Paul Wellstone

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I call up amendment numbered 123.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, my understanding is Senator Clinton will be coming to the floor in a moment.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I ask my colleague if we may extend that to 10 minutes.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, before we go to the Senator from Idaho, I ask unanimous consent that in addition to Senator Cantwell as original cosponsor of my amendment, also Senator Corzine and Senator Biden be included as original cosponsors.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I will reserve for myself just a little bit of time now because there will be other Senators who will want to speak on this subject. This is an amendment to the McCain-Feingold bill, a very important piece of legislation in and of itself, which I think is a very important step forward for all of us. I hope this amendment will have bipartisan support. I think it just adds to the McCain-Feingold bill. This amendment simply allows States, any of our States, to set up voluntary systems of full or partial public financing for Federal congressional candidates that involve voluntary spending limits on both personal and outside contributions, as long as these systems are not in conflict with the Federal Election Campaign Act. So this simply allows States, if they want, to set up a voluntary system of partial public financing. This is entirely a voluntary system, and we leave it up to our State. Historically, the States have been a ``laboratory of reform''--the term was coined by Supreme Court Justice William Brandeis--where innovative policies have been created. This States rights amendment allows these laboratories to do their work in a safe way--I want Senators to listen to this--because the electoral regulation that Congress has written into Federal law remains the floor. That is the law. In other words, while States will be given wide latitude to set up voluntary systems of public financing, they will not be able to enact laws that will allow candidates, whether covered by public financing or not, to engage in conduct that will otherwise be in violation of Federal election laws. While the Federal law is the floor, I think it is a low floor, indeed, although McCain-Feingold makes it better. Many believe our system is awash in special interest money. I agree with them. It is not a matter of individual corruption. I almost wish it was. It goes way beyond I don't wish it was, but I think it is a more serious problem. I don't think we are talking about the wrongdoing of individual officeholders. But we are talking about a huge imbalance of power where some people, by virtue of their economic resources, have way too much wealth access and too many people are left out. Please remember that 80 percent of the money spent in the year 2000 was hard money. Please remember as these campaigns--we just had an amendment that was an effort to deal with part of the problem--become more capital intensive, more television expensive, as communication technology becomes the main weapon in every electoral conflict, the big money matters even more. This amendment says: Look, if our States want to--we leave it up to them--set up a voluntary system of partial or public financing to apply to our races, they should be able to do so. This debate in the Senate about big money and politics and the ways in which too often our elections have become auctions and the ways in which all too often Senators have to be concerned about cash constituencies as well as real constituencies couldn't have come at a more perfect time. Let me give a few examples. Several weeks ago we had an effort that took 10 hours to overturn 10 years of work. The National Academy of Sciences said repetitive stress injury is the most serious injury in the workplace. It endorsed taking action, did the research, did the study, endorsed a standard that was promulgated by OSHA, but big business said jump. So we jumped, and we turned our back on reasonable standards. We turned our back on science, and we turned our back on a lot of workers and their pain. We made them expendable. Then we had the bankruptcy bill. I gave enough speeches about the bankruptcy bill to deafen all the gods. I will not repeat any of it, just to say ultimately what we got with this bill was a wish list for the credit card industry which is not held accountable at all for their reckless and sometimes predatory lending practices but very harsh for a whole lot of people who find themselves having to declare bankruptcy-- not because they are trying to game any system but because of a major medical bill, because they have lost their job, or because there has been a divorce in the family. Then we have the news today that the arsenic standard that EPA had promulgated to make sure we had safe drinking water has been overturned by the Administrator of EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency. Then we have a tax cut--I am not going to spend a lot of time on this. It will be in the budget debate in about 2 weeks. If I am proven wrong, I will be glad to be proven wrong. I believe my colleagues will