Russell Feingold

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Is the Senator not aware that even during the 60-day period, the Shays-Meehan bill, which, of course, was the McCain- Feingold bill, does not cover pure issue ads? It only covers ads that show the likeness of a candidate or mention the name of a candidate. It does not cover the Harry-and-Louise kind of ads.

Mr. FEINGOLD. You are not dealing----

Mr. FEINGOLD. I am very glad the Senator asked me that question. Again, you come to the heart of the matter. Let us look at the language of the bill we have put forward. It does not talk about only what the gentleman from Texas--as we should perhaps refer to him on the floor--would do directly. The language is clear. It says: A candidate, an individual holding Federal office, agent of a candidate or individual holding Federal office, or an entity directly or indirectly established, financed, maintained, controlled by, or acting on behalf of one or more candidates--cannot raise this money. We deal with the indirect problem. It is not possible to have B.B. DeLay become the shell person to do this without running the risk of violating the law. Since you asked me a question this time, I will answer in the form of a question back to you. How can you say to me that we only deal with some of the soft money when the whole exchange we just had made you concede--you clearly conceded--that you can't deal with all the soft money, that there is no way you could ever deal with----

Mr. FEINGOLD. But it will go to that kind of a group. The point I want to reiterate--and I put it in the form of a question--is that the suggestion that a party soft money ban that includes some new tough provisions to protect against evasions of the law would not make a difference, I think, is problematic. We are talking about making these subterfuges, which are currently legal-- maybe at the most they are stretching the law--illegal. What Mr. DeLay is doing, from the other body, apparently is right on the line, some would say. Maybe it is legal; maybe it isn't. But we can't say for sure it is illegal. We are making sure in our bill that it is a crime to do this sort of thing. Don't you think it would make a significant difference and raise the bar on the risk for these companies and those individuals to play this game? Isn't it worth taking the chance by banning soft money and having these tough provisions? Isn't it worth giving it a try?

Mr. FEINGOLD. One more question, because the Senator from New Jersey has been very generous in responding. The proposition you are advancing appears to be--given this chart, Philip Morris did give almost $500,000 to the Democrats, although they gave $2.5 million to the Republicans--apparently the Senator believes, one way or another, Philip Morris is going to see to it that that kind of money--$500,000-- sees its way to the Sierra Club or NARAL or some kind----

Mr. FEINGOLD. Will----

Mr. FEINGOLD. I further ask the question--I do appreciate these answers--I think when you look at the tough provisions we put in this bill, although nothing is ever perfectly complete if somebody is willing to violate the law and take their chances, but what we are talking about here is corporate executives, CEOs, who now give money directly to political parties, taking the chance of running afoul of these new criminal laws. I have this chart. It is a list of all the soft money double givers. These are corporations that have given over $150,000 to both sides. Under the Senator's logic, these very same corporations--Philip Morris, Joseph Seagram, RJR Nabisco, BankAmerica Corporation--each of these would continue making the same amount of contributions; they would take the chance of violating the law by doing this in coordination with or at the suggestion of the parties, and they would calmly turn over the same kind of cash to others, be it left-wing or right-wing independent groups? I have to say--and I will finish my question--I am skeptical that if they cannot hand the check directly to the political party leaders, they will take those chances. I share your suspicions about some group trying to funnel this money. There is no question that some of that will happen. But wouldn't you concede there has to be some serious risk, in our soft money ban, for these corporations to pull this kind of a stunt?

Mr. FEINGOLD. So that route will be blocked.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Are you further aware that the bill will prohibit the parties from transferring money to 501(c)(4) organizations such as Americans for Tax Reform, which you mentioned a short time ago?

Mr. FEINGOLD. Let me follow then to the really important question you are raising about the possibility of the attempts to evade our attempts to simply ban party soft money. I don't doubt for a minute that the Senator is right, that the attempt will be made to evade the intent of the law, and in some cases it could succeed. But is the Senator aware that the McCain-Feingold soft money ban, the bill we have introduced, will prohibit Federal candidates from raising money for these phony outside groups such as the organization that is connected with Representative DeLay? Are you aware that that provision is actually in this soft money ban?

