ALERT

U.S. Democracy Under Siege

Senate Debate Excerpts

Mr. McCAIN:

The power of the government to protect the integrity of the elections of its own officials is inherent and has been recognized and affirmed by repeated declarations of the Supreme Court. There is no enemy of free government more dangerous and none so insidious as the corruption of the electorate. No one defends or excuses corruption, and it would seem to follow that none would oppose vigorous measures to eradicate it. The details of such law may be safely left to the wise discretion of the Congress.

So said President Theodore Roosevelt in his fourth annual message delivered from the White House on December 6, 1904.

On August 31, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt said:

Now this means that our government, national and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.

That is one of our tasks today.

It is now legal in America for a People’s Liberation Army-owned corporation in China, with a subsidiary in the United States of America, to give unlimited amounts of money to an American political campaign. That is wrong. It is wrong and it needs to be fixed.

What this fight is all about is taking the $100,000 check out of American politics for good. It’s about putting the little guy back in charge, and freeing our system from the corrupting power of the special interests’ bottomless wallet. It’s about forcing our government to pay attention to the little guy, those people who actually cast votes to elect us, and not just to the richest in corporate America or the powerful union bosses.

We are a part of something noble; a great experiment to prove to the world that democracy is not only the most effective form of government, but the only moral government.

But, today, we confront a very serious challenge to our political system, as dangerous in its debasing effect on our democracy as war and depression have been in the past. And it will take the best efforts of every public-spirited American to defeat it.

This country has survived many difficult challenges: a civil war, world war, depression, the civil rights struggle, a cold war. All were just causes. They were good fights. They were patriotic challenges.

We have a new patriotic challenge for a new century: declaring war on the cynicism that threatens our public institutions, our culture, and, ultimately, our private happiness. It is a great and just cause, worthy of our best service. It should not, and neither I nor my friend from Wisconsin will allow it to, be casually dismissed with parliamentary tactics.

Those of us privileged to hold public office have ourselves to blame for the sickness in American public life today. It is we who have squandered the public trust. We who have, time and again, in full public view placed our personal and partisan interests before the national interest, earning the public’s contempt for our poll-driven policies, our phony posturing, the lies we call spin and the damage control we substitute for progress. It is we who are the defenders of a campaign finance system that is nothing less than an elaborate influence peddling scheme in which both parties conspire to stay in office by selling the country to the highest bidder.

All of us are tainted by this system, myself included. I do not make any claims of piety. I have personally experienced the pull from campaign staff alerting me to a call from a large donor. I do not believe that any of us privileged enough to serve in this body would ever automatically do the bidding of those who give. I do not believe that contributions are corrupting in that manner. But I do believe they buy access. I do believe they distort the system. And I do believe, as I noted, that all of us, including myself, have been affected by this system.

I think most Americans understand that soft money--the enormous sums of money given to both parties by just about every special interest in the country--corrupts both politics and government whether it comes from big business or from labor bosses and trial lawyers. It seizes the attention of elected officials who then neglect problems that directly affect the lives of every American. That is something about which each of us should care deeply.

Americans care deeply about reforming our Tax Code, improving education, reducing the size of Government, about improving our national security, and many other pressing national issues. But fundamental reform is not possible when soft money and special interests demand a higher return on their political investments.

Most Americans believe we conspire to hold on to every political advantage we have, lest we jeopardize our incumbency by a single lost vote. Most Americans believe we would pay any price, bear any burden to ensure the success of our personal ambitions--no matter how injurious the effect might be to the national interest. And who can blame them when the wealthiest Americans and richest organized interests can make six figure donations to political parties and gain the special access to power such generosity confers on the donor.

The special interests will tell you that the fight to limit soft money is an attack on the first amendment. They are wrong. They are entirely wrong. The courts have long held that Congress may constitutionally limit contributions to campaigns and political parties.

In the 1976 Supreme Court case Buckley versus Valeo the Justices affirmed Congress’ right to uphold contribution limits in the name of preventing, and I quote, ‘corruption and the appearance of corruption spawned by the real or imagined coercive influence of large financial contributions on candidates’ positions and their actions.’

Mr. FEINGOLD:

Soft money has exploded, with far-reaching consequences for our elections and the functioning of Congress. I truly believe--and I didn’t necessarily feel this way 3 or 4 years ago--if we can do nothing else on campaign finance reform in this Congress, we must stop the cancerous growth of soft money before it consumes us and ultimately the remaining credibility of our system.

[S]oft money first arrived on the scene of our national elections in the 1980 election, after a 1978 FEC ruling opened the door for parties to accept contributions from corporations and unions that are barred from contributing to Federal elections. The best available estimate is that parties raised, in that 1980 cycle, that first cycle, under $20 million in soft money. By the 1992 election, the year I was elected to this body, soft money fundraising by the parties had gone from under $20 million to $86 million.

Then came the 1996 election and the enormous explosion of soft money fueled by the parties’ decision to use the money on phony issue ads supporting their Presidential candidates. Remember those ads that everybody thought were Clinton and Dole ads but were really run by the parties? I remember seeing them for the first time in the Cloakroom. That was the moment when soft money began to achieve its full corrupting potential on the national scene.

As you can see on this chart, again, total soft money fundraising skyrocketed as a result. Three times as much soft money was raised in 1996 as in 1992. Let me say that again. Soft money tripled in one Presidential election cycle.

The total dollars raised, as shown on this chart, don’t tell the whole story. This talks about the total amounts. This talks about the campaign side of this problem of soft money. There is a whole other story, and that is the impact of these contributions on what we do here.

Soft money is raised primarily from corporate interests that have a legislative ax to grind. So the explosion of soft money brought another explosion--an explosion of influence and access in this Congress and in this administration. Consider these statistics on this chart. I hope people will note these figures. They amaze me. As long as I have been involved with this issue, they have amazed me.

