I really appreciate this colloquy with you tonight.

Mr. FARR of California. I appreciate your allowing me to dialog with you.

Mr. FARR of California. May I share with you the concerns I have by limiting 50 percent of your contributions just to your district? And I can probably do that and I am sure if I looked at it, I do, but it is not something I really support. When I first ran, I ran against a very wealthy individual and when I was interested in running for office, I did what I think everybody does, you sit down and say where do I start. And what do you start with? You start with your friends and your relatives and you write everybody you ever knew, everybody you went to school with. I happened to serve in the Peace Corps so I went and wrote all my Peace Corps colleagues. I wrote my relatives around the country and said, hey, I am running for public office and you know I am better than anybody because I have grown up and worked with you, will you help me with your initial contributions? And I think that is where everybody every candidate starts. What disarms them is if they cannot do that and only the person who has a lot of money, a person of wealth, and by the way we limit the person----

Mr. FARR of California. Under your scenario of piecemeal, the campaign reform would be piecemeal and lobbying reform would be piecemeal, but as you know, under each of those tents there is a tremendous amount of technical law that has to be developed. My point of it is that you are not going to get campaign reform. You may get technical adjustments along the way; for example, the issue you brought up about requiring people who contribute, PAC's who annually have to go through the process of committing that, that is I think a technical adjustment. That is not campaign reform. Campaign reform is really the whole comprehensive effort of trying to control how money comes in and how it is spent. I do not think we will do that unless we put limits on what people can do. Otherwise it is just a feeding frenzy of getting money from wherever you can get it and trying to influence the outcome.

Mr. FARR of California. I appreciate your allowing us to have this colloquy. Without people talking, sometimes it is kind of lonely in this chamber. But my point is limiting raising that money in your district will put the advantage on a wealthy person versus a person who really has the passion to run for office, and I think we should be very careful before we do that because you do not put any limits on what a wealthy person can spend. Our bill does. It says you cannot contribute more than $50,000 of your own money.

Mr. FARR of California. Well, I think we have to address lobbying reform separately from campaign reform. Lobbying reform is essentially people who make their living there in Washington, whether it be on the public payroll or the private payroll, trying to convince Members of Congress that their opinion is the right one. I frankly believe that lobbying is good. I do not think that lobbying is bad, because these are complex decisions that we have to make, and, as the gentleman knows, we need to have all the information that we possibly can, both sides, pro and con, and, fortunately, people are supposed to be independent after getting all that knowledge. We know the decisions are complex. A lot of it deals with minutia and the only way we can get a grasp on it is listen to people who have vested interest in it. That does not mean because they come see you that they have our vote. I think if we are to address campaign and lobbying reform, we have to do it, but we have to do it in such a way that it does not cut off getting good information to make a tough decision.

Mr. FARR of California. I, like you, served in a State legislature for 13 years and was very active in campaign finance reform in the State of California. It is a very complex system. You have 6,000 local governments in the State besides the 58 counties and the State legislature, and your are dealing with an awful lot of campaign filings and technical process. Unfortunately, you cannot reform campaign financing piecemeal because it has so many different versions. It has amounts of money that people can give, whether they can give them to a candidate, whether they can give them to a party, whether they can give them to a PAC, whether they can give them to a national party. So just the individual giving money, how much, how often, whether each of those organizations, a PAC, how much money they can give, what they have to report, in California you still have what we call corporate contributions to campaigns. You can give either an in-kind contribution. You may be a corporation that has a lot of telephones and, therefore, on election night you can give your office for people to come down and make calls. Under Federal laws you cannot do that.

Mr. FARR

Mr. FARR. The difficulty with your plan is you have no limits. If you are concerned about PAC contributions influencing, whether they be labor PAC's or business PAC's or whatever the ideological framework of a PAC may be, you put no limits on them, none, absolutely none. We put limits, we say all right, candidate, if you are going to run with a limit on yourself, then you cannot take more than one-kind of your money, $200,000 maximum from a PAC and no PAC can give you more than, in a 2-year cycle, $6,000. That is what you are missing. You are missing this sort of idea of putting any kind of limits on an individual.

Mr. FARR. In response to your question, if I knew you were going to bring your list, I would have brought my list. I think there is probably a list of similar sorts with your leadership as well. The point of the fact is this is not about what has occurred in the past because we are trying to clean that up. We are trying to put some limits on it. You cannot put limits on a bill that, frankly, the Committee on Rules has just reported to the floor. Your leadership's bill does not reform campaign finance.

Mr. FARR. I think that every worker has a right to know where their contribution is going. I do not think that your provision is the one that I support because it does not apply equally to corporate as well. A PAC contribution is a PAC contribution. It is a check-off system, whether you work for a corporation or whether you work for a union.

Mr. FARR. May I respond?