Vic Snyder

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. If the gentleman from Florida is offering that as amendment for extraordinary heroic behavior as a waiver, I think I can speak for the ranking member, we would accept that amendment. Did I misunderstand the gentleman, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, recently, I was in White County, Arkansas, a county that recently had some very devastating tornadoes, and was having my Saturday morning office hours in a store; and one of my constituents came through and what he wanted to talk about was our national debt. He said to me that, while we are all talking about the surplus, he urged me to please not to forget paying down the national debt. He said, we are talking too much about surpluses, but we are forgetting the debt. I think that is good advice from my constituent from Arkansas. If we use the surplus and pay down the debt, we will protect Social Security, we will protect Medicare, we will protect working families, and we will protect all generations that want to benefit from Social Security and Medicare in the future. This is good common sense, Mr. Speaker, from White County, Arkansas; and I recommend this Congress heed my constituent's advice.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of discussion in the last several weeks about this being a vote of conscience over the next 2 days. One of my friends from Arkansas was talking to me a few days ago and said, ``What's all this talk about conscience? You all act like it's something new for the first time.'' He said, ``What the hell, all the other votes you've been doing the last 2 years there?'' Well I think impeachment is a vote of conscience. Mr. Speaker, my question for this side of the aisle is: What was the decision-making process that led them to conclude that we should not have a censure alternative on this floor? Was it a vote of conscience in their caucus that said we, their Democratic colleagues, should be denied this right? Was it a vote of conscience amongst their leadership which said we, their Democrat colleagues, should be denied the right to vote for the alternative that we prefer? As my colleagues know, I am a doctor. I had the opportunity to dig around in people's bodies and cadavers in anatomy lab. I have looked for the conscience in a cadaver, it is not there. I have decided the last few days perhaps it was a Democratic cadaver I had who did not have a conscience. Well, I cannot believe that is true. We also have a conscience; everybody in this body has a conscience. We would like their process that they all control to give us the same opportunity they have.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to me, I share the concern of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Sanchez) about not having a bill. We have heard a series of Republican speakers this evening in these special orders discussing this great bill. This is the bill that we have right now, an empty table. So we hope it is a great bill, but we have not seen a great bill. I hope that there is time to study this bill. I hope the country has some time to study this bill. We have been embarrassed before by going home and finding things in the fine print that we all wish we had known before. I hope that we will have some time this weekend to look at this bill before any vote. On this issue of schools and education, I visited a school recently in my district. I visit a lot of them. The superintendent was talking to me about the decisions that they had made as a district to pay their bills. And he said some years ago, in fact it was before he became superintendent, the district was having such a problem, rapidly growing district, such a problem paying the bills, they made a decision, we are going to push class size to the legal max. We cannot keep up, we cannot keep up with the buildings that we have to do, the new classrooms we have to put on. We are going to put our classes as large as they can be so that we can get this district out of debt and be financially sound. He acknowledged to me, we think there was a loss by doing that. He said he is convinced at this stage in his career that people cannot be thinking about more teachers separate from the issue of school buildings. And it is a very obvious math problem. If he has classes in the elementary level of one to 24, for example, and all his classes are 1 to 24 and he wants to get them down to 1 to 18, how does he do that? He pulls 6 kids out of 3 classes. So he goes from three classes of 1 to 24 to three at 1 to 18. But what does he have? He has 18 kids standing in the hallway because they do not have a classroom. These two issues go hand in hand. That is what is so confusing to me, why our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been so resistant to helping local school districts with school modernization at the same time they seem to have agreed in the last 24 hours to go along with helping them hire more teachers. You have got to have a place for these folks to teach. If you are going to reduce class size, you have to create additional classrooms. That is a separate issue from problems we also have in Arkansas with just the need for improving our school buildings. I am sure, like all the Members here that are interested in education, I visit a lot of schools. The problems fall into two areas. You have districts that are rapidly growing and every year they are having to add additional classrooms because of rapid growth, or you have either urban or rural districts that are old buildings. And I followed a superintendent around as we went from building to building and he said, this one was built in the 1930s and then we did this addition, we think it was around 1945. And then this section was in the 1950s, but now the heating system we think was in the 1960s, but it is old and out of date and just these horror stories, at the same time discussing the problems that they have in financing these improvements. So I appreciate the opportunity to be with you this evening to discuss this important issue. I hope our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have not given up on this school modernization. I know the American people have not. I know the people of Arkansas have not. Those folks that visit school buildings anywhere in the country know of the tremendous work that needs to be done. If we are going to reduce class size by hiring more teachers, we have to have places for them to go and teach with these reduced class sizes.

