Ed Whitfield

Mr. WHITFIELD

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

Mr. WHITFIELD. They would have to go through all the process, the complicated process, the legal process of filing a political action committee, setting up a political action committee, forming all kinds of reports. And that is a chilling effect. We live in a democracy where groups and individuals can talk about elections whenever they want to. And the Supreme Court has consistently said that the only thing that is express advocacy is if you expressly urge the defeat or the election of a candidate. And you all are broadening this so broad that, as the gentleman from Missouri said, you would almost have to go to the FEC in advance and get their permission for running the ad. I think that is the part of this that disturbs us and the reason that we are supporting the gentleman.

Mr. WHITFIELD. Of course, if it is coordinated. But a wealthy individual can go out and run an ad.

Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, I will reclaim my time.

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

Mr. WHITFIELD. I yield to the gentlewoman from Michigan.

Mr. WHITFIELD. Well, Mr. Chairman, I did not make that argument. The President, I think, still appoints them. I might also add, if the gentlewoman wants to come up with an amendment on truth in advertising for political ads, I would be the first to support it.

Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, my point is that this is the core of our democracy, being involved in political elections. And who can speak and who cannot speak and who determines what they can say and what they can spend, that is okay for candidates. I understand that. That is okay for individuals who are wealthy.

Mr. WHITFIELD. Yes, it does. It makes it ambiguous. And reasonable men and women can differ as to what is and what is not allowed.

Mr. WHITFIELD. The Supreme Court has made it explicitly clear time and time again. And now we are going to, in my view, make the system much more complicated, much more difficult, and I think we will see less political participation than we would without this legislation.

Mr. WHITFIELD

Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Speaker, two days ago the full House passed the FY 1999 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill. I was proud to lend my support to that bill, although there are several important issues affecting my District that I would like to bring to the attention of my House colleagues. I represent the workers at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant--one of two plants in America that originally enriched uranium for our country's nuclear weapons production program. Today, that uranium is sold to commercial nuclear power companies. The environmental cleanup associated with the enrichment process is financed by the Decontamination and Decommissioning Fund. The President requested $277 million for the D&D fund. The Senate bill includes $197 million while the House bill provides $225 million. The federal government is responsible for this cleanup, Mr. Speaker, and further delays will result in higher long-term costs. It is my hope that the House and Senate conferees will agree to fund the D&D program at the higher House-approved funding level. Another issue of special importance to me was raised by my colleague in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, during a floor discussion with Senator Pete Domenici, Chairman of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee. The United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) currently manages the two uranium enrichment plants in Paducah, Kentucky and Portsmouth, Ohio. Legislation has already passed the Congress to privatize USEC and final privatization action is imminent. Once that Corporation is privatized, I have been advised that between 600 to 1,700 jobs will be lost at the two plants. I have also been told that USEC has accrued approximately $400 million on its books for the purpose of cleaning up the uranium waste generated by the enrichment process since USEC took over operation of the plants from the Department of Energy in 1993. However, this money only remains available until USEC is privatized and, at that point, the monies would be transferred to the Treasury. I oppose returning those funds to the Treasury when they were originally earmarked for cleanup of USEC's uranium waste at both of the gaseous diffusion plants. It would be my hope that my colleagues on the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee will work with me to ensure that the money earmarked for the purpose of cleaning up the uranium tails produced by USEC will continue to be dedicated for these purposes and help mitigate job losses at these plants.

Mr. WHITFIELD

Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. First of all, I know the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) a while ago was talking about this ad that ran, and I am assuming it ran on television. I assume it ran on television.

