Christopher Shays

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules have until midnight tonight, June 16, 1998, to file a report to accompany House Resolution 463.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I think during the course of debate, there are going to be a lot of issues that come out.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, do not even wonder for a minute about whether I will be able to document that information.

Mr. SHAYS. $100,000, $200,000, half a million dollars.

Mr. SHAYS. But it is true.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, the bottom line is that the corporations that were being shaken down by the Nixon administration are telling me now that they are being shaken down by both political parties in soft money.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, what I said to this Chamber was that the campaign finance laws in 1974 were designed to cut the unlimited sums that in particular the CREEP organization of the Nixon administration raised and to stop the shakedown of businesses that took place. And that shakedown stopped for a number of years until both parties designed a new system called soft money that just brought us back to the Nixon era.

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

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of order.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I am proud of many things. I am proud to be a Member of Congress. I am proud to be a citizen of the United States. But I am not proud of our campaign laws. I have heard no one say our whole campaign system is corrupt. That is an absurdity. I have heard some people say that parts of the system are corrupt. Parts of the system are corrupt, and I think we should change those parts that are corrupt. The system of campaign finance in the Nixon administration was corrupt, and I congratulate the Democrats and Republicans who reformed that system in 1974. It worked quite well for several years until people found a major loophole, and it was called soft money, the unlimited sums that individuals, corporations, and labor unions and other interest groups can give to the political parties for party building. These contributions, in a very pernicious way, got redirected to support candidates, not party building, totally subverting the campaign laws that worked quite nicely for 12 years. Mr. Chairman, I am also proud of the fact that the last Congress passed the Congressional Accountability Act that got Congress under all of the laws that it had exempted itself from for more than 30 years. We did this on a bipartisan basis, I might add. I am proud of the fact that the last Congress banned gifts to Members of Congress on a bipartisan basis. I am proud of the fact that the last Congress on a bipartisan basis passed lobbying disclosure. We had not amended that law since 1946. The gifts to Members of Congress had become corrupting. The lack of disclosure of lobbying had become corrupting. It had become corrupting that Congress thought it did not have to abide by the laws that it imposed on the rest of the Nation. Sure, I am proud to be a Member of Congress. I am proud to be an American citizen. But when we see things wrong, we fix them. If we do not, we should not be very proud of our work in Congress. I've come to the conclusion that soft money makes PAC contributions look saintly. The $262 million that the political parties raised in the last cycle will probably be doubled this year. It is a shakedown of business. I think most people know it. And if anyone wants access to either side of the aisle, they need to contribute or else they do not have access. That fits my definition of corruption. We want to change the system. We simply want to ban soft money. We want to go back to the way it was after the law of 1974. Ban soft money. Ban the unlimited sums that individuals, corporations, labor unions and other interest groups can give to the political parties that is not being used the way it was supposed to be, for party building and registration. It went right back to candidates. Recently, $800,000 of soft money was spent in the special election in Staten Island. That wasn't party building. Now, what we seek to do in the Meehan-Shays legislation, is ban soft money on the Federal level and on the State level for Federal elections. We also want to call the sham issue ads, that are clearly campaign ads, campaign ads. We do not limit people's voice. They speak through the campaign process. We do not say 60 days to an election people do not have a voice. They have a voice. Candidates can raise PAC contributions and they can spend whatever they raise. Groups can run ads for candidates who are right- to-life, right-to-choice, anti-labor, pro-labor. But they cannot use union dues or corporate treasury money, because it is a campaign ad. We cannot do it under current law, and we want to strengthen the definition of campaign ads to make sure people do not use the union dues for campaign ads 60 days to an election, and do not use corporate money 60 days to an election. But union members can speak out through their PAC contributions spent on ads. Members who work in corporations and stockholders can influence the process through a PAC contribution spent on campaign ads. We codify Beck. We improve the FEC disclosure and enforcement. We ban franking 6 months to an election. And we make it very clear that foreign money and fund-raising on government property is illegal. It is not illegal now. Hello. It is not illegal. It is soft money. Soft money is not campaign money. We had better fix it. Now, some on my side of the aisle say, no, we are just going to hold President Clinton accountable for everything he has done, but we do not need campaign finance reform. Unfortunately, some on the other side of the aisle say we need campaign finance reform, but we are not going to hold our President and others accountable. We need to do both. Democrats did it in 1974. They held President Nixon accountable for what he did. And they reformed the system as well. Believe it or not, the Vice President was right. There is no controlling authority. Soft money is not viewed as campaign money. We need to fix that.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, shakedown is when leaders from both parties will call up a corporation president, and say we would like $100,000 or $200,000 or $300,000 or a half a million, and make it very clear to those leaders that they can expect no action on their legislation unless they get it. That is a shakedown.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, does the gentleman yield a particular amount of time under the 5 minute rule, or just yield blanket time? I just want to know for future reference as well. I apologize for interrupting. I want to know what the process will be. We are going to do this for weeks.

