Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, many in the Senate today have not seen that much participation with respect to the education debate. I have found out after 30-some years up here that you have to direct your attention to where you can do the most good. I am not on the Education Committee. Let me qualify. No. 1, 50 years ago I wrote a 3-percent sales tax for public education in the State of South Carolina. We were trying to play catchup ball with our sister State, North Carolina. They had passed theirs in 1936, some 14 years ahead of us. They were getting the industry in, and we were getting no investment whatsoever. Right to the point, if somebody wants to attract an industry, don't tell me about the taxes, the highways, the climate, the rivers, the availability of water and that kind of thing. Get yourself good school buildings and a school system. So I venture to say of the six-person committee that I headed up, five lost the election right after that. But be that as it may, no one has put in to repeal that particular measure. It has been a saving grace in the sense that not only is it 3, but we have now increased it to 5 percent, and we have embellished it with technical training. I immediately started to work the week after I was elected in 1948. The superintendent of the schools in my hometown said, Fritz, I want you to get in the car and I want to show you something. We went across the river on the bridge on Christ Church Parish Road, and there was a big square building of just one story with four sides and a roof and a pot-bellied stove. It was November. There was a class in one corner, a class in another corner, a class in the third, and a class in the fourth corner, and one teacher. Those were the schools we had at that time for minorities in South Carolina. I have this to say for those who weep and wail about the past 36 years, I have been putting money into education for the past 50 years and it's still not enough. Yes. I started an equalization of facilities with that sales tax. But we have yet to perform the sort of catchup where we provide schools in rural areas, and those we have abandoned within the city, with equal facilities as those in the wealthier suburbs. I came to Washington with that bone in my craw, as the saying goes, and I put in a revenue-sharing plan. But in taking the plan around, I found that I couldn't put it in just for education. That is what I was intent upon. If you can single out and target the program, I thought you could get the support. But I was told no, you couldn't get the support unless you could get it back to the States for general purposes. They did not suffer the ills and needs of my great State of South Carolina. So I put in on February 1, 1967, the first revenue-sharing bill, later abolished in the 1980s, interestingly, from the standpoint of Howard Baker who led the abolition, or repeal. He said we were just financing the Government and we should send money back to the Governors so they could take the money and do with it what they wanted. So we were financing our opposition. We weren't financing education. We were financing our own education. We learned the hard way. So we did away with revenue sharing. The next thing I got into was a tuition tax credit. I can see the distinguished Senator from New York now talking about his Boston Latin school. I had the assistance of the Senator from Arkansas, Kaneaster Hodges. We fought that particular diversion of funds from public schools to private schools, and thereupon they fought the institution, the Department of Education. We, along with President Carter, established the Department of Education. They wanted to, by gosh, avoid and oppose the Department of Education. Then I have been on the floor, of course, with the vouchers and trying to force those. But I had not paid good enough attention to the testing and accountability debate until I started listening to the distinguished Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Paul Wellstone, and now I know we have to fight. He knows of what he speaks. He is not talking about the pollster thing. That is the thing I resent and resist around here, this entire operation--that it's pollster driven. The cardinal rule of the pollster is: Never take a position that divides the voters. Don't say you are for chairs and desks. Don't say you are against them. Say I am concerned about these chairs and desks; they trouble me. All the Senators are running around, and they are all troubled. That is the nonsense we are engaged in. But I take a poll, and everybody is for tax cuts. We have forgotten from whence we came. I am completely absolutely opposed to the budget settlement of $1.235 trillion, plus the stimulus $1.35 trillion, because I believe in paying down the debt, not increasing it. But the polls do not do that. They ask you if you are for a tax cut, but they do not tell you we are spending surpluses that do not exist. I will bet anybody any amount of money, with any odds, that we will end this fiscal year with an increase in the national debt. We have done that each year, since Lyndon Johnson was President, for the last 30 years. But now comes education, and it is polled also: Accountability, accountability. Here is the crowd that says: We want to find out what is wrong. Heavens above, they come to government as if it begins with them. Senator Wellstone is really fighting the fight for the youngsters of America, for the economic strength of America, and for its defense. The best defense is an educated citizen. Do not give me all the toys--the Osprey: Jump, move forward, jump around, get in it, and kill everybody who gets in it. I am not for these toys. I am for education. That is the best defense. Give me $225 billion; give me the Harkin amendment. That is what I want. Give me the moneys to flesh out these programs that have worked. But they come and say the programs have not worked. It is ignorance. I say to Senator Wellstone, the Governors met in 1988. The distinguished Governor from Arkansas got together with another Governor, a Republican leader at the time, and they founded, so to speak, Goals 2000. But President Bush would not put it in. Then when President Clinton got here to put it in, they fought it. So I begin to wonder when they say: We don't know how the schools are performing. Ha, they fought the Department of Education. They fought to privatize all the public money for public schools with vouchers, charter schools, tuition tax credits, any way they could, to destroy the public support for public schools. And they come now and say they don't know, when they fought Goals 2000. We had testing in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1994. They act as if we haven't heard of testing. We have testing coming out of our ears. But the polls say: Accountability; discipline, discipline, yes. I say to the Senator, in relation to that discipline, I remember the mother who sent her little boy to school with a note for the teacher. It said: Dear teacher, my boy Ivan is very sensitive. If he misbehaves, slap the child next to him. That is punishment enough for my Ivan. They say: Discipline, yes. I am for accountability. We are going to find out. Don't give me that stuff. Bug off. As my grandchildren say: Get a life. We provide $7 of every $100 spent--or 7 cents for every $1 spent--on education. We act as if we have invented education and all of a sudden we are going to do something about it. One way or the other, we are not going to do much. But what we do that is working ought to be allowed to continue. Specifically, we have the women's, infants, and children's nutrition program, which is not part of the education budget, but it is an important part of education. I worked with Senator Humphrey from Minnesota, a state where I worked on and wrote a book on hunger. I got with him, and we put in the women's, infants and children's program. You have 21 billion brain cells, and I have 21 billion brain cells, and 17 billion of the 21 billion brain cells have developed in the first 5 months in the mother's womb. Without the proper nutrition in relation to the protein and the synthesis of the nerve cells during those first 5 months, there can be as much as 20 percent less cellular development when that child is born, causing what we call organic brain damage. The child can't function, can't assimilate. That has everything to do with their education, and yet WIC is not adequately funded to meet the needs of all those who are eligible. They want to know what works. We have had mathematical studies conducted about the benefits of title I for the disadvantaged. For every dollar we put in title I, the Government and society reap $7. For Head Start, it is $4. That works. We are going to have this testing to find out who is failing and who is succeeding, but we are not testing the school building, we are not testing the principal, we are not testing the school board, we are not testing, really, the pupil. As my distinguished colleague from Minnesota says, we are testing wealth. Why? Because the wealthy student--the one who starts his education in a good pre-school and has books read to him, and everything else of that kind--by the time he's tested in third grade, he has had 6 years of schooling. Without these advantages, a child has only three years of schooling coming into the test. So you are testing wealth. The Senator from Minnesota has educated this Senator. He has really gotten into things that mean something to this body and this country. We are about to go the way--as I am convinced we are running up the national debt, and we have interest costs of $1 billion a day--of hollering surpluses, surpluses, surpluses, when we have deficits, deficits, deficits. That is their way of getting rid of the Government. And this is their way of getting rid of public education--anything to get rid of public education. We have not really equipped our minority teachers, and yet they have outstanding schools here, there, and yonder. And then we have very poor ones. We know. I read in the morning paper--I do not have to wait to pass this bill--about schools that are practically closed. So they are going to take the test. And what are we going to find out? What we already know. It is like taking a fellow who can't swim, who is drowning 100 yards offshore, and throwing him a 50-yard lifeline. We haven't made it all the way for Head Start, for title I, for all of these measures. And then we are going to have the test to see whether he can swim, while the poor fellow drowns. No. We ought to be realistic and look at what we know is there. I campaigned all over the State of Texas. I have never forgotten it. It was not the ``best little whorehouse in Texas,'' it was the best little poorhouse--poorhouse. The Rand Corporation agreed last year that Texas had failed to improve on key education points. I can get into that debate on schools, but it isn't the point here. The point is, we do not want to really find that 20 percent or a third of our schools are failures. You do not have to administer a test to see what the good schools are doing. So what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about it? Mr. President, nothing. We are going to talk. We are going to speak to the polls and say in the campaign: I was for accountability. I am for accountability and I voted for testing. The Senator from Minnesota and some of us others are going to have an extended debate on this issue. We have to educate our colleagues and get the support to kill the so-called accountability in its crib, the accountability they refused in Goals 2000 and earlier with the testing in the 1994 act. Now they act as if they have a discovery to identify the problem--hit-and-run driving. Yes, accountability, accountability, accountability. Ask