Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from North Dakota. Sometimes when we are here, we get a little impatient since we all have places we want to go. I appreciate his comments, and I very much look forward to debating the budget and tax bills on the floor of the Senate next week and, frankly, over the next couple of months, as we do our appropriations bills. I enjoy those issues, and I would have preferred doing those instead of campaign finance for the last 2 weeks. I would have preferred doing the education bill. I, for one, was urging our caucus, and Senator McCain and others, to defer on campaign finance so we could take up some of the higher priorities which, in my opinion, are education, tax reduction, and the budget. I didn't win that debate. We have been on the campaign finance bill for the last couple weeks because of the tenacity, persistence, and stubbornness of our good friends, the Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, and the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Feingold. I compliment them. They have been persistent and tenacious in pushing this bill. I also compliment them for their efforts in working with many of us who tried to make the bill better. We had some successes and we had some failures. In some ways this bill is a lot better than it was when it was introduced and in some areas it got a lot worse. I will touch on a few of those. I had hoped we would be able to improve the bill. I could not support the bill when it was originally introduced before the Senate. I had hoped we could make some improvements so that this Senator could support final passage. I was committed to try to do that. We had some success in a couple of areas, but we had some important failures as well. I also compliment others who worked hard on this bill including Senator Thompson and Senator Hagel. Senator Hagel came up with a good substitute. Senator Thompson had a good amendment dealing with hard money, and I worked with him on that amendment. I also compliment Senator McConnell and Senator Gramm, who were fierce, articulate opponents and spoke very well. Senator Gramm's speech last night was one of the best speeches I have heard in my entire Senate career. He spoke very forcefully about freedom of speech and the fact that even though the editorial boards and public opinion polls say, let's vote for this, that we should abide by the Constitution. The Presiding Officer, Senator Byrd, reads the Constitution as frequently, maybe more frequently than anybody in this body. When we are sworn into office, we put up our hand and we swear to abide by the Constitution. The first amendment to the Constitution, one of the most respected and important provisions in the Constitution, states very clearly that ``Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances.'' ``Congress shall make no law . . .'' Mr. President, that includes the McCain-Feingold bill. In my opinion, this bill restricts our freedom of speech, not only in the original version, but especially in the version that we have now. Some of the different sections of this bill go by different names based on their sponsors. I have great respect for my colleagues, and I know Senators Snowe and Jeffords worked on a section restricting speech before elections by unions, corporations, and by other interest groups. This bill restricts their ability to speak, to run ads. This bill prohibits them, in many cases, from being able to run ads less than 60 days prior to an election that mention a candidate's name. There are a lot of groups, some on the left, such as the Sierra Club, and some on the right, such as National Right To Life, for example, that may want to run ads about a bill before Congress. We may be debating partial birth abortion or ANWR, and we might be having this debate in September on an appropriations bill, less than 60 days before the election. This bill will say they cannot run an ad with an individual's name saying vote this way or that way, or don't support this person, because he is wrong on ANWR, or he is correct on the right to life issue. Their free speech would be prohibited. I find that to be unconstitutional. I have heard a lot of debate on the floor saying they did not think that Snowe-Jeffords is unconstitutional, and other people saying that it was. Then Senator Wellstone came up with an amendment that said, let's expand that to all interest groups--the same restrictions we had on unions and businesses on running ads within 60 days. Let's make that apply to them as well. Senators McCain and Feingold said the Wellstone amendment was unconstitutional. If that was unconstitutional, then the underlying bill was unconstitutional because, basically, Senator Wellstone copied it. Why would we pass a bill we know is going to be unconstitutional? And that relates to the nonseverability amendment, described as a killer amendment. Why? Because they know some of the bill is going to be declared unconstitutional. Why would we pass legislation we know is going to be unconstitutional? Yet, some of the proponents are basically admitting it is going to be unconstitutional. The big fight was on severability. The sponsors had to have that because we more than suspect that parts of this bill will be declared unconstitutional. I think they are right, because the people sitting at the Supreme Court are going to say: does this bill restrict an organization's ability to communicate and mention a Member's name, or mention an issue that is before Congress? It will restrict that right. So it will restrict their ability to have freedom of speech. I think parts of this bill--not all of it, but certainly parts of it--will be determined unconstitutional. I think we should not be passing unconstitutional bills. I think we should not say, let's just pass it and let the courts do the homework on it. I guess you can do that, but I think we have the responsibility to uphold the Constitution, respect the Constitution, and not to be passing things we know are unconstitutional, that won't uphold a constitutionality test. In addition, I mentioned that we had some victories and some defeats. One of the victories, in my opinion, was when we increased the hard money limits, which have been frozen at the 1974 levels. I compliment Senators Hagel and Thompson because they pushed that amendment. I helped them negotiate the compromise. We increased what individuals can