Mr. FEINGOLD. Fair enough. I think that is important because we have to distinguish here between the kinds of ads we are talking about. If it is the case, as the Senator from New Jersey suggests, that banning soft money will cause money to flow to phony issue ads, I think it is also rather difficult to dispute--in fact, you seem to concede-- if we prohibit that, that the money will just flow to generic issue ads as well. Isn't that your likely scenario?

Mr. FEINGOLD. I am specifically talking here about ads that do not talk about elections at all, they are simply talking about legislation. The Senator will concede, without a constitutional amendment, we could not prohibit such ads?

Mr. FEINGOLD. I think this is an extremely useful exchange that really goes to the core question about this legislation. I want to thank the Senator from New Jersey, even though we may come to different conclusions about specific tactics in what we do here. I thank the Senator for allowing us to talk about this because this is really what it is all about. Let me first reiterate my concern and ask a question about the totality of the ads the Senator suggested on his charts. Would the Senator concede that when you are dealing with ads that simply have to do with legislation, prior to 60 days, let's say, for example--the kind of tobacco ads we have seen; the ads we have seen about the Patients' Bill of Rights, the so-called Harry and Louise ads during the health care debate--there is no way under either Shays- Meehan or under McCain-Feingold, or even under any other legislation, we could prohibit those ads? Is that something with which the Senator would agree?

Mr. FEINGOLD. Will the Senator yield for a further question?

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

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, if the Senator will further yield, that is very interesting because it is essentially the same argument the Senator from New Jersey is using against the McCain-Feingold approach at this time which is, unless you do it all, it is not worth doing some because the soft money would flow to outside groups.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Fair enough. I wanted to establish that. The chart the Senator from New Jersey is using relates to an entire election cycle, a 2-year period, and it covers all sorts of ads. That means all kinds of true issue ads and so-called phony issue ads, as well as political party ads, are included in his chart. All three categories are in there. That is the basis on which he makes his argument. Is he aware the Shays-Meehan bill--which, of course, Senator McCain and I essentially wrote in the first place--that he has offered as an amendment would have no effect on any ad aired before the last 2 months of an election campaign?

Mr. FEINGOLD. It covers the Harry and Louise type of ads, tobacco ads and ads just related to bills that do not have anything to do with campaigns directly.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, let me ask a question, if I can, about the chart I believe he has up at this time. Is the Senator from New Jersey aware the $276 million estimate of issue advertising in the 1998 cycle, which the Senator has there I believe, includes all issue advertising, not just ads that are so-called phony issue ads? Is the Senator aware this chart actually covers all issue ads?

Mr. FEINGOLD. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Reserving the right to object, I ask unanimous consent that our time be restored to what it was prior to the remarks of the Senator from Kentucky and that we have our full measure of time. I have no objection to his having additional time.

Mr. FEINGOLD. I believe the Senator from Kentucky previously was counted, with regard to time, as an opponent in this process.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Can a Senator speak as both a proponent and opponent of an amendment?

Mr. FEINGOLD

Mr. FEINGOLD. Yes.

Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am very pleased the Senate is once again going to consider campaign finance reform. I thank the senior Senator from Arizona. We have been at this effort now for almost 5 years. He has done so much, particularly in the last year, to raise this issue, not only within this body but throughout America. It has made an incredible difference in terms of the public's understanding, particularly of the problem soft money causes. I also take note of one other Senator. There are many who have worked so hard on this, but I simply have to note the extreme dedication, hard work, and effectiveness of the Senator from Maine, Susan Collins, who has devoted herself to this cause as well. This is not only a crucial issue to the health and future of the Congress but also for our democracy itself. My colleagues know it is my strong belief that this issue affects virtually everything we do in this Chamber. I have spoken about the need for reform numerous times this year--15 times. Today is the 16th--on the Department of Defense appropriations bill. I call this the ``calling of the bankroll'' on specific campaign contributors with an interest in the bills we have considered. Now the Senate has finally a chance to act. I am hopeful, as we begin this debate, that we can reach a consensus during the next few days and pass a campaign finance reform bill the House can accept and the President can sign. This debate will undoubtedly be difficult and unpredictable. Unlike in past years, though, I hope this will not be a scripted debate where everyone basically knows the outcome in advance. We do not know exactly what is going to happen. We apparently are going to have the opportunity to offer and vote on amendments. We are going to legislate, not just make speeches for a couple of days and use parliamentary tactics to block reform. We are going to actually try to pass a bill. I urge my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, to keep an open mind and remember that what we are doing here will affect all Americans. Every one of our constituents, every citizen in this country, has an interest in the health of our democracy. We have a great responsibility here, and I hope we are up to it. There are many things wrong with our current campaign financing system. I hope this body will grapple with that system in a comprehensive way at some point--sooner rather than later. For me--and I do not speak for anyone else--I believe ultimately we should move to a system of public financing of elections to free candidates from the demands of fundraising and free the legislative process from the influence of special interests. I favor giving candidates more access to the airwaves at reduced cost so they can get their messages out to the public without having to spend all this time raising money. I believe the groups that run ads that attack candidates within a month or even a few days of an election should have to report their contributors and their expenditures, just as a campaign committee has to do. This is the key point: It is clear that this Senate--I emphasize, this Senate--will not pass a comprehensive bill to deal with all or even most of the problems with the current system. We have known this for some time. In fact, the bill we considered in the last Congress was even significantly narrower than the comprehensive bill Senator McCain and I first introduced in 1995. But during our 5-year effort, it has become more and more clear that soft money is the biggest loophole in this system and perhaps the most corrupting aspect of the system. Soft money has exploded during those 5 years to the point where many Americans believe--and I share their belief--that the loophole has swallowed the election laws. In fact, the best statement I have heard on this was by the third cosponsor of the original McCain-Feingold bill, the Senator from Tennessee, the chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Fred Thompson, who said plainly, without any legal jargon and all the other language we tend to use out here: Mr. President, we really don't have a campaign finance system anymore. That said it all. That captured the impact of soft money on our system. So the bill that Senator McCain and I have introduced and that we consider today essentially asks a very simple question: Will the Senate ban political party soft money or not? It is that simple. This bill is a soft money ban, pure and simple. At this point it says nothing--nothing--about issue ads, nothing about disclosure or even enforcement. It does codify the Beck decision on union dues. It has minor changes with regard to certain aggregate limits on hard money contributions. But otherwise it leaves the status quo intact, except for one simple and crucial reform: This bill prohibits the political parties from accepting unlimited contributions from corporations, unions, and wealthy individuals. This is what it says to the political parties: Stop the charade. Forget about the loophole that has swallowed the law. Live under the law Congress passed in 1974. Raise your money primarily from individuals, not corporations or unions, in amounts of $20,000 per year or less. It is soft money that brought us the scandals of 1996--the selling of access and influence in the White House and the Congress, the use of the Lincoln Bedroom and Air Force One to reward contributors, the White House coffees. All of this came from soft money because, without soft money, the parties would not have been tempted to come up with ever more enticing offers to get the big contributors to open their checkbooks. It just would not be worth it to do all of that under the hard money limits. It is only the unlimited opportunity for the unlimited check that creates that kind of a temptation. But today, both parties aggressively engage in this big money auction. It is an arms race where the losers are the American people. Soft money causes Americans, time and time again, to question the integrity and impartiality of the legislative process. Everything we do is under scrutiny and subject to suspicion because major industries and labor organizations are