The following is a tabulation, for clarity, of the figures cited by Mr. Feingold:

	1980	1992	1996
Total soft money contributions to parties ($millions)	under 20	86	about 250
# of donors giving over $200,000		52	219
# of donors giving over $300,000		20	120
# of donors giving over $400,000		13	79
# of donors giving over $500,000		9	50
# of companies giving over $150,000 to each of the political parties (“double givers”)		7	43

In 1992, there were a total of 52 donors who gave over a total of $200,000 to political parties. In 1996, just 4 years later, 219 donors gave that much soft money. Over 20 donors gave over $300,000 in soft money contributions during the 1992 cycle. But in 1996, 120 donors gave contributions totaling $300,000 or more. What about over 400,000? In 1992, 13 donors gave that much soft money. But in 1996, it was all the way up to 79 donors giving $400,000 per person or interest. Whereas only 9 donors in 1992 gave $500,000--a half million dollars, Mr. President; people giving a half million dollars--by 1996, 50 donors gave a half million dollars.

Does anyone think those donors expect nothing for this act of generosity? Does anyone think those donors get nothing for their generosity? Does anyone think the principle of one person/one vote means anything to anyone anymore if somebody can give a half million dollars?

Here is another amazing statistic: This is even worse, to me. In 1992, only 7 companies gave over $150,000 to each of the political parties--double givers, we call them, who made contributions to both parties. In 1996, the number of these double givers was up to 43: Forty-three companies or associations gave $150,000 or more to both the Democrat and the Republican Party. I would suggest there is no ideological motive. This is not about their passion for good government. These donors are playing both sides of the fence. They don’t care about who is in power. They want to get their hooks into whoever is controlling the legislative agenda.

Here are some of the companies in this rather exclusive group. We know they have a big interest in what Congress does:

Philip Morris Joseph Seagram & Sons RJR Nabisco Walt Disney Atlantic Richfield AT&T Federal Express MCI the Association of Trial Lawyers the National Education Association

Lazard Freres & Co. Anheuser Busch Eli Lilly Time Warner Chevron Corp. Archer Daniel’s Midland NYNEX Textron Inc. Northwest Airlines

Mr. President, it is a who’s who of corporate America. These are the big investors in the U.S. Congress, and no one can convince the American people that these companies get no return on their investment. So we have an ever-increasing number of companies that are participating in this system, trying to make sure their interests are protected and their lobbyists’ calls returned.

There is another effect of this explosion of soft money, and that is the increasing participation of Members of this body in raising it.

I do not know how many of my colleagues are actually picking up the phones across the street in our party committee headquarters to ask corporate CEOs for soft money contributions. But no one here can deny that our parties are asking us to do this. It is now simply expected that United States Senators will be soft money fundraisers.

When you hear all this talk about how the parties need this money generally, that is why they need soft money, and an awful of lot is not going to the parties generally. And I and many of my colleagues know from painful experience that much of that money ended up being spent on phony issue ads in Senate races. The direct contribution of corporate money to federal candidates has been banned in federal elections since 1907, but that money is now being raised by Senators as soft money and spent to try to influence the election of Senators. It is spent to try to influence the election of Senators. To me, this is a complete obliteration of the spirit of the law. It is wrong. It must be stopped.

The growth of soft money has made a mockery of our campaign finance laws. It has turned Senators into panhandlers for huge contributions from corporate patrons. And it has multiplied the number of corporate interests that have a claim on the attention of members and the work of this institution.

Mr. President, there is broad and bipartisan support for banning soft money. Former Presidents Bush, Carter, and Ford believe that soft money must be eliminated, as does a large and distinguished bipartisan group of former Members of Congress, organized last year by former Senator and Vice President Walter Mondale, a Democrat, and former Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker, a Republican. Their effort has been joined at last count by 216 former members of the House and Senate. Senators Mondale and Kassebaum published an opinion piece in the Washington Post that eloquently spells out the rationale and the critical need to enact this reform.

They state that a ban on soft money would ‘restore a sound principle long held to be essential. That bedrock principle, developed step by step through measures signed into law by presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Gerald Ford, is that federal elections campaigns should be financed by limited contributions from individuals and not by either corporate or union treasuries. Neither candidates for federal office, nor the national political party committees whose primary mission is to elect them, should be dependent on the treasuries of corporations or unions that have strong economic interests in the decisions of the federal government.’

Mr. SCHUMER:

[E]very--every--move we make in Washington is now under a cloud. It is under a cloud because of the system by which we finance campaigns. We must change it.

This is the most important vote we are facing in this whole year of Congress, period. I know we have had important ones. But the very roots, the foundations of this democracy, are being eaten away by public cynicism. In good part, that public cynicism is caused by our system of financing campaigns.

The great debates we have had this year--whether it be on impeachment or guns or Patients’ Bill of Rights--over every one of them, the cloud of how we finance campaigns hung over it. The debate is vitiated by that cloud, and because of this system people feel further and further away from the Government that is theirs.

[T]o me, there is no higher value that we can create than trust between the people and their Government. If that trust continues to decline, I don’t know if this system of Government survives.

The bottom line is, we have a tremendously serious problem. We have a poison that is in the roots of this great tree of democracy. It is spreading day by day, week by week, and month by month. That poison is cynicism. That poison is a view of the average citizen, rightly or wrongly--and in many cases, it is right--that the average person doesn’t have the influence of a person or a company or a group of great wealth. We have to begin to change it. In a complicated world, where decisions are not so clear and not so black and white, we cannot afford to have every decision, difficult as they are on the merits, be held in askance or even contempt by average citizenry because they don’t think they have a fair shot at influencing their legislator.