find that ultimately a rigorous sort of measurement, if you will, of what the surplus really is--and then alongside of that what the tax cut really amounts to--will mean two or three things. It will mean there won't be a dime for any of the investments to which we say we are committed. There are going to be some harsh discretionary domestic spending cuts. What that means is anything from energy assistance, to housing, to programs that try crimes against women who have been battered--you name it. In addition, you have tax cuts that represent a Robin- Hood-in-reverse philosophy so that over 40 percent of the benefits go to the top 1 percent. What I said before I will say again. The President talks about leaving no child behind. One-third of all the children in America live in families who will not receive one dime from this tax cut, and 50 percent of African Americans live in families who will not receive one dime, and 57 percent of Hispanic children live in families who will not receive one dime, but over 40 percent goes to the top 1 percent of the population. So forget any commitment to making sure that every child in America has a good education. The vast majority of people believe in that goal. Forget any commitment to making sure that elderly people--I argue there are a lot of families as well who are hurt by this--can afford the prescription drugs they need for their health. And forget any commitment to expanding health care coverage for the 43 or 44 million people who have no coverage at all. For that matter, forget any commitment to beginning to get serious about home health care so that a lot of elderly people aren't institutionalized, aren't forced into nursing homes but can still live in home in as near normal circumstances as possible with dignity, or people with disabilities. From where is the money going to come? How about the veterans? I will tell you about the veterans budget. There is a $1 billion increase, but $900 million of it is medical inflation. Then we have all of these commitments which we say we are going to make for the millennium program--elderly, home-based care, in addition to mental health services; in addition a bill I have with Evan Bayh to finally deal with the distress about the fact that 30 percent of the adults in the homeless population are veterans--many of them Vietnam veterans--and we need to reach out and help them. I tell you, I don't think any of this is by accident because for the sake of the top 1 percent of the population making sure they get the tax cuts--by the way, these are the same people who are the heavy hitters. They are the big givers who give the contributions, whether it is soft money or hard money. We are at the same time not going to live up to our commitment of leaving no child behind. We are not, if this administration has its way, going to do much about prescription drug costs, or expanding health care coverage, or making sure there is a good education for every child. Obviously, we have an all-out assault on basic workplace protections and environmental protections. I think a lot of people in Minnesota and a lot of people in the country have reached the conclusion that the Congressional agenda is not their agenda; that the Congressional agenda is the agenda of the powerful; that the Congressional agenda is the agenda of the heavy hitters; and that the Congressional agenda is the agenda of the investors in both political parties. For so many people, when it comes to their concerns for themselves, their families, and their communities, their concerns are of little concern in the corridors of power in this Congress. Who could fault them for this belief? Many people believe there is a connection between big special interest money and the outcomes in American politics. People believe what is on the table and what is off the table is based upon who has the money and power. People believe who gets to run and who does not get to run and who wins and who loses is quite often determined by the mix of money in politics. People believe that some people march on Washington every day, and they have the lobbyists, and they have the lobbying coalitions, but that when it comes to their concerns, they are not well represented. People believe that if you pay, you play, and if you don't pay, you don't play. So people have lost faith in this system. I do not know what I think is worse: That so many citizens have this disillusionment and disengagement toward Government and public affairs. I hate that. I state that as the son of a Jewish immigrant born in the Ukraine who fled persecution in Russia. I love this country. I hate it when people feel that way about public affairs. Sometimes I think it is even worse when I talk to people who are so excited about public affairs, and they tell me they will never run for office. They say they do not want to spend all their time raising the money. They cannot bear the thought of it. Frankly, I think it gets to the point where we have this horrible self-selection process where a lot of the very best people never will run for office, for a Senate seat or a House seat. I think that is a tragedy for the country. I know the sponsors of the new McCain-Feingold bill hope this bill