Cliff Stearns

Mr. STEARNS

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

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, a permanent legal alien, not a U.S. citizen.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I do not understand the gentleman's argument.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment and the next one are generally just a little bit more clarification. This one goes to the fact that in presidential campaigns, oftentimes the folks who are running for office intentionally, perhaps not realizing it or perhaps they do, intentionally violate campaign spending limits. So what I try to do in this amendment is to impose criminal penalties. My amendment would immediately close the current loop that I believe has been exploited under the law, which is the Federal Election Campaign Act. There are strict limitations and restrictions on presidential candidates who voluntarily accept, decide to receive public financing for their campaigns. The fundamental tenet of this law is that presidential candidates are eligible to receive funding if they comply with expenditure limits and other restrictions imposed by law. Mr. Chairman, my amendment attempts to strengthen the law by ensuring that the presidential and vice presidential candidates do not try to evade the limits and restriction under the law by intentionally trying to circumvent these rules. Of course, the reason, Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer this amendment is that I think myself and others were greatly troubled by the evidence that the Federal Elections Campaign Act was intentionally violated. I think this came out in the hearings in the Senate Committee on Government Affairs when they investigated campaign finance abuses in 1997. The committee underlined the purpose of the law by reporting, quote ``Under FECA, a presidential candidate who accepts Federal matching funds cannot exceed the applicable expenditure limits for the campaign.'' The intent of this, of course, in providing limited Federal funding is to remove the candidate from the fund-raising process and to prevent the raising of large private contributions. The deal the taxpayers make with the candidate is that in exchange for their funding, the candidate will foreswear outside money and therefore make it less likely that the election will be influenced or appear to be influenced by big money. Now the Senate Committee on Government Affairs found a great deal in their report. And, of course, the White House was cited several times. If I may, Mr. Chairman, I would like to report what the committee said. During the 1996 election cycle, the White House was very close to the DNC and they tried to micromanage it. Harold Ickes, then Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, simply seized the reins of financial power and went about exerting direct control over the DNC's finance division. Now, this is the type of thing we are trying to stop. I will not go through and read a lot of the testimony in there, because I am not here to point fingers at one side or the other. I am just trying to convince my colleagues of the need to put in place the penalties in this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I think in short, though, most of us would agree that there were some evidence of collusion here. The purpose of our amendment here is to prevent this. The committee concluded that, ``In the matter before us, the clear purpose of the law was circumvented.'' I mean, that is what they said. That is why I believe we need to protect the Federal Election Campaign Act. We cannot allow the limits and restrictions in the law to be circumvented while candidates receiving public financing abuse the system in order to gain advantage over their opponent. So in a sense what we tried to do is do the following: By putting in place that if a candidate or agent seeks to avoid the limits and restrictions by soliciting, receiving, transferring, or directing funds from any source other than the presidential election campaign fund for the direct or indirect benefit of such candidate's campaign, then the candidate, Mr. Chairman, or the agent shall be fined not more than $1 million or imprisoned for a term of not more than 3 years, or both. So in essence, Mr. Chairman, what I have done is put in a penalty. I think that we have had the history of this, so I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I do not think it will be hard to do that, because we have Social Security numbers and we could tell quickly and easily who was in the service. Mr. Chairman, the argument of the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Weygand), he wants to go back to the old argument that some wish to allow legal permanent aliens to contribute, has already been decided. We had a vote; 350 Members voted to do that. And now we have had two other votes, my vote and the vote on the Fossella amendment. In three cases now we have decided that legal permanent aliens should not contribute. So my point is that I think it is easy to identify. And I think this is a step to try and really help the gentleman's cause by saying instead of ruling out all of them, let the people who are actually serving in the military less than 3 years have an opportunity to do so. And I am surprised that the other side objects to giving the military people an opportunity to contribute. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman knows, there are a lot more amendments to come. Also, several amendments I voted for today were defeated. I think the Goodlatte amendment is a good example. So I think this campaign finance bill is still in doubt. I think there are lots of areas that need to be improved, and frankly we have other substitutes and other bills that are going to be offered that I think we should look at. I think it is premature to talk about that. I would remind the gentleman from Massachusetts that I think what he has to worry about is the executive branch micromanaging either the DNC, or either party.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This amendment is similar to the other one except we ask that candidates certify their intent. Let me just read a portion of this so we can clarify it: No candidate for election to the office of President or Vice President may receive amounts from the Presidential Election Campaign Fund unless the candidate certifies that the candidate shall not solicit any funds for the purpose of influencing such election, including any funds used for an independent expenditure, unless the funds are subject to the limitations, prohibitions and reporting requirements under the law. The reason I offer this amendment, of course, is that, again, some of the testimony in the Senate hearing that brought forth the clear intent. And so we need to establish that a candidate for President and Vice President will certify that they are going to comply and that they have a full understanding so that they cannot use rigorous, specious logic to say they were not aware. There was a lot of testimony that came out from Dick Morris, which I have here, and I will, Mr. Chairman, include Dick Morris's testimony as a part of the Record so I do not have to read the whole thing. I just would like to summarize some of the things that he testified to that committee and that is why I think the certification is required. The President reviewed and modified and approved all advertising copy, reviewed and adjusted and approved media time buys, reviewed and modified polling questions, received briefings on and analyzed polling results. So the President had significant involvement with the DNC media consultants in the area of polling, advertising, speech writing, legislation strategy and general policy advice. I think that is, frankly, what the Shays-Meehan bill is trying to prevent. I am hopeful that my colleagues will support this amendment and ask that the candidates who do run for President and Vice President will certify so that they have a full understanding before they go into this what their roles will be. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the reason I mentioned Dick Morris was just to give an example of what occurred, and I think the folks realize that he was the principal advisor to the President and basically they started running these ads that were constantly lauding the President all around the country and his record and running specific issue ads, and the problem was funding those ads. So I am not categorically going after Mr. Morris or anybody but other than to say this is a clear example of what the committee on the Senate was talking about, which we need to prevent. The problem of funding these ads got very difficult and where they got the money is where they started to get into the micromanaging. So putting this in the record is important to establish a reason why you support this amendment and why I support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I think Congress needs to strengthen the law by preventing the type of activity that Dick Morris mentioned in his testimony. This type of abuse should be prevented from ever happening again in presidential campaigns, and I urge my colleagues to support the amendment. The infamous Dick Morris testified to the Committee that, The President had significant involvement with the DNC media consultants in the areas of polling, advertising, speech-writing, legislation strategy, and general policy advice. The President: (1) reviewed, modified and approved all advertising copy; (2) reviewed, adjusted and approved media time buys; (3) reviewed and modified polling questions; and (4) received briefings on the analyzed polling results. A significant amount of the polling work the consultants performed for the President ``related to substantive issues in connection with his job as President, but is (also) could be considered political.'' The President wanted to keep total control over the advertising campaign designed by Morris and the DNC media consultants. The defenders of the President will argue that this is not a violation of the letter of the law under the Federal Election Campaign Act, but this intertwined coordination between the President, his political advisors, and DNC media consultants is certainly a violation of the spirit of the law. Congress needs to strengthen the law by preventing this type of abuse from happening again during another presidential campaign. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute No. 13 offered by the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Judging from the information given by my colleague, I assume he is supporting my amendment. I think that the idea of putting penalties in place is important. I think the whole idea of the executive branch micromanaging any other area of the campaign financing operations is what we are trying to prevent. I would say to my colleague that I appreciate his support.

