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.
“CALLING OF THE BANKROLL” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S9068-S9069 on July 22, 1999.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
CALLING OF THE BANKROLL
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I promised that from time to time when I participate in debates on legislation I would point out the role of special interest money in our legislative process, an effort I have entitled the Calling of the Bankroll. When I Call the Bankroll I will describe how much money the various interests lobbying on a particular bill have spent on campaign contributions to influence our decisions here in this chamber.
Of course I embarked on this effort with the hope of exposing the corruption of our current campaign finance system, and in particular how wealthy donors exploit the soft money loophole.
When I began this effort, I never worried that I would lack for opportunities to Call the Bankroll, and as I've demonstrated over the past few months, there are countless opportunities to Call the Bankroll about efforts to influence legislation before this body.
For example, so far I have talked about the contributions of special interests working to influence the debate over the Patients' Bill of Rights, I have discussed the contributions of the high tech industry and trial lawyers lobby during debate on the Y2K legislation, and I have pointed out the contributions of gun makers and gun control advocates during the juvenile justice debate, just to name a few.
And now we have before this body the Commerce, State, Justice appropriations bill.
During his state of the union address last January, the President called for the Justice Department to prepare a ``litigation plan'' against the tobacco companies to reclaim hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars spent through federal health-care programs such as Medicare to treat smoking-related illnesses.
But this bill does something quite different. The language in the committee report on the Commerce, State, Justice Bill attempts to grant immunity to the tobacco industry from any federal litigation. Instead of a litigation plan, this bill would create a protection plan for the tobacco companies.
I hope my colleagues in this body would agree that the Justice Department must be able to pursue litigation based on the law, and that we should do everything in our power to enable the department to enforce the law.
But the language currently in the committee report prevents the Justice Department from enforcing the law. So instead of a huge federal lawsuit, the tobacco industry will have immunity from federal litigation. It looks like the tobacco companies have really gotten what they wanted in this bill, Mr. President.
It's a fortunate turn of events for the tobacco companies, but based on the tobacco industry's track record of political donations and political clout, I can't say that it's surprising.
The nation's tobacco companies are some of the most generous political donors around today, Mr. President, including Philip Morris, which reigns as the largest single soft money donor of all time. During the 1997-1998 election cycle the tobacco companies, including Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco, Brown and Williamson, US Tobacco and the industry's lobbying arm, the Tobacco Institute, gave a combined $5.5 million dollars in soft money to the parties, and another $2.3 million in PAC money contributions to candidates.
I offer this information to my colleagues and to the public to paint a clearer picture of who is trying to influence the bill before us, and how they are using the campaign finance system--very successfully, I might add--to get what they want from this bill and this Congress.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I rise in support of S. 1217, the Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary Appropriations Bill for 2000.
This bill provides new budget authority of $34 billion and new outlays of $23.1 billion to finance the programs of the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, and the federal judiciary.
I congratulate the Chairman and Ranking Member for producing a bill that complies with the Subcommittee's 302(b) allocation. This is one of the most difficult bills to manage with its varied programs and challenging allocation, but I think the bill meets most of the demands made of it while not exceeding its budget. So I commend my friend, the chairman, for his efforts and leadership.
When outlays from prior-year BA and other adjustments are taken into account, the bill totals $34.1 billion in BA and $34 billion in outlays. For general purpose activities as well as crime funding, the bill is at the Senate subcommittee's 302(b) allocation for both budget authority and outlays.
I ask members of the Senate to refrain from offering amendments which would cause the subcommittee to exceed its budget allocation and urge the speedy adoption of this bill.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a table displaying the Budget Committee scoring of the bill be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the table was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 1217, COMMERCE-JUSTICE APPROPRIATIONS, 2000--SPENDING COMPARISONS--
SENATE-REPORTED BILL
[Fiscal year 2000, in millions of dollars]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
General
purpose Crime Mandatory Total
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senate-Reported Bill:
Budget authority............. 29,460 4,150 523 34,133
Outlays...................... 28,214 5,271 529 34,014
Senate 302(b) allocation:
Budget authority............. 29,460 4,150 523 34,133
Outlays...................... 28,214 5,271 529 34,014
1999 level:
Budget authority............. 27,165 5,509 523 33,197
Outlays...................... 26,364 4,369 529 31,262
President's request:
Budget authority............. 32,347 4,216 523 37,086
Outlays...................... 31,327 4,538 529 36,394
House-passed bill:
Budget authority............. ........ ........ ......... ........
Outlays...................... ........ ........ ......... ........
SENATE-REPORTED BILL COMPARED TO:
Senate 302(b) allocation:
Budget authority............. ........ ........ ......... ........
Outlays...................... ........ ........ ......... ........
1999 level:
Budget authority............. 2,295 (1,359) ......... 936
Outlays...................... 1,850 902 ......... 2,752
President's request:
Budget authority............. (2,887) (66) ......... (2,953)
Outlays...................... (3,113) 733 ......... (2,380)
House-passed bill:
Budget authority............. 29,460 4,150 523 34,133
Outlays...................... 28,214 5,271 529 34,014
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Details may not add to totals due to rounding. Totals adjusted for
consistency with scorekeeping conventions.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the bill will be read the third time and passed.
The bill S. 1217, as amended, was read the third time, and passed.
(The bill will be printed in a future edition of the Record.)
Mr. HOLLINGS. I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. GREGG. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
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