Don Nickles

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Florida [Mr. Mack] and the Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain] are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I finally ask unanimous consent that the nomination be confirmed, that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, any statements relating to the nomination appear at the appropriate place in the Record, and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Indiana [Mr. Coats] is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Indiana [Mr. Coats] is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Indiana [Mr. Coats] is necessarily absent.

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

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Specter] is necessarily absent due to a death in the family. I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Specter] would vote ``yea.''

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from New York [Mr. D'Amato], the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Faircloth], the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Warner], and the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Roth] are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from New York [Mr. D'Amato], the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Faircloth], the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Warner], and the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Roth] are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from New York [Mr. D'Amato], the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. Faircloth], the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Roth], and the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Warner] are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico [Mr. Domenici], the Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Inhofe], the Senator from Arizona [Mr. Kyl], the Senator from Arizona [Mr. McCain], the Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Enzi], and the Senator from Utah [Mr. Hatch] are necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Florida, [Mr. Mack] is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Florida [Mr. Mack] is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Florida [Mr. Mack] is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, this morning the Senate will begin immediately 1 hour of debate on the motion to invoke cloture on S. 25, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. Members can therefore expect a cloture vote at approximately 12 noon today. Assuming cloture is not invoked, the Senate may then proceed to S. 1173, the so-called highway transportation bill, ISTEA legislation. It is also possible the Senate will resume consideration of the D.C. appropriations bill if the two remaining issues can be resolved. The Senate may also consider any appropriations conference reports that may be available. Therefore, Members can anticipate additional rollcall votes throughout today's session of the Senate.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Florida [Mr. Mack] is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Florida [Mr. Mack] is necessarily absent.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I thank the Chairman. It has become evident that OIRA has not been implementing and coordinating the Congressional Review Act despite its organizing statute and President Clinton's Executive order. To make the Congressional Review Act work, Congress and the agencies need OIRA's expertise to coordinate agency input to the General Accounting Office on the new rules they promulgate. The General Accounting Office has reported to us that they have been frustrated by OIRA's refusal to work with them in their role of helping Congress understand the impact of each major rule.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask the Chairman, is it correct that it is Congress' intent that the budget appropriated for the Office of Management and Budget includes sufficient funds for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OIRA, to coordinate and implement the Congressional Review Act?