Mr. SHAYS. Can the gentleman yield a particular amount of time, or just yield time?

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, it is exciting to begin the process of debating campaign finance reform. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Marty Meehan) and Members on both sides of the aisle who favor reform, and I also thank my freshman colleagues on both sides of the aisle for working so hard to bring campaign finance reform before this Chamber. Had the freshmen not made their effort, we would not be here today, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart. The Sharp Meehan substitute does not circumvent the Constitution of the United States. The amendment my majority whip has offered is not an issue I support, and I will be voting against his Constitutional amendment. We support a ban on soft money, both on the Federal and State level, for Federal elections. We also believe we need to call the sham issue ads what they truly are, campaign ads. It means that people who attempt to influence elections will exercise their freedom of speech through the campaign process, and that we all play on a basically even field. Right now if we say, ``Vote for, vote against, elect, reelect so and so,'' it is a campaign ad. Under our bill if one talks about a candidate 60 days to an election, it is a campaign ad and must come under the campaign rules. Current law does not limit what we can spend, it limits what we can raise from each individual. A wealthy person can spend whatever they want under our campaign laws. We do not change that. They have to file and record what they spend. That is the law now. We are not changing it. We codify Beck, which was the Supreme Court decision that said that a nonunion employee does not have to pay their agency fee to cover campaign expenditures. We improve the FEC disclosure and enforcement. We say that wealthy candidates who spend more than $50,000 cannot turn to their own parties for additional help. We say that foreign money and money raised on government property is illegal. Believe it or not, it is not illegal now, because, surprisingly, soft money is not considered as a campaign contribution. It was intended years ago, to be used for party-building, but it has been totally misdirected. I would urge this House to pay close attention to what happens in the next few weeks. It was my hope and expectation we would deal with campaign finance reform in February, as my leadership promised, or March, at the latest. That did not happen. And then we were told we would deal with it in May. Unfortunately, that has not happened. There is a point where the word of our leadership needs to be honored. I hope we can expedite debate and conclude our work to reform our campaign laws.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg). (Mr. SHADEGG asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Sununu).

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller).

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith), who can address the entire Nation, even those in California where it is 15 of 9:00.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds to just say that only in Washington when you spend more do people call it a cut. That is the line that the gentleman from Washington is getting into. We are going to spend $1.3 trillion on Medicare in the next five years. The last five years we spent about $900 million. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes and 30 seconds to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman).

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I would point out that the program that the gentleman was referring to was recommended by the President and endorsed by this side of the aisle.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra).

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

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ehrlich).

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I teach my daughter she can pray and anytime, anywhere she wants, and my daughter does that. She has taught me a lot of things about prayer. My wife knows she can pray anywhere she wants at any time. I urge my colleagues to recognize that we already have this right. All we need to do is fight for it. We do not need to change the Constitution of the United States. In a letter that was sent out to the Constituents of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) the Christian Coalition, said this amendment would allow all Americans the freedom of religious expression in public places and would ensure that school children are not punished for creating a valentine to Jesus or for reading a Bible during free time. They can do that right now. If someone seeks to punish them, they should use their freedom of speech under the Constitution and protest, however they have to protest. Let's just fight for our rights under the Constitution, instead of trying to change it.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.