Mr. SNYDER. We spend a lot of time, I think both parties do but particularly Democrats, we spend a lot of time talking about public education. I think sometimes it is important to step back and remind ourselves why do we talk about that. For a lot of us, we have to go back to our own backgrounds. Education in America is about opportunity, opportunity to dream, opportunity to support your family, opportunity to compete, opportunity to have the skills that were denied to your parents. For me personally I was raised by my mother in a single-parent household. If it had not been for quality public schools back in the 1950s, I would not have been able to become a family doctor. I depended on quality science classes throughout my public school career to prepare me to do well in medical school. Then I went to a public medical school, a State medical school, then got my residency in Arkansas at UAMS, a very fine public medical school. Our opportunity, our dreams as Americans depend on a sound public school system. Sometimes we get so focused in on the numbers, this many teachers, this kind of bond program for school modernization, how many kids per teacher, all that kind of stuff. We need to step back and think about, this is about the American dream. This is what all Americans have dreamed of forever, is the opportunity for your kids to do well through education. I have worked overseas several times as a family doctor in some God- awful places. There are people there that literally are dying to have the opportunities that we have in public education. But we have to nurture it. We cannot take it for granted forever. I visit a lot of schools, as I mentioned earlier. I compare them with the quality that I had back in the 1950s and 1960s when I was a youngster. We have got some work to do. Some of the buildings are the same buildings. We all know that. All of us who go back home, the buildings are the same. They look about the same. They smell about the same. This is my soccer tie. It is just plain coincidence I wore it today. I paid on the street of Washington, D.C. five bucks for it and some people say I overpaid, but when I was a kid in school, we did not have soccer in school, it was something you had two days a year just to figure out what kids in Latin America did, but it is a sign of how much change goes on around the world. Schools are now having to provide the kinds of technology that the gentlewoman from California was talking about, opportunities to build soccer fields that they never had to do. There is need for investment in infrastructure in our schools. The reason is to give our kids the chance to fulfill those dreams, the chance to compete with the rest of the world, and it is never going to happen in old buildings no matter how many teachers you have crowded into one classroom.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to hear that the negotiations are now concentrated on education as the issue this week before we go back to our districts. Let me make two points. Hopefully we will get some progress on education in these final days of the budget negotiations. I fear it will be too little to be of great help to our districts back home. I recently made a tour of one of my schools in my district, and I spend a lot of time visiting schools. The superintendent and principal took me around to show me how they had parced together these buildings, put these buildings together, different ages, poor wiring systems, inadequate for the technology of the day; science labs with inadequate utilities, gyms with inadequate air conditioning, the problems that they have in trying to keep up in a rural district with the needs for school construction and school renovation. These are real problems, whether you are in an urban area, a rural district or a suburban area. Our school districts want help modernizing their buildings and building new classrooms. They know they can do it in partnership with the Federal Government, with them maintaining local control. They know we are not about taking away their local control.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I visit a lot of school districts in my district, rural, suburban and urban, and they all tell me the same thing. They need help with school construction. They need help with building new buildings. They need help with reducing class size. The most recent one I visited made a decision some years ago to push the class size to the max in order to pay their bills. They do not like what they have done. They recognize, I am talking about both the teachers and the administrators, that there is a price the students pay. They need help. They want help. They understand that, in order to reduce class size, they have to build new buildings. In order to reduce class size, they have to hire new teachers. They understand they will control the hiring. They will control the building. But they want help from their government, their Federal Government in doing this. That is what this issue is about. That is why this week I hope we will focus on education, not to make partisan points, but to hopefully come out of here at the end of this week with a bill that helps the school districts in Arkansas accomplish what they want to with their school children.