will have the votes to pass. I hope it does. But this bill is scaled down. It is a step toward comprehensive reform, but I do think this is an ideal time to let States take the lead. While we should not allow States to undermine Federal election law, the law should not be an artificial ceiling that prevents States from setting up systems of public financing that allow them to address this money chase, to address voter apathy, to address corruption, actual and perceived. Mr. President, by way of background to this amendment, my own State of Minnesota attempted to set up a public financing system for Federal candidates 9 years ago, when the State legislature passed a law offering partial public financing to candidates for Congress from Minnesota. Unfortunately, the Federal Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit struck down Minnesota's law in 1993 in Weber v. Heaney. The court ruled that because the Federal Election Campaign Act, FECA, did not specifically allow States to create this kind of voluntary public financing program, then FECA prohibited it. I think what the court was saying was: If you want to do it, fine, but we want to see the authority. The amendment I am offering would correct that by adding one simple sentence to FECA which specifically allows States to set up voluntary public financing programs for the election of their own Members of the Senate and House, as long as no such program violates any provision of the current FECA law. That is all this amendment does. In other words, if a State--Minnesota, Montana, Connecticut; I will talk about States that have already done this --wants to create a public financing fund and give its congressional candidates the option--a voluntary option; it is not required--of financing their campaigns partially or wholly with public money rather than private contributions, that State will be able to do so--again, provided there is no violation of any of the current FECA provisions. I want to stress to colleagues, because I do not want there to be any misinformation about this amendment, that these programs must be strictly voluntary, just as the public financing for Presidential elections is voluntary. Candidates who would rather finance their campaigns with private dollars, adhering to the existing campaign finance rules, would be free to do so. However, the courts have made it clear, in some cases, by upholding the very public financing systems for election of State officeholders, which are models for this legislation, that a State may offer public financing or other enticements to make contribution limits and spending limits attractive. This amendment, giving States the option of creating their own voluntary alternatives to the current system, is perfectly constitutional. Some States have already moved in this direction. Twelve States already offer partial public financing to candidates for State offices. In fact, one of the most advanced of these programs is in my colleague, Senator McConnell's own State of Kentucky. In Kentucky, there is a system of partial public financing for gubernatorial candidates. In my own State of Minnesota, there is a voluntary public financing system for statewide candidates as well as candidates for the legislature. Candidates agree--it is voluntary--to spending limits, and in return they receive public funds. The State of Minnesota provides a tax credit for contributions to State candidates of up to $50. In addition, four States have gone even further and have recently passed full or nearly full public financing systems for their elections--it is inspiring--in Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, and in Senator McCain's own State of Arizona. They have passed legislation similar to the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act. Senator Kerry and I have introduced this as national legislation. Eventually, I would like to get there. Basically, that is what they are saying in these States to the citizens. And the citizens said: Yes, let's do it. I want to talk about these inspiring examples. They have said: Listen, if each citizen will contribute a small amount into a clean money, clean election fund--maybe $5--and then candidates draw from that fund--candidates who have passed a threshold to show that they are viable candidates--then these candidates do not have to be involved in the money chase. They do not have to be dependent on these private dollars. You, the people of Maine, you, the people of Vermont, you, the people of Arizona, you, the people of Massachusetts, you own the elections. You own your own State government. You own the political process. In Maine it is just incredible. There was broad participation in the Clean Elections program during this last election, with 116 out of 352 general election candidates--both Republicans and Democrats-- participating. What these clean money, clean election States have done is dramatically reduced the influence of special interest money by providing a level playing field, by offering candidates a limited and equal amount of public funds. I am saying to colleagues today, at the very minimum, we ought to allow our States to move forward with these voluntary systems if they want to do