Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, it is rather amusing to hear my distinguished colleague say that this particular initiative is ``without a constituency.'' The constituency started 10 years ago with the Commission on the Constitutional System. I have quoted a group of several hundred present and former legislators, executive branch officials, political party officials, professors, and civic leaders who are interested in analyzing and correcting the weaknesses that have developed under our political system since the Buckley case. We have the support of 44 law professors, which I have inserted into the Record, as well as 24 State attorneys general. When I introduced this joint resolution in some 10 years ago, it was only relevant and pertaining to the Federal Government. The States came and begged and said, ``Amend the Buckley ruling and include protection for us also.'' The cities came and said, ``Amend it, please, and include the protection for the cities also.'' Yet, my distinguished colleague says that he has the endorsement of the Washington Post and the ACLU. He had better not let many on his side of the aisle hear that or they will start changing their votes. I know that crowd over there. I can tell you, Mr. President, we need to examine the very authority that the distinguished Senator from Kentucky uses--the Buckley case--which he said was good. He said it was good 1976 it is good in 1997. He says it's good and that ``we don't want, need the Hollings resolution.'' Incidentally, it is the Hollings- Specter. I don't know whether they are ashamed to have a Republican cosponsor it. They don't mind saying ``McCain-Feingold,'' but they don't want to say ``Hollings-Specter.'' But I do appreciate the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania joining in. I understand also that my colleague from Delaware, Senator Roth, has asked for time. I was waiting to make sure he had a moment. But in any event, I admire their courage for joining me because apparently they have made this into a party position. When I lose my good friend, the Senator from Alabama, Senator Shelby, who cosponsored this three times and now comes and says he is worried about the freedom of speech, I know the pressure is on. But, after saying Buckley is good, they then say vote against the Hollings initiative. They argue that my amendment would be the first time in 200 years we have limited the freedom of speech, whereby there is no question that this is exactly what the Buckley decision does. The Buckley decision limits the freedom of speech of those who wish to contribute in political campaigns. The Buckley decision limits to this very moment the freedom of speech of political action committees. He talks about this being the first time in 200 years, yet he has to acknowledge that their authority shows the spurious nature of their defense. Mr. President, what we have is what the Senator from Utah, Senator Hatch, said would gut the freedom-of-speech provision for the first time. Yet, we have already had it gutted in the Buckley decision. Thereupon, as the Chief Justice said in his dissenting opinion, it is half a haircut. You can't deal with the contributions without dealing with the expenditures of those contributions--both sides of the same coin, as he expressed it. So we have been at this now for 20 years. We have had over 240 votes in Congress on campaign finance reform. What we have finally come to is not the question of how but the question of whether or not we are going to really limit. Heretofore, for 20 years we have had Common Cause say that this measure is public financing. We have had McCain-Feingold say, if you will voluntarily limit yourself, you can get free time, free TV time, free mailing time, and everything. All of those initiatives were dealing with how to limit. But now, my good friend from Kentucky says really we should not limit it at all. That is the vote. If you want to limit, this is the way to give the authority to the national Congress to limit it. If you do not want to limit it, then vote against it. If you want reform, if you want to really get on top of this problem, we don't tell you how to do it. But you have to have the authority within the people's national Congress to actually limit it. That is the resolution. A constitutional amendment which is just as significant--in fact, more important than-- five of the last six amendments to the national Constitution dealing with elections. Adopt it, if you please, and in 18.5 months--the average of those five--I would dare say that with the constituency we have of the cities, the States, the interest, and the people, this would be ratified in the 1998 November election. They have worked it pretty good in a partisan fashion to try to bring in the freedom of speech, by saying money is speech. But it can't be. But what we are talking about is paid speech, not free speech. You go down to the Washington Post, which he says endorses this, and ask them for a quarter page or half page, and see how much free speech you get out of that newspaper. What we are talking about is the right to control the election. The war in the field of battle, as the distinguished Senator Inouye knows, is won by those who control air over the battlefield. Those who control the airwaves win political elections. There isn't any question about it. Money talks here. If we can't get on top of this monster, as Elizabeth Drew has said, we will never be able to save the process. We will never be able to save the democracy itself. Chief Justice Jackson said that the Constitution is not a suicide compact. We can move after 20 years to address this important problem facing our nation. We should move. I thank the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, today, I am pleased to commend Linda J. Morgan, the Chair of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board [STB], for her leadership in facilitating the discussions that have led to a possible settlement among the three major eastern rail carriers that would end the bitter, long, and costly merger fight between the Norfolk Southern, CSX, and Conrail Railroads. For months the Nation has witnessed the spectacle of these three giants trying to gain an advantage over each other and access to almost 4 billion dollars' worth of annual rail freight. This merger fight was shaping up to be a battle costing millions of dollars with no end in sight. And certainly there was no guarantee that the American consumer would be better at the end of the struggle than they were at its beginning. Ms. Morgan's service to this Nation is two fold. First, there was her simple, and very wise, suggestion to the parties that a settlement between the parties ending this fight would probably be preferable to having the Government step in and end the fight. Second, there was her astute suggestion that gaining rail competition in the Northeast should be an important goal in any final decision by the STB, which must approve any merger. It is important to note that many interested parties appreciated her candor and attention to the people's welfare. State agencies in the Northeast had urged a negotiated solution that would encourage more competition. Certainly, shippers have long seen the need for more competition in moving cargo through the largest North American consumer markets. The Journal of Commerce was moved to editorialize on [March 6, 1997] that the agreement spurred by Chairman Morgan's comment ``makes good business sense'' and that ``Ms. Morgan showed a deft touch, hinting at regulators' views without compromising her objectivity about a case that hadn't yet been filed.'' Let me close by saying that Linda Morgan's deft touch has given consumers and shippers some hope that they will come out ahead after any merger. It's a view that was articulated in The Journal of Commerce: ``The deal * * * will provide effective rail freight competition into New York * * * (and) offers more competitive service in other cities--among them Baltimore, Philadelphia, Wilmington and Pittsburgh * * *'' I offer my thanks to Ms. Morgan, a fine example of a dedicated and effective public servant.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Chair. I had hoped, when I see the distinguished Senator, that he and others on the other side would have an open mind. I know there was a time when that occurred. But, obviously, you can see from their strategy here that they are taking the party position. It is unfortunate when you do that and try to hide behind free speech, which is not at issue. We are talking about paid speech. But instead, they hide behind James Madison and Patrick Henry and do not want to recognize the truth. I would be ready to vote this afternoon. I can see at a glance that time and again we face a false charge. Time and again my opponents come up with the same false representation. And time and again we met with anecdotal ``could be's,'' and ``what would happen's.'' For example, the distinguished Senator from Alabama just said, ``This is remarkable. This goes to a fundamental issue. Congress should not be amending the Constitution.'' And under my amendment, Congress is not. Instead, it will be up to the people of America. This amendment simply is a joint resolution giving authority to the Congress to limit expenditures, should the States approve this. We have to get 34 States to approve of this joint resolution, and this joint resolution only gives to the people an opportunity to vote. I wrote the first version of this resolution 10 years ago with, ``The Congress is hereby authorized to regulate or control expenditures in Federal elections.'' The States and the Governors and everyone else said, ``Include us.'' So we amended the joint resolution giving the people a chance to vote. So it is not Congress that is running around amending the Constitution. Then the Senator from Washington, Senator Gorton, ``When we put the rights of free speech in the hands of Congress''--we have done it. But we did it with respect to false and deceptive advertising. On television and radio, we gave Congress the right to regulate free speech when Congress acted in controlling obscenity. We told the Federal Communications Commission, as the administrative arm of the Congress, ``We want you to watch these programs and rule out obscenity.'' And then in Buckley, in a 5-to-4 decision by the Supreme Court, they held--as the Senator from Washington says, if we put the rights of free speech in the hands of Congress, oh, that would be a terrible thing. But if we look closely at the Buckley decision, it has been put there and has been found constitutional by none other than the U.S. Supreme Court. When the Congress acted in 1974 to control expenditures in Federal elections, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Buckley v. Valeo, to use the opposition's expression, took a big hunk out of the first amendment. And there are those who would, in political discourse, see their freedom of speech to contribute as they choose limited. So don't come around here with the call of horrors--``this is fundamental''; ``this is so terrible''; or, ``this is remarkable.'' Their conduct in the treatment of this joint resolution is what is remarkable. They don't want to admit that what is involved here is limiting spending, not freedom. There is nothing free here at all but our chance to limit expenditures in political campaigns. If you want to limit spending, if you want to excise the cancer on the body politic that has grown so now that we can't even do our business except in a party fashion, so be it. We have tried over the years in every way. I don't want to clutter the Record with the entire article in Congressional Quarterly a few years back discussing the need for campaign finance reform, but it I will read part of it: Most Democrats supported spending limits which would allow challengers to spend on a level equal to incumbents. Under the 1976 Supreme Court decision in Buckley v. Valeo, spending limits had to be voluntary. The Court said that public financing was a legitimate carrot to encourage compliance with those voluntary limits, a concept some Democrats supported anyway, calling public funding ``clean money.'' Most Republicans, however, strenuously oppose taxpayer financing of congressional campaigns which they liken to welfare for politicians. Many Republicans also argued that spending limits locked in incumbent advantages. They said challengers needed the option to outspend incumbents to make themselves equally viable to voters. Then, Mr. President, going along: In 1987, debate over these issues threw the Senate into a virtually unprecedented procedural fit. Consideration of a bill that included spending limits and Federal funding stretched over 9 months and forced a record 8 cloture votes in an effort to break a Republican filibuster, a 53-hour-24- minute session and a Senator injured and dragged to the floor under arrest highlighted the episode. In the end, the Senate failed to overcome partisan divisions, and the bill succumbed to the process. The article goes on to talk about a bill in 1992. They wrote: In the years that followed with a Republican in the White House pledging to veto any bill approved by the Democratic Congress, neither party showed much interest in restaging the drama. Instead, when an ethics scandal broke, such as the Keating Five affair in 1990 and 1991, in which five Senators were accused of accepting favors from a savings and loan magnet, campaign finance legislation was trotted out as a symbol of reform. The two Chambers reached agreement on a bill in 1992, after the House came under siege over the House bank scandal. That bill stapled a plan House Democrats had crafted for their campaigns to an entirely different plan Senate Democrats had sanctioned. Both plans, however, included spending limits and public finance and, as promised, President Bush vetoed the bill. I only mention this because it has been a long, hard road, and I hoped, as that article said, that we would have another fit here. I thought that we would get a fit of conscience here and really do away with the partisanship stonewalling, because they know that is what is involved. They have the advantage, in spite of all that the White House did in the last Presidential race. Just mark it down in Senator Thompson's hearing that the Republicans got $150 million more. So whatever the Democrats did, the Republicans did better. We all know it, and you can ask anybody in the public. We have been in the game, we have watched it, we have read about it, everybody knows about it, and we have tried over the years to correct it. In 1966, Congress adopted public financing for Presidential elections, and then in 1967, they repealed public financing for Presidential elections. In 1971, there was the passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act. In 1974, the amendments to that. In 1976, a further amendment. In 1979, another amendment. By 1985, we had the Boren-Goldwater amendment--we had bipartisanship then--to change the contribution limits and eliminate the PAC bundling, but that was tabled. Then, in 1986, the Boren-Goldwater amendment was adopted, but then it didn't go far. In 1988, Senator Byrd forced nine votes on the motion to instruct the Sergeant at Arms and request the attendance while trying to get a vote on S. 2. That is when they arrested a Senator, only the second time in history, dragging him in. In 1988, we had the Hollings constitutional amendment to limit campaign expenditures, and we got a 53 to 47 vote on cloture. Of course, we needed 60 votes at that particular time, and the majority didn't control. In 1989, S. 139, a comprehensive reform passed the Senate but never made it out of the conference. In 1991, of course, as I just mentioned, a comprehensive reform passed, which President Bush vetoed. In 1993, we had a sense of the Senate by this Senator that Congress should adopt a constitutional amendment limiting campaign expenditures which passed 52 to 43. In 1993, we had a comprehensive reform pass the Senate but it never made it out of conference. In 1995, again the Hollings constitutional amendment to limit campaign expenditures offered as amendment to the balanced budget amendment. That was tabled by a vote of 52 to 45. And, in 1995, the Senate passed the sense-of-the-Senate amendment to address the campaign finance reform during the 104th Congress. Again, we got a majority vote. Then, in 1996, we had cloture on the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform, and that cloture vote failed by a vote of 54 to 46. So we keep hammering and hammering and trying every kind of which way. But we know that the intent in 1974 was to prevent individuals from buying their way into office. And now we are continuing our fight in trying to overturn the Buckley decision that held the office must be bought. We are trying to remove that requirement, because the money in campaigns has gone up, up, and away. Good people are being withheld from public service, and the public is losing confidence in the democratic process. The only way to save this democracy is amend the Constitution. And rather than recognize this fact, the opposition simply raises strawman after strawman. The distinguished Senator from Kentucky and the Senator from New Mexico, Senator Domenici, say, ``Might a Congress not come up and cut off speech entirely?'' The Senator from New Mexico says, ``I could dream up a scenario where that would be constitutional.'' He said he did not think it was going to happen, but he could think of that later on at a time when Congress would act in an inordinate fashion. Then he turns to the Senator from Washington. He asks, ``Can't you think of a Congress that may shut down entirely any opposition that just comes?'' Well, Senator Gorton, the Senator from Washington, said, ``I doubt that that would happen, but it is the most fundamental attack on the freedom of speech since the adoption of the Constitution.'' So they continue the same rhetoric about the freedom of speech. But if Buckley says that freedom of