If we can no longer get our best young people going into government, whether it be elected or appointed, and if we can no longer have the citizens believe, when this body debates an issue, that the debates are being divided by firmly held beliefs rather than by who is manipulating, controlling, or contributing to whom, then we can’t survive as a democracy. That fatal distance between people and their government will get larger and larger and larger. We will wake up one morning and say: We don’t have the kind of democracy that the Jeffersons and the Madisons and the Washingtons and the Jays believed in and put together for us.

This is not a trivial debate. The bill is smaller than many of us would like. But it is a debate that goes to the core of whether this Government will ultimately survive.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle not to look at the specific details of ‘this provision is in’ and ‘that provision is out,’ but to look at the broad, in general, anger, hostility, cynicism, skepticism, and impotence that the public believes they have in relation to their government; then ask what can be done about it.

My guess is, one of the few things we actually can do as Senators is pass the bill the Senators from Arizona and Wisconsin have put together. It is an important debate. I am glad we are getting to debate it on the floor. I hope and pray that at the end of the day we will not walk out of this Chamber emptyhanded and end up being worse off than we were before the debate started, as the public will believe this Government has finally pulled totally out of their reach and influence.

Mr. DURBIN:

But in my heart, I really believe what I have said is true. I am honestly, genuinely, and personally concerned, as a Member of the Senate, a former Member of the House of Representatives, and as a person who, for better or worse, has devoted his adult live to public service, about the fact that the people I represent and we represent are losing interest in their Government. The clearest indication of that loss of interest is in their declining participation in elections.

If you look at this [bar graph], you will notice that, in 1960, in the Presidential election campaign, both candidates spent the relatively meager sum of $175 million. And then, if you will fast forward to the estimated expenditures of the 1996 campaign--a span of 36 years--it went from $175 million to $4 billion.

When we spent $175 million in 1960, 63.1 percent of the eligible voters turned out. Then we started piling on big time all the money we could find and raise legally in the system. And what happened? There was a steady decline in voter interest and participation to 49.1 percent in 1996. We have lost 14 percent of the eligible electorate as we have plowed massive amounts of money into the system.

The 1996 Presidential campaign had the lowest national average turnout for a Presidential election in 72 years. The money was there; the voters weren’t. If one accounts for the flood of new voters in 1924 with the passage of women’s suffrage, it may have been the lowest percentage turnout of eligible voters to vote for President since mass popular balloting was introduced in America in the 1830s, in the 160-year history of the United States. And by 1996, the voters of the United States said: None of the above; we don’t care; a majority will stay home.

The decline in the exercise of the basic right of citizenship is a grave concern. More than 100 million Americans of voting age don’t participate. I don’t think this is an accident. Despite the fact that we tend to register more voters--an increase of some 8 million eligible voters, resulting in 4 million being registered--fewer Americans cast their ballots in the most recent election, the 1998 mid-term, than in 1994’s similar election, plunging voter turnout to the lowest level in over 50 years.

According to data compiled by IDEA, the United States ranked 114 out of 140 countries the voter turnout of which has been assessed since 1945.

The life of a Senator is a wonderful life in many respects. I am so honored to represent a great State such as Illinois and to be able to stand in this Chamber and use my best judgment on my votes to try to help them. But the path to the Senate, for someone who is not independently wealthy, is a path that takes you to many small offices, many desks, many telephones, and many telephone calls to perfect strangers, begging for money.

When I was a Member of the House of Representatives running for the Senate, I used to take off during the course of a day, drive about a block away to a little cubicle I had rented, where I could sit and legally make fundraising calls. I would take every available minute to do it. When I received my beeper notification, I would race back to the floor of the House of Representatives to cast a vote and then back to make more phone calls and raise more money. Of course, it is going to have an impact on your private life, and it had an impact on my public life, too. I can remember, to this minute, the day I left to race over and make a vote on the floor of the House. As I cast my vote, I looked up and thought of the list of potential contributors I was now about to call. But there were two or three of them I could not call. I just voted against them. You know, when that becomes part of the calculation, it takes something away from your judgment.

I don’t point the finger of blame to any of my colleagues in this Chamber. I think they are, by and large, to my knowledge, some of the most honorable people I have come to know in life, and they are really conscientious in the job they do. But the system as it is currently constructed is a system that, frankly, is going to lead all of us to make conclusions and make decisions which may not be the right ones.

The argument on the other side against Senator McCain and Senator Feingold is the suggestion that more money into this system is going to make it better. This is not a new argument. We have seen it in several other iterations.

I can recall the debate over guns in America. The National Rifle Association is for a concealed carry law. What does it mean? It means all of us would be able to carry a gun around in our pockets or, for women, in their purses, taking them into shopping malls, restaurants, churches, and high school basketball games. It is their belief that this proliferation of guns in America will make us safer.

Yesterday, we had a vote on a nuclear test ban treaty. Many of us believe that we have all the nuclear weapons in the world we will ever need and that we should have passed that treaty to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in those countries that possess them. The treaty was defeated. Those who wanted fewer nuclear weapons lost. Those who believe we shouldn’t have a limit on testing and, therefore, the development of nuclear weapons around the world prevailed. They believe, obviously, that more nuclear weapons around the world make us safer. I don’t share that belief.

But a similar argument is at hand. There are those who argue that more money going into the political system will somehow result in better men and women being elected to Congress and to other offices. I don’t believe that is the case.

Centuries ago, Machiavelli wrote his famous book, ‘The Prince,’ and outlined some ideas and principles of politics. I have always said that if he did not have a chapter in his book on the subject, he should, and it should be entitled ‘If you have the power, for God’s sake, don’t give it away.’ The power now is in the money. And many on the Republican side of the aisle who are capable of raising more money than we do on the Democratic side of the aisle do not want to surrender that advantage.

