Bob Ney

Mr. NEY

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this is not a cynical substitute. This is Shays-Meehan that 252 people voted for and said that this is the only measure. This is what was going to go to the desk of President Bush. This is not something that I created last night. This is the bill. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis). (Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley), chairman of the Committee on Financial Services. (Mr. OXLEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I think a lot of issues that do or do not pass here are debated, obviously, on their merits, whether it is prescription drugs or health care or Social Security. And when we start to talk about the money in the system and the influence, this bill is not going to change that. Wealthy individuals, in my opinion, are still going to be in the system, unregulated, to do as they want with advocacy. But groups that are pushing, for example, for prescription drugs, their voices will be silenced, in the Shays-Meehan approach, in the last 60 days if they want to go to the radio ads or they want to go to the TV ads. I do not think that is a level playing field, letting one or two wealthy individuals in this country push around the advocacy as they please. Maybe they will want to stop prescription drugs, perhaps help prescription drugs, but, on the other hand, a lot of people who will advocate for a lot of good things for Americans, their voices will be silenced.

Mr. NEY. I just did not want the gentleman to leave without being rekindled.

Mr. NEY. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Before my colleague leaves the floor, I want to rekindle his faith in our system, because there is a Ney-Wynn amendment coming. So the gentleman will have that chance, the whole bill we debated, the gentleman is going to have that chance to vote, and I just wanted to reassure him of that.

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 15 seconds to myself. So it is okay for the Senate to make some changes and we can accept that and morph the original bill 252 people voted for and get to the point we are at today, but it is not okay to take some type of an amendment, which there are good amendments, today from the floor of this House and introduce them. So the Senate has the sacred hand or something in this? Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller).

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I hope that this is an historic substitute today because I think we are going to come together; and I am sure the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) are going to stand up at this microphone, I am positive, and probably embrace and endorse this substitute. Now, I could be wrong, but I have a good feeling about this one. One common refrain we have heard is that the Congress must pass campaign finance reform now because it has previously passed the House by wide margins. Well, the substitute I offer today is the bill that this House passed previously. I offer it not because I think it is really a good bill and not because I particularly want to see it passed; on the contrary, I think this is a bad piece of legislation. I voted against it in the last Congress. I wish it had not passed then, and I really do not again want to see it particularly passed today. With all sincerity, I offer this today because I want to give Members the opportunity to vote on a bill that they previously supported which never made it to the President's desk, and so Members have indicated they would like to have the chance to have that vote and it is a good, honest vote. As we all know, in previous Congresses Members here were able to cast a vote for this legislation knowing that it would never become law. They could vote for it here knowing that it would not get past the other body or it would not be signed by the President. We all knew that was the game plan in some cases. Things are a little different this year. The Senate has already passed a version of campaign finance reform. The President has given no indication that he intends to veto a bill that would reach his desk. So unlike previous votes, today's vote really does matter. We are not playing games anymore. As some have said, we are now shooting with real bullets. The legislation that passes this House is very likely to reach the President's desk and to become law. Given that, I think it is important to give Members the opportunity to enact legislation that they previously supported on this floor, and so I offer as my substitute the language of H.R. 417, the Shays-Meehan legislation which passed in the 106th Congress by a vote of 252 to 177. I would like to say that this substitute is exactly the same bill that was passed in the previous Congress. Unfortunately, the bill has changed so much it is no longer germane to the Shays-Meehan bill on the floor today, and that is due to the constantly evolving product that we are dealing with. Let me repeat that because I think Members need to realize this. The Shays-Meehan bill that is on the floor today is so different from the one we passed in the previous Congress that the bill is not even germane to the new Shays-Meehan bill. Accordingly, some changes have been necessary for this substitute to be in order, some sections had to be stricken. In essence, however, the substitute is the Shays-Meehan bill that passed previously. Offering this as an amendment, in addition to giving Members an opportunity to be consistent in their voting, provides an opportunity to highlight the evolution in the Shays-Meehan legislation that was introduced last night brought forth. As Members know, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) introduced a bill very similar to H.R. 417 at the start of this Congress. That bill, H.R. 380, was introduced on January 31, 2001; but that is not the Shays-Meehan bill that they have chosen to bring to the floor today. Instead, on June 28, 2001, one day before my committee, the Committee on House Administration, was scheduled to mark up campaign finance legislation, they introduced a new bill, H.R. 2356. That is the bill that serves as the base text today. The substitute offered today by the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) that we saw for the first time last night makes even further changes to their bill. Members need to be aware that the bill they are being asked to vote on today is not the same bill that they supported previously in the 106th Congress. For example, this amendment, the old Shays bill, banned soft money. The new bill simply does not ban all soft money. We have talked about the loophole we can drive a truck through. In this substitute, which the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) previously supported, soft-money contributions to the political parties for Federal election activities were banned. In the new version, today's version, there is no ban. State and local parties are permitted to receive soft-money contributions from unions and corporations. So if my colleagues want to ban soft money and they voted previously to do so, they should vote for this substitute because the new Shays bill simply will not do it. In the old Shays bill issue ads were banned 365 days a year. In the new Shays-Meehan bill, they are banned for only 90 days, meaning that under the new Shays bill unions and corporations can use soft money to run attack ads 275 days a year. If my colleagues want to ban issue ads funded with soft money, they should vote for this substitute because the new Shays bill simply will not do it. In the old Shays bill, soft money could be used for any form of election-related communication, meaning they could not use soft money for television ad and newspaper ad or a pamphlet. In the new Shays bill, the only form of communication that cannot be funded with soft money are broadcast ads run during the 60 days before an election or the 30 days before a primary. Meaning, under the new Shays-Meehan bill, groups can continue to use an unlimited amount of unregulated money on mass mailings, phone banks and push polls. If my colleagues want an issue-ad restriction that would stop all communications funded with soft money, they should vote for this substitute because the new Shays bill simply will not do it. Those are just some of the biggest examples of the changes that have been made. Here are some others: The old Shays bill did not treat House and Senate candidates differently. The new one does. The new bill allows candidates for the Senate and for the Presidency to accept $2,000 from an individual per election, but House candidates can only receive $1,000. If my colleagues think House and Senate candidates should have the same contribution limits, they should vote for the substitute because the new Shays bill will not do it. The old Shays bill did not include a soft-money loophole that would allow a political party to keep any soft money it had as long as it wanted to build a new headquarters. The new Shays-Meehan bill does. So if my colleagues do not think a political party should be able to use money to build a new headquarters, vote for the substitute. The old Shays bill required publicly funded candidates to certify that no soft money was raised to benefit their candidacies. The new Shays bill simply does not do it. The old Shays-Meehan bill banned the use of the White House for political fund-raising. The new Shays-Meehan bill simply does not do it. The list goes on and on and on. It is obvious that the bill on the floor today, though it bears the name Shays-Meehan label, is not the old Shays-Meehan bill. While the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) do not want to give Members the opportunity to vote on the provisions, I think we can give them the opportunity to vote on the substitute. Some will say that offering this amendment as a substitute is anti- reform now. Was not then, it is now. That argument simply amazes me, frankly, Mr. Chairman. Somebody will make a good case to prove me wrong, I am sure, in a couple of minutes. I have faith in my colleagues. I am sure that if my colleagues went back and looked at all the newspaper editorials that were urging Members to vote for the substitute at the time it was offered in the last Congress my colleagues will see that Members were told that if they did not vote for H.R. 417 they were against reform. Now with essentially the same bill being offered today through this substitute, we will hear that to vote for it is to be against reform. It is surreal. It is Alice in Wonderland. I look forward to the vote on this substitute. I plan to vote against it because I think it is a bad bill. New Shays, old Shays, I think they are all kind of a little bit bad, need a little bit of correction, little bit of work, which we an do together if we pass a couple of good amendments, keep it going; but I look forward to seeing how Members vote on it today. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 15 seconds to myself. As I understand it, now it is a bad bill; it is not a reform bill. It was good then; it is not good now. I am still a little puzzled, I guess, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller), my friend. (Mr. WELLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield).