speech can be limited with respect to those contributing in politics, then why not for those spending? They do not want to answer that question. Chief Justice Burger, in the better of the opinions in that case, said they are two sides of the same coin, contributions and expenditures. To quote exactly, he said, ``The Court's attempt to distinguish the communication inherent in political contributions from the speech aspects of political expenditures simply will not wash.'' But, no, we come here with the Senator from Alabama, ``Congress should not amend the Constitution.'' I agree with him. It cannot. But instead, we let five Justices of the Supreme Court--over the opposition of four individuals--amend the Constitution whereby they limit freedom of speech as to contributions. I put it word for word in this particular joint resolution. I wanted to show how we had come and aimed right down the barrel of the U.S. Supreme Court on the so-called freedom of speech. ``Congress shall have power to set reasonable limits on the amount of contributions that may be accepted by * * *.'' That is word for word the Buckley versus Valeo decision. You can limit the amount of contributions. That is what Congress did in the 1974 act. It is a frustrating thing that is going on today because we try and try over a 30-year period. We arrest people, get into a 9-month debate, and have cloture resolutions. But now they ignore the need for action. They go in the back room and say, we are going to vote as a party so do not worry about it. We let it go on over the weekend, discuss it maybe on Friday or Monday, and vote on Tuesday, because no one is going to listen. All that is required is for someone to come out from time to time, mention freedom of speech, and talk about how remarkable, how untoward, how drastic this amendment is. Then they have the Senator from Kentucky get up and say, ``Don't you think the Congress could do all these horrible things?'' Well, it has already occurred. Congress passed the 1974 act, and the Supreme Court has held it binding. Our mistake was in figuring that conscience and common sense would say, as Chief Justice Burger said: two sides of the same coin. We say, ``Congress shall have power to set reasonable limits on the amount of contributions that may be accepted * * *.'' We have done it, and we are doing it. Then we add ``* * * and the amount of expenditures''--which is what we try to get--``that may be made in these campaigns.'' That is all it is. And it is said, let the people vote on it. I wish I could get enough publicity to get the people focused on what is involved here and break down the stonewall thrown up by most on the other side of the aisle against limiting expenditures. We tried in a bipartisan way in 1974 to limit expenditures, and we said so much per our votes at that particular time. After Watergate, Congress did not say, ``Heavens above, let's limit the campaigns to $50,000,'' or any such thing. We had limits in a small State like South Carolina where we could spend $510,000, and inflate that over the 20-year period. That is not $50,000. But no, they come up and say what Congress could do and how the U.S. Supreme Court, under the mandate of being reasonable, would agree with them. You know and I know that is a straw man. It should not even be considered seriously. But they come here with a very analytical argument about, ``The media sets the agenda, the fourth branch,'' and try add to their parade of horribles as to what the media could do. Well, look at this particular joint resolution. It has nothing to do with the freedom of the press, absolutely nothing to do with the freedom of the press. And on the other hand, you have that freedom of the press right now. I related in the debate yesterday that I was running along with a nice little lead going into the election in 1992, and along comes the Wall Street Journal and Paul Gigot. We had not heard of him before and we have not heard of him since. But it was coordinated with the London Economist and Robert Novak and others. Articles started being written about the right to work. They know South Carolina is a right-to-work State. And they said, by cracky, I was opposed to it, but in fact I voted for it as a member of the State legislature and have stuck with it throughout my political career. Organized labor knows that. My opponents try to make the claim that I could say that the editorial was a contribution against me or a contribution for my opponent and therefore set it aside. Nonsense. They know that. If you get a violent, caustic, scavenging editorial against you as a politician, wake up, because you are in the game. As Harry says, you have to take the heat or get out of the kitchen. If you are in the kitchen of politics, that is going to happen. There is no such thing as stopping it under our Constitution. Certainly not this amendment, which is to limit campaign expenditures, not the free press. But they try to distort and stretch with this strawman exercise and charade that we have been going through here all day today. Here and now, and I have experienced it, that kind of activity has already occurred. What we say here, and it is as simple as was testified before the Judiciary Committee in 1988, is 43 very simple, very clear-cut, words to limit expenditures in Federal, State, and local elections. That is all it is. Shall we do it? Shall we have the authority? It does not address those questions. It does not say how you do it or that you must do it. The Senator from Kentucky, Senator McConnell, has been forthright. He says we have not spent enough money on politics. He talks about how we spend way more money on cat food and dog food and Kibbles 'n Bits and yogurt. You would think that there would be some kind of dignity in the silly things they put out as real arguments against this particular mission. But the Senator from Kentucky has come forward and said we are not spending enough. Well, that is forthright. Maybe he can persuade others, as he has persuaded the stonewalling opposition here today, and he might get it increased. Then we can all get out and let the idle rich come in here and make the laws for the people of America, because we will not have any regular folks that are willing to listen to the people, who demand we get this money out of politics, that we limit this thing, that we get this corruption out of politics. Everybody admits to it and everybody says, ``I am for reform, reform, reform, campaign finance reform.'' But you cannot get reform unless you have the authority. This has been proven over the last 30 years by all of these failed attempts. So if you want new authority, which does not say whether or not to do it, does not try to limit newspapers, does not say what it is expenditures, vote for this amendment. As a politician, you are not going to get anything free from the free press. Go to them and ask them for a quarter- or half-page ad and they will laugh at you. They just do not give free coverage. I have not ever heard of a newspaper doing it yet. The same with the radio and the TV advertisements. Go tell them how much you want to buy, and we are couched in a very sinister way into these 30-second ads. You cannot discuss intelligently the issues before the American people. That is the real burden on an incumbent. They say, ``Well, Hollings, you voted in 1974 one way and now in 1994 you are voting another way.'' Well, you come forward and try to explain that, but you cannot explain that in a 20-second bite on TV. And try to buy 5 minutes. They will say, ``No, we are not selling that, and there is nothing you can do about it. Nothing you can do about it. We control the prime time that you need to do it. We control that freedom of your speech.'' It is already controlled here in the U.S. Senate with the filibuster rules, and over on the House side with the 1-minute, 2-minute, 5-minute rules, and in the committee with 5 minutes per Senator to examine the witnesses. We all agree and understand and know the reason for the limits, but then they bring on the dog and pony show, saying ``remarkable, fundamental, never heard of it before.'' Who believes that? Mr. President, for 21 years Buckley versus Valeo has been on the books and we have abided by it, as the distinguished Senator from Arizona says. We have the PAC limits and individual contribution limits. But there is no limit on the individual candidate. That is what we were after back in 1974. I was there. I voted. We said, ``Mr. Rich Man, you cannot buy this office.'' Now with this half a haircut solution, what we have is the ones who contribute are totally limited, but the ones with the wealth are totally unlimited. In reality, then, you have taken away the speech of the poor. You have indirectly limited the speech of the poor in spending. The Supreme Court, five individuals against four, have amended that Constitution. You know it and I know it, but yet you come up here and talk about what is remarkable and fundamental and ``the first time in 200 years'' and on and on and on. Congress was given the authority to prohibit false and deceptive advertising and it has been upheld by the Court. Congress has amended the right of free speech with respect to obscenity. It has been exercised, and in the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court upheld. In a sense, we now have the rights of free speech in the hands of Congress. They said that is fundamental, and do not ever do that. Like this is something new, putting the right of free speech in the hands of Congress. But Congress has done it, and it has been upheld in Buckley versus Valeo. To use their expression, the Court ``took a big hunk'' out of the first amendment, and found that among those who want to exercise their free speech by contributing, free speech is limited. So we should get the real facts out about what we have here. We have a bottom line. Do not come here congratulating on a misdescription by the Senator from Texas as to whether or not you are for free speech. We say expenditure. We do not say anything about ``free'' in this amendment. It has nothing to do with free. It has to do with paid speech, paid expression. I was really moved by the Senator from Texas, who tried to change the debate. That is what you have constantly with the stonewall against limiting spending on the other side of the aisle. That is what we have. They do not want to limit spending. They will say, ``Well, you have the advantages of people. You have the AFL-CIO, the organization labor fellows, but we have the banks and we have the money and you expect us to give up our money.'' Well, well, well, I think that both sides have the cancer of money. They ought to be able to recognize the reality that faces us after the 30-year trying. They ought to give the people of America the right to vote and amend the Constitution. When my Southern State and a lot of other Southern States had the poll test, we amended the Constitution. I told the story about the poor minority that presented himself to the polls in the early years and we had the literacy test. They said to the poor minority, ``Boy, read that paper.'' They gave him a Chinese newspaper. What goes around comes around; we are back to China. And the poor individual just looked at it and he said, ``Yes, sir, I can read it.'' He said, ``You can? What does it say?'' ``It says, 'Ain't no poor minority fellow going to vote in South Carolina today.' '' Yes, he could get the message. There were all kinds of devices to prevent some from voting. However, we have amended the Constitution to fix that. If Madison, Patrick Henry, and Jefferson and all that crowd that the other side has been celebrating were so good, with their slaves, why did we have to pass the 14th amendment? We didn't agree with what they found, so we had the discrimination cases and the civil rights movement. In my lifetime, we have had the poll test. We changed the Constitution to fix that. We changed the Constitution when we made a mistake in Prohibition. We changed the Constitution when we made a mistake with respect to the Federal income tax law. Now, professors, all the studied minds, jurists, attorneys general, and the like have, said the Supreme Court made a mistake in Buckley versus Valeo, and the only way to correct it is with a forthright, restricted, limited kind of constitutional amendment. An amendment that says expenditures are limited in Federal, State, and local elections. It is not free speech, it is paid speech. We are just as assiduous as any other Senator in the protection of the freedom of speech. We know its value, but we know it must have exceptions. I put in the Record, Mr. President, a statement by Prof. Lawrence Tribe of the freedom of speech and some of its exceptions that have developed over the years. So don't come here on the floor of the Senate with the act about fundamental, how remarkable this is. Egads, the U.S. Senate has voted for a constitutional amendment to grant Congress the authority to limit campaign spending three times. We just voted 4 years ago for a Sense of the Senate Resolution. Is there any sense of history and experience around here that we can finally come to grips with the fundamental--yes, it is a fundamental--money is a cancer on the body politic. If money corrupts in political campaigns, then unlimited money corrupts absolutely in political campaigns. We know that, in warfare, he who controls the air controls the battle. We know and understand and appreciate that, in campaigns, he who controls the airwaves controls the campaign. What you have here is the rich, as we saw 2 years ago in California, spending $30 million to be a Senator, and we think that is legitimate. It is a disgrace. It is buying the office, and everybody knows it. The rich who walk in and say, ``I am making so much money, but I need another tax cut, a flat tax,'' and they sell it by controlling the airwaves with their millions of dollars in a Presidential race--they ought to hang our heads in shame. That kind of activity is going on and is even covered by the free press. They ought to understand that freedoms really are in jeopardy when we allow the rich to come along and buy the office. My amendment says reasonable limits on expenditures, not on speech. Mr. President, if others want to be heard, I will be glad to yield the floor, but I have plenty here with respect to the authorities and the witnesses that appeared before the Judiciary Committee. We have had hearings. The former Senator from Illinois, Paul Simon, was on the other side. He withheld in that committee for a long time. I had to struggle to get a majority vote. But we had the witnesses. They were heard, and a majority of the Judiciary Committee voted the amendment out and to the floor. Please, my gracious, they reported it out. Once out, we didn't get it passed, but we got a sense of the Senate that it should be passed. Senators want to get that political credit. It's a pollster politician that says, ``I am for reform and that is what we ought to do.'' ``Yes, sir, I believe we ought to limit this financial cancer.'' ``Yes, I voted reform when it was only a Sense of the Senate.'' And then when they get to real reform, they put on this big show here trying to quote Mr. Gephardt and saying, ``You can't have a strong democracy and freedom of speech.'' They know and I know, this democracy is strong because of free speech--none of us believe otherwise. I think it is a distortion. I think it is a distortion perhaps of what the gentleman said, but be that as it may, no one ascribes to that in this particular body. Everybody knows how we got here. Incidentally, we all got here not through free speech--unless somebody was appointed, and I can't think of any appointments now that we have had the election--but every one of the 100 have had to pay through the nose to be heard on the TV, to be covered in the newspapers, to be heard on the radio, and seen on the television, billboards, and yard signs. So we know all about the paid speech. That is what we are trying to do, put an ultimate limit on it because, once done, then we can get a handle on some of the real abuses. Then we control all of the monkeyshines that go on. Once you get it limited and fully disclosed, like in the 1974 act where every dollar that I receive in a campaign is recorded in the secretary of the senate's office in my State capital and with the Secretary of the Senate, then you get it under control. With that limit and disclosure, you can see from whence they come, and who has, if at all, tried to buy or has been subject to undue influence. After all, it is the people who are the ultimate jury. They decide on election day. You can refer to that public record and say, see, he is bought and paid for by such and such an industry or such and such an interest, whatever it is that comes out in the campaign. That is what the disclosure requires. You can't receive huge sums and have it obscured. We ran it the right way back in 1974. But the justices who amended the Constitution in that Buckley decision, they created the system we have been tortured with now for the past 20 years. And every time we make the good college try to fix it, they come out here, and I am surprised, frankly, at this particular charade because they got a lot of good conscientious Members that have come to the Senate, and they say we will not fix it. Some of those Members have run on the proposition of trying to limit spending. Here is the one opportunity to ask the American people if that is what they want to do. Hollings is not amending the Constitution. The Senate is not amending the Constitution. The Congress is not amending the Constitution. We simply, in a little closely worded amendment, said the people will have a chance to vote on it in the several States. The last amendment to the Constitution took 200 years to pass. That is the 27th amendment. ``No law varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.'' Congress submitted the text of the 27th amendment to the States as a part of the proposed Bill of Rights on September 25, 1789. The amendment was