giving our political parties such big piles of money. Whether it is the telecommunications legislation, Y2K liability, the bankruptcy bill, defense spending, or health care, someone out there is telling the public, often with justification, in my view, that the Congress cannot be trusted to do what is best for the public interest because the major affected industries are giving us money while those bills are pending in committee or debated on the floor. I have tried, over the past few months, to highlight the influence of money on the legislative process through the calling of the bankroll. Time and time again, I have found that increasingly, the really big money, the money that many believe now has the biggest influence here, is soft money. We have to clean our campaign finance house, and the best way to start is to get rid of soft money. Let us make rules that protect the people again in this country. With soft money, there are essentially no rules and no limits. With this bill, we can begin to restore some sanity to our campaign finance system. To be candid--I don't like to admit it--when I came to the Senate, I wasn't even sure what soft money was, or at least I didn't know everything that could be done with it. After a tough race in 1992 against a well-financed incumbent opponent who spent twice as much as I did, I was mostly concerned with the difficulties of people who are not wealthy in running for office. My commitment to campaign finance reform was honestly forged from that experience. But something has happened since I got here. Soft money has exploded, with far-reaching consequences for our elections and the functioning of Congress. I truly believe--and I didn't necessarily feel this way 3 or 4 years ago--if we can do nothing else on campaign finance reform in this Congress, we must stop the cancerous growth of soft money before it consumes us and ultimately the remaining credibility of our system. I want to take a few minutes to describe to my colleagues in concrete terms, instead of talking about large sums of money in general, the growth of soft money over the past 6 years, all since I first came to the Senate not so long ago. It is a frightening story. I hope my colleagues, staff, and people watching will listen to these numbers because they are staggering. As this chart shows, soft money first arrived on the scene of our national elections in the 1980 election, after a 1978 FEC ruling opened the door for parties to accept contributions from corporations and unions that are barred from contributing to Federal elections. The best available estimate is that parties raised, in that 1980 cycle, that first cycle, under $20 million in soft money. By the 1992 election, the year I was elected to this body, soft money fundraising by the parties had gone from under $20 million to $86 million. Obviously, $86 million already was a lot of money. It was nearly as much as the $110 million the two Presidential candidates were given in 1992 in public financing from the U.S. Treasury. There was already real concern about how that money was spent. Despite the FEC decision that soft money could be used for activities such as get-out-the-vote and voter registration campaigns without violating the Federal election law's prohibition on corporate and union contributions in connection with Federal elections, the parties sent much of their soft money to be spent in States where the Presidential election between George Bush and Bill Clinton was close or where there were key contested Senate races, not necessarily connected to the purposes for which that money was supposedly allowed to be used. Still, soft money, in 1992, was far from the central issue in our debate over campaign finance reform in 1993 and 1994. Then in 1995, when Senator McCain and I first introduced the McCain-Feingold bill, our bill did include a ban on soft money, but it wasn't even close to being the most controversial or important provision of our bill. As far as we knew, no one paid any attention to it. I have my own original summary of our first bill. It is numbered 9 out of 12 items. We mentioned all other kinds of things first. It is just above ``ban on personal use of campaign funds,'' which was already essentially required by the FEC anyway. I am saying, I didn't realize, when I introduced this bill with Senator McCain, what was about to happen. Indeed, the Republican campaign finance bill introduced in the Senate in 1993, cosponsored by the Senator from Kentucky and many other opponents of reform on the Republican side, actually contained a ban on soft money. In 1993, they were very comfortable with the implications, constitutional issues and others, connected with stopping soft money. Apparently not today. Then came the 1996 election and the enormous explosion of soft money fueled by the parties' decision to use the money on phony issue ads supporting their Presidential candidates. Remember those ads that everybody thought were Clinton and Dole ads but were really run by the parties? I remember seeing them for the first time in the Cloakroom. That was the moment when soft money began to achieve its full corrupting potential on the national scene. As you can see on this chart, again, total soft money fundraising skyrocketed as a result. Three times as much soft money was raised in 1996 as in 1992. Let me say that again. Soft money tripled in one Presidential election cycle. What was the effect of this explosion of soft money, other than millions of dollars available for ads supporting Presidential candidates who had agreed to run their campaign on equal and limited grants from Federal taxpayers? The total dollars raised, as shown on this chart, don't tell the whole story. This talks about the total amounts. This talks about the campaign side of this problem of soft money. There is a whole other story, and that is the impact of these contributions on what we do here. Soft money is raised primarily from corporate interests that have a legislative ax to grind. So the explosion of soft money brought another explosion--an explosion of influence and access in this Congress and in this administration. Consider these statistics