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Madam Speaker, last night on this floor by unanimous consent agreement a bill was passed, Senator Bumpers' Senate bill to include Little Rock Central High School and the surrounding neighborhood as a national historic site, as part of our national park system, to recognize the historical significance of the events that occurred in the school year 1957-1958 in Little Rock, Arkansas, at Central High School. I am proud to have been a cosponsor of that bill and to be a cosponsor of this bill. As I went around getting cosponsors with the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson) and others for this recognition bill of the Little Rock Nine, all you had to say to other Members is, ``This is Central High School, 1957, Little Rock Nine.'' We are very much aware that the eyes of the world were on Central High School at that event. What was the event about? It was about nine kids, nine children who put up with events that the rest of us have never had to put up with in our life. Melba Patillo has a book out the last several years called ``Warriors Don't Cry.'' That is what this was for these nine kids, these nine children as they were fighting our battles, the battles of America during this school year in 1957. This photo right here is Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, in 1957 who found herself alone in the middle of a mob one day at school. This one right here is Hazel Massery who was a 15-year-old student at the time. This photo seared the world with a picture of bigotry. They were beaten, they were kicked, they were tripped, they had food thrown on them, they had verbal insults. Worst of all, they feared for their lives. It changed their lives but it also changed the lives of the rest of us and of our Nation. This is a photo from 1997, the 40th anniversary of the desegregation of Central High School. This is Elizabeth Eckford, 40 years later, and this is that 15-year-old girl who had such a look of hatred and bigotry on her face 40 years ago. I am very pleased to be part of the recognition of the Little Rock Nine and their courage. It is very, very important that we recognize what they went through. I was in the Marine Corps in Vietnam. We had the opportunity to earn medals. There were no medals given in 1957 and 1958 for the sacrifices that the Little Rock Nine went through.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I commend the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Livingston) for striking 907 in the bill. I believe the gentleman from New York (Mr. King) also had a stand-alone bill and I commend him, also. Let me just make two points. First of all, I was watching the debate earlier this afternoon and several folks made the point that in 8 to 9 years the folks in Azerbaijan had not made any movement. To me that is a sign of a failed policy and it demonstrates once again the problem of a unilateral sanctions policy that I think that people in this body are going to want to look at in the future. The second point I would make is from the national security perspective. I suspect most of us know where Azerbaijan is. Their northern border is Russia, their southern border is Iran. It is a lot different being in their neighborhood than being between Canada and Mexico. In late March of this year, a shipment of 22 tons of stainless steel came south from Russia into Azerbaijan. It is a type of steel, a special type that is used for fuel tanks for Scud missiles. The Russian government had apparently been put on notice that this shipment may be coming from a company but it was able to get out of Russia nonetheless. Azerbaijan stopped the shipment within their country. Now, what did they do? Did they call the Russian company and say, ``You've got this stuff mislabeled with phony labels, we've caught you, give us a bribe''? No. Did they call Iran and say, ``We've got your steel, let's make a deal''? No. They called the United States Customs officials and said, ``We think we've found something that may be of interest to you.'' The United States evaluated the steel and it turned out to be a type that is used in fuel tanks for Scud missiles, part of the Iranian missile development program. Does Russia reward this behavior for Azerbaijan? Of course not. This is a terrible embarrassment for Russia as it demonstrated once again that they have some problems in their export controls. Does Iran reward Azerbaijan and say thank you for stopping this import of this material we were trying to get from Russia so we could further develop missiles? Of course not. They needed that material. So what do we do? And what have we done? Nothing. We have not even bothered to pass a meaningless resolution thanking them for stopping this shipment that would have contributed to the development of the Iranian missile program. We can appreciate their courage, we can appreciate their location in a dangerous part of the world, but frankly that shows little benefit to a country in their particular geographic situation. I am going to vote ``no'' on this amendment for those two reasons. It is a failed policy that demonstrates once again the problems with the United States unilaterally going it alone; and, number two, they ought to be rewarded for contributing to our national security and helping our United States Customs officials stop this type of steel from going into the Iranian missile development program.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan).