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

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, if they are in the service for 3 years, they automatically become U.S. citizens.

Mr. STEARNS. No, Mr. Chairman, but if during that period for 1 or 2 years they are serving in the military, we are saying we will allow them to contribute.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I do not remember what I said about taxpayers, other than that I felt that non-U.S. citizens should not be participating, but I think after talking to the gentleman from Samoa, I think if they served in the military or are presently serving in the military, then I think that one should have a chance to vote on this.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer this amendment because I think after the debate that I had concerning legal aliens, there was some question that came up, and I thought I should attempt to amend, offer an amendment tonight. It sort of rectifies a problem that was raised by the gentleman from Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega). During the debate a couple of weeks ago, this amendment that I sponsored and also the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella) sponsored, both of them passed overwhelmingly. But there was something that was in both his amendment and mine that concerned me a bit. My amendment banned all political contributions from Federal, State or local elections from noncitizens, which included resident aliens. But I realized, Mr. Chairman, during the debate that the gentleman from Samoa had a very valid point about resident aliens who are serving in the military. Such permanent residents may be drafted, as they were in Vietnam and other military actions. So what I am trying to do tonight is to say okay, if one is serving in the military, I think one should be able to participate. So frankly, this amendment seeks to rectify the situation with resident aliens who serve in the U.S. military, which includes the reserves.

Mr. STEARNS. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I think the amendment is pretty simple and it will pass overwhelmingly. I think my good friend from Samoa had made a good point, so I am here really to recognize his point and to try to bridge the gap with the two amendments that passed, and I think that is pretty much my argument tonight. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, if they are serving in the military.

Mr. STEARNS. Presently serving, yes.

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, that is correct.

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