It is similar to handing a weapon to your enemy, as they see it. That is an understandable conclusion by some. But thank goodness for Senator McCain and others who have risen above it and said it is an empty victory to continue the status quo, the current system of campaign fundraising, if in fact we are losing credibility and losing the respect of the American people. What good does it do for us to be elected and supposedly lead this country when the American people do not give us the respect for the office or the job we do? It has a lot to do with the campaign finance system.

We have seen demonstrated in American political history time and time again that it takes a major overwhelming scandal for this Congress to act to enact real reform. The Watergate scandal is one example, and others have shown up in our history. We are not dealing with such a scandal today in specifics, but we are dealing with a scandalous system, a system which really troubles me the most, that so many Americans have given up on us. We can’t allow that to happen. We can’t afford it.

For those who argue that we have to allow the very wealthiest in America to be articulate in our political process by writing checks for thousands--$10,000, $20,000, $50,000, or $100,000--I think on its face is laughable. To think we would give up on working people, average families, and businesses making modest amounts and disclosing contributions and instead turn this process over to the wealthiest in America is to give up on the very basis of this democracy. It will continue to push away from the average American that interest they should have in this most fundamental system of representative democracy.

Mr. THOMPSON:

We have recognized that in this body. Senator Barry Goldwater, who is one of my heroes, has been called Mr. Republican; he has been called Mr. Conservative over the years. He is the conscience of the conservatives. It is one of the things that caused me to want to get into politics. I admired his courage. I also admired what was on his mind. He was always a man of integrity and always willing to look a little bit further than the end of his nose, look a little bit further than things that affected him.

He said in 1983 about big money:

It eats at the heart of the democratic process. It feeds the growth of special interest groups created solely to channel money into political campaigns. It creates the impression that every candidate is bought and owned by the biggest givers, and it causes elected officials to devote more time to raising money than to their public duties. If the present trends continue, voter participation will drop off significantly--

I might ask parenthetically if that sounds familiar--

public respect will fall to an all-time low--

I ask the same question--

and political campaigns will be controlled by slick packaging artists, and neglect of public duties by absentee officials will undermine government praises.

It is not just statements made here that recognize this inherent problem to which there is no one answer--I might add, an inherent obvious problem--and has been with us over the centuries. It is based on human nature. In response to that, we do such things as pass a gift ban. If there is no problem with the giving of things to public officials and to candidates for office, why have we passed the gift ban rule? But we did. So we have the rather curious situation now where an individual cannot buy a Member dinner, but he can give a Member $1,000 for his campaign. Or he can bundle $100,000 for you. Or if he is rich enough, he can give $1 million to your party for your benefit, but he cannot buy you dinner.

We recognize this basic question in the laws that we pass. In 1907, we banned corporate contributions. In 1943, we banned union corporations. In 1974, we passed limits on amounts of money that could be given to individual candidates. We passed limits on amounts of money that could be given to political parties. We set up a system of partially funding Presidential campaigns--the idea being if the taxpayers funded the Presidential campaigns, the Presidential candidates would not have to go out and raise private money.

This balance that was struck--not impeding first amendment rights but recognizing this inherent question, this inherent historical century-old problem--the balance that was struck was upheld by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court acknowledged we were placing limitations on individuals, perhaps involving the first amendment in some ways, but the Supreme Court said in striking a balance between that legitimate concern on the one hand and the concern over the corruption or appearance of corruption on the other hand was a decent one to strike and was permissible to strike. So we set up a system of limitations and disclosures.

This is not a personal matter. This does not have to do with individual Members. It is not about Members as individuals as we consider this in the Senate and the Congress. We haven’t been here for very long when considering the course of history, and none will be here very much longer. What we are supposed to do is look past that and do what is necessary and beneficial for the country.

I have been distressed in watching this morning, that all of the concern supposedly has not been on the merits of campaign finance but attacks on the Senator from Arizona because he has raised these questions--the same ones that Barry Goldwater raised. Hopefully, we will be able to get back and debate the issues as to whether or not our current situation is a good one.

So why are we here today? Why does this keep coming back? Because, as I have said, we have not addressed this legislatively.... [H]aving set up a system that struck that balance in terms of letting people have enough money to run but not being overwhelmed by money so it looks as if your vote is based on something other than the merits--that has been totally done away with, basically. We do not have that system anymore.

You say: When did Congress change it? Congress really did not do anything to change that system. That system was changed by, basically, the Federal Election Commission and by interpretations of the Attorney General. The gates have been opened.

The system we have now is not what we want. It is not what we ever voted for before. It is not the system we have had before. But because of FEC interpretations and the Attorney General, that is the system we have now.

As we often have to do in this body, we have to readdress fundamental issues.

We have a system now where basically there are no practical limitations on any amount of money anybody wants to give to affect political campaigns.

How did we get into a situation where, without this body lifting a finger, we went from a system where people were mightily concerned about the $5,000 PAC check, by the $1,000 individual check--from that system, that is the last time we addressed it, to a system whereby now you are not a player unless you are giving $100,000?

It started in 1978, the FEC rule that parties could send certain moneys to the State parties; the Federal party could send to the State parties for party-building activity. Then in 1991, they said they could fund certain voter drive costs with soft money, up to a percentage: It is 35 percent in a nonelection year, 40 percent in an election year. In 1995, for the first time the FEC said you can use soft money for television. Then, Mr. Morris over at the White House showed the President how he could take the matching money, certify that he wouldn’t raise any money himself, go out and raise all of this additional $44 million in soft money, while being able to say, ‘I am not raising this money for my campaign; I am raising it for the party.’

So the President raises all this additional money, the President sits in the Oval Office and coordinates all of it, tells what kind of ads to put on, where to put them on, how much, and how much money to spend. That is the procedure that Attorney General Reno put her stamp of approval on. Until some court or somebody--or this body--says otherwise, that is the way it is.

Now a President or a Presidential candidate, and if so, a congressional candidate, can raise unlimited amounts of soft money, run it through the proper party, coordinate the ads, and have ads run as long as they qualify as issue ads.