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, as the designee of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), I offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I just want to point out that Shays-Meehan has been passed around and changed more than a baby at an all-day baptism party in the last 2 weeks and last night. And the other thing is, my friends from Michigan and Connecticut do not get the point. We have a good bill, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn) and I. We did not claim it was from the outset completely pure. My colleagues all claim to ban soft money, but they do not.

Mr. NEY

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time, and I want to thank my distinguished ranking member for giving me a few more minutes here. Let me say this and say it in the right way. This is well-intentioned by individuals. And this is regardless of the last comment, because I do not think we need to be saying that because we do not support something, that there is something ethically challenged about an individual. So this is well-intentioned, it is just not well-crafted. And we hear the words ``vote your conscience,'' but of course the implication today that we have heard is that if we do not vote for Shays-Meehan, then there is something wrong with our conscience. And I do not believe that about the other side. Let me just say that this bill does gag millions of union workers in this country. Soft money can be spent on newspaper ads, but the money of those workers, their hard-earned money, cannot be spent where they want to direct it, into radio or TV. It does gag people who work in business. It does gag the rights of free speech, unless of course, again, the money is spent on a newspaper ad. That is just not the American way. The amendments we will see today are good-intentioned amendments. This is not the same bill. Enron could have spent $60 million under Shays-Meehan. We know that. They can pay off building funds under Shays-Meehan by using it as a collateral backup for hard money that can be paid off after the election. And, by the way, why is this not effective immediately? Last year, before the Committee on House Administration, people banged their fist and said, we have to do the whole thing by May, or we need a discharge petition. We accommodated it and moved it to around the first of July. It had to be done right there on the spot. Now all of a sudden we can do it after the election. Challengers in this country are going to have a hard time figuring this bill out. This is an incumbent protection bill. It is not crafted the right way. The amendments we will see today are good substantive amendments that will not kill this bill, but will make this bill acceptable.

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt). (Mr. TIAHRT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds. If my colleagues will read the New York Post, they adequately point out that the New York Times editorial asking people to call their Members of Congress would be illegal, illegal under Shays-Meehan if it were put into a radio or TV ad 60 days before the election. But you can use all the soft money in the world you want for newspaper print. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis).