not ratified with the first 10 amendments, which became effective on December 15, 1791. The 27th amendment was ratified on May 7, 1992, by the vote of the State of Michigan. Just like the 27th amendment, you can put this Hollings-Specter amendment up and let the people decide. You don't have to talk about this amendment being so remarkable. It is not remarkable to let the people decide. Only the people will change our fundamental rights. Don't believe those who say it is going to guarantee incumbency or any other of those parade of horrors that they bring up. Just remember, we are just giving the people, the good, commonsense American people, the chance to vote. When the people looked at the 27th amendment, it wasn't until 203 years later, in 1992, that they finally got the State of Michigan to ratify it and the people decided. So there you are. It is just a chance to give the people chance to clear up this Buckley versus Valeo decision. The distinguished Chief Justice said, ``The Court's result does violence to the intent of Congress.'' There isn't any doubt about it. I was there. Chief Justice Burger, The Court's result does violence to the intent of Congress in this comprehensive scheme of campaign finance. By dissecting the act bit by bit and casting off vital parts, the Court fails to recognize the whole of this act is greater than the sum of its parts. Congress intended to regulate all aspects of Federal campaign finances. I read again Chief Justice Burger: Congress intended to regulate all aspects of Federal campaign finances. But what remains after today's holding leaves no more than a shadow of what Congress contemplated. This decision, a 5-to-4 decision, and they are talking about what Congress might do. Look at what those five individuals have done. Look what Justice White said in dissent, The judgment of Congress was that reasonably effective campaigns could be conducted within the limits established by the act and that the communicative efforts of these campaigns would not seriously suffer. In this posture of the case, there is no sound basis for invalidating the expenditure limitations so long as the purposes they serve are legitimate and sufficiently substantial, which in my view they are. So there is Justice White finding them ``substantial'' back 20 years ago, long before any kind of Keating Five, long before the Lincoln Bedroom, long before the soft money scourge with the Colorado decision. Long before all these things, there was ``substantial'' then, and they are more than ``substantial'' today. ``Expenditure ceilings reinforce the contribution limits and help eradicate the hazard of corruption.'' Justice Byron ``Whizzer'' White couldn't be more correct. He couldn't be more on target. We know it. The American people outside this Chamber know it. They have asked for a chance to correct it. Let me read further from Justice White. I have little doubt, in addition, that limiting the total that can be spent will ease the candidate's understandable obsession with fundraising and so free him and his staff to communicate in more places and ways unconnected with the fundraising function. There is nothing objectionable, indeed, it seems to me, of weighing the interest in favor of the provision in the attempt to insulate the political expression of Federal candidates from the influence inevitably exerted by the endless job of raising increasingly large sums of money. I regret that the Court has returned them all to the treadmill. Mr. President, when you talk of that treadmill, you can't ignore the description that was used by the distinguished writer some 15 years ago, Elizabeth Drew, in the New Yorker when she described, if you please, the same situation with respect to that treadmill in her article ``Politics and Money.'' And I read: Until the problem of money is dealt with, it is unrealistic to expect the political process to improve in any other respect. It is not relevant whether every candidate who spends more than his proponent who wins--though in races that are otherwise close, this tends to be the case. What matters is what the chasing of money does to the candidate and to the victor's subsequent behavior. The candidates' desperation for money and the interests' desire to affect public policy provide a mutual opportunity. The issue is not how much is spent on elections but the way the money is obtained. The point is what raising money, not simply spending it, does to the political process. It is not just that the legislative product is bent or stymied. It is not just that well-armed interests have a head start over the rest of the citizenry-- or that often it is not even a contest . . . It is not even relevant which interest happens to be winning. What is relevant is what the whole thing is doing to the democratic process. What is at stake is the idea of representative Government, the soul of this country. That was written in 1982, some 15 years ago. We were worried then about Buckley versus Valeo. That was 6 years after everybody had looked at it and seen the treadmill, exactly as Justice White called it, and the damage to the soul of the country as a result of this treadmill. It was an injury to our democracy, according to Elizabeth Drew. There is no question that this has to be dealt with. They might run, as Joe Louis said, but they can't hide. I am not going to let them hide behind this freedom of speech babble. I have it in here word for word. Mr. and Mrs. American people, you are given the authority to vote. You are not controlling it unless you vote yea, allowing Congress to have the power to set reasonable limits on the amount of contributions. That is already in place under the Buckley versus Valeo constitutional decision. We have that limit on the freedom of speech which is so remarkable and so fundamental that they inaccurately continue to caterwaul about. Now, we are attempting to limit the amount of expenditures, not freedom of speech. It is limits on the amount of contributions, limits on the amount of expenditures, nothing free. It is contributions and it is expenditures, and it is limits thereof, and it is whether or not the American people shall have the right to vote on it after this 30-year trial. Otherwise, as Justice Thurgood Marshall in another one of the distinguished dissenting opinions stated, and I quote: It would appear to follow that the candidate with the substantial personal fortune at his disposal is off to a significant head start. Of course, the wealthy candidate can potentially overcome the disparity in resources through contributions from others, but ability to generate contributions may itself depend upon a showing of a financial base for the campaign or some demonstration of preexisting support, which in turn is facilitated by expenditures of substantial personal sums. Thus, the wealthy candidate's immediate access to a substantial personal fortune may give him an initial advantage that his less wealthy opponent can never overcome. And even if the advantage can be overcome, the perception that personal wealth wins elections may not only discourage potential candidates without significant wealth from entering into the political arena but also undermine public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process. There it is, that last phrase--``not only discourage potential candidates without significant personal wealth, but also undermine public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process.'' That is exactly what is occurring That is the trouble. As Marshall said: Large contributions are the less wealthy candidate's only hope of countering the wealthy candidate's immediate access to substantial sums of money. With that option removed, the less wealthy candidate is without the means to match the large initial expenditures of money of which the wealthy candidate is capable. In short, the limitation on contributions puts a premium on a candidate's personal wealth. Think about that. This is, as expressed, ``a big hunk of the first amendment,'' as expressed by my distinguished colleague from Kentucky. We are capable of limitation on contributions. And that is sustained here by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Buckley case. That puts a premium on a candidate's personal wealth because the only way that a less wealthy candidate can catch up is with large expenditures. But the Court, has ``limited the freedom of speech for the first time in 200 years.'' I will use their expression and see if anybody believes it. This happened in 1976. It happened after many other times the Court has upheld limits, but let us use their expression if that is what everybody wants to believe. The Supreme Court, in Buckley versus Valeo, for the first time in 200 years, limited a contributor, his expression, and his freedom of speech in politics and therefore has put a premium on the candidate's personal wealth. He is penalized. The speech of the less affluent candidate is taken away because the less affluent candidate can only make it up, if he has no personal wealth, by larger contributions. But the Court, in limiting contributions, limited free speech for the first time in 200 years. Maybe that is the way they will understand it. I do not know how to get their attention and get them out from this stonewalling on limiting spending in political campaigns. Everywhere we go, they all say, what about campaign finance reform, Senator? I say, ``Oh, yeah, I am for reform.'' And then one chance we get here this week to vote for it, we decide to put it off until next week. We hope it does not appear on the Sunday programs or anything of that kind so the people will never know we had that chance. And once we have done that, then they will tell Senator Feingold and Senator McCain, ``Well, you had your vote; you can see Congress does not want to limit it. We cannot spend a whole year on reform. You have had your chance, and the majority voted against that chance. You did not pass the joint resolution of Hollings-Specter so let's go on to something else.'' Thereby, the entire thing is supposed to be swept under the rug. Well, it was almost swept under the rug on Monday. On Monday, they had it greased. They had a majority vote out of that Rules Committee, Mr. President, to just look at the illegal and not look at the improper, and they thought they had a majority vote along party lines. But Senator Thompson of Tennessee won out. He said we had a fit of conscience of at least eight or nine on that side. They were going to have egg on their faces. They were going to lose to a Democratic amendment. ``My gracious, we cannot ever let that happen. We are so bipartisan around here,'' they said. My Aunt Ida. Instead they said, ``we just cannot have a Democratic amendment prevail in this particular score. So, we will just all join in, then, and vote the 99 votes and adopt it.'' They had a fit of conscience. Maybe we will get a fit of conscience. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow or next week, but we will keep coming back. We have had it three other times. We will get this the fourth time. We keep picking up steam. My difficulty over the years has been in trying to put up an amendment again and again, because they tell me at the desk, that according to parliamentary rules, you cannot amend a simple bill--three readings in the House, three in the Senate, signed by the President-- because this is a joint resolution. It is not to be signed by the President, but to go directly to the people for their ratification in the several States. So, if I bring it up on any and every bill--which I am prepared to do, because I know the people are demanding it, and we will finally make a breakthrough--I have to wait for a joint resolution. That is why I finally got it up on the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, for the simple reason that last year Senator Dole would not let me up. He just would not bring up a joint resolution on anything. When he got his unanimous consent to bring up the balanced budget amendment, I told them that I had an amendment to offer. They said later on, ``Oh, that is not relevant and our agreement meant relevant amendments on the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.'' So I struggled all last year, 1996, and could not even get it up. I am going to look for any joint resolution that quietly comes by, and I will draft my resolution so that it is separate and apart from the other resolution, so that it would not interrupt it, and we, maybe we can get an up or down vote at that particular time again. But I can tell what the strategy is here, now. It is to get an arguable reason to stonewall McCain-Feingold. We can say, ``Well, we have had enough debate. We debated it 3 or 4 days, and everything else. Everybody has considered it. They are not going to limit campaign expenditures, so why do McCain-Feingold? If you do this, you are going to limit it. If you do that, we are going to limit it. We have already voted on limits in the Hollings amendment and that is it. Forget about it and let us all go home and say we all tried. We were all for reform.'' Oh, yes, we are all for limiting it any time it is in a sense of the Senate. It is kind of hard to hide behind that. Maybe that is what I will continue to do, on every bill, get a sense-of-the-Senate resolution. I think you have to get 25--we can get 25 Senators to cosponsor that right easily, and keep bringing it up until they get that fit of conscience. They do not have it now. They are not interested in the soul of democracy. They are not proud to be in public service. What they are proud to do is outmaneuver; what they are proud to do is avoid and evade; what they are proud to do is finesse, in a clever, parliamentary way. What they are proud of is parliamentary maneuver. So, then they all vote up or down on this. They smile at each other. And they will give that praise to the Senator from South Carolina. They will say, ``We know he is sincere, but he is so misdirected, the poor fellow. He has tried hard. We respect him for trying so hard, but, bug off, son. You are not going to pass anything here that has to do with limiting expenditures in Federal elections.'' That is what we have considered, time and time and time again. And it is not freedom of speech--it is the protection of speech. But if they want to say it is the freedom of speech, then we have drafted it after Buckley versus Valeo, which said that part of the speech is already limited. Let us give a neat little other side. There are two sides to the Buckley coin, as Justice Burger said. Let us take care of the expenditures themselves and not dance around the mulberry bush with Patrick Henry and James Madison and anybody else from the time that they believed in slavery. That is the forefathers. I think we have come a long way. They did not have to go down the road in the wagon and solicit $14,000 every week. They did have freedom of speech and free elections. They did a pretty good job, though. We got a good Constitution, generally. But we have had to amend it because they did believe in slavery and we have outgrown that particular cancer. We are trying this afternoon to outgrow this particular cancer. We can get elections back to the issues and the confidence of the people back in their Congress and their democracy. And we can get participation. But why did less than 50 percent come out to vote? The votes say, ``What is the reason? The money controls the whole blooming thing.'' Look at what is in the headlines, that is all we have had--January, February, down into March. There is another shoe that falls every day. They begin to think this political contribution character is a centipede. I have never seen so many shoes falling. We go from Indonesia to China to all these different countries to everything else of that kind. It would be helpful to me if they all would say: ``Look, we tried to compete. We stretched every law. We intentionally stretched every law. We asked Philadelphia lawyers, `Can you do it?' And when the Philadelphia lawyers said, `You can do it,' then we said, `We have to do it, because that Republican crowd is going to outraise us anyway you look at it.' '' And they did. They raised over $150 million more than the Democrats were able to raise. So, why don't they admit to what exactly occurred and then let us pass this amendment and give the people an opportunity to vote on what they have been asking for 30 years now. I went down the litany of failed reforms, Senator, from 1966 right on. But when we get the distinguished former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and now ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, to come to the floor, the Senator from South Carolina knows when to hush. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes, siree.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I will yield in a second to the distinguished Senator from Washington. I want to thank the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island. He was tortured with the same problem as a Member of the House. As a good old West Point graduate and with the discipline and the analytical approach that he has learned over the many years in public service, we really appreciate his contribution here today.