Back in 1990, for a 2-year cycle, both parties raised $25 million in soft money. In 1996, under Mr. Morris and the President and their new plan--their Plan B, they called it--they raised $261 million. That is from $25 million at the beginning of the decade to $261 million. For the first 6 months of 1999, the parties have raised $55 million and the predictions are, by those who do this sort of thing and have been correct in the past, that by November of 2000 we will have raised $525 million of soft money, which is more than double 1996. The year 1996 was the high-water mark because that is when it was discovered; that is when it was perfected; that is when the doors were opened.

By November of next year, the predictions are we will double that. The question is, How long will this go on? How long should it go on?

Let’s not kid ourselves: We are not casting aspersions on any individual. It is not enough for us to stand up and say: OK, who here is a crook? I see no hands; therefore, there is no problem. Let’s go home.

We are talking about something that is supposed to pertain for all time and something that, hopefully, will deal with appearances as well as reality, appearances that the Supreme Court recognizes as a valid concern and has been recognized as a valid concern throughout history.

Mr. WELLSTONE:

I think the corruption is that the standard of a representative democracy that says each person should count as one, and no more than one, is violated. If any Senator--Democrat or Republican--should go into any cafe in Minnesota, or around the country, and try to make the argument that, as a matter of fact, because of this system we have--which I think is really a failure when it comes to any standard of representative democracy--if we were to try to argue, no, it is not true that people who are the investors and make these big contributions don’t have too much access and too much say, I think 99 percent of the people in the country would say you are not credible. Of course, that is what is going on. Of course, people make contributions for a variety of different reasons, one of which is to have access and a say.

Look, both parties will talk about special gatherings we will have with the business community here, or the high-tech community there, or the labor community there. We have big dinners, and we are told to come to the dinners. What is the purpose of those dinners?

[T]he truth of the matter is that the vast majority of people in the country don’t come to these dinners. The vast majority of people aren’t invited to special gatherings and special sessions. The people who are invited by both parties are the big contributors. They are the investors.

Come on. You are not going to try to argue on the floor of the Senate that we don’t have a problem with systemic corruption, where we have just too few people who make these big contributions, who, as a result, perhaps have too much access and too much say.

Let me go out on a limb. It is not just a question of perception. The vast majority of people in our country today believe their concerns about themselves and their families and their communities are of little concern in the corridors of power or the Halls of the Congress in Washington, DC. Do you know what? We have given them entirely too much justification for having that point of view. They are not necessarily wrong.

I am not going to have somebody, all of a sudden, ask me to yield for a question and take my head off because it looks as if I am making an individual accusation. I am not going to do that. But I will tell you something right now. I am fully prepared, as a Senator from Minnesota and a political scientist, to tell you I see certain people, who also happen to be the big contributors, who have way too much access here. I don’t know whom we think we are kidding.

When we debated the telecommunications bill, the anteroom outside the Chamber was packed with people. I could not find truth, beauty, and justice anywhere. Everybody was representing billions of dollars here and billions of dollars there. And when we had a debate about the welfare bill--whatever you think about the welfare bill--where were the poor mothers and children? Where was their powerful lobby? They were nowhere to be found.

When we decide where we are going to make deficit reduction and make the cuts, and when we do tax policy, and when we do a lot of other policy, it just so happens that certain folks and certain interests seem to be much better represented than others.

Certainly, we have corruption, but it is not the wrongdoing of any individual office holder that I know of; it is systemic. When you have this frightening imbalance of power between the elites, the few who make the big contributions and are so well connected, and the majority of the people who basically feel locked out--and they have every reason to feel locked out--that is the problem.

We have seven Republicans supporting this piece of legislation, the McCain-Feingold legislation. It will take only eight Republicans more to assure that we can pass a bill and to stop this effort to block all reform. I hope there will at least be eight Republicans, if not more, who will find the courage to basically vote for reform, who will find the courage to no longer be a part of this effort to block reform, to expand democracy.

I want to speak a little bit to this whole question of freedom because it has come up a lot and is raised by a number of colleagues. I want to simply draw from an important book by Eric Foner called, ‘The Story of American Freedom.’ He talks about what freedom has meant to people in our country over the years. Freedom is way beyond the kind of definition that we have been given of it. Freedom means the ability to participate. Freedom means to have a place at the table. The definition of freedom of speech is larger than the absence of a regulation that would say we are going to try to put up some kind of framework that doesn’t undercut representative democracy.

If you think about it, union organizers in the 1930s and working people were talking about freedom to be more involved in the economic decisions that affected their lives. That was the kind of freedom on which they were focused.

Then we had a fight for political freedom which began with our own American Revolution. Also, an important part of our history was the emancipation of slaves during the Civil War, then the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments--again, a broad definition of freedom; in the 1950s and 1960s, freedom which had to do with desegregating our schools and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 1965. Each time the kind of freedom we were talking about was the freedom to participate in the political life of our country, or the economic life of our country, or the community life of our country.

Let me share with you the words of Dr. Gwendolyn Patton at a recent conference at Howard University sponsored by the National Voting Rights Institute. She said:

We thought we had scored a people’s victory when we ushered in the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Our movement of great numbers of ‘street heat’ feet wrought a structural change that fundamentally expanded democracy. But we know now that it wasn’t enough. Ridding the system of private, special interest money is the unfinished business of the voting rights movement. This movement, like that one, is a revolutionary movement--it is not just a tactical question. It is an ideological struggle, not only for black folks, but for all Americans. We are engaged, to borrow Lincoln’s words, in ‘a great civil war.’