do. They were frozen, since 1974, at $1,000, and we doubled that amount and indexed that for inflation. So we improved that section. Individuals can now participate more fully and extensively. That was a good amendment. Not everything in this proposal is bad. There are good things and bad things. I came to this debate thinking I might be willing to ban so-called soft money, if it could be done constitutionally, if we could increase hard money, the money that is completely reported and that everybody says is legitimate. I wanted to stop the practice that both parties have used, used quite well on the Democrat side, with the so-called joint committees, where individuals exceed the individual amount, and contribute thousands and thousands of dollars more through a special committee, through either the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee or the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. The Democrats did it to the tune of $21 million last year, and the Republicans did it to the tune of $5 million last year. In one race in New York, there was $13 million of soft money directed toward one candidate. How can you have limits and then have other people contributing millions of dollars outside those limits? Everybody has heard about that Denise Rich contribution. She contributed over $100,000 to one Senate candidate, and I thought the law was only $1,000 for a primary and $1,000 for a general election. But Denise Rich contributed over $100,000 through the use of a joint committee. That was an abuse. It needed to be stopped. Now, let me turn to the issue of coordination. I mentioned this last night on the floor. The coordination section in the underlying McCain- Feingold bill was grossly inadequate in its respect for free speech. The sponsors of the bill, Senators McCain and Feingold, admitted as much and said we needed to fix it. The bill had a several- page definition of coordination, saying if a union or interest group coordinated with a campaign, they would have to report everything they did and consider it as a contribution. And if you didn't do so, there could be fines and penalties against that organization and against the candidate. You could make them criminal violations because they would be violating the law. We didn't want to make people criminals and put them in jail because, basically, they were exercising their constitutional rights. Senators McCain and Feingold said they would fix that. I looked at the fix, and they fixed it for the unions, but not for everybody else. For the unions, they excluded the in-kind contributions. Unions don't have to report those, disclose them, and they are not considered coordination. That affects a lot of money, maybe to the tune of in excess of $100 million or $200 million. That in-kind contribution is excluded from the coordination fix we just adopted earlier today. But we didn't fix the expenditures side of that. So if you have other groups, such as National Right To Life or the Sierra Club, and so on, that make expenditures and are working on campaigns and handing out leaflets and so on, that may well be considered a coordinated activity that has to be reported and disclosed both by the candidate and by the organization. Right now, they don't have to do that. We are going to say that could be illegal activity. What I am saying is that they took care of the unions, but not of these groups. I don't like this coordinated section because I think it goes way too far. We are risking telling people who are exercising their constitutional rights engaging in campaigns, they better not do that or the heavy hand of the Federal Government might come in and say they violated the law. The people accused will say, what law? These are people that might be trying to convince people not to drill in ANWR, or maybe that we should. Maybe we want to change the mining laws, or maybe we should not change the mining laws. They should have a right to petition Congress. That is what the First Amendment says. We should not abridge anybody's right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. But we do under this bill if it is during a campaign or within 60 days of an election. You are certainly going to be handicapping their ability to redress a grievance to the Government-- their right to petition the Government. Again, we have the Constitution, and we have this bill. I find this bill to be in violation of the Constitution. Under my reading of the Constitution--and I am not a constitutional scholar--I believe we are eliminating or reducing an individual's ability to be able to petition the Government, and an individual's ability to have freedom of speech to say, ``I agree with them,'' or ``I disagree with them,'' or ``I disagree with Senator so-and-so,'' or ``I agree with Senator so-and- so,'' right before the election. This bill says, no, you can't do it. If you do it, you might well be in trouble. But, oh, we have a little fix for the unions. We will just run it through on the last amendment of the day, which is what happened. Do you know what else concerning the unions is missing in this bill? You would think in the year 2001 we would say that all campaigns contributions would be voluntary. Guess what? They are not in America today. There are millions of Americans who are compelled to contribute to campaigns they don't support. They would rather not. Some people say these people don't have to contribute because they don't have to join the union. In some States, they have to join, or if they don't, they have to join under an agency fee arrangement, and they have to pay dues. They may not want to, but they have to. They have to pay the dues or the agency fee. A lot of that money--maybe in excess of $10, or $15, or $20 a month--is used for political activity. That individual may not want it to be used for that. He might disagree with the leadership of the union that money is going to candidates to whom he or she is totally opposed. We wanted to have a provision that says no one should be compelled to contribute to a campaign; they would have to give their permission before money can be taken out of their paycheck every month. Oh, no, that amendment could not be accepted. To be fair, the amendment that was offered was not a good amendment, in my opinion, because it also included shareholders, and there is no way in the world you can include a shareholders provision, in my opinion. But the voices