Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman. I want to yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch) for closing remarks and also I am ready to close. I think that in my final words that we need to stand with our ally, Israel. We need to understand that they have the right to defend themselves, and we need to have that message heard in the Middle East that we believe that Israel does have this right and is acting accordingly.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlemen for their leadership on this issue.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman), to let him finish his comments.

Mr. KINGSTON. I would like to see the gentleman's other chart, as well, because he has actually broken down Arafat's connection to terrorism in a particular region or city, has he not?

Mr. KINGSTON. Further than that, if we do not call Arafat a terrorist, could we say that the PLO harbors terrorism? And certainly I think we would say yes to that, as well.

Mr. KINGSTON. These men, they all lead directly to Arafat?

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, before the gentleman from New York Mr. Weiner leaves, I wanted to make a point that as long ago as July 15, 2001, the Jerusalem Post reported that there were four summer camps currently training 8- to 12-year-olds for suicide bombings going on. That is exactly what you are saying, just calling the kids to arms right now against Israel. Summer camps training 8- to 12-year-olds for suicide bombing visions.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, let me yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner), because I know he wanted to make a comment.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I want to really underscore that point, that over a year ago, at Camp David, when President Clinton had Arafat and Barak in, Arafat turned down the deal that he is now pretending to be behind, or at least the Saudi prince's proposal, give up land and we will recognize you. And there is absolutely no assurance that once the Palestinians have the land, that they will turn around and recognize the state of Israel. The gentleman makes a great point, and I really wanted to underscore that.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, yesterday Valdosta, Georgia, and Savannah, Georgia, received the sad news that four of our service members in the First Ranger Battalion were among those who were killed in Afghanistan. We join their families and the entire Nation in mourning their loss and appreciating their patriotism and sacrifice. But even as we do that, the criticism of the policy in Afghanistan by the Democrats continues. Jimmy Carter says that Bush's approach is too simplistic. Let us review time a minute. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Jimmy Carter was President, and his very complicated reply was to boycott the Olympics. I guess that is not simplification, but what George Bush is in uniting a global front against terrorists, I guess that is simplistic. It is interesting that Mr. Carter only served one term. Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress are saying that the war will not be won or complete until we get Osama bin Laden. I guess they better explain that to World War II veterans because, after all, we never found Hitler, and they must think that we lost that war as well. I join Democrats, and I know it is not all the Democrats, there are a lot of good Democrats who are supporting this administration, but I invite the liberal extremist fringe in their party to support the President and to support our service members. This is a matter of freedom.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, several months ago back in October the House of Representatives passed a farm bill. Farm bills are important because in our food service delivery production chain, the government is very involved in the production end on the farm; and farmers cannot make planting decisions until the law for the coming year is stipulated. And one reason they cannot is they cannot borrow money to plant their crops because the banks will not lend money until they know what the farm bill says in it. Now, because of the House of Representatives return by Republicans is responsible, we passed this many, many months ago. Unfortunately it is across the hall in a body led by the other party, and they are still sitting on it. It is sad when so many people have such a callous disregard for farmers in America and for production agriculture. We need food in this country. The miracle of our food, to think that less than 2 percent of the population is serving 100 percent plus the world; and yet we cannot get the other body to pass the farm bill. It is ridiculous. Let us move on for the sake of farmers and for the sake of American consumers and get this thing done.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I am very impressed with the sudden interest in the economy for the liberal Democratic Party. This is really great. I just wonder, did they not know somehow there was a recession going on in October? Did they not know in December? I mean, what were they thinking when we had these opportunities to get America back to work? I know that the other side of the aisle has a lot of constituents who they think would rather have a government support check rather than a job opportunity. The America I know would rather be working. The America that I know wants to help those who are unemployed when they need assistance. But the America I know would prefer to be working. Mr. Speaker, back in October we had a great bill that was passed by this House, but like the energy bill, like the faith-based initiative, like bioterrorism insurance, like so many other things that were passed to the Members across the aisle in the other body, and it was killed in the name of partisanship because there seem to be some folks in Washington who would rather have a bad economy if that helps their particular party in the polls. I am sad that workers and American people's lives are being played with in such a callous, political manner. This is the difference between two parties, two visions. One wants to get the economy going so there are jobs, like my friend Mark, who worked for International Paper for 18 years. His father had worked for them for 28 years. He got laid off in the downsizing back in July. Fortunately for him, his wife has a job at a bakery. He is working with her right now. They are getting by, but he wants to get back to work. His corporation says this bill would help them. Or like my friend Bill, who is a small electrical contractor employing six to eight people in Savannah, Georgia. He wants to keep those six to eight people on his payroll working, but they have got to have work out there, jobs to go to. This would give them that opportunity. This is about real people and real jobs, people who do not have business cards, people who do not give to PACs or necessarily belong and hang out with big unions, and people who do not come to Washington, D.C., and do not consider themselves Republicans or Democrats. They just want to work. Mr. Speaker, our bill which we passed in October would have given them jobs, would have done it in December. Now we have got our third opportunity. Do not strike out. Do not swing unsuccessfully three times. Let us get this thing done.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon). (Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just want to say if we are going to clean out the water, we cannot just get the hogs out. We have to get the little piglets out as well. I think this amendment helps get one of the piglets out, a defect that may have been overlooked by my good friend from Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon).