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, this explains the subjects outside our first amendment protections. It mentions the Sullivan case, New York Times, and others. One. We are not talking here about free speech. We are talking about paid speech. My amendment reads ``expenditures.'' It has nothing to do with the free press. The very horrors that are mentioned could happen today, and in fact, happened to this particular Senator in his race for reelection back in 1992 with the Wall Street Journal. I will get into that in depth, but I am delighted at this time, Mr. President, to yield, and I hope the Senator from Rhode Island can be recognized. Mr. REED addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. These liberal eastern papers, the Washington Post and the New York Times make the argument of free speech. I hope you midwesterners do not get bitten by that. I want to see you stay in the U.S. Senate. I want to see you all continue to serve. The best way is not to get wrapped around and go back to the Midwest and say that the ACLU is a wonderful authority. I know how to lose an election. I have lost before. I don't know any quicker way to lose one than to run around in my backyard or your backyard, Mr. President, quoting the ACLU. You folks have to be embarrassed with this kind of argument about first amendment and the ACLU. And even more embarrassing is the anecdotal nonsense they put up relative to what could happen. The Senator from Utah even said Congress might decide not to let anyone oppose them. He got into a wonderful discourse with the Senator from Kentucky. He said if this amendment passed, Congress could put such low limits that the opponent's name would never become known and that Congress might decide not to let anyone oppose them. Of course, in the next breath they say it is vague, because the language says ``reasonable,'' ``reasonable limits.'' The courts said they are going to decide what is reasonable. But they put up all kinds of examples about how newspapers might write an editorial against someone. And they said that could be a contribution for or a contribution against. Right now the newspapers do write editorials for and do write editorials against. We have the free press. No one has the gall to contend that is a contribution in the context of being a violation. No one is going to contend that now, and they are not going to contend it later on. But these are all straw men, because they do not have the argument. But they have the frontal assault of Patrick Henry and the first amendment. And trying to say, as the Senator from Texas said, the simple question is ``Do you believe in free speech or not?'' He says if he can answer this question, then he is home free. All 100 of us believe in that. That is not what we are voting on. The question is, Do you believe in limiting spending or not? They know it. And they do not want to hear of it. So they bring out the volume and repetition of numerous Senators talking about 200 years and the first amendment and Patrick Henry. If you pass this, you can go back to what we voted for in 1974 and have complete disclosure, rules against bundling, rules against soft money, rules against individual wealth buying elections. It would free up the speech of the poor. Buckley really freed up the speech of the rich, but it has taken away freedom of speech from the poor. That is the actual effect of the decision, and we are suffering from it. We have lost the confidence of the people in the political institutions up here because we do not want to deal with it. We tried and tried and tried over a 30-year period without success and now we are using the octopus approach. We want to sneak off in the dark ink of a charade about Patrick Henry, the first amendment, and what may happen. Mr. President, let us go back to better times. Let us go back to better times. What happened was, in better times, we had the orderly process of several hearings before the Judiciary Committee. We had several witnesses. And I come to the distinguished Mr. Lloyd Cutler, who served as Counsel for the President. But he says now on the House side: An amendment would take too long to adopt, 4 to 10 years. He did not testify on behalf of the Commission for the Constitutional System heretofore, but he says now that it would take too long. We know that is totally wrong. The last five amendments preceding the most recent one, which took 200 years, took an average of 20 months to ratify. The gentleman, I think, is suffering from battle fatigue because he said: This could be a camel's-nose-under-the-tent aspect. He did not see a camel's-nose-under-the-tent aspect when he was representing the Commission for the Constitutional System. He says that the Hollings resolution in the Senate authorizes ``reasonable regulation of expenditures. Only the Supreme Court can draw the line between reasonable and unreasonable.'' The courts are always directing the jurors in determining if they have gotten a reasonable decision, the ``reasonable, sane and prudent man,'' in law talk, is the test. We did not have ``reasonable'' when we first drafted it, but we put it in there so the amendment will not look categorical and result in a legal contest. The Supreme Court is certainly going to decide if it is unreasonable, as they have decided that the matter of contributions is constitutional, if limited to that speech, but unconstitutional if you limit the speech of those who spend it. Let me read parts of the hearing here that we had before the Judiciary Committee some 10 years ago. We had already been on this a dog-chasing-its-tail solution for 10 years. My name is Lloyd N. Cutler. Along with Senator Nancy Kassebaum of Kansas and Mr. Douglas Dillon, I am a Co- Chairman of the Committee on the Constitutional System, a group of several hundred present and former legislators, executive branch officials, political party officials, professors and civic leaders who are interested in analyzing and correcting some of the weaknesses that have developed in our political system. One of the most glaring weaknesses, of course, is the rapidly escalating cost of political campaigns, and the growing dependence of incumbents and candidates on money from interest groups who expect the recipient to vote in favor of their particular interests. Incumbents and candidates must devote large portions of their time to begging for money; they are often tempted to vote the conflicting interests of their contributors and to create a hodgepodge of conflicting and indefensible policies; and in turn public frustration with these policies creates cynicism and contempt for the entire political process. A serious attempt to deal with the campaign financing problem was made in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974 and the 1976 amendments, which set maximum limits on the amounts of individual contributions and on the aggregate expenditures of candidates and so-called independent committees supporting such candidates. The constitutionality of these provisions was challenged in the famous case of Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, in which I had the honor of sharing the argument in support of the statute with Professor Archibald Cox. While the Supreme Court sustained the constitutionality of the limits on contributions, it struck down the provision limiting expenditures for candidates and independent committees supporting such candidates. It found an inseparable connection between an expenditure limit and the extent of a candidate's or committee's political speech, which did not exist in the case of a limit on the size of each contribution by a non-speaker unaccompanied by any limit on the aggregate amount a candidate could raise. It also found little if any proven connection between corruption and the size of a candidate's aggregate expenditures, as distinguished from the size of individual contributions to a candidate. The Court did, however, approve the Presidential Campaign Financing Fund created by the 1976 amendments, including the condition it imposed barring any presidential nominee who accepted the public funds from spending more than a specified limit. However, it remains unconstitutional for Congress to place any limits on expenditures by independent committees on behalf of a candidate. In recent presidential elections these independent expenditures on behalf of one candidate exceeded the amount of federal funding he accepted. Moreover, so long as the Congress remains deadlocked on proposed legislation for the public financing of Congressional campaigns, it is not possible to use the public financing device as a means of limiting Congressional campaign expenditures. Mind you, Mr. President, as I cover this particular testimony, it is 10 years ago. They are talking about the dilemma, the problem, and how it was exacerbating at that particular time. You can tell the frustration from the wording of this testimony. I go to the quote of Mr. Cutler: Accordingly, the Committee on the Constitutional System has come to the conclusion that the only effective way to limit the explosive growth of campaign financing is to adopt a constitutional amendment. Now, my colleague from Kentucky says you do not have any authority and there is no constituency. The fact of the matter is that this particular committee is a group of several hundred present and former legislators, executive branch officials, political party officials, professors, and civic leaders who are interested in analyzing and correcting some of the weaknesses that have developed in our political system. Not the ACLU. I do not rely on the ACLU for my case. I want to win this thing. I do not want to be spreading the dark ink of the ACLU in the Washington Post. Go down to the Washington Post and ask them for free speech. Say, ``I want a little free speech. Not a whole page, a half, maybe a quarter of a page.'' They will not give you a little tidbit of a column free. Going back to the testimony before the Judiciary Committee: The amendment would be a very simple one consisting of only 46 words. It would state merely that ``Congress shall have power to set reasonable limits on campaign expenditures by or in support of any candidate in the primary or general election for federal office. The States shall have the same power with respect to campaign expenditures in elections for state and local offices.'' This was 10 years ago, Mr. President, and those who have been working on this particular problem copied the language, adopted the suggestion. It was a reasonable thing because here are the best of minds, without a particular Republican bent or Democratic bent or interest, who said here is the way to do it not only constitutionally but in a constitutionally sound manner so that the court could properly interpret it. Let me go back to the testimony of Mr. Cutler: Our proposed amendment would enable Congress to set limits not only on direct expenditures by candidates and their own committees, but also on expenditures by so-called independent committees in support of such a candidate. The details of the actual limits would be contained in future legislation and could be changed from time to time as Congress in its judgment sees fit. It may of course be argued that the proposed amendment, by authorizing reasonable limits on expenditures, would necessarily set limits on the quantity of speech on behalf of a candidate and that any limits, no matter how ample, is undesirable. But in our view the evidence is overwhelming by now that unlimited campaign expenditures will eventually grow to the point where they consume so much of our political energies and so fracture our political consensus that they will make the political process incapable of governing effectively. Mr. President, I divert here to emphasize just exactly that concern that our political consensus will be so fractured that it will make ``the political process incapable of governing effectively.'' Put that on as a test to this particular Congress. If you think we have governed effectively, I have grave misgivings with that opinion. I think that is exactly where we are, and exactly was the concern 10 years ago. And I continue to quote the testimony of Mr. Cutler: Even Congress has found that unlimited speech can destroy the power to govern; that is why the House of Representatives has imposed time limits on Members' speeches for decades and why the Senator has adopted a rule permitting 60 Senators to end a filibuster. One might fairly paraphrase Lord Acton's famous aphorism about power by saying, ``All political money corrupts; unlimited political money corrupts absolutely.'' There is no question in this Senator's mind. Quoting further: Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would not be discouraged from taking the amendment route by any feeling that constitutional amendments take too long to get ratified. You see, Cutler has come over from the other side earlier this year and he said it would take too long. He was not worried then, some 10 years ago, because he knew exactly that. The last five amendments at that particular time were all ratified within the 20-month period. Now he has misgivings. Let me quote further: The fact is that the great majority of amendments submitted by Congress to the States during the last 50 years have been ratified within 20 months after they were submitted. All polls show that the public strongly supports limits on campaign expenditures. The principal delay will be in getting the amendment through Congress. Since that is going to be a difficult task, we ought to start immediately. Unlimited campaign expenditures and the political diseases they cause are going to increase at least as rapidly as new cases of AIDS, and it is high time to start getting serious about the problem. Mr. Chairman, on three past occasions we the people have amended the Constitution to correct weaknesses in that rightly revered document as interpreted by the Supreme Court. On at least two of these occasions--the Dred Scott decision and the decision striking down federal income taxes, history has subsequently confirmed that the amendments were essential to our development as a healthy, just and powerful society. A third such challenge is now before us. The time has come to meet it. That was in March 1988. Now, Mr. President, I see my distinguished colleagues on the Senate floor. At this time I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I have tremendous respect for my colleague from Wisconsin. I voted for McCain-Feingold. But in a breath, when the Senator says he wants meaningful campaign finance reform, he is asking that the only real meaningful campaign finance reform be tabled or rejected. Let's look, for example, at the Senator's own initiative here. In McCain-Feingold, it says that voluntary spending limits are set according to a State's population. You get free broadcast time--30 minutes of prime time--and then you get half-price broadcast discounts and reduced postal rates. How much is that going to mean to the Huffington-type campaigns that we see, where they are ready to spend $30 million, or the Steve Forbes-type campaigner, who is ready to spend $35 million? That is not even going to give them a burp in their campaign. The candidate's individual contribution limits would be raised from $1,000 to $2,000, if the opponent does not agree to the voluntary limits or declares an intent to spend $250,000 or more of their personal funds. But that is just the interest on the money the amounts of money we are talking about, were it to be loaned. But they have it available. So that really doesn't control the buying of the office. It doesn't control the buying of the office. It is not meaningful campaign finance reform. The Senator wants to ban soft money. Now, here it is. With respect to the Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee against the Federal Election Commission, the Federal Election Commission brought suit charging that the Colorado party had violated the party expenditure provision of law by buying radio advertisements attacking the Democratic Party's likely candidate. This is the evil that you have in these decisions. It went on, and the Colorado Republican Party won out. Why? On account of a key little word: coordinated. You have to prove affirmatively that the candidate himself called up and suggested it or coordinated it, as they say, even if it is proven he called up. It has to be coordinated. Now, I want you all to know the reality of my particular comment. In next year's campaign, newspapers have already run a poll where they have shown that the former Governor of South Carolina, Carol Campbell, if we had the election this afternoon, would beat me. All I have to do is tell that friend there to tell that friend over there to get the third friend to tell the Democratic Party of South Carolina to start running radio advertisements attacking the former Governor as a likely candidate. He hasn't announced, but he is a likely candidate. But they say everything is fair in love and war and in a political campaign. This is the mischief. It is not just the money, it is the mischief that this nonsense promotes. You can't get to it, Mr. President, without a constitutional amendment. You can't get to it. The distinguished Presiding Officer and I went through this yesterday afternoon. I read down the 20 to 25 campaign finance initiatives we have had over the last 30 years, trying to get a grasp and a grab and a handle on this evil, this corruption. We have tried every way in the world, from having cloture after cloture vote, to arresting the Members and bringing them to the floor. We have tried everything. The best offer now, they say, is McCain-Feingold, but I have gone down it. It has voluntarism. We know from the campaign in Massachusetts what ``voluntary'' means in politics; it means temporary. When the two gentlemen that ran last year got down to the end of the campaign, they said of the public agreement they had agreed to--both of them are affluent--they said, ``Let's forget about this limit and let's get affluent.'' Then they started spending like gangbusters. There you go, voluntary limits and everything else. We have to nail this buzzard with a limit, a constitutional authority to limit. I hasten to add that I don't prescribe the specific limit. It is still up to Senator McConnell, if he has a majority, to prevail. Unfortunately, we see the machine. We see the orchestration. When I first presented this, we got many Republican cosponsors, and we had a majority, bipartisan vote. Again, on two other occasions, we had a bipartisan vote and the support of a majority. But I can see right now the orchestrated drumbeat of first amendment. And they go back to Patrick Henry and James Madison, and every other kind of fanciful position, to try to get everybody's mind on ``let's not rip a hole in the first amendment.'' And the very