so. That is the only proposition you vote on. Will you or will you not at least be willing to allow your States to provide for a system of voluntary full or partial public financing for our races, understanding full well that everything else about Federal election law stays as is. I want to offer some comments about Maine, giving some indication of what happened in Maine, because I think it inspires a lot of hope. These comments tell us something about what they have done and why it is so important to allow States to do so. Here are some of the comments of people who ran. Shlomit Auciello, a Democrat challenger: Without Clean Elections, I couldn't even think about running for office. I just couldn't afford it. Chester Chapman, a Republican challenger: The main reason I did it was that this is what people want. Glenn Cummings, a Democrat challenger: I spent a lot of kitchen table time explaining the system to people. Once they knew what it was they really liked it. They liked that it means no soft money and no PAC money will be used. I want to work for the people of Maine and I don't want to be beholden to anyone else. Gabrielle Carbonear: It will definitely change some things. For one thing I will have about half the amount of money I raised last time but much more time to talk with people which is a good thing. Just one more: We have an obligation to put into practice the system that was approved by voters in 1996. Maine is in the lead in this area. It will only work if it is used, and it is important for incumbents to embrace it. Also, the Clean Election Act is making it easier to recruit candidates to run for office. That was said by Rick Bennet, Republican incumbent, assistant senate minority leader, and candidate for reelection. I simply say to my colleagues, I am all for McCain-Feingold, as long as it does not get too weakened. I think the amendment we just adopted--the Torricelli amendment--was a step in the right direction. But, honest to goodness, 80 percent of the money is hard money. You still have this huge problem of the system being so wired for incumbents. It is so hard for challengers to raise the money and for there to be a level playing field. I can remember what happened when I ran in 1990; I can remember in 1996. I am now in a reelection. At a very minimum, there ought to be a vote on public financing in the Senate, but this amendment doesn't say we vote on public financing directly. We don't vote on this at the Federal level, and we don't really vote on it saying that Montana or Minnesota has to do it. Given the experience of some of the States, such as Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Arizona, and other States that have moved forward, let us at least allow States, on a voluntary basis, to have a system of partial public financing that they could apply to Federal races. If they want us to have the opportunity to volunteer to be involved in clean money and clean elections as opposed to all this big interested money that will continue to dominate the process, even with McCain-Feingold passing--there is still so much of that money; we are still so awash in that money--at the very minimum we ought to allow States to light a candle and lead the way. I know there are other Senators who are going to be coming to the floor. I can speak a much longer time about this and will, but if my colleague from Connecticut is going to speak, I will yield the floor for now.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, first of all, I thank my colleague from Connecticut. There are three or four Senators who want to speak, and I have more to say. Frankly, I don't want to use up all of our time without hearing from the opposition. I will take a few more minutes. If nobody is here, I will suggest the absence of a quorum and ask that the time be charged to the opponents of this amendment. I would like to hear from them rather than burning off all my time.

Mr. WELLSTONE. All right. Mr. President, there are 65 organizations that support this amendment. I ask unanimous consent that this list be printed in the Record.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, these different organizations range from the national AFL-CIO to AFSCME and SEIU. Also, at the State level, there are a lot of different State organizations, including the California Clean Money Campaign, Arizona Clean Elections Institute, the Maine Citizen Leadership Fund, Maryland Campaign For Clean Elections, Massachusetts Voters Information Clean Elections, Public Campaign, Missouri Voters For Clean Elections, the Catholic Social Justice Lobby, New Hampshire Citizen Alliance For Action, Florida Consumer Action Network, and it goes on. Then there is one organization I mention, which is the Fannie Lou Hamer Project. I mention that project because I think in a lot of ways--and I hope I say this the right way because I have such deep love and respect for the memory of Fannie Lou Hamer. For colleagues who don't know about her, Fannie Lou Hamer was the daughter of a sharecropper in Mississippi. There were 14 children in her family, and she grew up poor. She was one of the great leaders of the civil rights movement. The reason I mention the Fannie Lou Hamer Project is that