on this chart. I hope people will note these figures. They amaze me. As long as I have been involved with this issue, they have amazed me. In 1992, there were a total of 52 donors who gave over a total of $200,000 to political parties. In 1996, just 4 years later, 219 donors gave that much soft money. Over 20 donors gave over $300,000 in soft money contributions during the 1992 cycle. But in 1996, 120 donors gave contributions totaling $300,000 or more. What about over 400,000? In 1992, 13 donors gave that much soft money. But in 1996, it was all the way up to 79 donors giving $400,000 per person or interest. Whereas only 9 donors in 1992 gave $500,000--a half million dollars, Mr. President; people giving a half million dollars--by 1996, 50 donors gave a half million dollars. Does anyone think those donors expect nothing for this act of generosity? Does anyone think those donors get nothing for their generosity? Does anyone think the principle of one person/one vote means anything to anyone anymore if somebody can give a half million dollars? Here is another amazing statistic: This is even worse, to me. In 1992, only 7 companies gave over $150,000 to each of the political parties--double givers, we call them, who made contributions to both parties. In 1996, the number of these double givers was up to 43: Forty-three companies or associations gave $150,000 or more to both the Democrat and the Republican Party. I would suggest there is no ideological motive. This is not about their passion for good government. These donors are playing both sides of the fence. They don't care about who is in power. They want to get their hooks into whoever is controlling the legislative agenda. Here are some of the companies in this rather exclusive group. We know they have a big interest in what Congress does: Philip Morris, Joseph Seagram & Sons, RJR Nabisco, Walt Disney, Atlantic Richfield, AT&T, Federal Express, MCI, the Association of Trial Lawyers, the National Education Association, Lazard Freres & Co., Anheuser Busch, Eli Lilly, Time Warner, Chevron Corp., Archer Daniel's Midland, NYNEX, Textron Inc., Northwest Airlines. Mr. President, it is a who's who of corporate America. These are the big investors in the U.S. Congress, and no one can convince the American people that these companies get no return on their investment. So we have an ever-increasing number of companies that are participating in this system, trying to make sure their interests are protected and their lobbyists' calls returned. There is another effect of this explosion of soft money, and that is the increasing participation of Members of this body in raising it. I do not know how many of my colleagues are actually picking up the phones across the street in our party committee headquarters to ask corporate CEOs for soft money contributions. But no one here can deny that our parties are asking us to do this. It is now simply expected that United States Senators will be soft money fundraisers. Consider the soft money raised in recent off-year elections. In 1994, the parties raised a total of $101.7 million dollars. Only about $18.5 million of that amount was raised by the congressional and senatorial campaign committees. In 1998, the most recent election, soft money fundraising more than doubled to $224.4 million. And $107 million of that total was raised by the congressional and senatorial campaign committees. That's nearly half of the total soft money raised by the parties. Half the soft money that the parties raised in the last election went to the several party campaign committees for members of Congress, as opposed to the national party committees. When you hear all this talk about how the parties need this money generally, that is why they need soft money, and an awful of lot is not going to the parties generally. And I and many of my colleagues know from painful experience that much of that money ended up being spent on phony issue ads in Senate races. The direct contribution of corporate money to federal candidates has been banned in federal elections since 1907, but that money is now being raised by Senators as soft money and spent to try to influence the election of Senators. It is spent to try to influence the election of Senators. To me, this is a complete obliteration of the spirit of the law. It is wrong. It must be stopped. The growth of soft money has made a mockery of our campaign finance laws. It has turned Senators into panhandlers for huge contributions from corporate patrons. And it has multiplied the number of corporate interests that have a claim on the attention of members and the work of this institution. Mr. President, there is broad and bipartisan support for banning soft money. Former Presidents Bush, Carter, and Ford believe that soft money must be eliminated, as does a large and distinguished bipartisan group of former Members of Congress, organized last year by former Senator and Vice President Walter Mondale, a Democrat, and former Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker, a Republican. Their effort has been joined at last count by 216 former members of the House and Senate. Senators Mondale and Kassebaum published an opinion piece in the Washington Post that eloquently spells out the rationale and the critical need to enact this reform. They state that a ban on soft money would ``restore a sound principle long held to be essential. That bedrock principle, developed step by step through measures signed into law by presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Gerald Ford, is that federal elections campaigns should be financed by limited contributions from individuals and not by either corporate or union treasuries. Neither candidates for federal office, nor the national political party committees whose primary mission is to elect them, should be dependent on the treasuries of corporations or unions that have strong economic interests in the decisions of the federal government.'' Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full article by these two very distinguished former members of this body be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my statement.