Christopher Shays

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, this is one of those difficult moments in the process of bringing forth a comprehensive bill with many supporters. We tried to identify amendments as killer amendments, harmful amendments, benign or helpful amendments, and essential amendments to help the bill pass. For some, this is a killer amendment. I have to be candid with my colleagues, those who support Meehan-Shays, we are going to lose some supporters in the end if this amendment passes. It is likely to pass. But one of the things I find extraordinarily ironic is I hear Members say there is agreement this amendment has to be part of Meehan-Shays. Yet the people who are saying it are not going to be voting for Meehan- Shays. So this is not particularly a friendly amendment. We already passed this legislation last year. It is waiting in the Senate. It can be dealt with there. To attach it to this bill will do what I think it is intended to do, which is to make it more difficult to pass Meehan- Shays. I accept this. I understand it. What I would also like my colleagues to understand is that the real foreign money problem is with soft money, and the opponents of Meehan- Shays do not want to ban soft money. The foreign nationals who gave money gave soft money. They did not give hard money contributions. All the outrages that people are thinking of are soft money and yet so many who are concerned about foreign money are opposed to banning soft money. When I look at this legislation, I have to tell my colleagues I understand that some just think people who live in this country, who are not legal, should not be allowed to contribute. I am grateful they are legal. I am grateful that they ultimately want to become citizens. And I regret my vote when I voted for it in the past, and I will vote ``no''. I will say this. I encourage my colleagues who feel strongly against this amendment, do not let them win in the end. If they succeed in attaching this amendment, do not walk away, because that is the real reason why they are presenting this amendment. And I encourage my colleagues to realize that we cannot allow this amendment, if it passes, to be a killer amendment because they will have won.

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

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, the bottom line to this debate is quite simple. Meehan-Shays does not in any way prevent voter guides from happening. But to assure that there was no question in this Chamber, we made sure that we added a section to make it unambiguous that you can provide for voter guides. The gentleman from California deletes our section which protects voter guides. The bottom line to this issue is, where you have a campaign ad, including those sham ``issue ads'', then an individual can advertise under the campaign laws. It is bogus, it is wrong, it is totally incorrect to suggest that people do not have a voice. They have a voice outside the campaign law through using voter guides and other non- campaign activity. And they have a voice inside the campaign law by abiding by the same rules as everyone else. They have freedom of speech. We limit what people can raise. We do not limit what they can spend. And any individual who wants to run an ad on their own can do so as long as it is not coordinated. Coordinated expenditures become campaign ads. But our Supreme Court has made it very clear that individuals cannot be limited on what they spend. What you are hearing tonight is a bogus debate on the part, in my judgment, of the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) to suggest, one, that we do not allow these. We do allow them. We make it clear. First, we do not forbid them; and, secondly, we make it clear that they are allowed. Secondly, I would like to take this time, if the gentleman would allow me to proceed, to say that Republicans who received the House Republican conference floor prep were given a very misleading statement about what the Doolittle proposal does and what Meehan-Shays does. I urge my colleagues to totally discount this very inaccurate statement put out by my own Republican Conference. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

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

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield such time as he might consume to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan).

Mr. SHAYS. Okay. I just think the record needs to show that.

Mr. SHAYS. If I may, I just would be happy to take some time here. The gentleman is not saying if you have a foreign name, there is a high probability?

Mr. SHAYS. Would the gentleman yield? I will yield on my time.

Mr. SHAYS. That is what it sounded like.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I know the gentleman did not mean it to sound this way but when I listened to it it sounded this way. It sounded like if you have a foreign name, there was a high probability they were foreigners.

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

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. SHAYS. Would this be a term of art that the court would help us define or the FEC?

Mr. SHAYS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, my question, though, still stands. I am aware of the terms knowing and willful. An individual has to know and has to be willful, and that is a term that has been defined by law in both the States and the Federal Government for a long time. I have never seen the concept of a high probability, and I am just interested if the gentleman, and this may be, in fact, what he decided to do, but is this a term of art that has been used in the past? I am not aware of it being used in the past. Or is this a term that the gentleman had to use to reach the conclusion he wanted to reach? I would be happy to ask someone else if they wanted to respond. For the legislative record as well it would be helpful for us to have some definition of this term of high probability.

Mr. SHAYS. I would take even other kinds of reform. I just want to see reform.

Mr. SHAYS. The bottom line is, the gentleman needs to know it was illegal to solicit campaign funds. Soft money is not defined as a campaign fund. It is the reason why we need to change the law. I say it time and time again, and the gentleman does not seem to understand it, it is not a campaign contribution. The Pendleton Act gets at campaign contributions.

