The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S2377-S2379 on March 18, 1997.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I have not had the opportunity to come to the floor to talk about the pending matter. I want to devote a little time this morning to the constitutional amendment offered by the distinguished Senator from South Carolina, Senator Hollings. I am a cosponsor of that legislation, and I proudly come to the floor in my advocacy of the passage of his amendment.
I give him great credit. He has come to the floor for years addressing, in myriad ways, the issue of campaign finance, the problems that we have associated with campaign finance, the difficulties, constitutionally and statutorily, in addressing all of the problems that he has so eloquently outlined now for a long period of time. Year after year, in Congress after Congress, fight after fight, Senator Hollings has been extraordinary in his effort to address this issue in a consequential and comprehensive way.
I want to talk a little bit about the circumstances that I see facing all of us politically right now and my reasons for supporting the constitutional amendment. There are at least four primary reasons why I believe that the constitutional amendment needs to be addressed. I am of the view that statutorily we are incapable of adequately addressing every one of the nuances, every one of the problems that have arisen as a result of our efforts to address meaningful campaign finance reform in the past. I do not have with me the record that we have compiled, but we have spent hours and days and weeks in testimony and in hearings over the course of many Congresses grappling with this issue.
As I recall, there have been 49 hearings on campaign finance reform. There have been thousands and thousands of pages of reports. There have been over a score of filibusters on the floor keeping this issue from a vote. So the record in the Congress over the last 10 years has really been abysmal. The problems continue to mount and the circumstances continue to worsen and the situation involving Members is compounded.
In 1976, the total cost of all Federal elections was $310 million. That is total. That is what every House Member, every House candidate, every Senator, every Senate candidate, and every Presidential candidate spent--$310 million. In 1996, that amount had exploded--and I use that word intentionally--exploded to $2.7 billion. That is $2,100 a day for a Senate candidate. Every day, whether we generate the money all at once or whether we generate it day by day, we need to raise $2,100 a day.
Just yesterday I was over at my political office. I have a political office. I have a South Dakota office. I have a leadership office. I have three service offices. But now, without a doubt, one of the most important parts of any Senate infrastructure is the political office.
I was over in my political office yesterday dialing for dollars. I do not know how much I raised, but I made up yesterday for the fact that I had not raised $2,100 every day in the previous weeks.
Now the average cost of a Senate campaign is $4.5 million per Senator. I am in cycle now. I will be running in 1998. My budget, Mr. President, is $5 million. I have already indicated that. That is no secret. I will be raising and spending $5 million to be reelected.
I have heard colleagues on the Senate floor say, ``Well, you know, the nation spends less than $2.7 billion on dog and cat food, so why should we be worried? We spend a lot more on dog and cat food than we spend in political races.''
I do not think that is a proper comparison unless we have only 535 dogs and cats in this country. If you had 535 dogs and cats, that comparison would work. I tell you, if we were spending $2.7 billion on 535 designated dogs and cats, my sense is we would be outraged. There would be all kinds of complaints that dog and cat food is way too high.
``I can't afford to keep a cat or a dog.''
How is it we can afford a political process so denigrated today by practices that we all abhor that we are willing to spend $4.5 million per Senator? So, Mr. President, the cost is something that I think is very clearly an issue that we have to address, because it is only going to get worse.
We used the increases in campaign costs since 1976 to estimate what the cost of an election will be in the year 2025. Most of us, hopefully, will still be around. I will not be here, but I will be, hopefully, living. Our sons and daughters will be here seeking public office.
Our estimate is that a Senate race will cost $145 million in the year 2025. Now that is not any magical distortion of the amount. That is simply taking the inflation rate that we have experienced and costing it out to the year 2025--$145 million. We will be raising over $200,000 a day to meet that kind of cost in the year 2025.
So do we have a problem? I could rest my case on that alone. But there are other problems that I want to talk about this morning.
I have a friend I have known for 20 years, who ran for Congress. He is idealistic, has a wonderful family; and is extraordinarily helpful. My friend decided he wanted to run for Congress. He was at that point in life when he thought he could offer something. He cared deeply about the issues, and is very, very patriotic, an extraordinary young man in all respects.