them about the Patients' Bill of Rights. There are too many lawsuits when you bring a suit to get accountability. No, no, we are not for accountability. We have too many lawyers. Get rid of the lawyers. That is also in the polls. Kill all the lawyers, said Shakespeare in Henry VI. Accountability. Unfunded mandates, where are they? They were jumping all over the place 7 years ago on unfunded mandates. Now they are pell-mell down the road. For what? The President has put in $320 million to cover an estimated $2 to $7 billion in costs over the 4-year testing period. I am concerned that the states will have to pick up a substantial part of that cost. We had the Governors. We had the local people say, heck, we know, we are there. It is amazing to me the distinguished President, who had been a Governor, acts as if he never has been in government before. He would know that this would hackle every Governor, every school board, every school superintendent, every principal. They know about testing. They are trying to get the money. But, no, we have accountability. We have unfunded mandates now, and right on down the road with a program that can't possibly work. But it is only going to highlight the need, they say, for vouchers. The Senator from Minnesota has an amendment that fleshes out a program that works; namely to fully fund Title I before we proceed with a testing mandate. You have to teach the course before you give the exam. The U.S. Congress has not taught the course. We haven't given students, in many instances, the building. We haven't given them the professional classroom teacher. We haven't given them the right size class so that they can get the teacher's attention. We haven't given them counselors, and they need counseling. We haven't given, of course, the different courses and other assistance that we have all found, from time to time, is very necessary. So we haven't taught the course, but we are going to give them the exam. We are going to have accountability, and we are going to puff and blow and walk all around on the political stump saying: I was in Washington and I told that Washington crowd that we had to have accountability. I want them to come with the Patients' Bill of Rights, because that is what we have in the Patients' Bill of Rights, some accountability. If they absolutely step aside, if they engage in malicious and reckless conduct, malpractice, then we can bring the suit. That makes them accountable. But, no, they are opposed to that kind of thing. If the test shows schools are failing, we are not going to put up the billions to improve schools. Instead, they are going to put on a full course drive for vouchers to $1,500. What is that going to do? The real need is to get teachers' pay up. If I were king for a day--I ran for the Presidency on this back in the 1980s--they laughed but it is still just as efficacious--I would increase teacher pay, because that $36,000, the average pay of a teacher in South Carolina, doesn't do the job. But I go across the stage having made a graduation speech, and students approach me and say: Senator, I wanted to get into teaching, but I couldn't save enough money with the pay to send my kids to college. We have a lot of dedicated teachers in the classrooms and a lot of great schools, but we are missing out on bringing in the feedstock of that professional teacher because we are not paying enough. We are doing it on the cheap. We are doing it on the cheap, and we know it. But we are going to tinker around. We are going to have reading. We are going to have math and science, and we are going to have the size of the classroom. And we are going to build another building, and we are going to toy around with it to try the hit-and-run drive, to identify with the problem but not solve it. Begin at the beginning. Somehow let's get some revenue sharing with the teacher out in that rural school or combat pay for the inner-city classroom teacher. They deserve combat pay trying to keep law and order and act as a parent at the same time. The role of a teacher is just almost unable to be performed in the sense that teachers can't get around to teaching because of the other particular duties at hand. I will have plenty more to say when this measure comes up about accountability. Please spare the Senator here from all of these expressions, the pollsters. Has anyone ever heard of a pollster being elected to anything? If they can find me a pollster who has been elected to office, I would like to find one. A pollster has never experienced anything. Here are some expressions. We have to give the child ``a real chance.'' We want to ``find out what works'' and so forth like that. We need to ``increase flexibility.'' We need to ``reduce bureaucracy.'' We need to ``empower parents.'' Come on. Don't give us all of that. Parents are working day and night and the child is home and nobody is helping him with his homework. And we know it. We don't need a test to prove it. Let's get away from all of this gamesmanship and polling politics and really do something for public education in the United States. If they want a starting point, our distinguished friend from Massachusetts has led the way and held the line on public schools for the years I have been up here. I have been glad to associate with him. But I can tell you here and now, this is dangerous to come in and start, under the auspices of accountability, testing from the third to the eighth grade every student in all of America. They are going to create the very cost and the bureaucracy they want to get rid of and waste money that is needed for teachers' pay. The ultimate is, of course, finding out that there are a lot of schools in need, and we know where they are, and we are trying to get assistance to them. I saw it 50 years ago when I put in a county-wide millage for a school in Awendaw. You put in 100 mills property tax in that rural area, and you couldn't build a lunchroom, much less a school. So as chairman of the delegation, I put it in. So don't give us these nebulous statements of flexibility and empowerment and all these buzz words around here. Let's give us some education and test the Senate. That is where we ought to have a test. Find out if we have passed the test first. Have we really fleshed out the women, infants, and children's program? Have we really fleshed out and supported 100 percent Head Start. Have we really financed title I for the disadvantaged? Have we built school buildings so that students can learn without the ceiling falling in on their heads or freezing to death? Have we done that? Give us the test first. Find out what we have done. Or have we regarded what we have already known to be the case, what the Governors have come in with, Goals 2000? Have we responded to the test that we prescribed with the flexibility they said they wanted? In 1994, they wanted the States to be able to decide. Have we passed that test? Give us a flunking grade, a zero--except for the Senator from Massachusetts, the Senator from Minnesota, the Senator from Iowa, and some others, such as the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd. They have been out here working for education. But there are only a handful of them who can pass the test if given to the Senate itself. That is what I want to see. Cut out the pollster's gamesmanship and the campaigning and let's think not of our needs to be reelected, but the needs of the country to prosper and survive. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I would like to recognize a group of students from Wilson High School in Florence, SC who recently participated in the ``We the People . . . The Citizen and the Constitution'' national finals in Washington, D.C. April 21-23. They tested their knowledge of American constitutional government against 49 other student groups from across the country in a familiar format to those of us in the Senate, a congressional hearing. During the simulated hearing, students testified as constitutional experts before a panel of judges. Fifteen students, led by their teacher Yvonne Rhodes, represented Wilson at the competition. They were: Lakisha Boston, Lynette Carr, Christine Chen, Rebecca Derrick, Ashunti Drummond, Elizabeth Fortnum, Albert Hayward, Anthony Henderson, Benjamin Ingram, Janny Liu, Christina Moss, Jason Owens, Anna Stewart, Tyler Thomas and Dheepa Varadarajan. I commend these students for their impressive performance in the ``We the People . . . The Citizen and the Constitution'' program administered by the Center for Civic Education. Their interest in the foundation of our government is refreshing and will prepare them to become active, responsible citizens and community leaders.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, in September of 1944, the 106th Infantry Division embarked for Europe and soon joined heavy fighting at the Battle of the Bulge. But one member of the division, the Academy Award- winning filmmaker Charles Guggenheim, was left behind in Indiana due to a minor illness. His connection with this brave group and the 350 American soldiers taken prisoner after the battle and sent to a Nazi camp in Berga, Germany led Mr. Guggenheim to undertake a new documentary, which is the subject of an excellent New York Times article by Roger Cohen. So that more Americans can be educated about the events leading up to the Holocaust and the unspeakable horrors inflicted upon Americans as well as Europeans, I ask that Mr. Cohen's article be printed in the Record. The article follows: [From the New York Times, Apr. 17, 2001] Where G.I.'s Were Consumed by the Holocaust's Terror; a Filmmaker Helps Thaw Memories of Wartime Guilt (By Roger Cohen) Berga, Germany. Four plain wooden crosses stand in the cemetery above this quiet town in eastern Germany. One of them is inscribed ``Unknown Allied Soldier.'' He is unlikely to be an American, because the G.I.'s who died here were exhumed after World War II and taken home. But the mystery of this soldier's identity is only one of many hanging over Berga and its former Nazi camp. On a cold, late March day, with snow falling on the graves, a thin, soft-spoken American stands filming in the cemetery. He has hired some local volunteers, one of whom is portraying a Nazi guard, as two others turn the earth in preparation for the burial of the simulated corpses whose limp feet dangle out of sacks. The scene has an eerie luminosity in the silence of the snow. The weather is cinematographically perfect. It is also unseasonably cold and infernally damp. The American, Charles Guggenheim, shivers as he says: ``This is a slow business, filming something like this. Sort of like watching grass grow.'' But for him the fate of the American soldiers imprisoned and worked to death more than a half-century ago in Berga has become something of an obsession. Time may be needed for an obsession to take hold, time for the half-thoughts, nagging regrets and suppressed memories to coalesce into a determination to act. Mr. Guggenheim, a documentary filmmaker who has won four Academy Awards, waited a long time to embark on this movie. His daughter, Grace Guggenheim, has a theory as to why. ``This is sort of a survivor's guilt story,'' she said. In September 1944 Mr. Guggenheim, now 77, was with the American 106th Infantry Division, preparing to go to Europe. But when the other soldiers embarked, he was immobilized with a foot infection. He remained in Indiana while his fellow infantrymen were plunged, within weeks, into the Battle of the Bulge; two regiments were lost. Thousands of American soldiers were captured, and several hundred who were Jewish or who ``looked'' Jewish ended up in Berga. Up to now their fate has received relatively little attention, partly because the surviving soldiers long