Mr. SHAYS. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, this is the kind of process that wins few friends, because everyone has a real sensitivity to the right and wrong of this issue. I acknowledge the fact that for me, I see it in black and white. I weep that my own party does not want to lead reform. I think this is an example. This amendment here is a logical thing that should be part of the bill. I do not know why my own party did not come forward with campaign finance reform and take the lead, but it chose not to, I think because my own party decided that if it said you had to reform the system, in a way it meant that the things that happened in the Clinton White House were not wrong because it was just that we needed to amend the law. I happen to think it is both sides. I happen to think, with all due respect to some on the Democratic side of the aisle, that they are ready to reform but do not want to investigate, and I think too many on my side of the aisle want to investigate but do not want to reform. I say this with deep respect for some of my colleagues who are pretty angry that I am part of this process. But the best example is soft money. Soft money by law is not deemed a campaign contribution. Members may not want to accept it, but it is true. It does not come under the definition of ``campaign.'' Therefore, technically, the Vice President was right, no controlling authority. I think it is a pretty obscene response, and I happen to think that he knew it was wrong, and I happen to think that he did not want people to know about it. But I hear a colleague right now just laughing, as if this is so absurd. It is not absurd. It just happens not to be against the law. It needs to be made against the law. One of the things we are trying to do is we are trying to ban soft money. The bottom line is that in Meehan-Shays we want to ban soft money, the unlimited sums that come from individuals, corporations, labor unions, and other interest groups. We want to ban them because the money has gotten obscene, and both sides, in my judgment, and it is my judgment, I admit, are shaking down businesses and others for these contributions. It is the White House, and I believe it is my own party. I believe my own party wants big contributions, and it is very clear, I think, to some of these businessmen and women that they have to ante up. I know they think that because they have told me. The other thing is that we want to deal with the sham issue ads. The sham issue ads are those campaign ads that basically almost tanked the gentleman from Arizona. We would ban those sham issue ads. We would not see corporate money being used, we would not see union dues money because it would be illegal, because once it is a campaign ad, they cannot do those ads. They can do it through PAC contributions, but not through members' dues, and they cannot use corporate money. We want to codify Beck, which is the Supreme Court decision, and we want to make sure if you are not a member of a union you should not have to have your money go for political activity. We want to make sure that we improve FEC disclosure and enforcement, because it is weak and needs to be changed. One of the things I believe is I believe that the Clinton White House, and I believe some on my side of the aisle, have gotten away with things they should not have because the FEC is too weak, and we do not have proper disclosure. When we finally found out they did something wrong it was 6 years later, so it is kind of meaningless. I think it is wrong for Members to spend franking so close to an election, so we ban it 6 months to an election. We make it clear that foreign money and fundraising on government property is illegal. What we do in our bill is make sure it is illegal not just for campaign money, but for soft money. Soft money is not campaign money. That is the whole reason it snuck into the system. It was supposed to be party-building, but it was not party-building. We all know that. We know what happened to that money. It came to the parties, and then they funneled it right back to help candidates win elections. It was not just for getting people registered. It was for helping candidates. It just rerouted the system and made a mockery of our campaign laws. I happen to believe our campaign laws worked pretty well for 12 years, but they have broken down because of the sham issue ads and because of soft money.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I object. The gentleman has had 11 minutes, and I object.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, if it is not a campaign ad, there is no disclosure. You have to have it be a campaign ad in order to require disclosure.

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

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I just wanted, one, to know the intent of my colleague, and also to say as a general principle, I think that anyone who offers an amendment should have the right to perfect it as they choose, so I really want to adhere to the concept that the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell) already expressed. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection, if this is the purpose of the gentleman.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, on June 22, 1998, I mistakenly cast a ``yea'' vote on rollcall vote 256 on H. Con. Res. 452, expressing the sense of the House that the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service (USPS) should reject the recommended postage rate increase. Please let it reflect in the record that I intended a ``nay'' vote. The USPS faces enormous challenges, primarily maintaining universal mail service at an affordable price across our entire nation. The USPS needs to be more efficient and to improve local service in some areas, including parts of Connecticut's Fourth Congressional District. But I do not believe the increase is unreasonable. Congress pushed for the Postal Service to be run like a private business and, therefore, should not interfere now in the decisions its board makes. The increase in the price of a first-class stamp, to 33 cents, is less than one-third the rate of inflation over the more than three years the 32-cent rate has been in effect.