She goes on to say, that while much was achieved through voter registration of African Americans, Latinos, and others,

As a result of these victories we entered the political arena by the millions--but as passive voters. Soon we began to realize that we had to become active participants by running for office if we were going to enact laws and implements policies that would make a change for the better in our lifetime. That’s when we discovered another barrier, and while it’s not as directly life threatening, it’s certainly as formidable as any we have faced before. That’s the barrier of money.

Dr. Gwendolyn Patton is talking about basically what we have right now, which is a wealth primary. What we are really saying is the very question of who gets to run, the very question of who is likely to get elected, the very question of what issues quite often get considered, the very question of what legislation we are able to pass, the very question of who has access to the political process and who doesn’t, is all too often determined by money. The vote is undermined by the dollar. Our elections have become auctions.

[W]e have a systemic corruption that is, unfortunately, far more serious than the wrongdoing of individual office holders--far more serious. It is a corruption when you have a huge imbalance of power between too few people who have so much wealth and money, who make these large contributions, and who have so much more access and influence, versus the majority of people who have concluded that either you pay, and therefore you can play; but if you do not pay, you don’t play. They feel locked out. They feel left out. They are disillusioned. They do not believe the political process belongs to them.

That is a fundamental corruption of representative democracy. And I say to my colleague it violates the most important principle--that in a representative democracy each person should count as one and no more than one. That is being undermined.

I would not want to name names, and I don’t need to name names because the kind of corruption that I am talking about goes way beyond any one officeholder. It is systemic; it is endemic; it is structural; and it is very serious. The fact is big money has hijacked representative democracy. It undercuts representative democracy, and it violates the very principle that each person should count as one and no more than one.

I want to talk about the distrust and the dissatisfaction. Mr. President, 92 percent of all Americans believe special interest contributions buy votes of Members of Congress--92 percent; 88 percent believe those who make large contributions get special favors from politicians; 67 percent think their own representatives in Congress would listen to the views of outsiders who made large political contributions before they would listen to their own constituents’ views; nearly half of the registered voters in our country believe lobbyists and special interests control the Congress.

I will go out on a limb and not antagonize, but perhaps prompt, some response from colleagues. All politicians love children, but we do precious little for them. One of the reasons we have done so little for or about poor children in America--who, by the way, constitute the largest group of poor citizens in our country--might be that they and their parent or parents don’t contribute much by way of big contributions and don’t have much access.

One of the reasons we have done very little to close the gulf between the rich and the poor, one of the reasons we have done so little to combat homelessness, and one of the reasons we have done so little to respond to the concerns of hard-pressed Americans even in these flush economic times is that these are the people who don’t pay and don’t play.

Perhaps the same argument can be made why we have been so generous in providing special breaks for oil companies; we have been so generous in making sure the tobacco industry continues to rule; we have been so generous in making sure we dare not take on the pharmaceutical companies, we dare not take on the insurance industry.

With all due respect, I don’t know who is kidding whom, but I call this a very serious kind of corruption. I will keep using the word. It is not the wrongdoing of individual office holders, but we have developed a severe, serious imbalance of power in a representative democracy so that the very few in the country dominate the political process and all too often have their way and get exactly what they want and what they need, and the vast majority of people think their voice is not heard.

I think what we are talking about, in the words of my hero journalist, Bill Moyers, is the soul of democracy. My premise is that political democracy--and I am pleased to be challenged on this if my colleagues choose--has several basic requirements.

First, we need to have free and fair elections. It is very hard to say we have them now. That is why people stay at home on election day. That is why they don’t participate in the process. Incumbents outspend challengers 8 or 10 to 1 on average. Millionaires spend their personal fortunes to buy access to the airwaves, and special interests buy access to the Congress, all of which warps and distorts our democratic process.

A millionaire can run and spend their own money--and many do, and there are millionaire Senators who are great Senators. Again, it is not a personal point I am making. However, most people ought to be able to run for office even if they are not a millionaire. If you are an incumbent--and I certainly hope this debate is not, in the last analysis, a debate between ins and outs--if you are an incumbent and you are an ‘in,’ this system is wired for incumbents.

We can go out and raise a lot of money. It is much harder for challengers to raise that money. This is a system that warps and distorts the democratic process, and we do not have free and fair elections.

The second criterion: A representative democracy requires the consent of the people. The people of this country, not special interests-big money, should be the source of political power. Government must remain the domain of the general citizenry, not a narrow elite.

We have two-tenths of 1 percent of the population that makes contributions of $1,000 or more. I don’t know what percentage that is of the overall money we raise--60 percent? I could be wrong, but it is really skewed.

I think all of us should hate this system. We should all hate it. On the one hand, I say to myself: I get this. I know why a lot of colleagues do not want any reform, even this modest step of this legislation, which gets at a lot of the unregulated money, the soft money. I say to myself: I can figure this out because it is wired for incumbents. This is not a debate about Democrats versus Republicans, although all the Democrats are going to support this bill, and I hope we will have enough Republicans to pass it and stop the people who are blocking it. Maybe this is a debate between ins and outs and the ins don’t want to change it. They don’t want to change it because it is wired for us.

But then I think to myself: This cannot be because it is degrading getting on the phone calling strangers, people you do not even know. I don’t know what is worse, I say to my colleague from California. I don’t know what is worse.

I am having a little fun on the floor right now. I am on a roll, so I have to talk a little longer.

I don’t know what is worse, when I call someone up, a perfect stranger, and I call them five times and they never return the call, or I call them up and they say no--I don’t know whether that is worse, or if it is worse when they make a contribution, but I don’t know them and they don’t know me and I don’t know why they made a contribution. I am not sure which is worse.

The only thing I know is it is torture. It is torture to have to get on this phone and beg and beg and beg for money. It is degrading.

The other reason is, when we are up and it is our cycle, we can’t do a good job of representing people because every day we have to spend 2 and 3 hours on the phone. We miss debate that we should be involved in; we miss committee work we should be involved in; we miss a lot of work that we should be doing, representing the people of our States. We should want to change this for that reason as well.