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I thank my colleague from Georgia. It is a pleasure to serve on the Governmental Affairs Committee with him. He is one of the members, as well as the Senator from Connecticut, who spends a lot of time on the committee and does a very good job, I will say, in really trying to find out what has happened and what the facts are. Mr. President, just a few general comments on campaign reform. Everybody says, ``Well, now we change the law. It's vitally important for us to change the law.'' I think it is more important, and maybe the best campaign reform that we could have would be enforcement of the existing law. Why in the world, if the statutes are very clear on the books--and some people say they are ambiguous; I think I will show in a moment they are not that ambiguous--why in the world should we be worried about changing the law if we are not going to enforce the law as it is written? We have numerous cases that, I believe clearly, laws were broken, and in some cases flagrantly broken, and yet we have seen almost no enforcement from this administration, and yet they are out there beating the drum, saying, ``Change the law. Change the law.'' It reminds me of something like somebody has been robbing banks and says, ``Oh, yes, let's have a tougher law against bank robbing. Oh, yeah, I've been doing it a long time. Oh, yeah, if I get caught, I'll send the money back.'' I don't think that is good enough. As a matter of fact, this administration has been caught with their hand in the cookie jar for millions of dollars. They have sent millions of dollars back, and they say, ``Well, that's OK.'' Well, I do not think that is OK. If the law has been broken, it should be enforced. If we would enforce the law, if we would actually indict people, if we would arrest people, if we would seek their participation and comments before a grand jury, I think that would do more for campaign reform than any of the bills that we have before us. And we have a lot of bills, good bills I will say, Democrat bills, Republican bills. Before we do that, we have several statutes that are on the books that ought to be enforced. Frankly, they have not been enforced. You might say, ``Well, give me an example.'' One that has been kind of famous is 18 United States Code 607: prohibits soliciting and receiving contributions in Government building. I know we heard from Mr. Sandler, who is general counsel for the Democratic National Committee say--well, he interprets that to mean that you can be in a Federal building, you can make all the phone calls you want on hard money, soft money, as long as you are calling somebody that does not happen to be a Federal employee in a Federal building, that you can do it. That is an absurd reading of the statute. I do not see how an intelligent person can read the statute and come to that conclusion, but that is the Democratic National Committee's general counsel, that was his general summary. It seems to be the advice that the Vice President has followed, to say he has broken no law. But the law is very clear. It says it should be unlawful for any person to solicit or receive campaign contributions in a Federal building, period. If you look further, the definition of ``contribution,'' is ``money received to influence an election.'' So I think they have broken the law. Maybe we will just ignore the law and say there is no controlling legal authority because that law has not been enforced. But my guess is no other administration in history has ever broken the law like this administration, never abused the law, never pushed the envelope. I think they pushed well beyond the envelope. I do not think it is into the gray area. I do not think it is a couple cases where somebody called you back and, ``Well, yes, we'd like for you to host something.'' I think this was systematic, flagrant--``Let's raise a lot of money.'' I believe very much that the President and the Vice President were involved in it. The President had a memo that said, ``Start the overnighters at $50,000 and $100,000.'' I happen to think that is the silver bullet people are talking about. The President of the United States said, ``Let's start the coffees.'' He is talking about raising money. They had 103 coffees. They raised $26.4 million. In the President's own handwriting he said, ``Start them.'' Guess what, they started right after he said, ``Start them.'' ``Start the overnighters''--they started the overnighters. They had hundreds of people spending the night, hundreds of people spending the night in the White House, more than any other administration, a volume that they have never seen before. And a whole lot of them were contributing $100,000. We had the FBI testify that 51 averaged over $107,000 each to spend the night in the White House. I happen to think that is a flagrant violation of the current law, the law as it is written right now. We could just go on and on. And 18 United States Code 600: prohibits promising any Government benefit in return for political support. Johnny Chung is reported to have donated $25,000 to Ms. O'Leary's favorite charity at her direction in order for Mr. Chung to obtain a meeting with several Chinese businessmen. He contributed the money. He got the meeting. Ms. O'Leary's charity got the $25,000. He also donated more than $360,000 to the DNC from 1994 to 1996. And 2 United States Code 441(e): prohibits a foreign national from making a political contribution either directly or through another person. Also prohibits anyone from accepting such contributions. Pauline Kanchanalak contributed $135,000 which the DNC had to return when it was revealed the contribution was actually from her mother-in- law. She visited the White House 26 times, she testified. Yet, has she been before a grand jury? Has this administration done anything to compel her testimony for laundering funds? I do not think so. Charlie Trie contributed $789,000 to the President's legal defense fund which we heard testimony that some of the checks were laundered through a Taiwan-based religious sect, Suma Ching Hai. He also received a steady stream of wire transfers from foreign sources from 1994 to 1996, totally $1.4 million, some of which came from Mr. Wu, his Macao- based business partner. Some people said, ``Well, we haven't seen any foreign money.'' They have not had their eyes opened. Mr. Trie had a lot of foreign money, $1.4 million, wired in, and he had great access. This is a person who is a Little Rock restaurant businessman. And all of a sudden he is spending millions of dollars, had unbelievable access to the White House. He visited the White House at least 37 times. He received a Presidential appointment to a foreign policy commission, one that the President had to expand the number of commissioners so he could serve on it. John Huang directed a $50,000 contribution to the DNC through Hip Hing Holdings which was reimbursed from Lippo's Indonesian headquarters. John Huang and a DNC fundraiser, Maria Hsia ``Shaw,'' collected $100,000 to $140,000 from Vice President Gore's Buddhist Temple fundraiser of which half had to be ordered returned from foreign sources. A lot of that money was laundered as we found out through testimony. It happens to be illegal. United States Code 201: prohibits any Federal official from receiving any benefit in return for official action. Johnny Chung brought in six Chinese officials to hear the President's radio address and gave the First Lady's chief of staff a $50,000 check in the same week that he was able to get them in. In exchange for $50,000, they were able to attend the radio address. That happens to be illegal. Has Mr. Chung been indicted? Has he been brought before a grand jury? Has he testified before the Senate committee? No. Mr. Chung made a statement, ``I see the White House like a subway; you have to put in the coins to open the gates.'' I could go on and talk about Charlie Trie getting a Chinese arms dealer into a White House coffee with President Clinton. Only 4 days before the coffee, it is reported, Mr. Huang's arms trading company received special permission to import 100,000 special assault weapons, although there was a ban on the importation of these assault weapons. United States Code 7201 prohibits evasion of income tax; United States Code 371 prohibits conspiracy to defraud the United States. The Buddhist temple is a tax-exempt organization. They made contributions to Vice President Gore, they made contributions to other colleagues in this body, they made contributions at the DNC with tax-exempt dollars. People were getting tax deductions, writing checks to the Buddhist temple, and the Buddhist temple wrote political checks. Everybody else in the country who writes