tended to repress the trauma. ``I could have been among the captured or the killed,'' Mr. Guggenheim mused. ``I never wished I had come to Europe. Anyone in the infantry who wishes for war has something wrong with them. But I've thought a lot: why in the hell am I here and they not? Perhaps in the next life they'll get even. I'm trying not to believe in a next life.'' Even this life seems incredible enough when gazing at little Berga, a place outside time. It was exploited by the Nazis before being taken over by the Russians, who mined uranium in the area. In 1990 it was made part of a united Germany. Unemployment here stands at about 24 percent, so Mr. Guggenheim had no problem finding volunteers for his film. To conjure an atmosphere of desolation was not difficult either: beside the unused red-brick textile factory of a vanished Jewish family (named Englander), stray cats wander through junkyards, watched by old men standing huddled against the cold. Germany's ghosts, its myriad secrets, are almost palpable in a place like this. Among the onlookers near the cemetery is Sabine Knuppel, a municipal worker. She says she has photographs of the ``old days'' in Berga: a lighted swastika glowing among trees heavy with snow. None of the old people in town like to talk about those days, she says, when the Nazis set up a satellite camp to Buchenwald in the middle of town and used the slave laborers imprisoned there to dig tunnels into the rock cliffs bordering the Elster River. All that, she continues, constitutes a ``lost world.'' But once there were perhaps 1,000 prisoners working in the tunnels, where the Nazis planned to install a factory producing synthetic fuel. But until now, nobody in the town knew there were Americans among the prisoners, Ms. Knuppel says. After the war the Russians blew up many of the tunnels. In their vestiges bats established a vast colony now officially designated as a German nature reserve. Along the wooded banks of the Elster, a dozen entrances to the tunnels may still be seen; they are barred with steel doors. Layer upon layer of German secrets: more tangible in a place like Berga than in the west of the country, where postwar prosperity wiped away most traces of tragedy. Mr. Guggenheim, whose award-winning documentaries include ``J. F. K. Remembered'' and an account of the civil rights movement called ``A Time for Justice,'' has been digging into the secrets for two years now. He has interviewed 40 American survivors of Berga for a documentary tentatively titled ``G.I. Holocaust.'' The film, a co-production of Mr. Guggenheim's company and WNET, the public-television station in New York, centers on what happened to a group of American soldiers captured by the Germans after the Battle of the Bulge (which began on Dec. 16, 1944) and later transported to Berga. This group of about 350 men was selected from among the more than 2,000 American prisoners initially taken to the Stalag 9B prisoner of war camp at Bad Orb, 50 miles north of Frankfurt. Among them was William Shapiro, now a retired doctor living in Florida. A medic attached to the 28th Infantry Division, he was captured on Dec. 17, 1944, the day after the battle began. ``On arrival at the prisoner of war camp, we were interrogated,'' Dr. Shapiro said in a telephone interview. ``With a name like Shapiro, it was quite evident I was Jewish. I was then pushed into a particular barracks, mostly for Jews and other undesirables. Our job was to clean the latrines. We were guarded by the SS with dogs, rather than the Wehrmacht. I'd never even trained with a gun. I thought the Geneva Convention would protect me as a medic. At that time I knew nothing of Auschwitz or the planned extermination of European Jewry, although of course I knew of Hitler's hostility to Jews.'' In the special barracks he was eventually joined by the other 350 Americans who would go to Berga. Their identities had not been as immediately obvious. Many were selected in a grim process recalled to Mr. Guggenheim by several soldiers of his own 106th Division. They described how prisoners were ordered to stand at attention in the parade ground. The commandant then gave the order for all Jews to step forward. ``Nobody moved,'' said Joseph Littell, one of the survivors. ``He said it again. Nobody moved. He grabbed a rifle butt and hit Hans Kasten, our leader, with a blow you couldn't believe. Hans got up. He hit him again. The commandant said he would kill 10 men every hour until the Jews were identified.'' The group of 350 was eventually assembled of some Jews who identified themselves under pressure; some soldiers, like Mr. Kasten, who volunteered; and some who were picked by the Germans as resembling Jews. Mr. Kasten, an American of German descent, suffered repeated taunts, being told that the thing worse than a Jew was a German who turns against his country. After several weeks the group was loaded into boxcars without food or water, arriving at Berga on Feb. 13, 1945. The Nazis had a policy, ``annihilation through work,'' and these Americans learned what this meant. Housed in a barracks beside the prison camp, fed only on bread and thin soup, sleeping two to a bed in three-level bunks, deprived of water to wash, urinating and defecating into a hole in the floor, regularly beaten, the soldiers were herded out to work 12 hours a day in the dusty tunnels. ``The purpose was to kill you but to get as much of you before they killed you,'' Milton Stolon of the 106th Division told Mr. Guggenheim. Gangrene, dysentery, pneumonia, diphtheria did their work. In the space of nine weeks about 35 soldiers died. The persecution of American prisoners at Berga has remained little-known because many of the victims, like Dr. Shapiro, chose not to speak of it for a half-century after the war. With the cold war to fight and West Germany a postwar ally, the United States government had little interest in opening its archives and inflaming conflict between Americans and Germans. In recent years, however, the research of an Army officer, Mack O'Quinn, who investigated the events at Berga for a master's degree thesis, and a 1994 book by Mitchell Bard, ``Forgotten Victims'' (Westview Press), have thrown light on the treatment of the G.I.'s. Still, many of the soldiers said they spoke about their experiences for the first time to Mr. Guggenheim; the notion that American prisoners of war were persecuted as Jews or Jewish sympathizers has not received broad attention. Mr. Guggenheim said it was still a shock that this happened to Americans, bringing home the realization that if the Nazis had won the war, ``they would have gotten us, too.'' A descendant of German Jews, he grapples with ambivalent feelings about the country, unable to forget what a ``civilized nation'' did to its Jews even as he is surprised by how civil postwar German society is. He also grapples with how to find an appropriate treatment of a Holocaust movie, troubled by what he sees as the frequent trivialization of the Holocaust in film. Too often, he said, Hitler's crimes have become a ``quick fix for involvement'' and a good fix for raising money from Jewish families. Like sex and violence, the Holocaust ``demands people's attention, even if they do not feel good about it.'' His answer to the ethical dilemma is the sobriety of his research and treatment: painstaking interviews, careful reconstruction of a little-known chapter in the war, attention to detail. The scenes filmed in Berga will supplement a core of archival film, photography and interviews. ``What is most moving to me is the way the survivors have talked about themselves and about each other, often for the first time,'' he said. ``In many instances they had never talked about this before.'' Dr. Shapiro was among those who suppressed his memories. ``It took 50 years for all of us to begin to come to terms with this,'' he said. In early April 1945, with the American and Soviet armies closing in, the camp at Berga was ordered evacuated, and a death march began for hundreds of prisoners. At least another 50 Americans died in the ensuing days before advance units of the American 11th Armored Division liberated the prisoners on April 22, 1945, near Cham in southeastern Germany. The rate of attrition--more than 70 American dead in just over two months after arrival at Berga--was among the highest for any group of G.I.'s taken prisoner in Europe. Dr. Shapiro weighed 98 pounds on his liberation; he cannot recall the last days of the forced march despite repeated efforts to do so. ``I had become a zombie,'' he said. Time has passed, but Dr. Shapiro's voice still cracks a little as he thinks back. Periodic nightmares trouble him. ``I traveled the same road as an American prisoner of war as the Jews of Europe,'' he continued. ``I was put in a boxcar, starved, put on a death march. It was a genocidal type of approach.'' That road might also have been Mr. Guggenheim's. After the war he asked a returning member of the 106th Division about a Jewish soldier he had known and was told the man had died in a German mine. But where, how, why? The questions lingered in his mind for more than a half- century before taking him where an infected foot prevented him from going in 1944: to a remote town in Germany where the bat-filled tunnels are now sealed and snow falls on a cemetery where an ``Allied Soldier'' lies.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Please do. My goodness, with the smile on your face and with some help, we can really help the economy. That is the whole idea--not to be partisan, or, I am for Bush, or against Bush, or I am for the rich and you are for the poor, and all of that kind of stuff. Let's really get what the economy needs now.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Oh, yes. I consider your budget. In fact, if we had all of those surpluses, I promise to vote for Bush's budget. As Senator Byrd carries around the Constitution, I carry around the economy. The debt to the penny by the U.S. Treasury, from the Secretary of the Treasury, shows that the debt has gone up this fiscal year already by $102 billion, with a $42 billion increase in the debt owed by the public and $60 billion in debt owed by the Government itself. We are not paying down the debt. But if you get those surpluses, you will have my help.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Eighty-five, because I understand Senator Grassley has used some emergency agricultural funds in his amendment. That is the only one that is touched for 2001. The Budget Committee staff has been keeping score. I had to cut it back to 85.

