T. Gorton

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, the distinguished President pro tempore has asked for 5 or 10 minutes to speak as in morning business. I ask unanimous consent that you recognize him for that purpose.

Mr. GORTON. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, while we are on the Interior appropriations bill, the current amendment is the McCain-Feingold campaign financing amendment. Whether we will use all of the time of the Senate between now and the time for a vote on a motion for cloture on the amendment, I am not certain. However, it is very unlikely, I say to my colleagues, that we will debate contested amendments to the Interior appropriations bill before we have completed debate on McCain-Feingold. However, we are available to deal with amendments that can be worked out and agreed to which we will send up and deal with if there are any short spaces of time in which Members are not available to discuss the McCain-Feingold bill. Members who have interests in the Interior appropriations bill who have amendments that they think will be accepted or can be worked out should be in contact with me or with staff of the Appropriations Committee, and we will attempt to work them in whenever it is convenient to do so. Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. GORTON. The Senator has yielded the floor.

Mr. GORTON. That is the decision in Buckley v. Valeo, and while I question the wisdom of the limitation, I don't question the constitutionality.

Mr. GORTON. Yes.

Mr. GORTON. He does, though in this case I am not sure that Buckley v. Valeo would have been so decided, even with respect to the limitation on contributions to individual candidates, had those limitations been, say, $380 or $390 today. That is to say, a restriction or a limitation that is constitutional under one set of circumstances could easily find itself to be unconstitutional under another set of circumstances, if the Court deemed those limitations to be unreasonably restrictive.

Mr. GORTON. The quarrel that the Senator from Wisconsin has is not with this Senator but the Supreme Court of the United States and the first amendment.

Mr. GORTON. Madam President, I note that at least two Senators are on the floor who wish to introduce a resolution on another subject, a subject that I think is appropriate. At this point, I yield to the Senator from Missouri.

Mr. GORTON. The point the Senator from Washington was making was simply this, Mr. President: That limitations, constitutional as they may be, on the ability of candidates, other than those who can finance their own campaigns, to solicit money from others, has forced that money into a channel in which the electioneering communications are far less the responsibility of the individual candidate than they are when that candidate spends for himself. From a public policy point of view, it is the view of this Senator at least that money spent by political parties is less desirable because there is less responsibility for it than money spent by individual candidates. But of course those aren't the only two alternatives for spending money for political purposes. As and when these limitations on contributions to political parties become law, to the extent they are found constitutional, the interest of those who feel a vital necessity to communicate political ideas to advance causes of either ideas or for candidates is not going to be eliminated, it is not even going to be diminished. What do we have under those circumstances, Mr. President? Under those circumstances, we have the individual who can no longer give a significant amount of money to a candidate of his or her choice, can no longer give what he or she considers a sufficient amount to the political party of that candidate engaged in one or two other political activities: Either in independent expenditures on behalf of an individual candidate or an idea or in issue advocacy. Under those circumstances, the communications are even less the responsibility of the candidate who benefits from them than they are when the money is spent by that candidate's political party. The political party is not responsible for the content of any such electioneering communications either, but we then get to the very unconstitutional limitations on express advocacy that are included in this bill. The sponsors of the bill run up against the fact that the limitations that they can impose constitutionally simply force money used on politics into areas that they cannot constitutionally touch because the Constitution says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. The amount of money spent on political ideas and political advocacy is no less--in fact, in many respects it may be more--it is simply that it is, for all practical purposes, impossible to criticize a candidate for money that is, for all practical purposes, being spent on behalf of that candidate. That, Mr. President, is the fundamental reason that even those portions of this bill which are arguably constitutional are highly undesirable. They will not lessen the amount of money spent during the course of political campaigns. They will make the spending of that money less responsible than it is at the present time. They have nothing to do with an argument about corruption, other than to encourage the kind of subterfuge which so marked the 1996 elections. If, for example, the money spent in 1996 could have been legally given directly to the candidates and disclosed at the time, we wouldn't be in the midst of one more search for an independent counsel to examine the results of those elections. The net results of this bill, it seems to me, are twofold: They are to force political money into less and less responsible channels in which disclosure is less than it is at the present time and, to the extent that they attempt to control those expenditures, to come afoul of the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States. No, Mr. President, we would be far, far better off in encouraging, rather than discouraging, contributions directly to candidates and requiring their immediate disclosure, and in encouraging rather than discouraging support of our political parties. Most of us who are engaged in partisan politics through most of our careers have been exposed to the academic proposition, at least, that one of the shortcomings of the American political system, in comparison with the parliamentary systems of most other democracies, is the almost total absence of party discipline and party responsibility. We are often criticized for the fact that each one of us as an individual-- that a voter cannot be at all certain when he or she votes for a candidate of the Republican Party, or the Democratic Party, for that matter, that they will get what they believe to be the platform of that political party adopted, because the candidates, in each case, are independent agents. Most academics would ask us to increase the power, the degree of influence, of political parties over their members, especially over their elected officials, so that we could have a brighter line of distinction between the parties and their platforms, so that voters would have what they consider to be a more significant choice. I may say that I don't necessarily buy that argument. I am not sure I buy it at all. But there are few arguments put forward by either academics or, I think, by practicing politicians that political party organizations of the United States should be weaker and of less account than they are today. This bill, to the extent that it is constitutional, weakens, marginalizes, almost eliminates, the effect of political party organizations, and it does so to exactly the extent that it increases the authority and the influence of nonparty organizations of the most narrow of special interest organizations in political campaigns. No, Mr. President, we should strengthen the candidates' organizations. We should require candidates to be more responsible for the money that is spent on their behalf, and we should probably be strengthening political party organizations at the same time. What we do in this bill is to continue the weakening of the candidates, to add to that the weakening of the parties, and we encourage, because of the unconstitutional nature of the second part of this bill, the portion of spending in our political system for which the spenders and the political parties and the candidates are least accountable. This bill is no better than it was in February when it was defeated. It is no better than it was nearly 2 years ago when it was defeated. The comments during the course of the debate a year ago last fall from George Will are as applicable today as they were then. And I will conclude by quoting him: Nothing in American history--not the left's recent campus ``speech codes,'' nor the right's depredations during 1950s McCarthyism, or the 1920s ``red scare,'' not the Alien and Sedition Acts of the 1790s--matches the menace to the First Amendment posed by campaign ``reforms'' advancing under the protective coloration of political hygiene. That was true last year. It is true this year. It will be true next year. It is the fundamental reason that this bill violating first amendment rights of free speech should be rejected by this body once again.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. I object to further consideration of the bill at this time.