political checks has to do it with after-tax dollars. In this case, people got a tax deduction for contributing to a Buddhist temple, and it was the Buddhist temple who was making contributions. That is wrong. That is against the law. That is against the IRS Code. I just quoted the IRS Code. Who has been indicted on that? This is an egregious violation of the law. It has happened time and time again. My point is we need campaign reform. In my opinion, one of the best steps we could take toward campaign reform would be to enforce the existing law. Maybe we should enforce the existing law and find out where its shortcomings might be before we try to expand the law or redefine the law or change the law. Now, Mr. President, I want to make a couple of comments concerning the legislation that we have before the Senate, the so-called McCain- Feingold legislation. First, let me compliment the authors of the legislation because I think they made some steps in the right direction. They have improved it and taken off, as I can see, the spending caps. They have taken off the ban which, incidentally, I think is clearly unconstitutional. They have taken off the ban on PAC's, political action committees. Those are steps in the right direction. They did a couple of things, though, that need to be improved upon, one of which is they said, well, we are going to codify Beck. We are going to make sure union members can get their money back. That is the language I have heard bandied about on the floor. Mr. President, that is not good enough. I firmly believe we should make sure that all Americans have voluntary contributions to campaigns. No Americans should be compelled to contribute to a campaign, whether they work for a business, whether they are a member of the union, or whether they are not a member. Some say that is an antiunion provision, a killer amendment. I beg to differ. If we are going to pass campaign reform this year, we will pass a provision that makes campaign contributions voluntary for all Americans. I feel very, very strongly about this. You might say, where did this come from? It came from a town meeting I had in Collinsville, OK, when an employee of American Airlines held his hand up, and one of the first questions he asked was, ``Senator Nickles, I really don't like my money being taken away from me on a monthly basis without consent to be used to elect people and support issues I don't agree with. That is not America. That is not right.'' The company the person worked for happened to be American Airlines. He happened to be what some people call a blue-collar, middle-income American. He is a great American. He is a union guy. He is prounion. He just wants to have a voice on whether or not he is going to contribute to a political party or not. I happen to agree with that. I happen to be a Republican, but I don't want anybody taking my money to spend it for political purposes without my consent. It would be over my body. I don't think anybody should be compelled to contribute to a different campaign or to a campaign they don't agree with. If you are going to have compulsory campaign contributions, you have lost real freedom, you have lost your political freedom. To say, ``We will give you information on how you can get a refund,'' is not satisfactory. That is after the fact. That is after your money has already been taken away from you, spent in a way you didn't like, and, ``Oh, yes, you can file for a refund. Incidentally, you have to go through a lot of trouble if you file.'' Guess what? You can't be a member of the union. Under the Beck language we have in the McCain bill and under the language that is currently out, if you get a refund, you have to be basically a nonunion member. You can't vote in union elections. You can't decide who would be president of that union. You can't have any impact on the collective bargaining strategy. Maybe you want to be a member of the union. Maybe it is the thing to do, but you disagree with the union's political agenda. Right now you don't have a choice. You can't have both. You can't be in the union and say, ``No, I don't want my money going to elect liberal Democrats or to elect people who have a social agenda that I disagree with.'' You don't have that option under current law. We will change that. If we are going to have campaign reform this year, we will have the underlining promise that all campaign contributions will be voluntary, period. Every employee that works for any company should know his campaign contributions will be voluntary. If he doesn't want to make them, he doesn't have to make them, period, whether they are a member of the union, not a member of the union, whether they work for a company that doesn't have a union, they should all know, nobody should be compelled to contribute to a political campaign against their will. Nobody. So that is one of the amendments we have up here. I don't look at it as a killer amendment. I tell my colleagues I am willing to negotiate. I heard Senator McCain say he is willing to negotiate. I am willing to negotiate. Senator Lott asked me to see if we couldn't work out a bipartisan bill. I am willing to work with my colleagues. I mentioned earlier, I think the McCain-Feingold bill took some steps in the right direction. I think it maybe has a couple of steps further to go. This is one of them. This is one of them. If we are going to have campaign reform, in this Senator's opinion, it will have to start with the premise that all campaign contributions will be voluntary; make sure that no one is compelled. Then what else can we do? We can do a lot of things. Some say ban soft money, others have proposals to limit soft money. Some say allow individuals to do more. Some people have ideas requiring that a certain percentage has to be raised within an individual's home State or district. I think all those things are legitimate for discussion. Let's put them all on the table. Some people have a proposal that says you can't contribute to campaigns unless you can legally vote. I think that is a good proposal. Other people want to have free TV time. I don't happen to agree with that. Some people want to have subsidized TV or half-rate TV for political candidates. I don't agree with that. I am willing to talk about it. I am willing to negotiate. I am willing to negotiate everything I mentioned, but the one fundamental thing I draw a line on is that the campaign contributions have to be voluntary. I take issue with anybody who says that is an antiunion bill. That is a proworker provision. That is a profreedom provision. It is basically saying no one should be compelled to contribute to a campaign against their will. That is a fundamental American freedom. We should be ashamed of ourselves for making anybody be compelled to contribute to a campaign against their will. We will fix that. I hope we will fix it. I believe we will fix it. I also believe that will be part of our bill, and then I will tell my colleagues I don't look at it as a killer amendment, because I'm willing to work with them to try to pass real, substantive campaign reform. Keep it constitutional, do not limit speech, encourage participation, make it possible for more people to participate, do not come up with a system that guarantees incumbents' advantage. I am more than willing to do other things that would limit incumbents' advantage. We can say, incumbents, you can't do any mailings in an election year. That will crimp it down a little bit. Incumbents, you cannot have carryover funds. We can do a lot of things for real campaign reform that we could pass in a bipartisan fashion. I believe one fundamental freedom should exist that we should all agree on, Democrats and Republicans, and that is that all campaign contributions should be voluntary. That is the reason why we have the Paycheck Protection Act. We don't want anybody reaching into your back pocket, taking your money out, and spending it for political purposes unless you say OK. That is your back pocket. You are the one who worked hard; you are the one who put the money in there. Nobody--no group, no association, no employer--should be able to reach in and say, ``I will take a little bit out and spend it the way I want without your permission.'' We will protect your paycheck and let you have control over it. That will be part of this bill. It will be the first amendment I believe we will vote on. I urge my colleagues to vote for it. Mr. CLELAND addressed the Chair.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I wish to speak on campaign reform, but I also see my colleague from Georgia is here. I have kind of come in two or three times to speak thinking maybe we are going to alternate. I do not want to impugn on his time.