were clear: You are not going to win on that Paycheck Protection amendment. Senator Hatch offered another amendment that said at least let's have disclosure on businesses and unions on how much money they are putting into campaigns. I thought surely that amendment was going to be adopted. That amendment was not adopted. I will say right now that I believe organized labor put hundreds of millions of dollars into the campaigns last cycle, and we do not know and we will not know because this bill does not require that they tell us. Everybody else has to disclose contributions; organized labor does not. They do not have to disclose their independent activities. They do not have to disclose their indirect, in-kind contributions to campaigns. They have thousands of people making phone calls day after day that are paid full salaries, benefits, at a station set up for political activity, and most of that is not disclosed. We do not know and this bill does not help us know. Is this a balanced package? It looks to me more and more that it is not. Originally, this bill had language supposedly to codify Beck, Beck being a decision that if a union person did not want their money used for political purposes, they could file notice and get a refund. I never thought that case was satisfactory because their money would be used in ways with which they still would not agree, but it was better than nothing. They could get a refund. If somebody does not want money used for political purposes, they should say no and not have to contribute. The underlying bill purported to codify Beck, but it did not do that. I raised that issue with Senator McCain and Senator Feingold, and they concurred with me. We struck the language that weakened Beck, in my opinion, significantly. That made the bill a little better. I want to give credit when credit is deserved. Certainly this bill is improved by the hard money increase. I think it was improved by striking the language, what I would call the false Beck. That language was taken out of the bill. That made it a little bit better. Then there was another provision this Senator fought very strongly against, but only at the last minute because I just found out about it at the last minute, and that was the amendment by our friend and colleague from New Jersey, Senator Torricelli, that dealt with lower advertising rates for politicians. I fought it, but we only had 30 votes against it. Under that amendment, broadcasters have to offer the lowest unit rate to candidates for each type of time over a 365-day period. That is an outlandish, enormously expensive subsidy for politicians. And while people say, this is great, we are limiting money in politics, and so on, what we have given politicians is an enormous multimillion-dollar gift through this amendment, a multimillion-dollar gift. We defeated a couple amendments that dealt with public financing of campaigns, but this amendment is indirect public financing of campaigns because it is going to allow politicians to get the rates cheaper than anybody else in America. It also has a little provision that says the politicians's ads cannot be preempted. To give an example, prior to the election in October, it gets expensive because a lot of people are trying to buy time. There is a lot of competition. A lot people watch ``Monday Night Football.'' I like to watch it. I am sure commercial ads get expensive on Monday night or any night of high visibility. We said: Politician, you get the cheapest rate of the year, and you can use that time on Monday night, you can use it on any great night. You get to have the cheapest time of the year. You get your time, and it may be one-tenth as expensive as normal rates for ``Monday Night Football'' or some other program. You get the lowest rate of anybody throughout the entire year, and they cannot preempt you. You buy the time, you've got it. Maybe the broadcaster is in rural West Virginia or Oklahoma and has a radio station or a TV station and is scraping to get by. They are going to get paid the lowest rate they charge on a hot summer night. The broadcaster may think: This is good, we have the new ``ER'' or some other new show that is really popular, so we can make some money. But they are going to have politicians swamping them saying: Give that time to me. We passed an enormous subsidy for politicians. It is an enormous advantage for incumbents because incumbents usually outraise their challengers most of the time. We just increased the advantage incumbents have by millions of dollars. Thank you very much. We should pat ourselves on the back: Hey, this is good, and we were able to slide this through. People don't know--they think we are reforming campaigns, and we are giving politicians enormous subsidies and acting as if it is reform, and being proud of it. We are going to slap everybody on the back about our great reform. We did a little nice thing to which nobody paid attention. Politicians, you get the lowest rate of anybody all year long, and you get to use it the night before an election. That is our little gift to ourselves to which nobody paid attention. It is another good reason, in my opinion, that this bill should be defeated. I look at groups who are active in campaigns, and they will say: You are infringing on our ability to get our message out, to communicate, to run ads, to mention names, vote for, vote against. We are making it very difficult, in some cases illegal, under this bill. It is wrong and unconstitutional. We also greatly increase subsidies for politicians. I think that is absolutely shameful. We should not have done it, but we did it. While this bill may be an improvement over present law on the whole, it is unconstitutional and it includes an egregious subsidy for politicians. It should be defeated, and I will vote no on this measure when we vote on Monday. Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. One of the remaining issues is--some people would call it technical, but I think it is major, and that deals with coordination. A lot of us recognize that the underlying bill needs some improvement on coordination or else we are going to have a lot of people who are going to be crooks who want to participate in the political process. And they should have the opportunity to participate. I have been trying to get language, and I have not seen it. But that is not insignificant and not technical; that is major concern.