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this is a real easy amendment. This is a fun amendment at this time of night. Not much brain power is required on this one. Just a fair amendment. If you think about it for a minute, if you listen to the rhetorical montage we have had today, you get real confused on who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, a lot of finger pointing. But one thing you conclude is soft money is bad; whether it is effective this election or after it or before, today or tomorrow, soft money is bad. Therefore, my good friends, I would not want to see anybody build a building with this bad soft money. It would mean the building would be bad. It would mean the building would be corrupted. It would mean from the very beginning all the phone calls that were made from that building would be tainted. Let me just say this: I want to say there are a lot of folks over there on that side of the aisle that think we do not like Democrats; and I want you to know, I like Democrats. I admire Democrats. I love the audacity of some of the Democrat Party. There was a story of a young man who graduated from the University of Georgia, went to work for Sun Trust Bank, one of the great Georgia institutions. At the end of the first day of 8 hours, he went to the boss and said, Boss, there is an opening over at the Coca-Cola Company. I would like you to write me a letter of recommendation. The boss looked at him and said, You are out of your mind. You just started here. This is your first day. You have barely completed 8 hours. You want me to write you a letter of recommendation? He said, Yes. Coca-Cola doesn't have opportunities that often, and I want to go work for them. Can't you think of something good to say about me? And the boss got a piece of paper and said, To whom it may concern: I like his nerve. I want to say this, I like your nerve. Let me tell my friends what is in this bill. This says you have got to get rid of all your soft money 30 days after the ban is completed or the new regulations are completed, so you have until December, except any time after the effective date the committee may spend such funds for activities which are solely to defray the cost of construction or purchase any office building. Well, I am sure most of you do not know that is in there. As much nerve as you have, I am sure that would embarrass some of you, so we are going to take that out with this amendment. And that is all it does, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the distinguished deputy whip.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis).

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I want to say respectfully to my very good friend from Georgia, as well as my very good friend from Oklahoma, that civil rights is not a franchise of any one race. True, some in a race may have felt it stronger than others, but having been a white child to integrate a black high school in Athens, Georgia, and my friend from Georgia may well remember Bernie Harris, I was in the civil rights issues, knew them very personally, very many issues, which we have discussed in the past. I would say that the gentleman from Oklahoma is right. How do we turn around to people and say they have free speech but not in the last 60 days? Sunday night I had the opportunity to go to the Chinese Benevolent Society in Savannah, Georgia, and welcome in the Year of the Horse, which was yesterday. I have a hard time saying to these Chinese American constituents that they can participate in the system, but here is how your free speech is protected. If you are in a certain group, you can give up to $60 million in soft money. But I do not think they are going to be able to raise that at the Chinese Benevolent Society because they are a small group. If I go down to Toombs Central High School, in Toombs County, Georgia, and I say to a very strong, growing Hispanic group of people, listen, we are going to clean it up, but there is going to be about $40 million in the bill that can go to the Democrats to build a new building. That is cleaning up America. I would say very carefully, very guardedly that what the Watts amendment does is make it unequivocal to all minority groups that civil rights will be protected, because the distinguished gentleman from Georgia and so many others from so many other States and so many other races have paid such a high price for full participation in our society today. As we celebrate February and Black History Month, one of the clear messages that comes to me from my African American constituents is that the struggle continues. It is not over. And I believe that what this amendment says is that we need to protect that and make it abundantly clear, and I think that is what this is about. I can understand people wanting to vote ``no.'' I can understand for partisan reasons voting one way or the other on any bill. But let us not say this bill protects the interests of minorities or anybody else. It just refunnels the money. It reregulates it. Soft money is not banned under this bill, it just says that certain interest groups get the last whack at it. Certain interest groups are protected just a little bit more than others. So I would urge my colleagues to vote for the Watts amendment.