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Madam Speaker, America's school kids are now out of school and we join them, beginning today, back home for the 2-week July 4th recess. When we return, we will not have many work days left this year. And yet, we have done nothing about the two most critical problems facing America's public schools: class sizes that are too large and school buildings of poor quality. Madam Speaker, I want Arkansas school boards to run their schools, but the American people expect their government in Washington to help with these critical needs. When we return in 2 weeks, I hope we will refocus our attention to America's public schools and help America put more teachers in the classrooms and create better quality classrooms to put them in. America's schoolchildren deserve the best schools that we can give them.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, yesterday this House voted to fund a $2.5 million study of our current relationship with China. The newly- appointed chairman, a Republican, the gentleman from California (Chris Cox) and the ranking member, a Democrat, the gentleman from Washington (Norm Dicks), two well-respected Members of this body, deserve our support and respect as they begin investigating whether our decades- long policy and current procedures allowing commercial American satellites to be launched by Chinese rockets have inadvertently allowed transfer to the Chinese of information useful to the Chinese missile program. These are issues deserving thoughtful analysis, but unfortunately for the gentleman from California and the gentleman from Washington they undertake this investigation at a time of intense rhetoric and prejudgment, and of course elections are 4\1/2\ months away. Mr. Speaker, I encourage this body to let these Members do their work unobstructed by the hot rhetoric that sometimes overtakes this body. The gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) and the other members of this committee, we wish them well.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, it was 3 years ago today, June 11, 1995, the famous handshake, the promise between the President and the Speaker of the House to do something about the big money in politics. Where are we today? The President has said he will sign a comprehensive campaign finance reform bill. He supports the Shays- Meehan bill. The problem continues to be the Republican leadership of this House which has delayed and delayed and delayed proper consideration of campaign finance reform. Today we continue to have a few hours a week with this debate on campaign finance reform spread out so that the continuity is lost for the American people to follow this debate. The delay is long enough. It is time now for bipartisan campaign finance reform. Millions of dollars continue to be donated to the parties as the debate continues. The debate has gone on long enough. It is time to proceed with comprehensive campaign finance reform.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Madam Chairman, from the most recent records of the FEC in the last few months, a $200,000 donation from an individual impacting on the work of the Capitol; a $250,000 donation from a construction company; a $100,000 donation from a union; a total of $650,000 in donations from a bank; and I could go on and on, $100,000 from an individual; $450,000 in donations from a tobacco company. Madam Chairman, Lady Freedom is about to be covered up. As the debate was continuing last night, I was impressed with how much we were playing ``gotcha'' and how much we were playing politics. Let us go home on this recess, and come back prepared to deal with this problem. Before Lady Freedom gets completely covered up, let us recover our democracy.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. I could not help but think, when the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) was speaking, I have Little Rock Air Force base in my district and one of the places I like to visit on the base is the child care center there. It is a top flight, very high-quality child care at the center, but it is one of those issues that most Americans do not think about, that so many of our military dependents now have children and they have to be cared for or their parents will decide to get out of the Air Force. What I wanted to discuss briefly with my colleague, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) is this issue of quality child care. I am from Arkansas. We have a lot of working families there that have two folks working or single-parent families and the parent needs to work. How do you find quality child care during the day or the evening when your kids are home alone? I am also a family doctor. We have seen a lot of research come out in the last couple years about how important brain development is in the early years of a child's life and that again points to the need for quality child care. A lot of my district, Mr. Speaker, is rural. As I have traveled around the district, a lot of the parents do not have the option in the rural areas for quality child care that some of the other areas of my district and of the country do. Based on that basis of information and experience, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) and myself worked on a bill that would provide a source of funding that would give school districts in America the option of beginning a quality child care program for their parents if they should choose to in their school districts. I yield to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) to discuss the topic further.