But in order to meet his budget, my friend found himself holed up in a small cubicle with a desk and a phone calling for money about two-
thirds to three-fourths of every day. Was he out there greeting the people sharing his ideas? No. Was he out there shaking hands, learning from the people? No. A campaign, anybody who has been through one will recognize, is really an educational experience.
Of course you impart your thoughts. But what I love about campaigns is how much you learn in return--the conversations with people in their homes, the opportunity to answer questions and hear concerns at Rotaries and chambers of commerce, the opportunity to shake hands at a plant gate and get comments about what families are thinking about. That education is lost when any candidate spends two-thirds to three-
fourths of his time doing nothing but dialing for dollars.
Wendell Ford, our distinguished colleague who sits right at this desk, said fundraising was a major factor in his determination not to run for reelection. We are going to lose an able public servant. When he was first elected to the Senate in 1974, his campaign cost $450,000. But he estimated he would have to raise $4.5 million for the race in 1998. He said, ``I don't want to raise $4.5 million in Kentucky. I don't want to have to go through that. I don't think it is right. I don't want to have to sit in some cubicle called a `political office' and dial for dollars day after day. I don't want to do that.'' So he is hanging it up.
How many more Wendell Fords, how many more talented public servants will hang it up or will not even start? So, Mr. President, this is a very serious problem from the point of view of candidates themselves--
Republican or Democrat.
I recruit candidates, and one of the hardest things for me is to convince possible candidates to run knowing they have to raise $4.5 to
$5.5 million. You go tell some businessman to give up his business, give up his family, give up his dignity, go tell them that ``you ought to do that so you can take a seat here in the U.S. Senate.'' Tell them that. Convince them it is in the public interest. Here in the Senate, we have a wonderful opportunity to serve, but to get here you pay a heavy price, too heavy in the minds of more and more people. Too many good people are saying no to public life, no to public service because they do not want to do it. Frankly, I do not blame them.
In the third category are the implications of the money in the system. The implications of all of this money troubles me. Every day the front page has yet another story about White House difficulties. Obviously, it is now the subject of an investigation in the Governmental Affairs Committee and the Justice Department.
We are looking at all of that. We on the Democratic side have felt that many of the abuses the Republicans may be guilty of have not received adequate attention.
The media seem honed in on everything that happened in the White House. As a colleague has reminded me on several occasions, ``Why hunt rabbits when you can hunt bear?'' Well, there are some elephants that ought to be hunted, I think, given the circumstances.
There were reports in the Washington Post on January 23, 1997; the Wall Street Journal on January 9; Business Week on December 30, 1996; Roll Call on January 20, 1997; Inside Congress on December 20, 1996, that Republican leaders--including Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, and John Boehner--summoned business leaders to a dinner to chastise them for donating money to Democrats and suggest that if they continue to do so, they would no longer have access to Republican leaders.
This is a quote--`` `Companies that want to have it both ways,' said one top GOP strategist, `no longer will be involved in Republican decisionmaking or invited to our cocktail parties.' They also demanded that the company fire all of its Democratic lobbyists and replace them with Republicans. A GOP leadership insider said, `If companies send lobbyists to Republican offices, they will have GOP credentials or they won't be allowed in the room.' NRCC Chairman John Linder said, `We're going to track where the money goes.' ''
Mr. President, what does that mean? What are the implications of
``money''? What do they mean when they say business leaders who contribute to Democrats will no longer be involved in Republican decisionmaking?
Here's another passage from Roll Call, October 30, 1995.
Upon winning control of the 104th Congress, Congressman John Boehner, chair of the House Republican Conference, organized a leadership/lobbyist operation to help pass the Republicans' budget plan. Business lobbyists contributed at least $2,000 toward an advertising campaign to support the Republican budget. ``In exchange, they got a seat in the inner circle that met every Monday in one of the Capitol's .
. . meeting rooms.''
So $2,000 for a seat in the inner circle meeting every Monday in the Capitol's meeting rooms.
Here's another example from Time magazine, March 27, 1995. Mr. Boehner also organized the Thursday group of ``lobbyists representing some of the richest special interests in the country.'' The Republican leadership let these lobbyists use congressional office space and official resources to conduct their bill drafting and lobbying activities. The Thursday group served as command central for a million dollar campaign to enact items in the Contract With America. On tort reform, the group's efforts included ``daily meetings of dozens of lobbyists on the seventh floor of the Longworth House Office Building, a budget of several million dollars raised under the guidance of a General Motors executive, and a vote-counting operation that was led by former top lobbyists for Ronald Reagan and George Bush.''