authority they are using that money is speech, or speech is money, is Buckley versus Valeo, which does what? It rips a hole in the first amendment. That is their very holy grail that speaks of money. ``The first time in 200 years'' I don't know how they have the unmitigated gall to come out and say ``the first time in 200 years,'' when in the same breath they are saying, ``Buckley versus Valeo, speech is money.'' Buckley versus Valeo limited the freedom of speech. It ``ripped a hole,'' as they phrase it, ``in the first amendment.'' We can read it. I read from Buckley versus Valeo, the majority opinion: It is unnecessary to look beyond the actual primary purpose to limit the actuality and appearance of corruption, resulting from large individual financial contributions, in order to find a constitutionally sufficient justification for a $1,000 contribution limitation . . . I will read that again. . . . resulting from large individual financial contributions, in order to find a constitutionally sufficient justification for a $1,000 contribution limitation on political discourse. They limited the freedom of speech of the contributor when they equated speech with money in this famous decision. Everybody knows it. But they want to totally ignore; like this fellow from South Carolina is going to rip a hole for the first time in 200 years in the first amendment. What a charade. They are hiding. They do not want to get serious. They don't want to limit expenditures. They don't want what they overwhelmingly supported 20 years ago with the original Federal Election Campaign Practices Act that said you are not going to be able to buy the office. Now, with Buckley versus Valeo, and particularly with the Colorado decision, you have to buy the office. And they show you how to do it. Two years ahead of time you can see a potential opponent. Just let the party start savaging him on radio and TV. If the gentleman were disposed to announce, by the time he got ready to announce he would announce for the State border trying to escape. They would make him an outright rascal by that time with money. That is not free and open discourse in the political arena. That is discourse in the financial arena. The financial marketplace is where we are allowing the decision to be made. And everybody in America knows it. That is why we had the investigating committee by unanimous vote of this body day before yesterday saying we cannot countenance this conduct any longer, and we can't dance about on illegalities. We have to look at the improper as well as the illegal. So we unanimously voted it. But now we are trying to cover up on a party position. Someone asked me, ``Senator, how many votes?'' I said, ``Well, I came yesterday with hope. But after I saw the particular activity among some of the finest Members that you will ever have in this body, and come along giving me James Madison, Patrick Henry, and the Founding Fathers, they didn't have to get in the horse and wagon and go out and collect $14,000 a week in order to get the office. They didn't have to go around with their national party asking to cut up the opponent before he could even announce. They didn't ask him to spend an average of over $4 million. The Senator from Kentucky, who just withdrew, said he would have to get $5 million. So that is more than $14,000 a week--not a day, a week--each and every week between now and election time. Patrick Henry had the freedom of speech and a strong democracy trying to counter--of course, what the distinguished Senator from Texas commented on, the Gephardt remark. The truth of the matter is they had it in those days as I had it in my days of the beginning political arena. We went around on the stump. You had to get there, or you were embarrassed. ``Why weren't you there?'' You had to answer the questions. It wasn't all of that expense. It wasn't this third party activity in soft money. So don't come now on the floor joining the stonewalling on the other side of the aisle that we have an advantage--that we have a financial advantage in spite of all the shenanigans that President Clinton and Vice President Gore engage in. ``We have $150 million more. Whatever they did, we did better.'' You remember that song in the Broadway play. Whatever the Democrats did we can do better on money. And do not be toying around. Get in there and support that Constitution, and read. And they come out and religiously read it. You can't pass any laws, or do anything with the freedom of speech. And, in the next breath, they say whoopee for Valeo. Money is speech in politics. And we have to protect and limit the contributors. That in and of itself sets aside their thrust here today. I can read on. Maybe, if we have the time, we will read on because I would be prepared. Some of the colleagues said they would come. But I can see that there is very little interest. I was wondering why the majority leader allowed me to get this on an up-and-down vote. I know I had the amendment on the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. And the distinguished Senator said, ``Now, look. If you set this aside, withdraw your amendment, we will give you an up-and-down vote and sufficient time.'' I can see after yesterday afternoon, Mr. President, that I have had sufficient time because whatever we say here, they are cast now in the sort of party preference of spending, spending, spending. I hope we can expose it because that wasn't the real opinion over on the other side of the aisle. I had Senator Kassebaum from Kansas. I had Senator Roth from Delaware. We still have, I am pretty sure, the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania because he had a personal experience. When he comes to the floor you ought to listen very carefully because you can see in reality what this bifurcation finding that contributions are corruptive, or gives rather the appearance of corruption, whereas the explosive expenditures in campaigns, ``Oh, that particularly has to be allowed to reign free because we have the free public discourse in politics.'' You can see the ``free.'' None of this is free when it says here--``bought'' radio advertisements. You can bet your boots the word ``bought'' b-o-u-g-h-t--``bought'' radio advertising; the word ``free.'' Basically every one knows we are not talking about free speech. We have to go along with the Supreme Court in our discourse for the present time. But if we can come now with this proposed constitutional amendment which is stated is needed by a majority of the Senate now three times, by the law professors, by the State attorneys general. And the gentleman here says he has--that was interesting. He has the Washington Post and the New York Times. Let's see now. I heard just a minute ago from the Senator from Wisconsin. So let's see what the Wisconsin State Journal has to say. Our former colleague stood there as sort of the one man on S. 2--that supersonic plane that we can all spend billions on, and now the market has barely supported it financially. The Europeans with subsidies have to support it. But the entire Pentagon with all of their minions over here and big budget and everything else, one little Senator, Senator Proxmire of Wisconsin, stood there time and time again with a staff. And he finally conquered not just the Pentagon but the consciences of all of Senators, and we voted along with him. Now let's see, on Monday, March 10, the Wisconsin State Journal, and I quote: Part of the American dream is that any child can grow up to be President. Our Government is of, by and for the people, and ordinary citizens should have the opportunity to attain office by virtue of their ideas, their talent and their integrity. Unfortunately, the ideal of self-government has succumbed to rampant special interest money in elections that only an amendment to the U.S. Constitution can restore. Our elections are now auctions, with the average price for a seat in Congress costing more than $500,000. In the Senate, the average cost of a seat exceeds $4 million. As former Senator Proxmire said: Few Americans have the desire or ability to raise that sort of money. It is not only the time devoted to fundraising that we take away from the people's business, but also the fact that really good candidates are deterred from running for public office because they see the financial obstacles raised against them. For example, as was the case recently in Colorado, the party trying to defend an incumbent can come in and start savaging the likely opponent without any announcement and without any controls over their spending because there is no way to prove coordination. As a result of this flood of money, the regular, average, sane and prudent man or woman is deterred from running for office and democracy itself is corrupted. It is just not family concerns that causes candidates to bow out. It is the fact that if candidates get serious, they will get savaged. Often I run into friends of fairly good affluence who say, look, I can't expose my family to all this complete disclosure. People do not want to expose themselves to such public notoriety. If you want a free genealogical study of your family, Mr. President, all you have to do is announce for public office. Opposition researchers will dig up the place you were born, find out what kind of house you had, where you bought a washing machine on credit, automobiles, how much you contribute to the church, what is in your doctor's records and everything else you can think of. Most of it has little to do with one's qualifications for public office, but that is the nature of the beast--not the issues, not the ideas, not the candidate's integrity, but insinuations that can be distorted and used against an individual in the court of public opinion. But the real corruption is in the amount of money necessary in this day and age to run a modern political campaign. Let me go back to the quote of our former colleague, former Senator Proxmire from Wisconsin. The latest headlines focus on Democratic donors buying coffee at the White House and on the Republicans $250,000-a- person ``season tickets'' designed to give the largest donors more access to the elected officials. But the problem is not that interested people have given money and in return received access--politicians will always grant audiences to their donors. The problem is that few Americans can play in this big money game. Majority rule takes on a whole new meaning when the majority of campaign cash comes from just one quarter of 1 percent of Americans. Well-heeled interests have largely usurped power from the people. Big money determines who runs for public office and who wins elections. Last November, the House candidates who spent the most won their races 96 percent of the time. In Wisconsin, this held true in all but two races. We know the solution is to limit what anyone can spend on elections, whether they are running for office themselves or giving money to a candidate, party or independent advocacy campaign. But here we run into the problem of the foxes guarding the chicken coop--incumbents have little incentive to change a system they have mastered. However, even incumbents can act when public pressure is high. Let me say that again. ``Even incumbents can act when public pressure is high.'' We saw a perfect example of that the day before yesterday. The Republicans they had it greased; they had a majority in that Rules Committee. The leader came out and said this is the scope of the hearings that we are going to have, like it or not. We are only going to examine alleged illegalities and not the broader question of improper campaign financing. But, as they say, public pressure will change that, and public pressure did. As a result, we had 99 Senators vote on the day before yesterday for broader investigation into improper as well as illegal actions. After Watergate, Congress took bold steps and set limits on campaign cash. But in the now infamous 1976 case, Buckley versus Valeo, the Supreme Court struck down most of the law, ruling that unlimited spending on campaigns deserves protection as free speech. Again, quoting Senator Proxmire: When we equate spending money with speech, then speech is no longer free. I must read that again, because it is so basic. When we equate spending money with speech, then speech is no longer free. Moneyed interests can pay the price and the rest of us are free to be silent. The Buckley ruling is simply wrong. Twenty-four State attorneys general have recently called for Buckley to be reversed, as have a host of constitutional scholars. But the current court appears unlikely to do so. As in the past democratic struggles to end slavery and give women the vote, the only certain recourse is to amend the Constitution and overturn the Court. We must clearly authorize Congress and the States to limit campaign contributions and expenditures. A majority of the Senate has voted to support such an amendment in the past but a two-thirds vote is required. Another vote is likely soon. Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wis., has voted for the constitutional amendment in the past but now says he is against it. Senator Herbert Kohl, D-Wis., also has a mixed voting record. He has voted once for and once against a similar amendment. Let's hope that this time they read the headlines about fundraising scandals and decide to change them by voting for the amendment. We must take down the For Sale sign on Capitol Hill by authorizing limits on campaign cash with a constitutional amendment. Let us not be daunted by how difficult such a task may appear, for the price of inaction is far too great. Mr. President, I thought that we might be daunted by how difficult the task would appear. That argument has been made previously by our good friend Lloyd Cutler. He said it would take 4 to 20 years to get a constitutional amendment enacted, and therefore we were wasting our time. But it has been 20 years since the Buckley decision. Let us not talk about wasting time. That is what we have been doing since Buckley. How are you going to stop doing that? A constitutional amendment. The arguments were, ``It would take too long,'' or, ``I don't believe in a constitutional amendment; leave it as it is.'' Now, we know the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, and the distinguished Senator from Kansas, Senator Roberts, engaged in their little sweetheart exchange on the floor yesterday. They both believe in amending the Constitution. They both voted to amend the Constitution in order to prevent the desecration of the American flag. In fairness to Senator McConnell, he said it was a mistake. Fine business. The Court made a mistake when they outlawed the Federal income tax. So, what did the body politic do? The Congress passed a joint resolution and the people of the United States ratified the 16th amendment. Let us read how you can correct a mistake. Amendment 16: The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes from whatever source derived without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. That is not what they are talking about now, because we know mistakes are corrected; mistakes with respect to elections have been corrected. The 21st, 22d, 23d, 24th, and 25th amendments to the Constitution, all except the last one, have dealt with elections. So we corrected those mistakes. One important mistake, perhaps most significant, was the poll tax. The people said, ``Wait a minute, disqualifying people from voting through a poll tax--we are not going to allow it.'' So we adopted that amendment to the Constitution. Now we want to disqualify candidates, parties, and everyone else from running for office by allowing the explosive spending of money; thousands of dollars, $200,000 for this, $500,000 for that. It is just outrageous. Yet, they do not want to recognize it. They want to give me Patrick Henry and go back to the first amendment and read it to mean that any restriction ``rips a hole'' in our freedom of speech. But it is not so when for the safety of people, we prohibit shouting ``fire'' in a theater; not when for national security reasons, we prohibit disclosure of classified documents; not so in the matter of obscenity and false and deceptive advertising. Just the other day, concerning a buffer zone around an abortion clinic--the Supreme Court said, oh, no, you don't have a freedom of speech in that buffer zone. That restriction is constitutional. The contention was made that unless people were given the right to be heard in that particular area, you were ripping a hole in the first amendment. The Supreme Court said no. Get out. Don't get into this buffer zone. So we have example after example, but none better than the Senate itself that says you cannot have unlimited debate here in this body; we can get a 60-vote majority and hush you. Over on the House side, they have to follow the 3-minute rule; the 5-minute rule. In committees, we regularly agree and conform to a 5-minute rule for all the members. We know the value of limiting speech. Don't come here with this sanctimony about the first amendment and Patrick Henry and talking about ripping a hole in the first amendment for the first time in 200 years. Buckley versus Valeo--the very basic authority that you use when you come to the floor of the U.S. Senate saying speech is money, or money is speech--ripped a hole in the first amendment. That is the exact finding of Buckley versus Valeo. So, that will not wash. Mr. President, I have not only the Wisconsin State Journal, I have the Cleveland Plain Dealer. I ask unanimous consent to have that article printed in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. If the Senator will yield, I came in at the very beginning. I could not repeat it better than what the distinguished Senator from Nevada said when he congratulated the Senator from Pennsylvania not just on the guts to be able to cosponsor this, because he takes it from his side--there is no more erudite attorney and legal scholar within this body. I would not miss a word of it.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Would the distinguished Senator yield? I know others want to be recognized, so before you yield the floor, let me take this opportunity to thank the distinguished Senator from Nevada. He has really given a very, very cogent analysis of the dilemma that we face, the real-life experience, now, that we have all engaged in, and what we are trying, in the best of our ability, to reform, and reform ourselves, as you so sincerely pointed out. So I cannot thank you enough for your presentation and joining with us. I have been delighted to work, over the many years that we have been here, together. This is one more time. I, again, admire the Senator from Nevada. He has sincerity and bipartisanship. I have seen him work with the other side of the aisle so often. So he is looking at getting something done and making headway rather than headlines. It is with that knowledge, listening again this afternoon to your sincerity of purpose, that I truly thank you for your support and your cosponsorship.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Oregon, Senator Wyden, be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. You do not have a TV station.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Right.