Mr. GORTON. I now ask for the second reading of the second bill.

Mr. GORTON. I object to further consideration of the bill at this time.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I understand there are two bills at the desk awaiting their second reading. I now ask for the second reading of the first bill.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that as and when these amendments are adopted, they be considered as original text for the purpose of further amendment, should a Senator desire to do so.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, these are primarily a set of rather small and technical amendments. The first one, for Senator Craig, strikes section 333 regarding recreation residence fees and modifies section 343 of last year's bill on that subject. It is more modest than the section 333 that it strikes. The second amendment by the distinguished occupant of the Chair subjects certain reserved mineral interests to the Mineral Leasing Act. The next set of amendments, all of which carry my name, are a technical fix to section 332 on prescribed burning operations; a technical amendment to section 328 on the authority given to the Forest Service to acquire independently a general ledger system; a technical change to section 339 on the prohibition of the use of timber purchaser road credits; a technical change to section 331 on Forest Service regulations on the use of fixed climbing anchors; a technical change on the financial statements from the Office of Special Trustee, this at the administration's request; a technical correction on reprogramming procedures; an amendment to the BIA language relating to other tribes taking land into trust from within the boundaries of the original Cherokee territory; a proposal by Senator Reid on the BLM modifying section 125 to correct and clarify the legal description of lands to be conveyed; and one of my own relating to the Forest Service, a technical correction regarding accounting for indirect expenses. As I said, Mr. President, these tend to perfect sections that are included in the bill and under my unanimous consent request will be subject to further amendment if any Member desires to do so just as if they were a part of the original bill.

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I have a series of amendments that we may be able to deal with soon, none of which will be particularly controversial. The Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Thompson, does have a different subject to which he would like to speak shortly. I intend to defer to him on that. But the important message to all of our colleagues, the message in effect given by this last vote, is this is an important appropriations bill. It is, in fact, controversial. We have a list of perhaps 60 amendments that are likely to come up on it at one point or another. Members should, I hope, be prepared to come to the floor of the Senate with those amendments and have them considered in an orderly fashion under which there is a reasonable amount of time for debate rather than to crowd them up against the end of the debate on this bill. It may very well be that later on in the afternoon we will have an amendment on this bill on an entirely different and very controversial subject, which will then essentially take us off of the Interior bill. Before that takes place, however, the managers of the bill would be very pleased to deal with amendments that relate to the bill itself. I ask Members to come to the floor with those amendments. With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, for the moment, one of the sponsors being here, I withdraw the motion to table.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I move to table the amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, as I said, this was in the nature of a vote that was appropriate for a Tuesday afternoon. I am very much in favor of this amendment. I do not believe there is any further debate on the amendment. I trust the President will put the question.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, I ask the Chair to lay before the Senate Calendar No. 440, S. 2237, the fiscal year 1999 Interior appropriations bill.

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, last year about this time during the debate on this bill, the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Torricelli, and the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Jeffords, proposed an amendment to earmark certain amounts of money for the preservation and protection of Civil War battlefield sites. At that point, while as a Civil War buff I greatly sympathize with them, we didn't know where the earmark would come from. It is now possible in this bill to meet the most worthy goals of that pair of bipartisan Senators. This amendment earmarks up to $10 million of both fiscal year 1998 and 1999 money--$10 million total--for matching grants for up to 50 percent of the total cost of any such acquisition with States and local communities and private entities based on a July 1993 report of the Nation's Civil War battlefields prepared by the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission. So it means that there will be more leverage for the acquisition of various Civil War battle sites, mostly, I think, on secondary battles. It is a highly worthy proposal. I very much favor it. At the same time, the majority leader, feeling that the Senate absolutely needs to do its business, and because as is usual and customary, unfortunately, at the beginning of debate over appropriations bills, we don't get people down here to offer their amendments, he has asked me to move to table the amendment and to take a vote on that. Therefore, Mr. President, I move to table the amendment and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. GORTON

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

Mr. GORTON

Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.