Mr. HOLLINGS. No. I leave that alone.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes, sir.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Off the dome. That is right. You had me looking for a parachute last fall. But now look at what we have going. We are spending money we don't have now on this particular measure. I go back to Roosevelt's ``prime the pump,'' because I remember for about a 2- to 3-year period back in my hometown they were paying everybody in script. We didn't have the money. That assumes we don't have the money. But if you want to get this economy moving again, let's vote for this particular amendment so we can do that and not be accused of bogging down in the political argument of tax cuts and budgets.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, my appeal now is to all Democratic Senators, all Republican Senators--to the Senate as a body--to heed the distinguished majority leader's admonition to us last evening when he exclaimed: We are fiddling while Rome burns. What we should be doing is taking up a stimulus measure to get the economy moving, not, if you please, worrying about what is going to happen over the 10-year period--not for the elections next year, or education, or housing, or Patients' Bill of Rights, or health care, or any of these other things. Distinguished members of the Concord Coalition, including the former Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary Rubin, and former Senators Warren Rudman and Sam Nunn, recently wrote an editorial to The Washington Post, ``On Taxes, One Step At A Time,'' saying what we really need: We believe an immediate fiscal stimulus can be provided independently of the proposed 10-year tax cut. That is exactly what my amendment is cut out to do. The previous amendment, the Durbin amendment, involves the tax cut. This has nothing to do with the tax cut. It responds to what Rubin and others have been saying, that is, to at least try to get 1 percent of a $10 trillion economy, around $85 billion or $95 billion, to extend to the greatest number of Americans--namely, the 95 million taxpayers and the 25 million payroll workers, some 120 million Americans--a $500 rebate, Senator Domenici, or $1,000. You ask me where the money is? This is the most money we can utilize for stimulus without touching the Medicare and Social Security trust funds. I would have put in even more, if it was available. The $60 billion the distinguished Senator from New Mexico has in his bill was called, by Steve Forbes, ``an hors d'oeuvre.'' I call it half a haircut. I do not know whether the $85 billion in this particular measure is going to do the trick. I hope so. But we have the best authorities from all walks of economic life, and from the market itself, in agreement. MIT professor Lester Thurow: If President Bush were really interested in using taxes to stop the plunge in the economy, he would drop his 10-year tax cut and first go for a large 1-year temporary tax cut, a stimulus package that could be extended for another year if needed. That is exactly what I have done. I am not involved in the budget arguments so as to divorce it from the politics of tax cuts; rather, get a true stimulus package. Robert Kuttner, whose column appears in the Boston Globe: First, the tax cut should be smaller, quicker, and directed to people who need it. The best idea proposed by Harvard's Richard Freeman and the Economic Policy Institute is a one-time dividend of $500 for every woman, man, and child. That would inject a lot of stimulus into the economy right now. The Treasury could send out the checks within a month. We are all complaining about Alan Greenspan, but we have to do our part here. If you want to accept responsibility for the recession, just vote against this amendment, because this is not involved in the politics, tax, or the budget debate. This is involved in what everyone says--Republicans and Democrats, economists and market experts--that we need right now. David Broder: If they can, this country can reap the benefits of an immediate tax cut that will cushion the effects of the slowdown of the economy. That is just last week. And this week's Business Week headline reads: America Needs That Tax Cut Right Now. We made it a rebate because I am confident that our friends on the other side of the aisle will not support the Durbin amendment. Of course, the Durbin amendment is not an amendment with respect to the $60 billion amount, it is an endorsement of the same amount. I think it is inadequate on the one hand, but otherwise it gives that 10-year lower bracket of 15 percent down to 10 percent, which costs them $500 billion and goes right in the face of the Bush tax cut. I do not want to get involved in that political argument. I want a true tax cut for which everybody can vote. That is it. What we have been doing here has gotten all wound up with the rich, the poor, the high, the low; what are we going to do for medicine, what are we going to do for defense and everything in the next 10 years. But as the distinguished majority leader yesterday afternoon said: Rome is burning. If you want it to continue to burn, vote the amendment down. If you want to revive the economy and the market so that there will be some surpluses here, then please help us with this particular amendment. I retain the remainder of my time.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee and the ranking member, Senator Conrad. I yield the remainder of my time. I thank the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I think the real point here is to send a message to the market, to the consumers, and to the people of this country that we feel their pain. As the old expression goes around this town, we know that we need an immediate stimulus to the economy to stop this downturn. This is divorced entirely from the tax cut, divorced entirely from budgets for 10-year considerations. It is a 1-year immediate repayment to the 95 million income-tax payers and another $500 to the 25 million payroll-tax payers who do not pay income tax for a total of 120 million, as recommended by Harvard Business School, Lester Thurow, the Concord Coalition, Business Week, former Secretary of the Treasury Bob Rubin, the Economic Policy Institute, and others. This is the need. We have been going on and on about the tax cut for the rich, poor, and everyone else. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I didn't know about the second degree. I thought there would not be a second-degree amendment.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 225 on behalf of myself, Senator Biden, Senator Daschle, and others.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask for 10 minutes from my distinguished chairman?

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the thrust of McCain-Feingold was to eliminate soft money. Now, the final bill doesn't eliminate soft money but, rather, redirects it. Soft money has been taken away from the political parties and redirected to the special interests. The thrust of McCain-Feingold was to minimize the influence of the special interests. It has now become maximized. And finally, the thrust of McCain-Feingold was to eliminate the obscenity of the outrageous amounts of money that it takes in politics to be elected. The final bill now doubles this obscenity. But Senator McCain has become such a symbol. McCain-Feingold has become such a message that Senators, in disregard of the substance but totally on message, will vote for it. I said at the beginning that there was no doubt that under Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court would find McCain-Feingold unconstitutional. While the Court hurt us in Buckley, perhaps this time the Court will save us by finding McCain-Feingold unconstitutional. At least I am sober enough to vote no.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the best example of the free press was Rowland Evans and the best brief on this outstanding journalist was from his partner, Robert D. Novak, in the Washington Post, Thursday, March 29. I ask consent that the brief be included in the Record for his friends that knew him and for the millions more that were informed by his writing. The brief follows: [From the Washington Post, Mar. 29, 2001] Rowland Evans, Reporter (By Robert D. Novak) On Monday morning, Dec. 17, 1962, I returned from my honeymoon and found multiple phone messages from Rowly Evans on my desk in the Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau. Evans, a reporter for the New York Herald-Tribune, asked me at a subsequent lunch to collaborate with him in a daily newspaper column. The goal was a product short on ideology, long on reporting. Our column first appeared on May 15, 1963, and ran in this space under our double byline until Evans retired from the column 30 years later. Over the years, I fear, we became more ideological. But we promised ourselves that every column would contain some information, major or minuscule, never previously reported. We kept that promise, thanks to Evan's energies. Several obituaries noting the death of Rowland Evans from cancer on March 23 described him as a conservative. More appropriately, he should be remembered as a reporter and a patriot. His model was the column written by the Alsop brothers-- Joseph and Stewart--who combined dogged reporting with a passion for the security of the United States. Like Joe Alsop, Evans belonged to the Washington of black-tie dinner parties, still flourishing when our column began. Rowly snagged stories on the Georgetown party circuit, including an exclusive on U.S. plans for an electronic wall to protect south Vietnam. But he relied mostly on old- fashioned reporting, featuring relentless interrogation of sources. Senators, Cabinet members and anonymous staffers lured to lunch or breakfast at the Metropolitan Club found themselves facing a questioner who insisted on answers. He traveled everywhere for stories, covering the Vietnam, Six- Day and Gulf wars, often at great physical risk. Readers who thought they could spot the principal author of our columns would be surprised to learn that I was not responsible for ``Reassessing Goldwater,'' published on April 9, 1964. Since at that time I had close contact with Sen. Barry Goldwater, it was assumed that I had written the column disputing the conventional wisdom that Mr. Conservative was dead for the Republican presidential nomination. After much shoeleather reporting, Evans came to the conclusion that Goldwater quite likely would be the nominee. He flourished when reporting on national security, using a melange of sources both prominent and shadowy. He was ahead of everybody in forecasting the breakdown of Soviet satellite rule in Poland and Czechoslovakia. In 1979, one Evans column after another exposed Soviet cheating on arms control agreements that U.S. officials tried to ignore. Evans considered that work the high point of his long career. Nothing he did ever caused more trouble than his tough reporting on Israeli intransigence. Evans was not anti-Israel and certainly not antisemitic. He went to Lebanon in 1982 to cover an Israeli invasion of Lebanon that he deployed. But he found Palestinian atrocities in Sidon, Lebanon, that suggested ``the PLO has become permeated by thugs and adventurers.'' Although the late Yitzhak Rabin was his friend, he did not feel that the United States should be tied to the decisions of the Israeli government. Our column encountered the most criticism when he investigated, years after the event, the Israeli attack that sank the U.S. Navy communications intelligence ship Liberty during the Six-Day War. It was not anti-Israeli bias that caused Evans to probe an incident that both governments wanted to hide. Rather, it was outrage--born of patriotic fervor--over the needless death of 34 U.S. Naval personnel that he laid at the feet of Israeli defense forces. That same outrage had led Evans as a Yale freshman on Dec. 8, 1941, to protest the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor by enlisting in the Marine Corps, taking him to combat on Guadalcanal. American security was his guiding star. It led him to support U.S. efforts to save Vietnam from communist oppression, though that stance eventually put him in opposition to his friend Robert F. Kennedy. It led him away from his family's ties with Democrats and toward the Reagan Revolution. He was the life of every party be attended. But behind the charm of a Philadelphia society boy was a tough Marine who loved his country and never wavered in seeking the truth.