The last criterion is political equality. Everybody ought to have an equal opportunity to participate in the process. That means the values and preferences of citizens, not just those who get our attention through the large contributions, should be considered in the debate. One person, one vote; no more, no less; one person, same influence. Each person counts as one, no more than one. That is the standard. That is what it is all about. That precious principle, that precious standard of representative democracy, is being violated.

This debate is about whether or not something we all value and love, which is our representative democracy, is going to continue to be able to function. It is the most important debate we are going to have. That is the core question, the core issue, the core problem. I hope there will be a vote for McCain-Feingold. I hope we can strengthen it. I hope those who oppose reform and continue to block efforts will not be successful. I think people in our country are counting on us to vote for democracy.

Mrs. BOXER:

Ever since I have been in politics, I have been supporting reforms in campaign finance. I have been in politics, in elected office, for 23 years. That is most of my adult working life. I started in local politics. It was an issue then. Then I went to the House in 1983. It was an issue then, and it has been an issue in the Senate during the 7 years I have served.

It is fair to ask: Why is Senator Boxer in favor of the most far-reaching campaign finance reform we can get? I can sum it up with three main reasons. Maybe there are 10 or 12, but I want to give the Senate the three main reasons.

First of all, the system is bad for ordinary people; and I will expand on that. Secondly, the system has the appearance of corruption; and I will expand on that. And thirdly, the system is stealing precious time from public officials who are elected to do a job; and I will expand on that.

First, the system is bad for ordinary people. Let me tell you why. Ordinary people feel disenfranchised. Ordinary people who cannot afford to make contributions to campaigns feel left out.

Secondly, the system has the appearance of corruption. Let me talk about the fight I waged on oil royalties. I do not know anyone who stood up in that debate who did not believe big oil companies were not paying their fair share of royalties.

Everyone agreed; even the key opponent of my perspective that we ought to do something about it said it is true, they are not paying their royalties. I know it to be the case when the person who stands up on this floor and fights for the status quo for one particular industry and the newspapers write a story that that individual got more money from that industry than anyone else; even if the motives were as pure as the driven snow--and I have no reason to believe otherwise--people lose faith. They do not want to believe us if we stand up and fight for an industry and we are the biggest recipient of the industry’s funds.

We are not talking about a thousand bucks; we are talking about big bucks. The appearance of corruption, if I may use the word, is out there.

And the third reason: The system is stealing precious time from elected officials. Look, let’s be honest. A person who comes from California, who takes the oath of office, would have to raise $10,000 a day, 7 days a week, for 6 years, in order to have the resources to run for reelection.

How do you think that happens? Do you think that individual in the Senate can possibly do all that and still do the best job that she can do? It is impossible.

Why am I standing here? I know how to work the system. I have been at it a long time. It is in my benefit to keep it the way it is. Even a well-heeled opponent that I had and I faced, with all the support of the Republican Party, could not go toe to toe with me because I know how to work the system. But the system is broken, and we have to clean up our act. We have a chance to do it.

‘Free speech,’ my colleagues say on the other side. I will tell you, I never heard anyone more eloquent on the point than the Senator from Kentucky. The Supreme Court was divided 5 to 4 on the issue of free speech. I tell you, they are wrong because when you say money equals speech, you are demeaning the Constitution; you are demeaning this democracy.

How is it free speech if candidate A is a billionaire and can buy up every inch of time on the TV and the radio and the other candidate, candidate Y, is a poor candidate and has to go raise money? By the time he gets the money, he goes to the TV stations and the radio stations, and they say: Oh, sorry, candidate Y. There is no time left for you to buy. That is an infringement on his speech.

I had an interesting situation at the end of my last campaign. A lot of money came in toward the end of my campaign. I sent it over to the TV stations. I just got it back with a big refund. By the time we got it over there, there was no more time.

So how do you say that money equals speech if one candidate has it; the other one has a harder time getting it, and they cannot get the prime time? This speech argument is a debasement of everything that I believe in. I believe that our Founders would roll over in their graves if they knew that when they fought and died for free speech, it now means money, and you cannot tell a wealthy candidate you can only put X into your campaign, because it is a violation of free speech. But what about the poor candidate? He does not have the money. What about his speech?

So this argument on speech, to me, is nonsensical. I am one of these people who believe the Supreme Court ought to take another look at that Buckley v. Valeo because I think it is off the wall.

Mr. McCONNELL:

It is important to remember that Dan Rather and Peter Jennings have a lot of speech, and the editorial page of the New York Times has a big audience. But the typical American citizen and the typical candidate, unless he or she can amass the resources to project their voices to a larger audience, just simply doesn’t have as much speech as the press. So the means to amplify one’s voice in this vast Nation of 270 million people is critical and constitutionally protected. It is no more complicated than that and no less vital to our democracy than the freedom of the press, which has taken a great interest in this issue.

Just thinking of the New York Times editorial page, for example, I think they have had 113 editorials on this subject since the beginning of 1997. That is an average of about one every nine days--issue advocacy, if you will, paid for by corporate soft money, expressing their view, which they have a right to do, on this important issue before us.

But as we look at this long odyssey of campaign finance reform, we have come a long way in the last decade, those of us who see through the reform patina--from the push 10 years ago for taxpayer financing of congressional campaigns and spending limits, and even such lunacy as taxpayer-financed entitlement programs for candidates to counteract independent expenditures, a truly bizarre scheme long gone from the congressional proposals but now echoed, interestingly enough, in the campaign reform platform of Presidential candidate Bill Bradley, who advocates a 100-percent tax--a 100-percent tax on issue advocacy. So if you were so audacious as to go out and want to express yourself on an issue, the Government would levy a 100-percent tax on your expression and give the money to whoever the Government thought was entitled to respond to it--a truly loony idea.