Mr. WHITFIELD. Well, all I would say is that, if the gentleman is talking about the hard money, of course, anybody can go down to the FEC and get a record and they will know who gave him money or anybody else in this Chamber and it is spelled out very explicitly. I think soft money is a little bit of a different issue. If it is independent expenditures, they are required to file their report with the FEC anyway. In issue advocacy, if it is a political committee, it is required to file a report. But my colleague is right, other groups do not have to file a report. And I think we can find some cases where the Court has said that is free speech and it is a little bit different than hard money and they do not have to go file all these reports, because they can make the argument that in filing all these reports it provides an obstacle for people engaging in the political process. I want to just touch on for a moment, the reason that I object to what my colleagues all have done on this voting record guide is that in paragraph 3 they basically lay out the language as set out in Buckley vs. Valeo, the so-called bright line, and if they had stopped after the word ``reject,'' I mean, I would not have had any problem with it myself. But the Court has repeatedly said that they do have to use these express words. As a matter of fact, the question I would ask, the FEC is a group of government employees and they are going to have to make the decision about what does this mean. Does this ad, or a campaign slogan or words in context have no reasonable meaning other than to urge the election or defeat of one or more clearly identified candidates? I think different people looking at a particular ad can come up with different conclusions. I would say to the gentleman that in the Maine case, almost the exact language was used in that case where it said could only be interpreted by a reasonable person as containing advocacy of the election or defeat of one or more clearly identified candidates, and the Supreme Court ruled that as unconstitutional. I think the point we are trying to make is I think you are going to be inviting another overturn by the Supreme Court on that. The gentleman mentioned the Furgatch case which is exactly right. Basically they said the simple holding of Furgatch was in those instances where political communications do include an explicit directive to voters to take some course of action, then they are going to say that that is express advocacy. In that case, they said, ``Don't let him do it.'' I would also say to the gentleman that that case was decided in the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit has been turned over 27 of 28 times it went to the Supreme Court. I think we have a legitimate concern about the stifling of speech that could go on by the way you are expanding this definition. That is simply the point that I would like to make.

Mr. WHITFIELD. The only point I would raise there is that that brings up the whole issue of the right of privacy of individuals who contribute or organizations that contribute; and the Supreme Court, in certain cases, has indicated that they have a right to keep that private. But that is another issue that we could talk about another day.

Mr. WHITFIELD. Reclaiming my time, I think all of us are very much concerned about any ads that run without a disclaimer. I talked to some FEC lawyers yesterday about that very point; and it is my understanding that if an ad like that runs anywhere without a disclaimer, they can go to the Federal Communications Commission because they have a law and regulations that prohibit those type of ads. I agree with the gentleman that we do not need ads running on television or anywhere else that does not have a disclaimer on them. But the FEC does have some rules that disclaimers are required.

Mr. WHITFIELD

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

Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, we have heard a lot of discussion today about too much money being in politics. We have asked that question before, too, what is too much money. Any time we ask the advocates of this legislation, it is very difficult for them to answer the question what is too much money. Then we talk about what is the special interest. It is pretty obvious that a special interest is any group saying something that we do not agree with. Then we have heard people say we do not know who is doing these TV ads against us. The TV ads have the disclaimers on them. We know the groups that ran the ads. We may not like it. The gentleman was talking about $50,000 spent against him. I had $800,000 spent against me by labor unions. I did not like it, but it is their constitutional right to do that. I knew that they ran the ads because of the disclaimer. People have talked about, we, these individuals are spending too much money on their campaigns. Mr. Checchi, out in California, Ms. Harman, Mr. Issa spent a total of maybe $40 million, maybe more, in their campaigns. It was their money. I think, in America, individuals have a right to spend their money the way they want to spend it. By the way, all three of them lost. In Kentucky, we had an individual running for the U.S. Senate, Charlie Owens, who spent $7 million of his money, the most ever spent in Kentucky on a Senate race. His money, not anybody else's. He has a right to spend his money. Guess what. He lost. Then we have heard a lot about, well, we have got to have Shays- Meehan because it is going to clean up this problem that we have with foreign nationals contributing to these campaigns. Section 441(e) of the current Federal Election Law says, ``It shall be unlawful for a foreign national directly or through any other person to make any contribution of money or other thing of value, or to promise expressively or impliedly to make any such contribution, in connection with an election to any political office'', and so forth and so forth and so forth. So we have the laws on the books.

Mr. WHITFIELD. This says, ``Just such an exhortation.'' It says, ``Rather, it provides in effect an explicit directive: vote for these candidates.'' And that is the bright line test.

Mr. WHITFIELD. ``Buckley adopted the `express advocacy' requirement to distinguish discussion of issues and candidates from more pointed exhortations to vote for particular persons. We therefore concluded in that case that a finding of `express advocacy' depended upon the use of language such as `vote for,' `elect,' `support,' et cetera. Just such an exhortation appears in the `Special Edition' in this case. The publication not only urges voters to vote for `pro-life' candidates, but also identifies and provides photographs of specific candidates fitting that description.'' So it seems to me in this case, they are definitely verifying and accepting the definition of express advocacy as set out in Buckley.