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I want to describe a situation in one town when I first started thinking about this idea, in Pangburn, Arkansas in White County. White County is where Harding University is, if you are familiar with that college. About 12 years ago the superintendent of the school board there decided that they had a need for child care. They had an industry there. There was no profit or nonprofit groups that had come in with child care and so they took an old building on the campus and converted it into quality child care that begins at 6 weeks. It is now a model for what can be done in a State if a school district chooses to. I wanted to say a couple things. First of all, one of the things I like about this plan is it is completely local control. It is an elected school board that can decide to participate or not to participate in applying for these grants. Also the way we have crafted the bill, it does provide some money there that the money could be used to help build the facility, a quality child care facility.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. First of all, anyone involved in child care recognizes there has been tremendous work done by other entities. We do not see this as being a competition. We actually would only see school boards stepping in if there was not quality child care going on in their communities. So there is always going to be a place for the profit- making ventures, the nonprofit churches that have child care for Head Start. This is not intended at all to be competing with those. But when you have communities, particularly in rural areas, that do not have any of those options available or the options there are are not meeting the need, I think this gives a community another option through their local officials with completely local control. Also just the quality aspect of it. I was visiting one school one day that had an early childhood program connected to a school building. The kids were taken down to the science lab when there was a teachers' break from other classes and these little kids, little toddlers, were getting little science demonstrations there in the high school science lab. So there are tremendous opportunities for a community to put together a program. We are intending this grant money to be start-up money to help the schools meet the needs in their communities for quality child care.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Republican leadership's planned defeat last night of campaign finance reform, I wanted to give my colleagues an update on the current state of the law. If someone is a small business person in Arkansas grossing $100,000 a year, it is still legal for them to give $1 billion to the political party of their choice. If this is a family of four making $30,000 a year, it is still legal for them to donate $1 billion to the political party of their choice. If they retire on Social Security and on fixed income, it is still legal for them to give $1 billion to the political party of their choice. And if this is a young couple in their 20s still trying to pay off student loans, it is still legal for them to give $1 billion to the political party of their choice. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for nothing.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Madam Speaker, those of us on this side were admonished a few minutes ago to read the bill and pointed out that perhaps moral outrage does not belong just on this side. The problem I have is not moral outrage over any one bill. I think a lot of good bills have been considered here. The problem is the process. Madam Speaker, we were told to read the bill. I could not get a copy of the bill until a quarter to 6 this evening. The computer program of the House did not have this bill. When you punch in H.R. 3581, I got nothing. It is difficult to read something that does not exist until an hour or so before the debate begins for a topic this important. This bill is the only option out on this floor. There are no amendments. It has to have a two-thirds vote. This process was designed to fail, even if we read and understand the bill. So my only question is what is the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrich) afraid of? What is the Speaker afraid of? Is he afraid of a true, open and fair debate? Is he afraid that this House may actually exert the will of the American people? Madam Speaker, say it is not time to be afraid of campaign finance reform; do not be afraid of the will of the American people; but let us have a fair and truly open debate on the House floor on this issue.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, why would the Republican leaders of this House send to the floor a campaign finance reform bill that is not campaign finance reform, a bill that Common Cause calls a ``hoax,'' the League of Women Voters calls a ``travesty,'' The New York Times calls a ``charade,'' and the Washington Post calls a ``mockery''? Has the Republican leadership become like a fish that no longer feels the water, that no longer feels wet in the water? What do I mean by that? Have they become like a fish that is swimming in money all the time in Washington, D.C., no longer aware of how inappropriate these huge, unregulated several hundred thousand dollar donations are? This campaign finance reform bill they are presenting to this House floor, the only one they are letting come to this floor, is not campaign finance reform. It is not leadership; it is an embarrassment to this country.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, a year ago many people in this House, in a bipartisan fashion, adopted the principle of let us do the doable, and began talking about putting together bipartisan campaign finance reform bills that deal with the problem of the large soft money donations. Instead, the Republican leadership has adopted the principle of let us kill the killable, and will put up a bill tomorrow that is a bill in name only, campaign finance reform. They have put in provisions that have caused the League of Women Voters to call it a travesty, Common Cause to call it a hoax, the Washington Post to call it a mockery, and the New York Times to call it a charade. This Republican bill is not leadership, it is not campaign finance reform, it is an embarrassment to this House.