Mr. NICKLES. Will it be possible for us to see language tonight?

Mr. NICKLES. Will the leader yield further?

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich) is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I thank my friend and colleague from Tennessee for offering this amendment, which I am happy to cosponsor and also congratulate him for the speech he made. I hope my colleagues had a chance to hear what Senator Thompson was saying. I also compliment Senator Allen for the comments he made. I appreciate the impact he has had since joining the Senate, including his idea, based on a campaign system that has worked quite well in the State of Virginia, which he has shared with us. Perhaps we will have a chance to vote on that amendment as well. The pending amendment is the Thompson amendment, which I am pleased to cosponsor, which increases the hard money limits. It is one of the most important amendments we will deal with in this entire debate, in this Senator's opinion. The amendment increases the hard money limits, hard money representing what individuals can contribute. Every dime of hard money is disclosed and reported. No one has alleged, that I am aware of, that this is corrupt money, that this is illegal money. Every dime is out in the open for everybody to see. The Thompson amendment increases the individual level from $1,000 to $2,500. That increase, if you look back to 1974, doesn't even keep up with inflation. Senator Thompson also would increase some of the other limits that are in the current law. PAC limits would grow from $5,000 to $7,500. That is not keeping up with inflation: if we kept up with inflation over 25 years, we would have over a 300-percent increase. The amendment has a moderate increase in PACs. And the aggregate individual limit goes from $25,000 to $50,000. Somebody has said, isn't that too much? I don't think so. If somebody wants to contribute $2,500 per year, they can only contribute to 10 candidates currently. Under this amendment, you could contribute to 20. Is that corrupt? No, I don't think that is corrupt. What I see as corrupt are the joint fundraising committees where you have millions of dollars of soft money funneled into some races. That money is not fully disclosed. Who contributed that money? We had a lot of Senate races last year and, the Democrats received around $21 million in these special joint committees last year. And we would like to say, is this the right way to raise and spend money? Does it make sense to do it that way? I don't think so. But with hard money, every single dime is out there for everybody to see in every single instance. I think the Senator's amendment makes great sense. I hope my colleagues agree. Some say we need to look for a compromise on this amendment. Senator Thompson has already compromised. His original amendment basically kept everything up with inflation, growing the aggregate limit from $25,000 to $75,000. His amendment now is at $50,000. The limits on giving to parties goes from $20,000 to $40,000. Don't we want to strengthen parties? My friend and colleague has made a good point: parties are healthy to the system. Senator Thompson's amendment allows individuals to increase contributions to parties. We should keep party contributions and allow parties to grow. If we are going to ban soft money, we should allow some increases in hard money. I think that is what the amendment we have before the Senate would do. I thank my friend and my colleague from Tennessee for offering this amendment. I think it is an important amendment. I urge my colleagues: Isn't this a good improvement over the existing system? I think it is. I urge the adoption of the amendment when we vote on it tomorrow morning. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I will speak for a few minutes. I thank my friend and colleague from Connecticut for allowing me to jump ahead.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns) is necessarily absent. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns), would vote ``no.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns) and the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Allard) are necessarily absent. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Montana (Mr. Burns) would vote ``no.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. A recorded vote.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to thank Senator McCain and Senator Feingold for their acceptance of this amendment. I think it is important to strike this language, that section 304 which purports to codify the Beck decision. I will just read a direct quote from the Beck decision. It says: The statutory question presented in this case, is whether this ``financial core'' includes the obligation to support union activities beyond those germane to collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment. We think it does not. In other words, what Beck says is the only thing somebody would have to pay for--have their dues taken away from them without their consent--is to pay for negotiation for contract collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance procedures, if someone has a grievance. That is the only thing. They were very clear what the language was. And the reason I and Senator Gregg--who, I might mention, is a key sponsor--objected was because this language went much further. I didn't want people to misunderstand and say, well, we are codifying Beck, or we are clarifying and codifying Supreme Court decisions where basically we would be rewriting the Supreme Court decision. That is the reason I raised it. I very much appreciate the comments of our colleagues who have said that wasn't the intent and we can drop this language. My colleague from Wisconsin asked me how many more paycheck amendments there would be. I wrote the paycheck protection amendment