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I hope everyone had an opportunity to hear that and those who did not have an opportunity to see the speech of the distinguished Senator from West Virginia in the Congressional Record. He talks from a 50-year or more experience here in the Senate, and, assiduous as he is to protect the Constitution, to go with this particular amendment means that we are in the extreme, that it is absolutely necessary. I feel the same way. I don't like to amend the Constitution. But I take the position that it was the Court itself, in Buckley v. Valeo, that amended the Constitution with this distorted bifurcation, equating money with speech and then controlling some but not other moneys. As a result, we end with this duplicitous situation of the money chase. Let me yield, before I have some other comments, to our distinguished floor leader, Senator Dodd.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Again, the distinguished Senator from Connecticut passionately speaks common sense. It is the most moving speech I have heard with respect to this particular initiative. I wish everyone could have been here to hear that. I hope they look at his remarks in the Record so they can understand just exactly what is behind this particular initiative. Mr. President, Senator Specter and I have a constitutional amendment which states that Congress is hereby authorized to regulate or control expenditures in Federal elections. Senator Specter and I have been here before to argue for this same amendment and we are pleased to have this opportunity again, this time with the support of Senators Byrd, Cleland, Miller, Biden and Reid. But Mr. President, this is perhaps the most timely debate for this Constitutional Amendment because critics here in this body and commentators have spent much time discussing the constitutionality of McCain-Feingold and the various proposed amendments to this bill. I want to state clearly, here at the outset, that this amendment does not frustrate, oppose, support, or endorse any particular plan of reform. Rather, it is the first step toward meaningful reform, regardless of the approach. To that end, I hoped to debate this at the conclusion of McCain-Feingold so that it could not be used as a sword against that measure. We had our first fit of conscience when we passed the 1974 Federal Election Campaign Act. This act came about due to the untoward activity in the 1967 and 1971 Presidential races. I want to remind everyone that this was a deliberate, bipartisan effort. It set spending limits on campaigns, limited candidates' personal spending, limited expenditures by independent persons or groups for or against candidates, set voluntary spending limits as a condition for receiving public funding, set disclosure requirements for campaign spending and receipts, set limits on contributions for individuals and political committees, and created the Federal Election Commission. This was a comprehensive proposal, with each part complementing the other. However, the Supreme Court supplanted this regime with its views on campaign finance in the now infamous decision, Buckley v. Valeo. The resulting system put a premium on fund raising and encouraged covert money donations. Don't take my word for it, look at Justice Kennedy's dissenting opinion in the recent Court decision, Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC: The plain fact is that the compromise the Court invented in Buckley set the stage for a new kind of speech to enter the political system. It is covert speech. The Court has forced a substantial amount of political speech underground, as contributors and candidates devise even more elaborate methods of avoiding contribution limits, limits which take no account of rising campaign costs. The preferred method has been to conceal the real purpose of the speech. Soft money may be contributed to political parties in unlimited amounts . . . Issue advocacy, like soft money, is unrestricted . . . while straightforward speech in the form of financial contributions paid to a candidate, speech subject to full disclosure and prompt evaluation by the public, is not. The current system would be unfortunate, and suspect under the First Amendment, had it evolved from a deliberate legislative choice; but its unhappy origins are in our earlier decree in Buckley, which by accepting half of what Congress did (limiting contributions) but rejecting the other (limiting expenditures) created a misshapen system, one which distorts the meaning of speech. Forgive me for the length of the above quote, but I feel Justice Kennedy hit the nail on the head. Now, we must excise this cancer from our political system. But it is an exercise in futility to address any particular campaign reform plan without first enacting a constitutional amendment because Buckley is still the law of the land. One critical flaw in the Buckley decision is that the Court equated money with speech. Justice Stevens, however, correctly noted in his concurring opinion in Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, ``Money is property; it is not speech.'' Justice Stevens explains that while the Constitution protects an individual's decision about how to use his or her property, ``[t]hese property rights, however, are not entitled to the same protection as the right to say what one pleases.'' An individual's right to get up on a stump and speak on behalf of or in opposition to a candidate is markedly different from ``speaking'' with money. Justice Kennedy, also in Shrink, observes that there is a difference between inspiring volunteers through speech and hiring volunteers with money. The first activity deserves the utmost protection. Unfortunately, those are minority views of the Court. For the sake of argument, assume money is speech as my colleague from Kentucky asserts. At the start of the debate we heard the Senator from Kentucky provide me the compliment of saying that ``I understand the nub of the issue.'' Of course after that fleeting moment he argues why we should not accept this measure. Of course there was a time when he saw the value of this approach. In 1987, my colleague offered a constitutional amendment to restrict the amount of money wealthy individuals could spend on their election. The important point is not that he once advocated that position, but rather, it recognizes that speech is not completely unfettered when there are significant interests that require its limitation. The following are a few examples of where speech is limited: If it creates a clear and present danger of imminent lawless action; if it constitutes fighting words; if it is obscene; [The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 in FCC v. Pacifica that the Federal Communications Commission could limit what they considered offensive language on the airwaves]; if it constitutes defamation; if it amounts to false and deceptive advertisement. Let me also point out a couple of speech restrictions perhaps more closely related to the current debate. The Hatch Act limits federal employee involvement in campaigns. Admittedly, the ``Hatch Act Amendments of 1993'' removed most of the restrictions on voluntary, free-time activities by federal employees; however the following are a sample of the restrictions that still apply: Federal employees are generally restricted from soliciting, accepting or receiving political contributions from any person; they may not run for office in most partisan elections; they are generally prohibited from engaging in partisan campaign activity on federal property, on official duty time, while wearing a uniform or insignia identifying them as federal officials or employees, or while using a government vehicle. Finally, as Justice Breyer, in Nixon v. Shrink, notes ``The Constitution often permits restrictions on speech of some form in order to prevent a few from drowning out the many--in Congress, for example, where constitutionally protected debate, Art. I, Sec. 6, is limited to provide every Member an equal opportunity to express his or her views. Or in elections, where the Constitution tolerates numerous restrictions on ballot access, limiting the political rights of some so as to make effective the political rights of the entire electorate.'' This is an important point Mr. President. I have long maintained that it is ill- advised to allow one who possesses more money to drown out the speech of another with less money. Essentially what we are saying now is if you have money, speak, if you don't, you have the right to keep your mouth shut. It is from this line of arguments that I really draw my conclusion that I am the one promoting speech. So there is precedent for limiting speech where there are equally important interests at stake. Our campaign system is of sufficient importance and has sufficient problems to warrant limited restrictions. Just consider the affect of the cost of running for office. The exorbitant costs of campaigns today are a real hurdle, preventing many people from throwing their hat into the arena. The average amount spent on a campaign for the United States Senate in the year 2000 was approximately $7 million. Can you imagine that. That means you have to raise on average $22,000 each week for the six years you are in the Senate in order to get ready for your next election. Or stated another way, you have to raise over $3000.00 per day. Yes that's per day. Saturday and Sunday, you need to raise $3000.00. Something is wrong when you have to raise more on Sunday than your church. Sadly this has really become a money chase. Rampant fund raising threatens the very fabric of democracy because it causes people to lose faith in the political system. They see their candidates motivated by contributions and not by important issues in their community. It often seems to the voting public that its voice is being drowned out by the hum of cash registers. That of course was not always the case. When I first ran for office, much of my campaign work was accomplished through volunteers. It was more enjoyable to campaign because you could really focus on the individual citizen rather than on raising money. You can't afford to go door to door anymore. By extension, while politicians are out courting money they are obviously not in Washington addressing the concerns of their constituents. There is no doubt that our current campaign finance system has bred absenteeism in the Senate chamber. We no longer arrive to work at 9 o'clock in the morning on Monday and struggle to close shop by 5 o'clock in the afternoon on Friday like we once did. Now on Monday and on Tuesday morning, there is no real floor debate because so many people are out raising money. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, we request time windows so that we can do more fund raising. And then as soon as Friday rolls around, we bolt from the starting blocks for another leg in the money race. If curing this sickly system isn't in the governmental interest, then I don't know what is. We realize these problems and are now faced with the present dilemma of deciding how to reform this broken system under the misguided framework laid out in Buckley. The Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Wisconsin are to be commended. They are dedicated and have successfully drawn attention to this issue. But their critics assert the same two arguments: 1. their proposal does not go far enough, or 2. their proposal goes too far and runs afoul to the Constitution. This will be the case with any serious proposal because of Buckley. The unconstitutionality of the Snowe-Jeffords portion of the McCain- Feingold bill which addresses issue advocacy has been talked about, and written about. Recently, Charles Lane wrote an article for the Washington Post titled, ``Court Challenge Likely if McCain-Feingold Bill Passes.'' The reason for this is that in Buckley, the Supreme Court held that campaign finance limitations apply only to express communications, such as ``vote for,'' ``elect,'' ``support,'' ``cast your ballot for,'' and ``Smith for Congress,'' that advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for federal office in express terms. If express words such as these are not present, then it is issue advocacy and cannot be regulated. The circuit courts, following the Buckley precedent, have drawn a bright line by requiring these express words and rejecting intermediate tests to determine whether something constitutes express advocacy or issue advocacy. Maine Right to Life Committee v. FEC, Oct. 6, 1997, the First Circuit affirmed the district court's opinion that the ``reasonable person'' standard in its definition of ``express advocacy'' infringed upon issue advocacy, an area protected by the First Amendment. The Fourth Circuit reached a similar conclusion in FEC v. Christian Action Network, 92 F.3d 1178, 4th Cir. 1997. The Second Circuit, in Vermont Right to Life Committee v. Sorrell, determined state campaign regulations were unconstitutional because they regulated express and implicit advocacy. It is evident that when the government seeks to regulate anything more than express or explicit advocacy, which is what they try to do in McCain-Feingold, the courts strike it down. Mr. President, the soft money ban of McCain-Feingold also faces constitutional challenges. The Supreme Court made it clear in Buckley that any restriction on First Amendment rights must be narrowly tailored to further a substantial governmental interest such as the prevention of corruption or the appearance of corruption. In Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, Colorado I., the Court raised doubts about the risk of corruption between parties and candidates. On remand to the district court, Colorado II, the court examined whether section 441a(d) of the FECA may constitutionally impose coordinated expenditure limits upon parties. The lower court found that ``contributor-to-party-to-candidate pressure'' is an ``unlikely avenue of corruption'' and that party pressure over candidates does not result in corruption. The court reasoned that political parties serve to promote political ideas and by deciding whether or not to support a candidate that subscribes to these ideas does not equal corrupting influence. This case was again appealed to the Tenth Circuit. In its May 5, 2000 decision, the circuit court affirmed the district court and echoed its reasoning. Allow me to read the following quotes from the circuit court's decision: ``Political parties today represent a broad-based coalition of interests, and there is nothing pernicious about this coalition shaping the views of its candidates;'' ``However, the premise of this theory, namely that, political parties can corrupt the electoral system by influencing their candidates' positions, gravely misunderstands the role of political parties in our democracy,'' and finally; ``The opportunity for corruption or its appearance of corruption is greatest when the political spending is motivated by economic gain. As discussed below, political parties are diverse entities, one step removed from the candidate, and they exist for noneconomic reasons.'' Based on these cases, the ban on soft money is unconstitutional as well. James Bopp is general counsel to the James Madison Center for Free Speech and served as counsel in more than 60 election-related cases, including the Maine Right to Life v. FEC and the Vermont Right to Life v. FEC cases mentioned earlier. Mr. Bopp is certainly an expert in this area. That is why I found his analysis of McCain-Feingold particularly persuasive. According to Bopp: Because McCain-Feingold 2001 prohibits the raising of ``soft money'' by national political parties, they have no such money available for issue advocacy, legislative, and organizational activities. It treats political parties as if they were federal-candidate election machines . . . Yet these restrictions fail constitutional muster. Political parties enjoy the same unfettered right to issue advocacy as other entities, which is especially appropriate because advancing a broad range of issues is their raison d'etre. ``Reforms'' banning political parties from receiving and spending so- called ``soft money'' cannot be justified as preventing corruption, since the Supreme Court has already held that interest insufficient for restricting issue advocacy in Buckley. According to Bopp, if there is not the threat of corruption or the appearance of corruption when we speak of political parties, then you can't restrict how they raise their money. Thus, the soft money regulations in McCain-Feingold are also likely to be found unconstitutional. In light of the above, a constitutional amendment is a necessary first step to real reform. Until we do this we are merely trying to patch a leaky dam with Bandaids. Certainly, amending the constitution is not something we should do lightly. But, campaign finance goes right to the heart of our democracy. That is likely the reason that of the nine most recent amendments, seven relate to our electoral process: The 19th amendment gave women the right to vote; the 20th set the beginning of Presidential and Congressional terms and provided for succession of the President and Vice President, (i.e., this amendment established procedure to replace the President or Vice President elect upon their death or incapacitation); the 22nd amendment provided Presidential term limits; the 23rd amendment provided the D.C. electoral votes in Presidential elections; the 24th amendment eliminated the Poll tax; the 25th amendment established the procedure for Presidential succession whether by death or incapacitation; the 26th amendment changed the voting age to 18. Surprisingly, the average length of time it took for passage of Amendments 20-26 was a little over 17 months. What's even more compelling is the fact that the 24th amendment already recognizes the influence of money on the freedom of political speech. It says that it is unconstitutional to place a financial burden on voters in order for them to voice their political opinions at the polls. In other words, it gives us ``one man, one vote.'' The poorest of the poor can cancel out the richest of the rich. This is the same spirit that's driving campaign finance reform today. Mr. President, it isn't that the people do not trust us. I think they are bored with us. When you talk about campaigns and everything else like that, today's model is, you hire a consultant, and he gets the poll, and you get seven or eight hot-button items or issues, and you counsel: Do not take too strong a position pro or con--for or against-- but, on the contrary, say you are concerned: ``I'm troubled.'' Everybody who comes to this blooming place is troubled, and they are concerned. But I can't find them taking a position on anything. And that goes for Republicans and for Democrats--all the candidates. So unless you get a unique individual, such as the Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, who had no poll, obviously, to get around to this campaign finance--and certainly it was not boring. He kept them on fire, and kept them going, and kept them interested--and keeps them interested. That is why we are having this debate. But the truth of the matter is that politics has been taken out of campaigning. Let me emphasize what the Senator from West Virginia was talking about regarding campaigns. No. 1, we used to have nothing but volunteers. I ran for the State house of representatives for $100 back in 1948--over 50 years ago. There were 24 candidates. I led the ticket. But I worked, and I saw people. I talked and listened to people. There weren't fundraisers to go to. Now, in contrast, there are only fundraisers to go to. In fact, on the recent campaign, I was going around not just thanking but talking to old friends, and many said: Why are you coming around now? You have already won a wonderful race by a good majority. Why are you coming around now? I said: I didn't get to see you. I didn't get to talk to you. I could only go to fundraisers. Mind you me, if you have run, as I have, for the legislature, for Lieutenant Governor, Governor, and the U.S. Senate--I have been elected seven times--at the country store at the crossroads outside of Honea Path on the way into Anderson, they want to know why I didn't come by. So I go by that shift at a mill in Edmund, SC. If I don't get to that 3 o'clock shift, I have ``Potomac fever,'' I have forgotten about the people. So I know what it is to campaign without money. It is much better than this money chase and the TV squibs about how I am against crime, how I am for education. That crowd over there, they come out for education. They did their best to abolish the Department under President Reagan, under President Bush, under President Clinton. They had the Contract in the mid-1990s, a few years ago, and wanted to abolish the Department of Education. But that is canned now. They are all for education. They are not for it, but they have to identify with it because the company consultants have said so. That is what is going on. So the people really are bored with all the campaigning because there is nothing to it. You can't get them to take a stand other than they are just for this or that popular thing. They finally found out it was unpopular to try to veto, but they tried for 20 years to abolish the Department of Education. I can tell you because I was here and helped defend it over those 20 years. But the people have been taken out of the campaign themselves. That is all you have, time to go on the money chase. Obviously, those making the contributions have already made up their mind or they wouldn't have come to the event in the first instance. And you wouldn't have gone to the event except for the money involved. So there it is. I think that at this particular time, other than citing a dozen variations of the first amendment--or you might say amendments to that first amendment--I think it ought to be emphasized just exactly what has occurred in the words of Justice Kennedy in the Nixon v. Shrink Missouri case. I quote from him: The plain fact is that the compromise the Court invented in Buckley set the stage for a new kind of speech to enter the political system. It is covert speech. The Court has forced a substantial amount of political speech underground, as contributors and candidates devise even more elaborate methods of avoiding contribution limits, limits which take no account of rising campaign costs. The preferred method has been to conceal the real purpose of the speech. Soft money may be contributed to political parties in unlimited amounts. . . . Issue advocacy, like soft money, is unrestricted. . .while straightforward speech in the form of financial contributions paid to a candidate, speech subject to full disclosure and prompt evaluation by the public is not. The current system would be unfortunate, and suspect under the First Amendment, had it evolved from a deliberate legislative choice; but its unhappy origins are in our earlier decree in Buckley, which by accepting half of what Congress did (limiting contributions) but rejecting the other (limiting expenditures) created a misshapen system, one which distorts the meaning of speech. Let me add my comment: And distorts the freedom of speech. The constitutional amendment will give the opportunity to the U.S. Congress to restore that freedom of speech to all Americans. We have used over three-quarters of our time, Mr. President, and I have some speakers coming who want to speak when they arrive here at 5 o'clock. So let me suggest the absence of a quorum. I would like to speak to the distinguished leader on the other side to see if I could charge it to him, or certainly not just run the time out in a quorum call and then have 2 hours and no chance to respond. But I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, before we have the quorum, the Senator from Pennsylvania is the principal cosponsor. We have 20 minutes remaining. We have some other speakers coming. I will try to borrow some time from Senator McConnell when he regains the floor. I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call then be charged to both sides.