Fannie Lou Hamer uttered the immortal words, ``I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired.'' She was talking about economic justice issues. I think the reason the Fannie Lou Hamer Project is one of the organizations that is most behind this amendment is that a whole lot of people in the country--and I think this whole issue of campaign finance reform--when you say it that way, it doesn't have passion. It is about civil rights. I hear colleagues talking about freedom of speech and that more money is freedom of speech--the more money, the more speech, and then some people who have all of this money use a megaphone to drown everybody else out. I am all for freedom of speech. I think the Supreme Court is right, although I didn't agree with the decision in Buckley v. Valeo. If there was a problem of corruption, that is the time for reform, they said. If you think the standard of a representative democracy is that each person should count as one, and no more, we have violated that standard. I will put this in a civil rights context for a moment. A lot of people believe they don't have the freedom to be at the table, the freedom to participate in the political process, or the freedom to run for office; and they don't have the freedom to be people who can affect who runs for office because they don't have the big dollars. Honest to goodness, I believe that ultimately this debate is all about--I wish I had brought the brilliant speech that Bill Moyers gave called ``The Soul of Democracy.'' This is about the soul of democracy. If my father Leon was alive today--the Jewish immigrant I mentioned earlier--he would say this is all about this wonderful, bold, beautiful experiment we have had in self-rule in the United States of America. We don't want to lose that. We don't want to have a minidemocracy or a psuedodemocracy, when only certain people can run for office, when some people matter a whole lot more than other people, in terms of who can affect our tenure and who can't. This becomes a justice issue. I say to my colleagues--and I will be very frank about it--the reason for this is absolutely constitutional. Not in one court case--and I mentioned the Minnesota court of appeals case--has any judge raised a constitutional question. We make it crystal clear that we are simply saying that--it is almost like consumer law, where we make it clear, hey, there is a Federal standard that no State can go below it. But if the State of Florida or Minnesota want to do better, they can do so. Colleagues, we can do a lot better when it comes to financing campaigns. Justice Brandeis was right; the States are laboratories of reform, and I challenge Senators to come to the floor and vote for the proposition that if your State wants to apply a full or partial public financing on a voluntary basis to congressional races so that the people of Florida, or Connecticut, or Arizona, or Wisconsin, or Minnesota, or you name it, can feel like, by God, we have put together a model program for the Nation--we are leading the way--then let them do so. I am for McCain-Feingold unless it gets too weakened. We had this debate yesterday where Senators came to the floor and said we were presenting the millionaires amendment. Their answer to the problem of people who have their own wealth and can finance their own campaigns was to dramatically raise the spending limits. So now somebody can go from $1,000 to $6,000 a year. I recited the figure yesterday that one- quarter of 1 percent of the population contributes $200 or more, and one-ninth of 1 percent of the population contributes $1,000 or more. Now we are raising it to $6,000. Well, if you are worried about the great advantage the wealthy candidates have, then what you want to do is move toward a system of clean money, clean elections. I wish we could pass it at the Federal level. That is what makes it a more level playing field. But if we can't pass it at the Federal level, at the very minimum--and if we can't pass it at the Federal level because some of the folks who have such power can basically block that, so we have to move along with McCain-Feingold as a first step, fine; but would it not make McCain- Feingold stronger to allow States to move forward if they want to do so? I met with some of the legislators and some of the candidates, both Democrats and Republicans, from the State of Minnesota, and it was one of the most inspiring meetings I have had. Oh, God, how I yearned that this could be our elections. They were telling me: Paul, I was an incumbent and I had the money and I could have beat a challenger, but it wasn't the right thing to do any longer. So I agreed to participate in a clean money, clean election campaign. I felt so much better about it. I did the right thing. That was a Republican. Then you had challengers saying: If we didn't have this clean money, clean election system, there would be no way, as a challenger, I could have raised the money. This created, more or less, a level playing field. Everybody was saying: We had to spend less time at these big-dollar fundraisers and less time with cash constituencies and a lot more time with real constituencies. We could be at the coffee shops, we could be not chasing the