originally because a union person came to me and said: I don't want my money taken away from me and used for political purposes for which I totally disagree. It happens to be that 40 percent of union members vote Republican who don't agree with some of the national agenda of their party. This individual from Claremore, OK, brought it to my attention. That is the reason I sponsored the amendment. Yesterday there was an amendment proposed that had a paycheck protection provision, and, according to the media, it was completely unworkable. As Senator Kennedy pointed out, dealing with corporations and shareholders is not the same thing. Being a shareholder is not the same thing as being a wage earner having money--maybe $25 a month-- taken away from their paycheck. It is not the same thing, whether you buy shares of General Electric or Cisco, which may not have been a good idea the last few months. But, anyway, there is a difference in being a shareholder. I didn't think that amendment was workable. Regretfully, I voted against it. I didn't want to, but I felt compelled to because I didn't think it was workable. I am trying to look at bite-size improvements that can be made in this bill. I think removing this one section is an improvement in the bill, and I very much appreciate the cooperation of my colleagues to support this amendment. It is not my intention to offer any other paycheck-related amendments on this bill.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I will speak briefly on the pending amendment. I thank my friend and colleague, Senator McConnell, for sending this amendment to the desk on behalf of myself and Senator Gregg. The purpose of this amendment is to strike the language that is in the bill on page 35, section 304. Under the bill, it says ``codification of the Beck decision.'' When I initially heard that Beck would be codified, I thought that was good. I support the Beck decision and would like to see it codified. When I read the language, I found out it did not codify the Beck decision. In fact, it rewrote the Beck decision, undermined it in many ways, and led me to the conclusion that we would be better off having no language rather than this language. I very much appreciate the cooperation I have received from Senator McCain and Senator Feingold, who have agreed to drop this language, and as I also mentioned, Senator Gregg from New Hampshire, who has been working on this. Actually, we were both going to fight a big battle to strike this language. We thought that once people reviewed this language and contrasted it to the Beck decision, they would find out they are not the same and this wasn't actually a codification of the Beck decision in many different respects. I am pleased. I think everybody will be on board for striking this language. I could go into the details regarding the difference in notification in Beck, because we think all employees, union and agency fee employees, should be notified. Under the pending language, it would only be those who are agency fee members who would be notified. The Beck decision was very clear. The only instances in which a person would be compelled to contribute would be when they directly germane to collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment. In other words, in those instances that are directly involved in negotiating contracts, solving enforcement of the contracts, and solving grievances, then a person would be compelled to contribute. Under the language we had in the pending bill, it was much, much broader than that. Individuals could be compelled to pay in many instances determined by the union, and what might be regarded as unrelated to collective bargaining, they might define everything as related to collective bargaining and there would be no reimbursements for employees who went through the refund process. Again, I think we are better off having no language in it than to have the language that is in section 304. The purpose of this amendment is to strike section 304, and I am pleased that our colleagues on both sides of the aisle have come to that conclusion. I look forward to this section being removed from the bill, making, in my opinion, a significant improvement in the underlying legislation. I yield the floor.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I will do that. Mr. President, I mention to my friend from Connecticut, I happen to agree with him. The corporate side of this would not work. I read the language. It is the second time today I have read the language. The other time I read the language was in relation to the amendment dealing with broadcasting. All of a sudden we are giving gifts to politicians to the tune of--if you are from a large State, such as New York, New Jersey, or California, the previous amendment gave a gift to politicians in the millions of dollars. And that was in the language. The language in this amendment, regretfully--I have the greatest respect for my colleague from Utah, but I do not think the corporate side is workable. I heard people say: We want to have voluntary campaign contributions that should apply to the unions and businesses. But no one is compelled to be a stockholder. My friend from Connecticut mentioned, you may happen to own a mutual fund. This is absolutely impossible to enforce. But I also say there is a big difference between stockholders and employees. And the reason why we called the original one paycheck protection is because unions are actually taking money away from individuals on a monthly basis many times to the tune of $20 or $30 a month, and in 29 States, in many cases, taking away that money without their approval. Oh, they may not join the union, but they still have to pay agency dues, agency fees. A lot of that money is used for political purposes. That part of the amendment I happen to agree with wholeheartedly. That is