Mr. WHITFIELD

Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman, is soft money given to candidates directly?

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

Mr. WHITFIELD. Why? What is wrong with issue advocacy?

Mr. WHITFIELD. The question I had, the gentleman had referred to that individuals can give up to $25,000. I just want to make sure that everyone understands on this issue that the most that an individual can give to a candidate is $1,000 in the primary, and so he cannot give them $25,000.

Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, one of the previous speakers, and there has been a lot of discussion actually this evening about tobacco and what happened over in the Senate, and the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) I believe talked about how I have received a lot of tobacco money. And I wanted to confess tonight that I do represent 31,000 tobacco farmers and tobacco companies through their political action committee using hard money, which is legal, which Shays/Meehan does not try to address at all. So they are not talking about hard money, that I have received hard money from tobacco companies; and I do not apologize for that. But I would also like to point out that there is a gentleman named Ted Sioeng, who is from Indonesia, and he is the largest cigarette manufacturer in Red China today. I have a picture here of Mr. Sioeng and our President Bill Clinton. Mr. Sioeng gave Mr. Clinton and gave the DNC $400,000. And by the way, it was not hard money, it was soft money. Now, I do not object to soft money, except in this instance there is a Federal Election Commission rule 441(e) that says it is illegal for foreign nationals to contribute money to campaigns in the United States. And so, I would just remind the gentleman that his President, I guess he is all of our President, some of us like him more than others, but he accepted $400,000 from this gentleman. And do my colleagues know something else? They have been trying to investigate these illegal contributions, which led to a lot of this debate about campaign finance reform, and we cannot find Mr. Sioeng. They have been looking for him everywhere. We cannot find him or any of his family. But I just want to remind the gentleman that the contributions to me were legal hard money through the political action committee of which employees of those companies voluntarily gave the money and PACs came about as a reform measure themselves to encourage people to participate in the political system. Now people are saying that the only reason we are offering these amendments is that we want to kill this bill, and I would suggest to them that there are some sincere beliefs that this bill goes too far. I think that we should support nonseverability for the simple reason that I think this is a vitally important issue. I would like to read a quote from Buckley v. Valeo. Discussion of public issues and debate on the qualifications of candidates are vital to the operation of the system of government established by our Constitution. This is one of the most fundamental First Amendment activities. Now we seem to be summarily dismissing this First Amendment and the fact that Buckley v. Valeo has not been overturned and court after court after court after court continue to affirm it. And I think that the real reason that our opponents are opposed to this nonseverability amendment is that they know, without any question, that there are all sorts of provisions in this bill that are unconstitutional. Now, our friend from Pennsylvania a while ago said, no one has talked to me about how these are interconnected, the provisions of this bill. And I tell him what, when we start broadening the definition of ``express advocacy'' that has a dramatic impact on issue advocacy and independent expenditures and what can and cannot be done. Those three are definitely related. I want to read an article here from the American Civil Liberties Union. I have never really been a fan of the American Civil Liberties Union, but I am sure that people who follow them know that their main purpose in existing is to be sure that the Constitution is upheld. And they are bringing all sorts of lawsuits around the country on many issues that people do not like because they feel it is so important to protect constitutional rights. I just want to read to my colleagues. What is wrong with the Shays/Meehan bill? Number one. Shays/Meehan is patently unconstitutional. The American Civil Liberties Union believes that key elements of Shays-Meehan violate the First Amendment right to free speech because the legislation contains provisions that would one, restrict the right of the people to express their opinions about elected officials and issues through unprecedented limitations on text, accompanying issue group voting records, and restraints on citizen commentary prior to election, restrict contributions. Two, and uses of soft money. And remember, soft money is everything the other groups spend that are not candidates.

Mr. WHITFIELD. Mr. Chairman, there is nothing more important in the discussion of public issues than for the public to be informed. In 1996, Procter & Gamble spent more money promoting its products, $5 billion, than we spend in campaigning for all elections in the U.S., Federal, State and local, $2.2 billion. Announcement by the Chairman Pro Tempore