Mr. SNYDER

Mr. SNYDER. The gentleman just likes my special effects. Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to me, the discussion we are having to have about these poison pills, and explain the minutiae of them to the Members of Congress so they will understand why it is a poison pill. The reality is what we should be talking about, in a bipartisan manner, what we have been talking about for the last year, is where the problem is. It is in the huge soft money donations. I have this check here I made up, made out to Any Ol' Political Party, signed by my friend, Ima Big Donor. Ima had $1 billion that she wanted to donate. She donated it to her favorite political party. This is completely legal, completely legal, under the current law. The reason that the gentleman and I have engaged in a bipartisan manner with my friend, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Asa Hutchinson) on the freshman bill and the reason we have had other bills like the Shays-Meehan bill, the McCain-Feingold bill, bipartisan bills, is to address the problem of these huge, unregulated donations. Not so long ago we would have said, well, no one will make a $1 billion donation. Then we had Ted Turner, who donated $1 billion to international relief, and we suddenly realized that there is somebody out there that has the ability to make a $1 billion donation. Donations of several hundred thousand dollars are not uncommon in this day and age. Yet, look at what the average pay scale is in Arkansas, and they are absolutely dwarfed by those sizes of donations. But this is what we should be concentrating on. This is what the Speaker of the House should be looking at. When we talked and had his promise from him a few months ago that there would be a fair debate on the floor of this House about campaign finance reform, we all envisioned a debate about a bipartisan bill that addresses this most egregious problem in our system, this overwhelming big money that can be made in any amount, and yet that is not going to occur because of the Republican leadership.

Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to make another point. The gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) is one of my heroes, and he has been on my cable TV show back in Arkansas. The gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Asa Hutchinson), a Republican freshman colleague, is one of my heroes, also. The two of them are the lead cosponsors of the freshman bill. They spent a lot of time working through the problems when they made the decisions about what would be in that particular bill, and a lot of freshmen participated in that. What was showed was that it was a model of bipartisanship. We thought we had in this country sometime ago a model of bipartisanship. This is a blowup of the famous photo when the Speaker of the House and President Clinton shook hands when they committed themselves to doing something about dealing with the overwhelming presence of big money in politics. It is interesting to me now that the President has said he will sign a campaign finance reform bill. He is committed to it. We have leaders on both sides of the aisle, both Republican and Democrat, that have said they want bills on the House floor to deal in a bipartisan manner with this problem of soft money and campaign finance. Yet, the problem we have is with the Republican leadership. I want to distinguish, there are clearly Members on the Republican side that will vote for campaign finance reform and feel every bit as strongly about it as the three of us do here tonight, but it comes down to a question of leadership. Unfortunately, the way our House works, if the Republican leadership decides certain bills or certain amendments do not get on the floor of the House, the American people are denied their will, and in fact, the will of Congress is denied, because I am convinced there is a majority of Members of this Congress, when we total up the votes on both sides of the aisle, Republican and Democrat, that will vote for a ban on soft money; a good ban, a true ban on soft money, and try to deal with some of the other issues. But it comes down to leadership, and the Republican leadership in this House is blocking the will of the House, blocking the will of the American people, and I think it is just an embarrassment to the body that that is occurring.

Mr. SNYDER. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, I read a column some time ago on this issue of campaign finance reform. The columnist had a great line, which was, does a fish know that it is wet? Does a fish feel the wet? It lives in water all the time, and I get in the bathtub and it feels wet to me, but does a fish feel the wet? I do not know what a fish feels, but could use the example in trying to explain why the Republican leadership would be putting out this kind of a bill that has been called a charade, a hoax, a mockery. Why would they be putting out this kind of bill? It may be that if you have been up here too long, you start being like a fish that no longer feels the wet, that you swim through the money. You swim through the money all the time, and it no longer feels strange to you. You just assume that donations of several hundred thousand dollars, that is just the way politics is. You assume donations from folks that are lobbying you that very same day on activities that come before the legislature, before Congress, that that is just the way it is. You no longer feel the wet. You are no longer aware of how unseemly it is to have big money dominate our politics. Maybe that is why the freshman bill, I think, was such a prominent part of the discussion here for the last year, because we are all new here. We had just come through the 1996 election, and we got a hint of how big money can just really overwhelm the local effort. We got a hint of what it means to have thousands of dollars pour in from Washington, D.C., and overwhelm the local effort. We still feel what it is like to be wet. We still know what it is like when you get hit with those big sums of money. But I fear that the Republican leadership no longer is aware of what it means in the American system to have the money floating through this city all the time. I think this may be an explanation why we are seeing this bill that has been called a hoax and a charade being presented on the floor. They do not feel the money anymore.

Mr. SNYDER. We have pyrotechnics scheduled for later in the evening.