the amendment I wish we were voting on, not this one that confuses corporate, where you have to get shareholders' approval, who voluntarily purchase stock, because that is not workable. It is workable to say, before you take money out of a worker's paycheck to the tune of $25 a month, if that individual does not want their money to be used--maybe $5, $10, $15 a month--for political purposes, they should have a veto. They should be able to say: No, don't take my money. No one should be compelled to contribute to a campaign in the year 2001 in the United States. Yet we have millions of Americans who are given no choice. Some people have said this is a killer amendment, that it is a poison pill to kill the bill. I disagree wholeheartedly. I was a principal sponsor of that original paycheck protection amendment. I still am. I believe very strongly no one should be compelled to contribute to a campaign against their will, period. We want to encourage participation. We don't want to mandate it. We don't want to take money away from an individual, use it in a way they don't like, and then say: If you want to, you might file for a refund. That is the Beck decision. I think we should strike the Beck provision. I agree entirely with the Senator from Kentucky. The Beck provision in the underlying bill is a fraud. It should not be in there. It doesn't protect workers; it doesn't codify Beck. It dilutes it, if it does not totally eviscerate it. It needs to be deleted. We will wrestle with that amendment later. I don't want to confuse the two. Paycheck protection is important. It is important for those millions of workers in 29 States that are compelled to join a union. If they object to the union and resign their membership in the union, they still have to pay agency fees. Agency fees can be in excess of $20 a month. Much of that money, maybe half, maybe more, is used for political purposes against their will. Those hard earned dollars may be used for political purposes maybe they don't agree with, money that goes to candidates campaigning against a tax cut, maybe campaigning to take away their right to own firearms, maybe very liberal positions with which they don't agree. You might ask: Where did Paycheck Protection come from? I began this fight because an American Airlines union member came up to me and said that his money was being used for political purposes that he was against it, totally, and he couldn't do anything about it. I told him I would try to help him. I told him I will try to pass legislation to have voluntary campaign contributions for everybody in America. That shouldn't be too much to ask for. That is the genesis of paycheck protection. I hope maybe we will have a chance to vote on that. I hope we will find out, are people really for voluntary campaign contributions. Unfortunately, the amendment we have before us does much more than make a campaign contributions voluntary. So maybe at a later point in the debate--we still have a week and a half left--maybe we can vote on voluntary campaign contributions. That is this Senator's purpose. For someone to say this is a poison pill because organized labor doesn't want it is nonsense, do we should just give a special interest a blank check--do we let them veto anything that we present on the floor of the Senate? I don't think so. Organized labor forcibly confiscates hundreds of millions of dollars for political purposes. Organized labor put in at least $300 to $500 million in the last campaign cycle. That is a lot of money. Let them participate, but it just should all be done with voluntary campaign contributions. Likewise, if businesses are raising money for political action committees, that should all be done on a voluntary basis. Nobody should be compelled to contribute to a campaign in the year 2001. I hope we will have a chance to vote on paycheck protection, voluntary campaign contributions for all Americans. I do believe that the language that deals with the corporate side of this is not workable and does not have anything to do with voluntary campaign contributions. I say that with great regret because I have the greatest respect for my colleague from Utah. I also want to address one other issue very quickly. That is the issue with Beck. My friend from Kentucky mentioned that the Beck language in the underlying bill needs to be taken out. I agree wholeheartedly. I hope we will have bipartisan support. People who said they wanted to codify the Beck decision, this does not codify it, it changes it, changes it dramatically. To me, that is not right. I don't think it is right for us to say verbally it codifies Beck when it takes worker protections and actually guts the Beck decision. I hope that at a later point, not to confuse it with this amendment, but at a later point my colleagues will join those of us who would like to see that language removed from the underlying bill. I thank my friend and colleague from Connecticut for the time and also my friend and colleague from Kentucky who I think has handled this bill quite well.

Mr. NICKLES. I yield the Senator from Alaska whatever time I have remaining.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, it is with some regret I rise in opposition to this amendment. I tell my friend and colleague from Connecticut, I happen to agree with him on the portions of his debate alluding to the corporate side of this, trying to say that stockholders would give approval--for the information of the Parliamentarian, I am on the time of the Senator from Connecticut. I see the Parliamentarian is having a hard time deciphering that. I am not often on the side of my friend from Connecticut, but at this time I will use his 5 minutes.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for a minute for Senator Burns and a minute for Senator Boxer.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.