Marty Meehan

Mr. MEEHAN

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this would ban any presidential or vice presidential candidate who receives public funding from raising soft money. While we support the gentleman's position, this amendment is really unnecessary in the context of the Shays-Meehan bill. Not only does the Shays-Meehan bill ban soft money in Federal elections, but the Shays-Meehan bill expressly prohibits Federal candidates, office holders, and agents of Federal candidates and office holders from soliciting, receiving, directing, transferring or spending soft money on behalf of any other Federal candidates or office holders. So, the Shays-Meehan bill takes care of exactly what the problems were in the last presidential election on both sides and both parties. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman, he had an amendment pass just now. We are going to vote tomorrow. And this amendment I think we are going to agree to. And so certainly the gentleman from Florida, my friend from Florida is getting his amendments passed. Does this mean the gentleman is going to support and join the majority of Members here and support us in passing the Shays-Meehan bill that has such strong bipartisan support? Which, by the way, I have to say in all of the years we have been working on campaign finance reform, my colleague cannot look at any evening and have witnessed any more broad-based, incredible success and support for our legislation than this evening. Mr. Chairman, I was wondering if the gentleman has decided to join us in our efforts.

Mr. MEEHAN. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. MEEHAN. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, what we on this side and both sides who are fighting for campaign finance reform, what we have to worry about is making sure we get as many votes as we can. I am delighted that we are going to accept a couple of your amendments, but I just want to illustrate the point that ultimately you are not going to support our bill, which is unfortunate. But I will point out, this evening we had several historic votes, broad bipartisan support to defeat poison pill amendments. I am encouraged, I think my colleagues who are here are encouraged with the tremendous support. We look forward to dealing tomorrow with the remaining amendments and voting yes on those amendments that we are accepting and voting no on those amendments which would destroy the unique and historic bipartisan coalition that we have in support of our legislation. I look forward to getting through the amendments this evening. We are moving along slowly but surely. I am delighted at how well things are going this evening. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman makes some very good points. I have no idea why the President ever hired Dick Morris to begin with. After so many Republican campaigns, I have no idea why he did hire him. I think when the history books are written, the President will regret ever having hired him.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield as much time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Rivers).

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would just add on that, there is still a lot of room left on this Shays-Meehan bandwagon, and we would love to have you joining with us in abolishing soft money, sham issue ads, giving the FEC the teeth that they need to enforce the election laws that are on the book. We are very, very proud of the Members on both sides of the aisle that have demonstrated I think this evening on a number of votes wonderful support, Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals. There is still plenty of room on this bandwagon as we roll to a majority vote by the Members of this body coming early next week. We would encourage the gentleman to join with us on those votes. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, this is an amendment that would require the FEC to expend its resources on investigating potentially a minor violation at the expense of focusing some of its time on other resources. I would just point out that I support the amendment, but I am a little concerned about the resources of the FEC, and I would hope that as we look down the road when we give the FEC more responsibility that requires them, for example, in this case to keep track of these contributions, I hope that in the future we look to try to give the FEC not only the teeth it needs, but the resources that they need in order to do their job and keep the laws that are on the books and enforce the laws that will be on the books. So, I certainly support the gentleman's amendment and would like all of us to keep in mind the importance of fully funding the FEC in the future so that they can do not only their job on this amendment, but their job in other amendments and enforcing the laws that are on the books.

Mr. MEEHAN

Mr. MEEHAN. Who does at this point? I am happy to hear that the gentleman has an open mind. Part of the problem is, if we pass the gentleman's amendment, the bill is going to die. What we are trying to do is send a bill over to the other body that has a bipartisan consensus for both sides of the aisle. That is what we are attempting to do. Going through that process, we were unable to do that with this particular amendment. I happen to take more than 50 percent of money from people from my district, and over 90 percent of my money is from my home State. But what we are trying to do here is pass a comprehensive, fair campaign finance reform bill. The only way to get that done is to work with Members on both sides of the aisle. This particular amendment will defeat our bill.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just want to say that I am delighted to accept this amendment and I hope that the acceptance of this amendment results in us growing in even broader and more bipartisan basis support amongst my colleagues so that we can pass the Shays-Meehan bill. I think all of us have seen over a period of the last several months support for our bill growing enormously, and I hope that accepting this amendment results in the gentleman supporting our bill and getting many of his colleagues to support the bill. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I cannot because I support the amendment.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I do not have any objection to this amendment. I just wish the sponsor of the amendment will vote for our bill once we accept the amendment so we can get it passed and really have it become law. I do not know if he would change his mind on that.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This amendment, like the previous amendment, has nothing to do with campaign finance reform. States already are able to require identification at the polls. They simply cannot discriminate in the way that they apply the information that is required. Under Federal law presently States can require identification at the polls, but with a very important caveat: So long as such a requirement is applied in a way that is uniform and does not discriminate in compliance with the Voting Rights Act. I would remind the gentleman from Mississippi that this country has a history and a record of discriminating against the rights of people to vote. That is why the Voting Rights Act was adopted in this country. This amendment would overturn and eliminate the protections that are in the Voting Rights Act against discrimination. It has nothing to do with campaign finance reform and would overturn very important protections against discrimination in this country. That is why this amendment is unnecessary. Once again we have a sponsor of an amendment that does not support campaign finance reform putting up another obstacle towards passing this bill. And as we approach the hour of 10:30, there are still more efforts to water down and try to find a way to put up an impediment to passing campaign finance reform. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Watt), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. MEEHAN

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Mr. MEEHAN. I yield to the gentlewoman from Kentucky.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I wish that the authors of amendments who get up to say they are against Shays-Meehan would find another vehicle to drag down debate. We have been debating this bill for quite some time now, and the author of the amendment says that she is against it, but here is an amendment anyways. This could be an amendment that we could all agree upon. I would ask the gentlewoman if somebody is working on a get-out-the-vote effort and wants to buy coffee for people at a polling station, and, let us say, the coffee stand will not accept a check, how does one get around those types of expenditures, small disbursements like that? The gentlewoman may know that under the FEC law now, there are certain amounts of money, under $200, that are made available. It is required under the FEC that receipts get kept, and clearly they should be kept. But what does one do about that election day activity, with voter apathy and voter turnout going down dramatically, about these type of efforts to get people out to vote? Could the gentlewoman's amendment in some way accommodate these types of efforts?

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire of the Chair how much time is remaining on each side?

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Fazio).

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I would point out to the gentleman from Florida, there is not a better way to get disclosure than to vote for the Shays-Meehan bill, which provides disclosure on issue advocacy. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell).

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to control the 5 minutes as an opponent.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, this sounds like an amendment that we could support. But these amendments, sometimes we need to go through the process to make sure. We have a situation where voter turnout in this country is an embarrassment, and I would not want to see us support any kind of an effort that would try to reduce activity at polling places, getting people to the polls.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, would the gentlewoman have a de minimis amount of money that would be acceptable for donuts or something like that? Is there some amount there where we could reach an agreement? The amendment sounds like a good idea.

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, so when a campaign worker goes out and is trying to get people to go to the polls, the campaign or the party would give a check and the person would go, presumably, to a bank to cash the check. What if somebody did not have a bank account? Just so I am clear. We could support the amendment, but if somebody did not have a bank account or checking account, what would they do?