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I harken to the memory of working with my distinguished colleague from Kentucky when he and I were on the same side. I also worked with the former counsel to the President, Lloyd Cutler, also the former Senator from Kansas, Mrs. Nancy Kassebaum, and others on the committee on the constitutional system. They appeared and testified about the need for a constitutional amendment. On every amendment, starting with the Domenici amendment last week, they are going to raise a constitutional question. There it is. Everybody likes to adhere to the Constitution because they respond to the very solemn scare tactics of my friend from Kentucky. The reason I described it as scare tactics--let me quote from last week, March 19 on page S2440 of the Congressional Record, I quote Senator McConnell: You have to go right to the core of the problem. The junior Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Fritz Hollings, will offer that amendment at some point as he has periodically over the years. He deserves a lot of credit for understanding the nub of the problem. The nub of the problem is you can't do most of these things as long as the First Amendment remains as it is. So Senator Hollings, at some point, I think under the consent agreement, will probably at the end of the debate offer a constitutional amendment . . . to regulate, restrict, and even prohibit any expenditures ``by, in support of, or in opposition to a candidate for public office.'' It would carve and etch out of the First Amendment, for the first time since the founding of our country and the passage of the Bill of Rights, giving to the government at the Federal and State level the ability to control political speech in this country. It is worth noting that would also apply to the media. Now you see the scare tactics. Wait a minute. After 230 years of history, and all of sudden we are going to monkey around, we are going to tamper with, and we are going to amend the first amendment for the first time since the founding of our country and the passage of the Bill of Rights--we are going to amend the first amendment. I note the Senator from Kentucky is a brilliant individual. He knows better. But he knows the art of defamation and debate. If he can scare those who have not paid attention to the debate last week and this week, and those who will not pay attention, then he'll prevail. There is nobody here but us chickens for the simple reason that they said last week I had to go on Monday. I had other engagements already because I am like all the other Senators, I have things to do. I can plan ahead, knowing that I can get out and raise money on Monday. Then they said, if you can't get back on Monday, you just stay here on Friday. I also, like all the other Senators--we voted at 9 o'clock and, boy, we broke out of that door. If you stood there at those double doors after that vote at 9:15 to 9:30, you would have been run over because we had to go. We have to collect that $3,000 that Friday, that $22,000 that week, that $7 million over the 6-year period. And so it is that he knows and I know they are not hearing this. We all do revere the Constitution. And we all revere the first amendment. But the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, watching those Oscars last night, he ought to get an Oscar for this one. Here it is: . . . I think under the consent agreement, will probably at the end of the debate offer a constitutional amendment so the Federal and all 50 State governments can have the unfettered latitude to regulate, restrict, and even prohibit any expenditures ``by, in support of, or in opposition to a candidate for public office.'' It would carve and etch out of the First Amendment, for the first time since the founding of our country and the passage of the Bill of Rights, giving to the government at the Federal and State level the ability to control political speech in this country. Now, Mr. President, not so. He gets the Oscar because those who not listening heard that last week, when I couldn't get the floor and award him that particular Oscar. Because he knows from the debate of 1907 of the Tillman Act, under President Teddy Roosevelt, where the Federal Government controls the speech of corporations. And then in 1947, Harry Truman, in the Taft-Hartley Act, that is another one of ``the first time since the founding of our country and the passage of the Bill of Rights.'' That was the second time that I know of back in 1947 under Taft-Hartley. Poor Harry did it. They want to give him awards now. Everybody is trying to mimic Teddy Roosevelt over there on the Republican side. But they forget that ``for the first time'' Teddy did it back in 1907. We know about the shouting of fire in the theater, the clear and present danger ruling; that is another time that the first amendment was amended. We know, with respect to the prohibition against fighting words, that is another time that the first amendment was amended. Congress, since I have been here, gave the authority, in the Pacifica case that finally was determined. But we passed the enactment to tell the FCC to regulate obscenity over the airwaves. That deals with the first amendment. There were those seven dirty words in the Pacifica case. So it is that we have, about seven or eight times since the founding of our country ``etched out of the First Amendment.'' We took an exception with respect to slander. I cannot slander you; you cannot slander me. That is defamation. That is another time. There is false and deceptive advertising. Has the distinguished Senator never heard of the Federal Trade Commission? That is under the authority of the Federal Trade Commission: false and deceptive advertising. We regulate or amend, as he would say, carving and etching out, for the first time in our history since the founding of the Republic, an amendment to the first amendment. We all go to classified briefings, particularly up on the fourth floor in the Capitol. That is another restriction we have on the first amendment. Of course, we can go right on down to the 24th amendment--well, the Hatch Act. I do not want to leave that out. We amended it in 1993. But you still can't run for these partisan political offices. You can't solicit contributions or receive contributions. You can't politic on a Federal facility. We would be forbidden under the Hatch Act to campaign in this Federal facility, except for us. All we do is campaign here. We have to take care of ourselves here. We understand what the game is. Nobody is here. But I am here. And we have a constitutional amendment. And then, of course, the 24th amendment, the poll tax. Isn't that a wonderful thing? They said: Look, there should be no financial burden on the right to vote. Now, with Buckley v. Valeo there is a financial burden with respect to campaigning. The distinguished senior Senator from my State says at the end of next year he is not going to run for reelection. They have already, in a sense, crowned a Republican nominee according to my local news. Everybody has come out for him. Two or three Democrats have been up to see me. Each time I said: Now, wait a minute. You have to get $7 million. You have to be prepared. Because I can tell you, here and now, I spent $5.5 million myself in 1998, and this will be 4 years hence by 2002. So you have to get that $7 million. It has all but prohibited the poor from campaigning. It has all but prohibited the middle class from campaigning, or at least in relation to the Senate. I can tell you right now, we ought to have an amendment restoring every mother's son's right. I can see Russell Long standing right here at this desk. He put in the checkoff system so every mother's son could run for President. So we had to check off on the income tax to bill up the money. With respect to Buckley v. Valeo, let's amend that particular amendment to the first amendment; namely, the restriction they put on political speech of the poor and middle class in America. I have already had to discourage--I didn't mean to do it but you need to be realistic--and I am confident I have discouraged three candidates from running because unless and until they can get up in the political polls, our Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee cannot afford to give them any financial assistance. So they have to prove themselves. And in order to prove themselves in this game, you have to have money. Finally, of course, as I have already referred to, I would like to ask consent to have printed in the Record S.J. Res. 166 from the distinguished Senator from Kentucky. How could he stand in the well and say, ``It would carve and etch out of the First Amendment, for the first time since the founding of our country and the passage of the Bill of Rights'' wherein he, in S. Res. 166, tried that himself in 1987? I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, as I was saying, we know about money. In fact, I had the small business appropriations subcommittee and I do not know 100 better small businessmen than the 100 Senators. You have to collect millions just in $1,000 increments. You wouldn't incorporate at $1,000-a-share of stock--you wouldn't get anywhere. You would have to work much longer than this, of course. But we do it. Back in 1966, Senator Mansfield said we would start voting at 9 o'clock on Monday morning. I will never forget it. Then votes would ensue, and debates would ensue, and we would work until generally around 6 o'clock on Friday. It was a full workweek. I see my colleague from Kentucky is back down on the floor I want to talk about corruption because that is the sensitivity he has, that there is nothing corrupted--ha-ha. Monday is gone. And Fridays are gone. And Tuesday mornings are gone. And Wednesday evenings you have a window, and Thursday evening you have a window, and Wednesday at lunch you have a window, and Thursday at lunch you have a window--all for at least 20 to 25 percent of your time to collect money. Lunches, meetings with different groups downtown--I am part of it. I know. I struggle. I am from a Republican State, so I had to travel all around raising money during my last campaign. I am confident that people are ready and willing to vote for me. I have talked to them. But the contributions, incidentally, are listed in the newspaper and some people don't want to see their contributions appear, because when they go to the club on Saturday night, someone asks them, ``Why did you give to that Democrat?'' I mean, heavens above. So I travel the country, up to Minnesota, everywhere and anywhere I can, to collect money. That takes my time on weekends, weekdays, any nights that I can. So I am part of the corruption I am trying to cure. Mind you me, they do not have any idea of stopping this corruption. They thoroughly enjoy it because they know the one way to really play the campaign finance game for keeps and not for play, not for fun, is to pass a constitutional amendment. The constitutional amendment which was just printed in the Record does not endorse, it does not support, it does not oppose any bill or any initiative. It merely gives authority to the U.S. Congress to limit or regulate expenditures and contributions in Federal elections. And the state and municipal officials, as well as the state governors, have asked for a similar provision. So we have that provision in there for State elections as well. We all know, out in the hinterland, beyond the beltway, what a corruptive influence this has been. It takes all the time in the world to collect