Mr. NICKLES

Mr. NICKLES. I thank my colleague from North Carolina for his patience, as well as my colleague from Indiana for setting aside some time to pass this legislation. This is very important legislation to the people of Oklahoma and I think to our country as well.

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I would like to make sure we have taken final action on S. 871.

Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator withhold for a moment?

Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, on behalf of myself and the cosponsor of this legislation, Senator Inhofe, the legislation we passed today, S. 871, the Oklahoma City National Memorial Act of 1997, will create a permanent Memorial to commemorate the national tragedy ingrained in all of our minds that occurred in downtown Oklahoma City at 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, in which 168 Americans lost their lives and countless thousands more lost family members and friends. The Oklahoma City memorial, established as a unit of the National Park Service, will serve as a monument to those whose lives were taken and those who will bear the physical and mental scars for the rest of their days. The memorial will stand as a symbol to the hope, generosity, and courage shown by Oklahomans and fellow Americans across the country following the Oklahoma City bombing. This will be a place of remembrance, peace, spirituality, comfort and learning. The National Park Service memorial site will encompass the footprint of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, 5th Street between Robinson and Harvey, the site of the Water Resources Building and the Journal Record Building. An international competition was held to determine the design of the Oklahoma City National Memorial, and I commend the Oklahoma City Memorial Foundation for an excellent selection of the winning design. In addition to designating the memorial site as a unit of the National Park Service, this bill also establishes a wholly owned Government corporation to be known as the Oklahoma City National Memorial Trust. The trust, in cooperation with the National Park Service, will be charged with administering the operation, maintenance, management and interpretation of the memorial site. Further, the legislation authorizes a one-time $5 million Federal donation for construction and maintenance of the memorial. I commend the hard work of my colleagues, Senator Gorton and Senator Byrd, for their help in securing a $5 million Federal appropriation in this year's appropriations bill. The $5 million Federal commitment will be matched by $5 million from the Oklahoma State Legislature and $14 million in private donations. While the thousands of family members and friends of those killed in the bombing will forever bear scars of having their loved ones taken away, the Oklahoma City National Memorial will revere the memory of the survivors and those lost and venerate the bonds that drew us all closer together as a result. Mr. President, while it is impossible to recognize everyone whose hard work and effort made this memorial possible, I submit for the Record a list of individuals who formed the core of the Memorial Design Foundation. In addition, I would commend and extend particular appreciation to Gov. Frank Keating; his wife, Kathy Keating; Oklahoma City mayor Ron Norick; Mr. Bob Johnson, director of the Oklahoma City Memorial Foundation, charged with selecting the design for the memorial; vice chairman Karen Luke; Mr. Tom McDaniel; Mr. Zach Taylor; Mr. Bud Welch; Oklahoma City Fire Chief Gary Marrs; Mrs. Polly Nichols; Mr. Don Ferrell; Mr. Don Rogers; Mr. Richard Williams; and all others who worked hard to make this memorial possible. Our country is, indeed, proud of you, and I am very confident that our country will be proud of the Oklahoma City National Memorial. I also compliment and thank my colleague, Representative Frank Lucas, for his leadership in passing this in the House of Representatives, as well as my colleague, Jim Inhofe, who worked with me in putting this legislation together. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of the Oklahoma City Memorial Board of Directors be printed in the Record.