Mr. KINGSTON. Okay, Mr. Chairman, I got everyone's attention. I do not even know how I did that, but there must be a signal out here. Let me just say this. In terms of not having different rules and saying everybody's going to be treated differently, that is not bad. That is the way they did it in the Soviet Union. Everybody was treated right. They did not have any first amendment rights. Must have been the message. Nobody can speak the last 60 days. I hate attack ads. I am the father of four kids. Do my colleagues know how humiliating it is to have an attack ad run when you are trying to bond with your 13-year-old going through middle school and all she hears on the radio is what a creep you are? Of course, she has been telling me that for a long time anyhow, but it is embarrassing. I do not like attack ads, but doggone it, I cannot think of America without that first amendment right to run an attack ad. I think that would be far worse. Even though I have been a victim of one, I have to say it scares me to think of an America where we cannot run an attack ad. I try to turn them around. I say, well, there goes my opponent saying these bad things again. I am not going to do that. But he has the right to call me a scalawag, if that is what makes him feel good. And I have the right to tell the folks I am not a scalawag and vote for me anyhow. This bill says to my farming population, to my farmers down in Evans County, in Tattnall County, in Vidalia, where we get all those great Vidalia onions, it says that they cannot participate in the system. Oh, the system lets certain people participate. You can give $60 million up to a political party if you are a big union or a company and you want to contribute. Hey, this bill allows the Democratic National Committee to build a building. Hey, this bill is so good, but we do not want to put it in effect until after the election. And my colleagues expect me to go back and tell my farmers that? My farmers are 2 percent of the population and feed 100 percent of the population and a great percentage of the world. I had the opportunity to go to Afghanistan recently, and I am glad that American farmers are so doggone productive that we averted a lot of starvation in central Asia this year. Our farmers are up against the wall. They have high labor problems, they have environmental problems, they have problems with NAFTA and GATT, and they have to compete against countries that do not have to play by the same rules that we do. Our farmers' backs are against the wall right now with credit, with import, with falling markets, yet we are going to tell them, hey, just to be on the safe side, you all have to shut up the last 60 days. That is not fair. It is not fair that all this bill really does in the name of banning soft money is reregulate it and refunnel it into preferred special interest groups. In my little old Georgia farm bureau, and all the 159 counties of Georgia, they are not going to be able to compete against the big boys because they cannot file all these reports. They do not have the big-city lawyers. They do not have the $60 million. Let us do not say this is banning soft money. Let us say this is banning farmers from full participation. Vote for the Combest amendment.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to say that I am conflicted by this. I want to say to my friends on the Democrat side, they have made a lot of good points. I think there are a lot of good points that have been made by the Republican side, too. I also want to remind my colleagues, because there are a lot of new people here who have been speaking with lots of righteous indignation about this, and I think their indignation is sincere, but veterans over there and veterans over here may remember September 14, 1999, when we had this exact same vote on a bipartisan basis. It passed 242 to 181. I have the voting list in my hand. I will be glad to share it with anybody. I do not choose to embarrass anybody by reading names, but I can tell my colleagues that every third name on here is a Democrat. I will say this to my Republican colleagues: Plenty of them voted no last time. This is not a bipartisan issue. This is not a finger-pointing issue, and this is not a racist issue. If it is, we are indicting a lot more than the author of this amendment, because plenty of folks voted yes last time, and plenty of folks voted no last time in each party. I have it right here in my hand. So I am just saying this: As many of my colleagues know, I can be just as partisan as some of the rest of us, but I am saying in this case, this is not a partisan issue, this is not a mean-spirited amendment. We have been down this path before. I think we had a much better debate last time, but here is a copy of the results of that debate, and I will share it with anybody.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment as the designee of the majority leader.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis).

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for introducing a bill that is relatively clean of the hypocrisy that we seem to have in some of the other bills. It is interesting that we hear over and over again that the Shays-Meehan bill bans soft money; and yet if we look at it, and I advise Members to look at the doggone bill because if Members say it bans soft money, they have not read the bill or they are misrepresenting the bill. It is one or the other. But what it basically does is it reregulates soft money and tilts the scale more favorably to certain special interest groups. It is analogous to pushing food around on the plate to make momma think the vegetables have been eaten. I hated green peas. I know the game. I did it all of the time. That is what is going on here. Members are patting ourselves on the back and head and acting holier than thou and saying we banned soft money today. Mr. Chairman, it does not do that. It creates a $60 million soft money loophole for State and local parties. It allows the Democratic National Committee to build a $40 million headquarters building with soft money. It lets candidates solicit unlimited soft money for 501(c) groups; and it allows soft money to buy billboards, direct mail, telephones, and door-to-door political activities. What a ban. It also is curious to me that the supporters of this bill decry how badly needed it is and how we should have done it yesterday, but postpone it until after this year's election. Mr. Chairman, I want a show of hands, how many Members think that is a good idea? Members want it, but think it is a good idea to wait until after the election. I applaud those Members for their honesty. I will make the observation that the majority of the Members did not raise their hands. Mr. Chairman, let me say this is not a ban on soft money. This is a make-believe bill. It just reregulates things and skews things. I know the New York Times wants it, and a lot of Members worry about The Washington Post and the New York Times. And if I was in the DCCC, I would look at this bill very favorably, but it does not do anything to clean out what is perceived to be the problem with politics. Mr. Chairman, I believe that the Linder-Armey bill does a much better job in that regard, and I urge my colleagues to support it.