Here is yet another example, this time from the Washington Post and Legal Times, dated October 29, 1996, and September 16, 1996, respectively: ``Gingrich ally and foreign agent Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform received a $4.6 million contribution from the RNC in October,'' 1 month before the election, ``in October 1996 * * * the RNC contributed $4.6 million to the tax-exempt Americans for Tax Reform, which is headed by Gingrich ally Grover Norquist. Because it is not structured as a political committee, ATR is not required to disclose how it spends the money, as the RNC is. This $4.6 million in
`soft money' could be used by ATR directly on behalf of federal candidates--which would be scored as `hard money' if spent by the RNC. Grover Norquist is a close ally of Gingrich and is also registered as a foreign agent for the Republic of Seychelles, and Jonas Savimbi, rebel leader of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola.''
Mr. President I could go on and on.
Perhaps I will end with this one just received yesterday: 1997 RNC Annual Gala, May 13, 1997. Cochairman--for a $250,000 fundraising requirement, you get ``Breakfast and a Photo Opportunity with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on May 13, 1997.'' You get a luncheon with ``Republican Senate and House leadership and the Republican Senate and House Committee Chairmen of your choice.''
I am still reading from the document. You get a luncheon with the chairmen of your choice if you are willing to donate $250,000. If you only donate $100,000, you still get a luncheon with the chairmen of your choice, and you still get a breakfast and photo opportunity with
``Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.'' You do not get dais seating. For $45,000, amazingly, you are still entitled to lunch with the chairmen of your choice.
Mr. President, we do not need that. We do not need that in this institution or in our political system. This has to end. This will not go on without ultimately and directly affecting the quality and the historic standing of this institution.
Now let me address the last issue, and that is the constitutional issue. Mr. President, I have to say it is the hardest one. It is the hardest because there are a lot of people whose judgment I respect who are not willing to go as far as I am. But it is hard for me to understand what the Supreme Court said in Buckley versus Valeo. On the one hand, they said it is all right to limit how much you give; on the other hand, it is not all right to limit how much you spend. Why? If we are worried about free speech, why is it appropriate to limit giving but not limit spending? What is the constitutional premise that allows us to say we can limit how much you give, but we cannot limit how much you spend? It seems to me that once they decided to limit how much you give, they set themselves up, as well, for limiting how much you spend.
New York University law professor Ronald Dworkin and 40 other scholars wrote in a joint statement, ``We believe that the Buckley decision is wrong and should be overturned. The decision did not declare a valuable principle that we should hesitate to challenge. On the contrary, it misunderstood not only what free speech really is but what it really means for free people to govern themselves.''
The decision in Buckley and Colorado are a threat to the principle of one person, one vote. There are Senators who disagree, and there are many, many ways with which to express that disagreement. But I will say this: No one is guaranteed free money. Mr. President, free speech is not the same as free money. It is no more right for us to stand up in indignation with all of these problems and to say there is no problem, or that if there is a problem, we cannot address it because of the free speech argument on this issue.
Mr. President, we have limited speech in other ways. We have limited even the right of advertising in ways that have been demonstrated to be constitutional. When was the last time you saw a cigarette ad on television? When was the last time you saw ads for drugs on television? Obviously, there are restrictions on free speech. We all know that you cannot falsely yell ``fire'' in a crowded theater. Mr. President, I do not buy the argument that we cannot carefully restrict speech, because we restrict speech all the time.
I am out of time, and I know the distinguished Senator from West Virginia is about to speak as is required by the order. We will return to this issue again.
Let me close by saying we also know that this legislation, this amendment, is not going to pass. But we also know that there will be another day. There will be another day to offer bipartisan campaign reform legislation from a statutory perspective. I intend to be as aggressively supportive of that as I can be.
Let me say that this issue will not go away, not when our sons and daughters will be spending $145 million in the year 2025 just to walk in this door and vote.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the hour of 11 a.m. has arrived. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized to speak up to 30 minutes.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I commend our leader who has just spoken. I agree with him, as I shall elaborate at this point.
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