big dollars but focusing on the big issues. Well, Senators, vote for this amendment and at least let your State lead the way. If they want to pass it in the legislature, or by initiative, or referendum, however it is done, a law that would apply a voluntary partial, or some form of public financing, to the Senate and House races from States, let them do so. Let them become the laboratory of reform. See how the people like it. You know something. You will be striking a blow not only for clean money, clean elections, but you will also, as my colleague from Connecticut pointed out, be consistent about being a decentralist and letting States lead the way if they have a model program. The third thing you are going to do, and I do not know if I should make this argument because it may be a reason people vote against it, but the third is you are going to be nurturing and promoting a lot of grassroots politics at the State level because once people realize at the State level they might be able to achieve this--since it looks like we are not there yet, though we are going to take a good step forward, I hope, with McCain-Feingold--there is going to be a wave of grassroots involvement where people in the States are going to try to win this. And that is great. I am looking to win this vote. I am looking for a vote for every reformer. Every Senator who says he or she is a reformer should vote for this amendment. I am looking for a vote from Democrats. I am looking for a vote from those Senators who voted against the so-called millionaire amendment because they did not think it was much of a reform to get to the point where you have a contest with someone who has a lot of resources versus someone who is dependent on the top 1 percent for their economic resources. I am looking for their vote for this. I am looking for support from Democrats and Republicans. Some of my Republican colleagues come from States that have passed clean money, clean election legislation, a voluntary system at the State level. They are doing it, and they are doing it well. Can we not vote for the proposition that we ought to at least let the people in our States decide? That is all this amendment says. If there are colleagues who want to speak, that is fine. I have been told other Senators are on their way. I will suggest the absence of a quorum, and I ask unanimous consent that the time be charged equally to both sides. But I ask those opponents to come to the floor--we do not want to use up all of our time, unless the opponents want to throw in the towel right now and vote for this amendment. That would be OK, too. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum, with the time to be charged equally to both sides.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, there are two colleagues on the floor, and I will just take 1 quick minute to respond. How much time do we have left?

Mr. WELLSTONE. Just under 24 minutes. I say to all Senators--or staffs, because quite often staffs follow this debate as well--it all depends upon how you frame the question. Actually, when you talk to people and say, do you want to try to get some of the private money out and big dollars out and you want to have clean money, clean elections where they are your elections and your government, people are all for it. It depends on how you frame the question. But all the arguments my colleague from Kentucky made do not apply to this amendment. Mr. President, 24 States including the State of Kentucky have a system of public financing or partial public financing. They must like it. But the point is, we give people in our States the right to decide. That is all this amendment says. I made the argument for clean money, clean elections. But that is beside the point. What we are saying is let the States be the laboratories of reform and let the people decide--what they did in Maine, or what they have done in Massachusetts, or what they have done in Arizona, or what they have done in Vermont, or, for that matter, what they have done in a lot of other States with partial public financing. Let them decide whether, on a voluntary basis, they want to apply that to congressional races. That is the point. We do not get to make that decision for them. You are just voting on the proposition of whether or not you want to let the people in your States make the decision. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Washington.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I would like to reserve. There are others coming. Unfortunately, when we went into a quorum call, the time was equally divided because we didn't have people down here. I would like to reserve the last 3 minutes for myself.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Let's do 10 and 8.

Mr. WELLSTONE. You tell me how to do that.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, 10 minutes. Vote at 2:30.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank Senator Cantwell but remind her that actually we worked together on this amendment. It is really our amendment--the Wellstone-Cantwell-Kerry amendment. I thank the Senator for her help on the amendment.

Mr. WELLSTONE. Madam President, do we have, all together, 10 minutes remaining?