Mr. HOLLINGS. That's what they call free speech.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I know others want to be recognized, and I am hopeful to hear from them. As usual, you are unfettered, and you don't wait until you get out of office to do that. You have been masterful, because in this exchange we have had, talking about charades, there is no charade in your presentation here this afternoon; it is right on target. I thank the Senator for yielding and for his talk today.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Presiding Officer. Mr. President, the Senator from Rhode Island has been in the Chamber waiting to be recognized, so I will just take a few moments and ask unanimous consent to insert in the Record the ``American Constitutional Law Restatement on the Freedom of Speech,'' by Laurence Tribe, Ralph S. Tyler, Jr. Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard University.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Early Tuesday morning, just immediately after the party caucuses.

Mr. HOLLINGS. That is correct.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the distinguished Chair. When you sit up limply and say there is no constituency for this, the constituency is building. There is no question about that. It is bipartisan. It is very clever in trying to say that the Hollings resolution is the Hollings-Specter, when it is bipartisan. They will talk with conviction that McCain-Feingold is bipartisan, but not Hollings-Specter. The fact of the matter is, Madam President, that we had a news conference--we have had various ones over the 10-year period--and hardly anyone attended. On yesterday, the room was overflowing, in the context that they realize now that after all the endeavors made to try to reconcile this situation, the only route left for us now to correct this cancer that imperils our democracy is authority for the Congress to act. Now, they, in sanctimony, stand and talk about Buckley versus Valeo, and in the same breath, ``200 years,'' ``the first amendment,'' ``loopholes,'' ``let's don't have a loophole or gut out the first amendment''-- my opponent is very erudite, a very learned Senator, and he has been working on this particular subject for quite some time, and he has to know that Buckley versus Valeo does exactly that. Buckley versus Valeo limited the speech, the first amendment rights, of contributors. Say I make a contribution to the Senator from Utah for only $1,000 in the primary and $1,000 in the general election; my freedom of speech has gutted a hole in the first amendment by Buckley versus Valeo, because my freedom of speech to contribute and participate has already been limited by Congress, of all people, and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. I gave example after example of the safety measures with respect to not being able to shout ``fire'' in a theater. I went to the national security. I went to the obscenity provisions. I wish I had the time and disposition here this afternoon to put in Laurence Tribe's restatement of the freedom of speech, and you would have a powerful grasp of what is in order and what is not in order. You can bet your boots that this has been building. In 1993, we had a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, and a majority of the U.S. Senate said that they should have a constitutional amendment, such as is here now introduced. The Senator comes and limply says, ``I have Common Cause, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the ACLU, and the Senator from South Carolina has no constituency.'' We have the constituency. We know about the newspapers. They don't want to recognize the fact that we are talking about ``paid'' speech in this constitutional amendment--expenditures--not ``free" speech. ``Limit the amount of contributions that may be accepted by and the amount of expenditures that may be made by''--expenditures for speech, paid speech, not free speech. A State shall have the power to set reasonable limits on the amount of expenditures made. So they don't have to go to the straw man. I got interested in the straw man. They said Congress could come around and limit you to $5,000 in a campaign and get rid of all of these groups. I hadn't thought of that. That would probably be a pretty good idea, because we know all the groups are really not interested, except in beating those candidates, getting over them. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle very cleverly got out in Saturday's Washington Post--I will have to get a copy of that article about all of these different groups. You wonder where their names come from. I remember one out in California, with some spurious name, and they found out that Philip Morris, the tobacco folks, were behind it. Upon that being discovered, they said they had to take credit for that particular group. But you have them all bouncing up and down. The gimmick today is to get a group for ``free Government,'' or for ``free speech,'' or ``for clean politics,'' or anything that sounds pretty. You will find out that it is politically motivated by either national party. I can tell you, our national groups are there and they are really ruining the political process. But the Senator from South Carolina just says ``expenditures.'' Once you limit the expenditures, you can get those groups, you can get the bundling, you can get the soft money, you can get the direct money, you can get whatever you are going to get. If you have the wrong kind of support, then your opponent is going to be quick to point it out and expose it because you have disclosure. That's what we had in the 1974 act, and that's what we must continue. But this has to do with expenditures and paid speech. Of all people to really talk--let me comment, Madam President, about the limits of speech. We know that there is good reason to limit speech. The U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Congress knows better than any that you must limit speech in order to get a good product. Over on the House side, you are given, under the rule, 1 minute or 3 minutes, and over here, we have bragged about the unlimited speech. But the fact of the matter is that we can cut off the filibuster, and we further limit it. Rather than the two-thirds--you need the accepted large majority of a 60-vote majority to limit the speech, cut it off. I was at a committee hearing and we had a 5-minute rule. We accept that. So all the Senators limit speech. You are not allowed to stand up and say: Wait a minute, the first amendment, we can't gut a hole in this first amendment for the first time in 200 years. That is hogwash. Buckley versus Valeo limits speech--the very authority that the opposition uses here to maintain and oppose the joint resolution to amend the Constitution, so that we can reinstill the freedom of speech that is robbed by way of financial power from an individual trying to express himself. That is the nature of the campaign financing now. As I explained earlier, you could take an individual with $100,000 and me with $1 million. I can tell you that any candidate who is going to start anywhere to get recognition, he is going to spend half of his money on polls. Then he is going to come in in October with $50,000 for TV. I will have a million, and I will squash him; I can tell you that right now. I could come in there and take over the airwaves and billboards and newspapers, and radio at various times, for the various groups, and his family will wonder why he is not interested in his campaign. He is not interested for the simple reason that he is not financially capable of responding. That is what Buckley versus Valeo provides. That is why Chief Justice Burger, in the dissenting opinion, said this differing of contributions, where it can be limited from expenditures, which cannot be limited, ``simply won't wash.'' That is Chief Justice Burger's expression. You can go right on down the various comments I have given. But them there is the same argument, the same straw man, what the Congress might do. They assume the actions of Congress. That is why we put ``reasonable limits.'' They talk about, I think, the ACLU. I could not get the copies of the other ones just inserted into the Record, but I have the ACLU letter. It says, reasonable limits is vague and overbroad. That is why we said ``reasonable'' because of the straw men that have been erected back in all of these elections. They could limit here, they could do this, or they could do that. We assume that the Congress is going to be reasonable and that the Congress and the courts are not going to stand for any egregious conduct on the part of the Congress that would do as they threaten this particular constitutional amendment would. These straw men that they put up and knock down: Who is going to enforce? We are going to have to put a SWAT team down there, and everything else of that kind. And that, oh, horrors, this applies not only to the Federal but the States and the local elections. Madam President, I can tell you that the State elections are included because they requested the Senator from South Carolina that they be included. There is no question in my mind that this would be ratified in the 1998 elections in November of next year; no question. I will bet anybody on it. You come and put this before the American people. They have been denied the right by the Senator from Kentucky and others who come around and try to erect straw men talking about 200 years of freedom of speech, when the very authority, the Supreme Court, already has in Buckley versus Valeo. But they said, ``please include State elections.'' I have already inserted the statement of the States' attorney generals in the Record. There is a driving force that this Congress has prohibited now for the last 10 years because we put it in. We have had a majority vote. The majority of the Senators themselves expressed the sense of the Senate. They now say that the majority of the Senate is not any constituency. I don't know of a better constituency, if I can get the 67. That is what we need; not just the majority. If I can get the 67, we would really be in a good state. The Washington Post says we should have limits on advertising, but a constitutional amendment is a bad idea. ``It would be an exception to the free speech clause.'' Oh, no. It is an exception to the paid speech clause. ``And once that clause is free for one purpose, who is to say how many others may follow?'' That is a misgiving. That is a concern. That is a concern in this Senator's mind. It was after 10 years was wasted--from 1976 to 1987. We tried all of these things and got nowhere that you could see, by the way the Court was talking, and particularly now with the Colorado decision. There is no question in my mind that the Court is not going to reverse Buckley versus Valeo. They have pretty well thrown all caution out of the window, and said, ``So long as it is not coordinated, these separate groups can come in and come to the national parties,'' and, by Jove, they spend the money, and, obviously, it is going to be to the benefit of this particular candidate. That is what we call soft money. It has adulterated the process so that I have business friends at fundraisers when that occurred that said, ``My heavens, Senator. I gave the $1,000, and I am willing to give the second $1,000. But I am getting calls on the phone now to raise $100,000. What in the world? They are calling and asking for $50,000 and $100,000, and so forth, for soft money to give to the party.'' They say that you will benefit from it. They might under oath say something differently. But everybody knows what the national parties are doing, and that is why we have this investigation going on. It says here again in that particular Washington Post editorial that ``The Congress may enact laws regulating the amounts of contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections in Federal offices. But that is much too vague.'' It says ``vague.'' I do not think it is vague at all. I think it has worked out in accordance with the wording of the Buckley versus Valeo decision. It is not vague at all--not as the ACLU would state it, and not my good friend George Will. We have his particular comments. That is the gentleman who believes that we ought to have term limits for Senators but not for editorial writers. I think we ought to have term limits for these editorial writers. It is sort of getting boring. You can look at the name, and you pass over it because you know what is going to be written. They are hired hands for a particular viewpoint, and on and on again. I am quoting from the editorial by George Will: ``Hollings claims--and you have to admire his brass--that carving this huge hole in the first amendment''--that is where they get the ``carving,'' the pejorative expressions without any real substantive argument--``would be a big boost to free speech.'' Mr. Will says there isn't any question that ``by `free' I mean `fair.' '' No; I mean ``free.'' I do not mean ``paid speech.'' I mean what I say: ``Free speech.'' By limiting contributions you have come in and stated that they are going to have a corruptive influence and that is why contributions need to be limited. If that is the case, most assuredly the amount of spending, not just the contributions, in campaigns is most corrupt. When Mr. Will refers to ``amounts of speech,'' he means the permissible amounts to be decided by incumbents in Congress and State legislatures. Well, when he says ``incumbents in Congress'', he is speaking in the pejorative again because he doesn't like incumbents. He just likes incumbent news editorialists but not incumbent Congressmen or incumbent Senators. Will continues, ``Note also the power to limit spending not only by but even in support of or in opposition to candidates.'' That is exactly right. ``The 32 Senators who voted for this include many who 3 years ago stoutly opposed carving out a small exception to the first amendment protections in order to ban flag burning.'' I am going to come back to that. He jogs my memory. ``But now these incumbents want'' --that is the third time he has used ``incumbent'' in this passage--``to hack away at the Bill of Rights'' --this is not to hack away at the Bill of Rights; we are trying to restore the Bill of Rights freedom of speech for the impoverished individual in this country in order to strengthen the permissible amount. ``Government micromanagement,'' Will says. Well, that is exactly what Buckley versus Valeo sustains. It says you can only give $1,000. A PAC, no matter how large the organization, can only give $5,000. We had individuals at the time we passed this in 1974 giving $500,000, giving $1 million, and giving $2 million in cash. Now we know with the Colorado decision and the investigation that will ensue, that we all voted for yesterday, that we are back to the millions, the $500,000, the $100,000 contributions. It destroys the confidence of the people in their representative government. They think ``representative.'' It is, by gosh, bought-and-paid-for government. Whoever has the money is going to control. Going back to the Will writings, Government micromanagement: The Senate bill would ban or limit spending by political action committees. It will require privately funded candidates to say in their broadcast advertisements that the candidates have not agreed to voluntary campaign limits. Well, that is not in any Hollings joint resolution whatsoever. ``All this Government micromanagement of political speech is supposed to usher in the reign of `fairness' as incumbents define it, of course.'' Here is a strawman. Vote against incumbents. If you read this, get rid of the incumbents. He is back to term limits again. Let me read the next paragraph. ``Incumbents,'' it starts off--this is the sixth time in 10 lines that he has used the word ``incumbents.'' He knows how to get a drumbeat going. ``Incumbents can live happily with spending limits. Incumbents will write the limits, perhaps not altogether altruistically, and spending is the way challengers can combat incumbents advantages such as name recognition, access to media and franked mail. Besides, the most important and plentiful money spent for political purposes is dispensed entirely by incumbents. It is called the Federal budget--$1.5 trillion and rising * * * Federal spending often is vote buying.'' Now, he even blames us for passing a budget, and he calls that political. Why can't we get a vote on the budget? We have been here since January. It is the middle of March. We cannot even get the Republicans to put up a budget. I remember back on December 18, 1994, on ``Meet The Press,'' they had Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Kasich and Mr. Domenici, the two budget chairmen and the Speaker, and they said we are going to have three budgets. We do not care about the