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), our whip.

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier). (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the distinguished deputy chief whip.

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 10 seconds to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder).

Mr. NEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is going to be a long debate today, and tonight, and I do believe that is good. The legislation we are debating is extremely important. The last time this Congress passed significant campaign finance reform legislation was 27 years ago. We could be living with the consequences of any bill we pass today for decades to come. That is important, I think, for the challengers across this Nation, the men and women who want to aspire to be able to speak on the floor of this House. So what we are doing is important for our energetic give and take of public debate. Today, as in any debate, a lot of claims are going to be made about the various bills and amendments. I think right at the outset, before we get under way, we ought to define our terms. We are going to hear a lot tonight about a ban--let me repeat that, a ban--on soft money. According to Webster's dictionary, to ban means to prohibit the use, performance or distribution of. In politics, we often contort language, but I would like to make it plain and clear, the bill under consideration today, H.R. 2356, the Shays-Meehan bill, does not ban soft money under any definition or under any stretch of the imagination. I am certain that we will hear otherwise from some of our colleagues today, but the fact is anyone who tells you that this version, I believe this is the fourth version of what I call an altered state of a piece of legislation, that this version of Shays-Meehan bans soft money is simply not telling you the truth and is not being accurate. It could be argued that previous versions of Shays-Meehan did ban soft money. H.R. 380, the bill the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) introduced last January, and the versions of Shays-Meehan approved by this House in years past, did ban soft money donations to political parties. I would argue that even those bills were not real, true soft money bans because they did nothing to restrict how unions, corporations and wealthy individuals spent soft money. Those bills did ban soft money donations, but not soft money expenditures. So whether or not earlier Shays-Meehan bills really banned soft money could be debated. What cannot be debated, however, is the simple fact that this newest version of Shays-Meehan fails to ban soft money, again under any definition. It cannot even be seriously argued that H.R. 2356 bans soft money. Anyone who claims that it does is either deliberately misrepresenting the facts, or they just do not know what is in this new piece of legislation. The difference between H.R. 2356 and the previous versions of Shays- Meehan is that H.R. 2356 now permits political parties to accept soft money donations. Even if this bill were to be adopted today, unions, corporations and wealthy individuals could still donate massive amounts of soft money to State and local political parties. These donations are permitted up to $10,000 and can be made to every State and local party in the country. With over 3,000 counties in the United States, this means that a corporation or a union, or Enron, because we have talked about that a lot in the last couple of weeks for emotional purposes, could donate up to $30 million to one political party provided they spread it around the country. If somebody wanted to give to both parties, they could give up to $60 million, provided they spread it around the country. We are going to hear a lot of talk about Enron today and how the Enron debacle demonstrates the need for campaign finance reform. There are two things to say about that. Even if this bill had been law, it would not have prevented the Enron collapse. Unfortunately, I have had constituents that have called me up and said, is it true what I am hearing on TV, what is being insinuated, that people's money could have been saved from the terrible things that the corporate top of the ladder did to people? This bill, if passed, would not have changed that. Let us not fool the American public to make them think that people could get their money back. All the money that Enron gave could still have been given even if this bill were law. Some will say, well, they could not have given it to the national parties. Ask yourself, does it really matter? If a company wants to influence the political process by spreading a lot of money around, does it really matter if the money is given to a national party instead of a State party? Are we to believe that if a company was giving millions of dollars in contributions to a political party, its influence would somehow be diminished because it spread the money around to a lot of State parties instead of simply giving it to a national party? I do not think so. All this bill does is spread soft money around the country. It redirects it. It does not ban it. This bill also imposes a number of serious restrictions of political speech. It prevents an organization from spending its own money promoting a message its members believe in if they happen to mention a candidate in the 60 days before an election. That is not America. That is not free speech. Whether it is the left, the middle or the right, people should not be gagged in this country, and they are gagged under this bill. Supporters of the bill will argue that they do not restrict free speech at all, they simply require that it be funded with hard dollars. Let there be no mistake, this bill, the Shays-Meehan bill, burdens free expression and free speech. To claim that it is not a burden is to simply misrepresent the facts of this bill. It has been said that to give people a right to unlimited freedom of expression while limiting the amount they can spend promoting their message is like telling someone they can drive as far as they want, but they can only spend a certain amount on gasoline to get them there. Well, telling people they can speak as much as they want so long as they use hard money is like telling people they can drive as far as they want, but they can only buy one gallon of gas at a time. Even worse, it is like telling them they cannot use their own money to buy the gas, but can only use money that they are able to raise from people they run into along the way. Could it really be argued that such burdens did not restrict travel? I do not think so. But proponents of the Shays-Meehan legislation want to put similar burdens on free speech and then claim they have not restricted free speech. It is obviously simply not accurate. This is going to be a long debate today. I look forward to it. As we proceed, I hope Members will listen to the substance of the provisions being put forward. Shays-Meehan has retained the brand name, but the quality of the product has totally changed. Today we are going to have a good opportunity to debate and consider what this legislation would actually do. I look forward to that debate. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NEY

Mr. NEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 2356.