that $3,000 a day, every day, including Saturday and Sunday. We have gotten to the point that we have to collect more than a church on Sunday. It is a pitiful situation. But they know this is unconstitutional. It is unconstitutional, McCain-Feingold. It might be appropriate at this point to say the unanimous consent agreement was supposedly at the termination or the disposition of McCain-Feingold, because I did not want to interfere with the initiative of the Senator from Arizona and the Senator from Wisconsin in McCain-Feingold. I voted for it, I guess, about five times. I will vote for it again because it may be constitutional--you can't tell with this Supreme Court. They found that the States always regulate their own elections, except when it came to Florida and the Presidency. And the very crowd in the minority, always talking about the States having control, became the majority and took over the election. Given this reversal of opinion, you never can tell if the Court would change their opinion about Buckley v. Valeo. I will vote for the severability also. I hope part of it is sustained by the Court. But we know good and well that they enjoy the wonderful charade and farce that has been going on in the Senate last week and this week, and particularly in the media. They don't have any idea of exposing this. If you can find in a newspaper that a constitutional amendment is to come up on Monday and be debated all day Monday, I will give the good government award to that particular newspaper. It is not even printed, they couldn't care less, because they know this thing should continue on, up, up, and away, millions upon millions, in order to hold a job, get elected. So, as to its unconstitutionality, let me refer, first, to my friend, the Senator from Kentucky. I do not like to mention him when he is not present on the floor, but I will again, when he comes to the floor. S.J. Res. 166, in 1987, by Senator McConnell of Kentucky, of a constitutional amendment. He says: The Congress may enact laws regulating the amounts of expenditures a candidate may make from personal funds or the personal funds of the candidate's immediate family, or may incur with personal loans, and Congress may enact laws regulating the amounts of independent expenditures by any person other than by a political committee of a political party, which can be made to expressly advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for Federal office. The Senator from Kentucky and I appeared, and we testified before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate back at that time. And I quote Senator McConnell: I would not have any problem with amending the Constitution with regard to the millionaire's problem. (Mr. AKAKA assumed the chair.) The reason I emphasize that is because every time I have mentioned this since that time, I had Senator McConnell worried about buying the office. But he found out that is the best and easiest way for that crowd to do it. He has sort of left me. He pontificates about the idea and how it is just horrible having a constitutional amendment to amend freedom of speech. Let me see exactly what he said at the particular time just by way of emphasis. He said on June 19, 1987, at page of the Congressional Record, U.S. Senate: I believe that this resolution, unlike most constitutional amendments, would zip through this body and zip through the State legislatures. He didn't complain at that time about the time it took. But he says: These are constitutional problems demanding constitutional answers. This Congress should not hesitate, nor do I believe it would hesitate, to directly address these imbalances of the campaign finance laws. I offer this constitutional amendment in the sincere hope that the Senate will begin to turn its attention to the real abuses in campaign finances, millionaire loopholes, independent expenditures, political action committee contributions, and soft money, and develop simple, straightforward solutions rather than strangle the election process with overall spending limits and a larger political bureaucracy. The distinguished leader in opposition to McCain-Feingold, I used to stand with him because he was against soft money. He was against buying the office. But there you are. Of course, he reiterated on the floor the other day that we had reached the nub of the problem. He recognizes it still as a constitutional question. We go right to the long, hard task in March of trying to bring people to their senses once Buckley v. Valeo amended the first amendment. There isn't any question. They equated money with speech when Justice Stevens in the Nixon case said money is property. It was Kennedy who said that by the bifurcation and separating the contributions from the actual expenditures we had developed a new form of speech. Having money as speech is out of the whole cloth. I don't go out and ask one dollar for one vote. It is one man-one vote; or one person-one vote. But under Buckley v. Valeo, it is one dollar-one vote. By limiting the amount given but not the amount expended, they have taken away the freedom of speech of the Presiding Officer, and this particular Senator, because we don't have those millions to spend on elections such as we see being done this day and age. No questions are asked. The trend is more, more, and more. There was an article in the newspaper last week on how the Democratic Party was looking for millionaire candidates so we don't have to raise the money. If we can find a bunch of millionaire candidates, it would be wonderful. We would be in the majority. But that is very enticing but very corruptive for the simple reason that Buckley v. Valeo took away our freedom of speech. This constitutional amendment will reenact the freedom of speech for all Americans. What will happen is, of course, you can pass anything you want, I emphasize once more. This is not in support of McCain- Feingold, or in opposition to McCain-Feingold, or in support or opposition to any particular initiative that the Senate may take or the Congress may take. But it frees us up--``Free at last,'' so to speak--in order to enact what we desire to enact with respect to campaign financing. I refer to the article ``Democracy or Plutocracy? The Case for a Constitutional Amendment to Overturn Buckley v. Valeo,'' by Jonathan Bingham. Mr. President, former Congressman Bingham wrote about it with distinction. But there is a more recent article from the James Madison Center for Free Speech, and an analysis of McCain-Feingold by James Bopp, general counsel for the James Madison Center for Free Speech. It can be found at: www.jamesmadisoncenter.org. Mr. President, an article entitled ``Court Challenge Likely if McCain-Feingold Bill Passes'' from the Washington Post of March 19 of this year by Charles Lane also points out the unconstitutionality of McCain-Feingold. I ask unanimous consent it be printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Utah for his generosity and courtesy. Right to the point with respect to the big bugaboo about the first time in our history that we are amending the first amendment, we are not amending any first amendment on speech. I will emphasize that in just a second. But if we were, it would not be the first time. And the distinguished Senator from Kentucky and others understand that. They continue to raise that bugaboo to intimidate the Senators about the seriousness of this by saying it is the first time that we carved and etched out of the first amendment since the founding of our country and the passage of the Bill of Rights. I know that the Senator from Kentucky and others who use that expression know about the limits, about the Tillman Act in 1907, about Teddy Roosevelt, or the Taft-Hartley Act, and limits on speech by union activity. They also know about the limits with respect to the obscene, the seven dirty words in the specific case where we gave the FEC the power to control these kind of words, and about speech on the airwaves with respect to false and deceptive advertising. Everybody believes in the Federal Trade Commission. I have given a dozen examples of where there is already limited speech. But our particular resolution, S.J. Res. 4, is not an amendment, as the Senator from Alabama would infer. He says, of all things, that even during campaign times this amends the right to speak. It doesn't amend anything. It is merely a joint resolution, and not even signed by the President but referred to the States for ratification to give Congress the power to legislate. It legislates nothing. It doesn't approve of McCain-Feingold. It doesn't disapprove of it. It doesn't approve of any particular legislation. It only gives the power back to us to stop this money chase, and the corruption of the system. You can see it here this afternoon already. We have had a pretty good debate, relatively speaking. But everybody has been out, and they are allowed to stay out until 6 o'clock in order to chase the money. We used to vote all day Monday when I first got here, and all day Friday. Those two days are gone. Tuesday morning is gone. Usually it is after lunch on Tuesday when we really start. Then we have a window on Wednesday and a window on Thursday, both at lunch and in the evening. The entire time is not spent on doing the job of a U.S. Senator, but of keeping the job. You have to raise $7 million over six years; $3,000 every day for six years, including Sunday and Christmas Day. That is obscene. This gives the Congress the power to deal with that particular problem for the first time. Those who would oppose this amendment have no idea of controlling that spending. I yield the floor. I thank my distinguished colleague from Utah.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague from Nevada. He is more than gracious to me personally. It is reciprocated because there is no one I admire more in the Senate. I have watched him over the years. He is so conscientious. And what is wrong this minute: We really are not conscientious about our duties and responsibilities in the Senate. I will mention the no-no word, ``corruption,'' and I do so very sincerely because the system has become corrupted. Now the distinguished Presiding Officer never had a part in this, but I can say the rest of the Members have, except the newcomers. That is the best way to put it. Welcome to the $7 million club. That is the average cost of the last campaign in order to become a Senator. Unless you have $7 million by the time of the next election, you are not going to be able to keep the job. Therein is the corruption. Our effort, our determination, our endeavor, is to keep the job rather than doing the job. That is why we don't have anybody here but us chickens. This Chamber is intentionally empty. Why? Because we are all out trying to get that $7 million in order to continue to serve. Mr. President, that's nearly $1.2 million a year, each year, for 6 years. That's more than $3,000 every day including Sundays and Christmas Day. I am a little behind this morning because I have not collected $3,000. In fact, I am behind this past week because I didn't get my $22,000. And others believe they are behind. So the whole system now of considering the people's problems and their business is corrupted. I was here back in 1966 and early on in the war in Vietnam. It amused me the other day when they said we finally had some debate going on in the Senate. The reason we have a debate is because this is the first subject we know anything about. All the rest of it is canned speeches that the staff gives you, and you come out and you talk about Kosovo, you talk about the defense budget, or you talk about the environment, and you read scientific statements and everything--but we know about money. Oh boy, do we know. It is 2 o'clock.