Mr. WELLSTONE. I say to my colleague from Massachusetts, if he would like, I will yield an additional 5 minutes to him. I will reserve the final 5 minutes. We are in complete agreement. He is making a very strong statement for clean money, clean elections.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I am sorry, I was under the impression that the Senator from New Jersey would not be able to make it at all.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I will take my time now. This is a joint effort. There are a number of different Senators who are part of this: Senator Cantwell worked very hard on this, Senator Kerry; Senator Biden is an original cosponsor; Senator Corzine is an original cosponsor; Senator Clinton is an original cosponsor. There are other Senators as well. My colleague from Kentucky has made the argument before--in fact, I remember debating him on MacNeil, Lehrer that public financing, a clean money, clean election bill, which Senator Kerry and I have written, would amount to ``food stamps for politicians.'' The problem with that argument is that it presupposes that the election belongs to the politicians. The election belongs to the people we represent. I argue that McCain-Feingold is a step in the right direction, but if we want to have a system that gets out a lot of the big money, brings people back in, is not so wired for incumbents, and assures that we have a functioning representative democracy where we do live up to the goal of each person counting as one, and no more than one, frankly, clean money, clean elections is the direction in which to go, as has already been accomplished by a number of States. Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Arizona have led the way, but there are about 24 States in the country that have some system of public or partial financing. We are not voting today for clean money, clean elections. We are just voting on the following proposition: Will we vote to allow our States, the people in our States and their elected representatives, the right to decide whether or not a system of voluntary partial or full public financing should be applied to U.S. House and Senate races. Why don't we allow the people in our States the chance to make that decision? This is a Brandeis amendment. States are the laboratories of reform. For Senators who say they want States to decide on the most fundamental core issue of all, which has to do with representation, let them decide. If they don't want to adopt such a system, they won't, but let them decide. Secondly, by doing that, we will nurture and provoke a wave of grassroots citizen involvement because people will realize that at their State level not only can they adopt clean money, clean elections that affect State races, but they can do it so that it will affect our races. This is simply an amendment that says: Let the States, our States, make the decision whether they want to adopt such a voluntary system of partial or full public financing or clean money, clean elections. Senator Corzine and Senator Biden are on the floor. I yield the final 6 or 7 minutes equally divided between the two of them. I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Delaware.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank Senator Clinton for her words about Thurgood Marshall. I certainly also would like to be a cosponsor of this. I recommend on the floor of the Senate, if it is appropriate, Juan Williams' wonderful biography of Thurgood Marshall that I read about 6 months ago, which was a very inspiring biography because it was about such an inspiring civil rights leader and great judge. I thank the Senator from New York for her remarks.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I thank Senator Clinton for her words about Thurgood Marshall. I certainly also would like to be a cosponsor of this. I recommend on the floor of the Senate, if it is appropriate, Juan Williams' wonderful biography of Thurgood Marshall that I read about 6 months ago, which was a very inspiring biography because it was about such an inspiring civil rights leader and great judge. I thank the Senator from New York for her remarks.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I say to colleagues, I will be relatively brief. I do not have the full context of this amendment and this debate, but my understanding is that this amendment is very similar to the amendment we voted on last night. I would like to repeat some statistics I presented last night that I think apply. Right now, do you know how many citizens contribute $200--just $200 or more? One quarter of 1 percent. One-quarter of 1 percent of the people in this country contribute over $200. Do you know how many people contribute over $1,000? One-ninth of 1 percent of the population. Do you know the reason? Because a whole lot of people cannot afford to give that kind of money to campaigns. What we have here is an amendment that purports to improve the situation by now creating a situation where you have people who are wealthy and have their own financial resources and finance their own campaigns now challenged by people who are viable because they are dependent upon people who are wealthy and have financial resources. The contest is between the wealthy with financial resources versus the people who have access and are dependent upon the wealthy with financial resources. And this is called a reform? If the first thing we do on the floor of the Senate is pass an amendment to put yet more money into American politics, I don't think people will find that all that reassuring. I say this because the more I follow this debate, the more convinced I am that public financing is the answer. From the time I came here, this has always been a core question. Bill Moyers, who is a hero journalist to me, gave a speech and sent me a copy of ``The Soul of Democracy,'' in which he argues basically what is at stake is a noble, beautiful, bold experiment, over 220 or 230 years, of self-rule. That is what is at stake, our capacity for self-rule. If you are worried about what to do about millionaires or multimillionaires running their own campaigns with their own resources, the way to deal with that is