President. We are going to pass them and he is going to sign them or else, that the President is irrelevant. That was the argument in the first part of 1995. They came on on ``Meet The Press'' and they had three budgets. Now I cannot get one of them. But George Will says it is a political document and an advantage to the incumbents. The incumbents do not think so. Nobody wants to support any budget because nobody wants to pay for it. It is not complicated at all. But so much for the Mr. ACLU and Mr. George Will and Mr. Washington Post and Mr. New York Times. I want these gentlemen talking about free speech to go to the New York Times and say I want a half-page. See how free it is. Go to the Washington Post and say I want a quarter-page, I want to put this ad in here. There is nothing free about it. From time to time they will take an editorial, but they will have to review it and like it or else they will not take it. I can tell you that, because I have been trying to point out one that has been refused for many years as to the matter of now having to spend $1 billion a day just on interest costs on the national debt. It amounts, in essence, because you add it to the debt, to increasing taxes $1 billion a day. We are on that particular treadmill of a $1 billion-a-day increase in taxes. The American people have no idea of it. They have no idea that the deficits for the past 15 years on an average have been $277 billion. It has been $277 billion in Government that we are giving them but we are not willing to pay for. But the American public, depending on the free press, does not know that because the free press does not report that. And back now to their so-called freedom of speech and first amendments, you are not going to get any freedom of speech there at all. It will be ratified by the States. It is not the first time, in all candor, for the strawman that they have been proposing here. But let me read this that was stated in ``Politics and Money'' by Elizabeth Drew. I quote: Until the problem of money is dealt with, it is unrealistic to expect the political process to improve in any other respect. It is not relevant whether every candidate who spends more than his opponent wins, though in races that are otherwise close this tends to be the case. What matters is what the chasing of money does to the candidates and to the victor's subsequent behavior. The candidate's desperation for money and the desire to effect public policy provide a mutual opportunity. The issue is not how much is spent on elections but the way the money is obtained. The point is what raising money, not simply spending it, does to the political process. It is not just that the legislative product is bent or stymied. It is not just that well armed interests have a head start over the rest of the citizenry, for that often is not even a contest. It is not even relevant what interest happens to be winning. What is relevant is what the whole thing is doing to the democratic process. What is at stake is the idea of representative Government, the soul of this country. That is 15 years ago now, Madam President, by the distinguished writer Elizabeth Drew in ``Politics and Money.'' I think that is what we have to get our media to have, is that fit of conscience developed that we saw developed on the floor of the Senate on yesterday afternoon. In that fit of conscience, we got together in a unanimous vote, a unanimous vote--one Senator abstained under the rules, but the other 99 Senators, Republican and Democrat, Conservative and Liberal, all joined in to not only investigate the illegal but the improper. Now, there was a little band over there that fought that. They fought Chairman Thompson's idea that he was going after not only the illegal but the improper. Under the Klieglight of the free press, not the paid or the expenditures but the free press and the free speech, not the paid speech, under the free press and the free speech, they realized that it was going to be tremendously embarrassing, appear as a coverup. That is the kind of fit of conscience that must be developed if we are really going to come to grips with this cancer on the body politic. As Justice Jackson says, ``The Constitution is not a suicide compact.'' We do not have to look at the Constitution in a casual way, but we do not have to look upon it as having any relation to this particular predicament. The Founding Fathers had no idea of television. They had no idea of the expense. They had no idea of the time. They had no idea of the effort. They had no idea of the corruption. There is no better word for the process than what is demanded now, as you can see, is going up, up and away. As Justice Byron ``Whizzer'' White said, ``We are going on a treadmill and you can see its direction.'' All election spending back in 1976--I have it all here estimated--was only $540 million. Now, by 1996, in 20 years, it has gone up 641 percent, to $4 billion. Necessarily, the newspapers who are looking for these paid ads are going to say, ``free press, free press.'' No: Paid speech. ``Free speech, free speech,'' they will caterwaul. The truth of the matter is, we are talking about expenditures, and paid speech. There it is. It is going up, up, and away. I do not know how we are ever going to get a grip on that unless we give Congress the authority. Once again, I emphasize not what, ipso facto, will happen under these straw men that the Senator from Kentucky puts up. I have no idea of those things he talked about, of limiting the campaign to $5,000, and only the incumbents could run, and do away with all the committees and everything else of that kind. He just arranged a hall of horrors with respect to an amendment. It simply does just exactly what that 24th amendment did when they found the freedom of speech, namely the most solemn act of political speech, voting, was adulterated by money, namely a poll tax. The Congress came immediately back in the 24th amendment to the Constitution and said thou shalt not exact a poll tax or any other kind of tax, as a financial burden on that vote. Here, now, we have a financial burden on the entire political process. The decision is not being made in the political marketplace, the marketplace of ideas and vision and programs. The decision is being made in the financial marketplace. And then we go around and ask each other, why don't the people have more confidence in the Congress and the Government up here in Washington? I see my colleague is momentarily wanting to speak. Madam President, I thank the Senators for listening and I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. The distinguished Senator from Nevada made a very valuable contribution to the consideration of this all-important initiative. Our democracy has cancer. It has to be excised. As I explained in my opening remarks, and as has been emphasized by the distinguished Senator from Nevada, all of these little things that come about-- whether you get the money from the State, whether you get the money from bundling, soft money, hard money, voluntarism, free TV--just go around and everybody has an eye on it. But if you put a limit, as the 1974 act said, of so much per registered voter, then you have stopped, once and for all, that problem, because with disclosure you can see exactly what you have on top of the table. I remember in one of the debates we had with the distinguished then- Senator from Louisiana, Senator Russell Long, and we both agreed that if I appeared, by my disclosure, to get a substantial sum of contributors from the textile industry, call me the textile Senator. There it is. I defend it. I frankly brag about it. If he gets the contributions all from the oil industry and is known as the oil Senator, so be it. The distinguished Presiding Officer, the farm Senator, the agriculture Senator, because his leading talent has been in that field over the years. But by disclosure you can see it, and by the limit you cut out all of the shenanigans of the soft money, hard money, bundling and all of the roundabout end course taken to get around the law. This amendment, Mr. President, is absolutely neutral. My friend from Kentucky, Senator McConnell, who has been the leader in opposition, can still prevail under the amendment. The amendment says Congress is authorized to limit. It does not say limit; it does not say not to limit. It just gives the authority to Congress to act so that when we do get out here, we can have a majority vote so without going through the legal hurdles and delay and put off that we have been going through now for 30 years. That is why I say a constitutional amendment is our only recourse. I got into a debate on this in 1967 when we passed an act. It is now 1997. We have been trying to get our hands around this problem of campaign finance without a constitutional amendment. Having made the good college try now over the many, many years and listened to all the others, and analyzed as they put up McCain-Feingold and the many other fine initiatives, you can look at the Supreme Court, particularly in the Colorado case, not just the Buckley case, and you can say you are wasting your time. The voluntarism we know in politics means temporary. You saw this in the race up in Massachusetts. They voluntarily said they would have a limit. They got down to the wire and that limit went out of the window. What we are trying to do is give everybody back their freedom of speech. Namely, that I may not be extinguished by money. When I say that I say that advisedly. I know the mechanics of political campaigns, and when you have an opponent with $100,000 and I have $1 million, all I need do is just lay low. He only has $100,000 and I know that he wants to wait until October when the people finally turn their interest to the general election in November. Say he is only in print, in polls, and what have you, he spent over $25,000 and you cannot get a good poll for less than $26,000 or $27,000, but he only has $50,000 to $75,000 left, and then I let go, come October 10. That is 3 to 4 weeks leading into the campaign, and I have yard signs, billboards, newspapers, TV, radio for the farmer in the early morning, I have early morning driving-to-work radio, I have radio for the college students. I know how to tailor make with my million bucks, and I can tell you by November 1, after 3 weeks of that, my opponent's family has said what is the matter? Why are you not answering? Are you not interested anymore? I have, through wealth, taken away his speech. I know that, you know that, that is the reality, the political game. That is what we are talking about, making it so that you cannot take away that freedom of speech, so that you can reinstill the meaning of the first amendment. It was adult rated by the five-vote majority against the four minority in Buckley versus Valeo. We will see what the Court said and go to some of the expressions, Mr. President. Here is not what politician Hollings said, but what a Supreme Court Chief Justice says, ``The Court's result does violence to the intent of Congress.'' Can I say that again for all those who are listening? That is exactly the belief of this Senator. I am not saying because I need money or want money or I think I have a financial advantage or whatever it is. Incidentally, I can get on to the point of incumbency. We just swore in some 15 new Senators about 6 or 8 weeks ago. All my incumbents, friends I used to sit around with, are just about gone. I know it is less than 10 years average in the House of Representatives, and I think it is exactly that on the Senate side. What did incumbent minority assistant leader Senator Wendell Ford of Kentucky say just the day before yesterday about money? He said, ``I neither have the time nor the inclination to collect that $14,000 to $20,000.'' He has to get $5 million in Kentucky. I think he mentioned $100,000. But he said ``Look, in order to qualify as a candidate, I have to defend my incumbency role, and my incumbency role involves thousands of votes.'' I can say to the other side of the aisle, I have been in the game. They are very clever. They know how to put up and force-feed votes on very, very, controversial amendments or subjects. How do you explain in this day and age in a 30-second sound bite, a particular vote? You take 5 minutes, and you can go down to WRC, right here in Washington, with all the money they talk about, or freedom of speech as they call it, with the wealth of Bill Gates, and say I want to buy an hour on the eve of the election, the night before the election. They will tell him to bug off, it is not for sale. It is limited. It is paid speech. Free speech--I am trying to reinstill a freedom of speech among those who are financially limited so we make certain that our democracy is not imperiled. I read again what Chief Justice Burger said. ``The Court's result does violence to the intent of Congress.'' He is exactly right. I was there in 1974. In the comprehensive scheme of campaign finance, the Court's result does violence to the intent of Congress. By dissecting bit by bit and casting off vital parts, the Court fails to recognize the whole of this act is greater than the sum of its parts. Congress intended to regulate all aspects of Federal campaign finances but what remains after today's holding leaves no more than a shadow of what Congress contemplated. Now, I cannot say it any better. That is exactly what we had in mind, to limit the spending. And that is exactly what they did not do. They limited the contributions on the premise that it gave the appearance of corruption, or was corruption itself, but not the expenditures. Let's see what Byron Raymond White, the Associate Justice said: Congress was plainly of the view that these expenditures also have corruptive potential, but the Court strikes down the provision, strangely enough, claiming more insight as to what may improperly influence candidates than is possessed by the majority of Congress that passed this bill and the President who signed it. Those supporting the bill undeniably included many seasoned professionals who have been deeply involved in the elective processes and who have viewed them at close range over many years. It would make little sense to me--and apparently made none to Congress--to limit the amounts an individual may give to a candidate or spend with his approval, but fail to limit the amounts that could be spent on his behalf. There, again, I could not say it better. That was Justice Byron White. I quote him further: The judgment of Congress was that reasonably effective campaigns could be conducted within the limits established by the act and that the communicative efforts of these campaigns would not seriously suffer. In this posture (section 264 of the case) there is no sound basis for invalidating the expenditure limitations so long as a purpose is served or is legitimately and sufficiently substantial, which, in my view, they are. We might get into the debate, Mr. President, about the word ``reasonable.'' That word appears, if you please, because of the suggestion by the commission on the constitutional system. They wanted ``reasonable'' limits. I think they were right. I am going back to the Court's decision, trying to aim the gun barrel down the constitutionality of the better constitutional thought in these dissenting opinions. Expenditure ceilings reinforce the contribution limits and help eradicate the hazard of corruption. That is exactly what common sense would indicate. Here is a court finding that expenditures do not contribute at all to any kind of corruption whatsoever and, therefore, spend to the ceilings. We will have a chart here and put it up and show you how, as the Senator from Nevada said, a Senate race used to be. In 1980, it was about $1 million. By 1986, it was $2 million. By 1990, it was $3 million. By 1994, the average one was $4 million. So it keeps going up, up and away. Expenditures in the Presidential race are up around $670 million. It has gone through the roof. Now, Mr. President, I will quote further Justice White: I have little doubt that, in addition, limiting the total that can be spent will ease the candidate's understandable obsession with fundraising and so free him and his staff to communicate in more places and ways connected with the fundraising function. There is nothing objectionable, and indeed it seems to me a weighty interest in favor of the provision, in the attempt to insulate the political expression of Federal candidates from the influence inevitably exerted by the endless job of raising increasingly large sums of money. I regret that the Court has returned them all to the treadmill. Here, this was written 20 years ago. How pathetic. ``Treadmill.'' When I was first here in the U.S. Senate, from time to time we would rearrange the fundraisers in accordance with the schedule that we had. You would not dare go up to a leader on either side of the aisle and say: Mr. Leader, I hope we can get a window, or whatever it is, because I have a fundraiser. He would look at you and--if nothing else, I guess it was unethical. They ought to refer that to the Ethics Committee. But we have given up on that now. It is like the tail is wagging the dog. It is now turned around, and we schedule the Senate around the fundraising schedules--what 20 years ago Justice White called the treadmill. You are just constantly having a fundraiser to get on TV, to have a fundraiser to get on TV, to have a fundraiser to get on TV; all paid speech, not free. I haven't seen anything free yet out of that TV crowd. They will charge you for it one way or the other. I will quote Justice Marshall, and then I will yield. I see that my colleague is prepared to comment. Justice Marshall said: It would appear to follow that the candidate with a substantial personal fortune at his disposal is off to a significant head start. Of course, the less wealthy candidate can potentially overcome the disparity and resources through the contributions from others. But ability to generate contributions may itself depend upon a showing of a financial base for the campaign or some demonstration of preexisting support, which in turn is facilitated by expenditures of substantial personal sums. Thus, the wealthy candidate's immediate access to a substantial personal fortune may give him an initial advantage that his less wealthy opponent can never overcome. And even if the advantage can be overcome, the perception that personal wealth wins elections may not only discourage potential candidates without significant personal wealth from entering the political arena, but also undermine public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process. And here we continue and oppose, willy-nilly, any effort, really, to excise this cancer. I yield the floor. Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Maury Lane be permitted privileges of the floor during the consideration of Senate Joint Resolution 18.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I understand that we are about to close debate for this afternoon. Let me thank the distinguished Senator from North Dakota, because he put the issue involved in a very calm and succinct fashion. What we have done here was done with tremendous caution. We haven't come and said, ``Here is the solution.'' We have come and said, ``Here is the authority to solve it.'' Now, they bring in these red herrings and everything about the freedom of speech. We are not disturbing the freedom of speech at all. We would not disturb the freedom of speech, except for Buckley versus Valeo, which did put a hole in that first amendment, as they use that expression. They say we are limiting the freedom of speech for the political contributor. He can only give so much. If that is what it is, if money is the expression, then that group is limited. But the real evil in causing our dilemma here over the past 30 years, particularly with this Colorado decision now that puts a premium on buying the office by the national parties, if we don't act now to at least have the authority, we don't say in this amendment that the distinguished Senator from Kentucky is right. We don't say that the distinguished Senator from Kentucky is wrong. He may later on, with the authority, prevail. They might increase spending. Like I say, we are not spending more on yogurt and Crackerjacks, and whatever else they had around here. I have forgotten the things they brought up. I would not have dared to stand up as a candidate and say I spent $86,000 for food. I could not hope to get elected in South Carolina buying $86,000 worth of lunches. That, perhaps, points to the dilemma. The public that I represent and have worked with over the years really is asking and begging. That is why they included the States. Mr. President, we know that, as in warfare, he who controls the air controls the battlefield. In politics, he who controls the airwaves controls the campaign. That is where all the money is. That is what we are trying to limit. But I do not say that by voting for this that you limit. I only say that by voting for this you give constitutional authority because you see the extremes of the Supreme Court--it is the ``Extreme Court of the United States''--when they come with the Buckley versus Valeo distortion. It is the ``Extreme Court of the United States'' that comes with Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee against the Federal Election Commission. So, right to the point, we are saying that we can amend this Constitution, that the last five of six amendments dealt with elections, that certainly the weight of money as qualifying a vote was constitutionally outlawed in the 24th amendment. We ought to outlaw extreme and expensive expenditures in this. That would be the 28th amendment, I think. They approved these particular amendments in 18.1 months, which was the average. We know we can get this approved next year in 1998, and we will be on the road to really getting campaign finance reform. This is the acid test. Do you believe in limiting, or do you not believe in limiting? We are talking about expenditure of paid speech-- not free speech. It does not affect free speech whatever. You don't affect it under the Constitution. We wouldn't dare try to affect it under the Constitution. And, of course, after the 30 years and all of the debates in three Congresses having given us a majority here in the U.S. Senate saying we believe in a constitutional amendment and let's see if we can at least get that majority, they are really coming now and are so opposed to McCain-Feingold and are so opposed to any campaign finance reform as to vote this down. Then we will know exactly where they stand. I thank my distinguished colleague from Kentucky. I appreciate the debate this afternoon. I yield the floor. Mr. McCONNELL addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Sure.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, in a line, what we say is that the Congress is hereby authorized to regulate or control expenditures in Federal elections. Let me say that I come now to this particular subject of a constitutional amendment, which we have been on for over 10 years, with some hope, because I noticed on yesterday, Mr. President, we had a fit of conscience. We were about to pass a resolution that said Congress was only going to look at illegal contributions and not at improper ones, and, finally, in a fit of conscience, the Congress, particularly here in the Senate, decided that was not going to fly. It would appear to be, if we took that course, a coverup whereby we did not want to get into soft money and all of these other extravaganzas, legal as they are, says the Supreme Court, but as improper as can be. That is what is causing the headlines and the consternation and the money chase that we read in the headlines and news stories. We had a fit of conscience when we passed the 1974 act. This act came about due to the untoward activity in the 1967 and 1971 Presidential races. In the 1967 race, President Nixon had designated Maurice Stans, later the Secretary of Commerce, to collect the money. And I will never forget; he came to the State of South Carolina, and he told our textile friends, ``your fair share is $350,000,'' almost like the United Fund or Community Chest. Well, I had been their Governor and everything else and had never gotten $350,000 out of the textile industry, and they were all my friends. But the ten of them, at $35,000 apiece, got up the money, and more than that. There were other large contributions, including one of $2 million from Chicago. The fact was, after President Nixon took office, Treasury Secretary John Connally went to the President and said, ``Mr. President, you have got a lot of good support and you have not even met these individuals much less thanked them. Why not come down to the ranch and we will put on a barbecue and you can meet and thank them.'' President Nixon said, ``fine business,'' and they did. But as they turned into the weekend ranch barbecue on the Connally Ranch in Texas, there was a big Brinks truck. Dick Tuck, the prankster from the Kennedy campaign, had stationed a truck with signs out there. A picture of it was taken. And we in Washington, Republican and Democrat, said, ``heavens above, the Government's up for sale.'' Thereafter, you had the extremes of Watergate, which everyone is familiar with. So, in 1974 we had a fit of conscience. Yes, everybody thought they had advantages with respect to getting the money. They had gotten here on the ground rules as they then appeared, and said ``Why change? I can operate as the rules are.'' But, with that fit of conscience, we came and passed the 1974 act. I want to remind everyone that this was a very deliberate, bipartisan effort at the time. It set spending limits on campaigns, limited candidates' personal spending on their own behalf, 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. When you hear the debates, some of the new Members will come on the floor talking about what we really need is disclosure. That is what we have, still, under that 1974 act. I am required to record every dollar in and out with both the Secretary of the Senate on the one hand and the secretary of state back in the capital of my State, Columbia, SC, on the other. We have complete disclosure. You cannot take cash. I had always thought it was illegal to take a contribution on Government property. And we thought we had soft money and independent contributions regulated. But, in Buckley versus Valeo they stood the original intent of the Congress on its head. It is this original intent of limited expenditures in Federal elections that our constitutional amendment is offered, in a bipartisan fashion, with the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, and myself in the lead, along with the strong support of those I have enumerated. Now, back to the fit of conscience. I initiated this particular approach, in frustration, over 10 years ago, after realizing, like a dog chasing its tail, we were not getting anywhere. We had voluntariness prescribed by giving certain amounts of money if you voluntarily limited. There was free TV. You had public financing. You had all the different little tidbits of the different bills that have come around. Necessarily, I support them for the simple reason I am looking for votes. I am looking to finally get a concurrent majority of 67 Senators, so I do not want to turn off any of these sponsors, even though I know there are constitutional questions under the Buckley versus Valeo decision. But the real opposition is not the freedom of speech under the first amendment in the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. The real opposition, if you please, is a small group among us Senators who feel like this money is a tremendous advantage and they are not going to give it up. I know where the opposition lies. It is in the very thought that we are not spending enough. As was said in the debates here on the floor: ``On Kibbles and Bits cat and dog food we spend $4 billion; why don't we spend $4 billion on national elections?'' So I hope we can flush those who really believe this to come up and debate this idea on its merits. They will come under the cover of the freedom of speech. It is very interesting that what we have under consideration is paid speech, not free speech. Heavens above, we have all the free speech that you can think of. I remember for 20 years in politics we had more or less a one-party system in my State. We would go around stump speaking, as we call it, from county to county. In some of the larger counties several speeches were made. Each of the candidates would come and get up on the stump and say what they stood for. The battle was not in the financial arena; the battle was in the political arena. It was not who had the most money but who had the better ideas, the better initiatives, the better vision, the better programs. But they have tried, following the Buckley decision, to equate just exactly that. What you pay for is free. It amuses me when they come up here and read the Washington Post editorials. Go down to the Washington Post and say, ``Now I want some of that free speech. I would like about a quarter page of that free speech, or a half page of that free speech you just editorialized about.'' And they will say, ``Son, bug off. There is nothing free down here in this newspaper. You are going to have to pay for it, and you are going to have to pay for it under our rules and our regulations and our limits.'' The very crowd editorializing about free speech is the very crowd that is demanding their pay--paid speech. So let us not come here with an adulteration of the first amendment. As Judge J. S. Wright stated in the Yale Law Journal, ``Nothing in the first amendment commits us to the dogma that money is speech.'' That was their finding. But, unfortunately, the Supreme Court found that you should have total freedom with respect to spending, speech, and politics. But when it came to the contributions, the court's Buckley decision amended them. They may come now and say the first amendment has never been amended in 200 years. They are very authoritative, but Buckley versus Valeo amended the first amendment. It limited speech of those who contribute. What did Chief Justice Burger say about that? I will quote from the Buckley versus Valeo dissent of the Chief Justice. The Court's attempt to distinguish the communications inherent in political contributions from speech aspects of political expenditures simply will not wash. That was Chief Justice Burger. And, as everybody with common sense knows, here was the original intent. Here were the big ads. Here were the big contributors. Here was all the cash and the corruptive influence of large amounts of money. And after Congress acted in a bipartisan fashion in 1974, here came the United States Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, if you please, and by a 1-vote margin, with this distortion, this more or less amendment of the first amendment. Certainly it is an amendment with respect to contributors' speech. If I am a contributor and I want to contribute to the distinguished Presiding Officer, I am limited in my speech, my political expression. I can only give him $1,000 in his primary and $1,000 in his general election. That is the limit in Buckley versus Valeo, amending, if you please, the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States. We act as if, Mr. President, there is some sanctimony or sanctified position of the first amendment, and, of course, the Senator would agree in a breath that there should be. We should really approach amending the Constitution of the United States with trepidation. I know some of the arguments are: Wait a minute, the President's got one on victims rights, and others have one on prayer in school. Somebody else has a constitutional amendment about the flag. Someone else has another constitutional amendment. This is an exception, already written in the Constitution and recognized in the Constitution in the 24th amendment, the influence of money on political expression, the influence of money on the freedom of political speech. I have to emulate the distinguished leader from West Virginia, the Honorable Senator Robert Byrd, who says he carries his contract up here in his left-hand pocket, and I find that is a pretty good habit. Let me read amendment 24, section 1: The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. So they said, if you are going to put a financial burden on the voter that he can't participate in the freedom of political expression because of a tax, that is unconstitutional, and we have expressed already in that 24th amendment our abhorrence of the financial influence and corruption, so to speak, upon political expression. In a sense, it gives us one man, one vote. The poorest of the poor can cancel out the richest of the rich. I can take Bill Gates and say, ``Ha-ha, I vote the other way,'' and his vote is gone. I can take Steve Forbes and say, ``Ah, yeah, you can pay your own $35 million,'' or whatever it was, ``to get in the race at the last minute and mess up Bob Dole.'' I better not get off on too candid a delivery here this afternoon. But, in any event, Steve Forbes cannot only buy a vote, he can buy several States in the primaries. He has proven that. But when it comes down to one vote, I can cancel him. That is the greatness of our democracy, our republic form of Government. Here we are coming around and talking totally out of mystery and nonsense about the unlimited freedom of speech, that it has never been amended in 200 years. I want the Senator from Kentucky to come, because we are going to read those amendments. One, obviously, is with respect to public safety. You can't walk into a theater and shout, ``Fire.'' That is a limit on your freedom of speech and an amendment of the first amendment. You have the exemption for national security with respect to disclosing secrets of the Government itself. Senator Moynihan just sent around a book this thick about secrets and classifications and everything else. Perhaps the distinguished Senator is correct, we ought to do away with at least half of them, because when you see that book, you say, ``We are overwhelmed now with the so-called classified, the so-called eyes only, the so-called top secret.'' Although we have the best of the best intelligence systems, we didn't even know about the fall of the wall. It happened, and we all got the news within 24 hours. The intelligence community --and I was on the Intelligence Committee at the time--had nothing to say. We were talking about all the other extraneous things, but nothing about the greatest happening, in a sense, in the last generation of our time. So we have the exception, too, for fighting words, where they would provoke retaliation or cause retaliation. We know about that one. We know about the exception for obscenity. In fact, the FCC has been given the authority--we had the seven or eight little dirty words on a radio station out on the west coast, and that decision, Pacifica, went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and we found out that, yes, the Federal Communications Commission, the entity and agency of the executive branch, the administrative body, could determine whether or not it was a violation on the public airwaves of obscene talk and speech, and that is limited. We said it could be limited. We legislated that it could be limited. False and deceptive advertising. If you want to come up to just 2 weeks ago, Mr. President, they had the buffer zone--I hate to raise the question of abortion--but by legislation, they put a buffer zone around these abortion clinics, and those who demonstrate and say, ``Wait a minute, we have the freedom of speech,'' the Supreme Court ruled 2 weeks ago, ``No, you don't, not in that buffer zone, keep your mouth shut, stay out of that zone, your freedom of speech is limited.'' Mr. President, I certainly want to hear from the distinguished Senator from Nevada. He has been a strong supporter and leader in this particular cause, and he has other commitments. So, at the present time, I yield the floor.