to have a clean money, clean election, have a system of public financing. We have seen some States such as Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Arizona lead the way on this, where basically people all contributed to a fund. Then you say, to abide by agreed-upon spending limits, you get public financing. Basically the people themselves, who have contributed $5 or whatever per year in a State or in the country, they control the elections in their government and the capital and all the rest. It is much more of clean politics. If someone says, no, I won't abide by that because I have zillions of dollars, and I will just finance my own campaign and go way beyond the expenditure limits, then out of that clean money/clean election fund, money is given to the candidate who has agreed to abide by this to match that. That would be the direction in which you would go. I don't know why Senators are so concerned about wealthy people running for office and financing their own campaigns and basically clobbering everybody else because they have the money. If this is the concern of my colleagues, they should embrace public financing. That is what we want. Then we have a system that is honest, clean, and which basically says all the people in the country contribute a small amount. We are willing to abide by this. As to those candidates who don't, who when they run finance their own campaigns, there is additional money to match that. That is the direction in which we should go. Before I take a question from my colleague, I want to say that one of the amendments I will bring to the floor is an amendment--it is an interesting proposition based upon an Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Minnesota--that says: You change three words in Federal election law and you make it possible for any State that so desires to apply some system of public financing, whatever the States decide it is, not just to State elections but to Federal elections. If Utah wants to do it or the people in Minnesota want to do it and they vote for it or the legislature votes for it, then they ought to be able to do it. We don't tell them what to do. We just say that if a State wants to apply some system of public financing, some kind of clean money, clean election to Federal races, they should be able to do so. That would be an amendment that goes in the direction we are going to have to go. McCain-Feingold is very important and should not be watered down because I think it is an important step in the right direction. However, I cannot believe that what we have here--and I am very worried this is a harbinger of what is to come--is an amendment that says we are going to vote for reform. We are going to now put more money into politics. Those of you who run for office, here is the way we will create a level playing field. You can be even more dependent upon the top one-quarter of 1 percent that now you can get $6,000 from or $5,000 from, or wherever you want to take the spending limit, in which case we are even more dependent on those folks; they have more clout, even more power. And that is called reform. I just don't get it. Later on, there is going to be an amendment to raise campaign limits from 1 to 3 and 2 to 6--unbelievable. One more time--then I will take a question from my colleague--one- quarter of 1 percent of Americans made a contribution greater than $200 in the 1996 cycle--probably about the same in the 2000 cycle--.11 percent, one-ninth of 1 percent of the voting-age population, gave $1,000 or more. We are not talking about the population but the voting- age population. Now you are going to give wealthy citizens even more clout? You are going to give them an even greater capacity to affect elections and call this reform? I yield for a question from my colleague.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I appreciate the question. There is a three-part answer. You know I am long-winded. The first part is that you could have additional public financing to match that. The second part is that the amendment we are talking about here doesn't deal with that problem either. My colleague is raising yet another issue. I agree, it is a serious issue, but this amendment doesn't address that problem. My colleague can raise this question, but it doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of this amendment. That is yet a whole separate issue with which we have to deal. My third point concerns another amendment I am thinking of which gets at part of the problem he is raising. I am very worried that what we are going to have is a bigger problem with the Hagel proposal. As much as I respect my colleague from Nebraska, I plan to be in vigorous opposition against it. I am worried that if you do the prohibition on the soft money, it is going to shift to the sham ads, whoever is running those ads. The Senator mentioned some organizations. I could mention others. I am worried about that. It is like jello; you put your finger here and it just shifts to over here. In the McCain-Feingold bill, you deal with labor and you deal with corporations. I am very worried that there will be a proliferation of all sorts of organizations, and labor and corporations with good lawyers will figure out basically how to make sure that their soft money also goes into this. I would like to go back to the original McCain-Feingold formulation, which was in the bill that passed the House, to say that you have that 60-day prohibition on soft money applied to all those sham ads, which I would say to my colleague from Utah would be a very positive step.

Mr. WELLSTONE. I don't think the first 75 percent of what I said was at all far away from it. Again, we have an amendment that purports to be reform. The message to people in the country is, we are going to spend yet more money. Now we move from millionaires who can finance their own campaigns against people who are dependent upon millionaires who can give them ever larger and larger contributions, with the top 1 percent of the population having more clout, more influence, more say. I don't view that as reform. I yield the floor.

Mr. WELLSTONE

Mr. WELLSTONE. I need 5 minutes. Mr. FEINGOLD addressed the Chair.