That was actually in the campaign finance bills we used to debate in the late 1980s and early 1990s and now is in the platform of one of the candidates for President of the United States, believe it or not.

So it was just 2 years ago that spending limits were thrown overboard from the McCain-Feingold bill and that the PAC and bundling bans were thrown overboard as well. Now the focus becomes solely directed at citizens groups and parties, which is the form McCain-Feingold took last year. Now, this month, the McCain-Feingold odyssey has arrived at the point that if it were whittled down any further, only the effective date would remain. As it is, McCain-Feingold now amounts to an effective date on an ineffectual provision.

Obviously, it is not surprising that that is my view. But it is also the view of the League of Women Voters, which opposes the current version of McCain-Feingold.

To achieve what proponents of this legislation profess to want to achieve--a reduction of special interest influence--if you want to do that, I think that is not a good idea at all, it is blatantly unconstitutional and the wrong thing to do. But if you wanted to do it, you would certainly have to deal with all the avenues of participation, not just political parties. Nonparty soft money as well as party soft money, independent expenditures, candidate spending--all of the gimmicks advanced through the years in the guise of reform--all would have to be treated, if you truly wanted to quiet the voices of all of these citizens, which is what the reformers initially sought to do.

The latest and leanest version of McCain-Feingold falls far short of that which would be needed if you were inclined to want to do this sort of thing to limit special interest influence. As the League of Women Voters contends--mind you, there is the first time I have ever agreed with them on anything--as they contend, you would have to treat all of the special interests if you were truly interested in quieting the voices of all of these Americans who belong to groups.

It could not be more clear that this sort of McCain-Feingold-light that is currently before us is designed only to penalize the parties and to shift the influence to other avenues. That is precisely what it would do. It could not be more clear. Prohibiting only party soft money accomplishes absolutely nothing. It is only fodder for press releases and would make the present system worse and not better.

That is quite aside from the matter of unconstitutionality and whether the parties have less first amendment rights to engage in soft money activities than other groups. If this were to be enacted, that issue would surely be settled by the Supreme Court, which is, of course, the Catch-22 of the reformers. The choice is between the ineffectual unconstitutional and the comprehensively unconstitutional. A younger generation would call that a choice between ‘dumb and dumber.’

For reality ever to square with reformer rhetoric, the Constitution would have to be amended and political speech specifically carved out of the first amendment scope of protection.

There are those in this body who have actually proposed amending the Constitution. We had that debate in March of 1997. And, believe it or not, 38 Senators out of 100 voted to do just that--to amend the first amendment for the first time in 200 years to give the Government the power to restrict all spending, and in support of or in opposition to candidates. The ACLU calls that a ‘recipe for repression.’ But that got 38 votes. You could at least give those people credit for honesty. They understand that in order to do what the reformers seek to do, you really would have to change the first amendment for the first time in 200 years.

So what the McCain-Feingold saga comes down to is an effort to have the Government control all spending by, in support of, or in opposition to candidates, with a little loophole carving out the media’s own spending, of course.

That this effort is allowed to be advanced as reform is one of the tragedies of our time. Fortunately, enough Senators on this side of the aisle have had the courage to forestall this assault on freedom for the past decade and have proven by example that there is a constituency for protecting constitutional freedom.

Let me just say there is an excellent letter from the American Civil Liberties Union--a group that is an equal opportunity defender for an awful lot of Americans but is truly America’s experts on the first amendment--to me, which I just got yesterday, which I ask unanimous consent to be printed in the Record.

My colleague from Arizona [Senator McCain] gave a moving speech in Bedford, NH, a few months ago to kick off his Presidential campaign. In that speech, my friend from Arizona laid out his vision of America with strong, and I must say, compelling statements about what he firmly believes to be corruption in American politics. If there is one thing that is often said about our colleague from Arizona, it is that he is a straight shooter and that he calls it as he sees it. I certainly wouldn’t argue with that.

Based on the Senator’s speech in New Hampshire and his remarks about his legislation, I assume I am correct in inferring that the Senator from Arizona believes the legislative process has been corrupted. I think he said that in the Wall Street Journal today. I don’t believe I am misquoting him.

What I will do is run through a few of the recent statements of the Senator from Arizona about corruption to be sure that the Senate fully understands his strongly held views on this subject.

The Senator from Arizona, in discussing the subject of campaign finance reform in Bedford, NH, on June 30 of this year said:

I think most Republicans understand that soft money, the enormous sums of money given to both parties by just about every special interest in the country, corrupts our political ideals, whether it comes from big business or from labor bosses and trial lawyers.

Quoting further from my friend from Arizona, he says:

In truth, we are all shortchanged by soft money, liberal and conservative alike. All of our ideals are sacrificed. We are all corrupted. I know this is a harsh judgment, but it is, I’m sorry to say, a fair one.

So the principal quote from my friend from Arizona is that ‘We are all corrupted.’

He goes on to say:

Pork barrel spending is a direct result of unlimited contributions from special interests.

My friend from Arizona, also on CNN Early Edition, July 1 of this year, said:

We have seen debasement of the institutions of government, including the corruption of Congress because of the influence of special interests.

Further, my friend from Arizona said:

Soft money is corrupting the process.

Then on Fox News, Sunday, on June 27 of this year, my friend from Arizona said:

I talked to Republicans all over America, including up here in New Hampshire, and when I tell them about the corruption that exists they nod their heads.

My friend from Arizona goes on:

I think that Americans don’t hold us in the esteem and with the respect that the profession deserves and that’s because the profession has become permeated with special interests, which have caused corruption, which have then caused them to lose confidence in government.

And the Senator from Arizona went on: [numerous additional examples]

I know [Senator McCain] said from time to time the process is corrupted. But I think it is important to note, for there to be corruption, someone must be corrupt. Someone must be corrupt for there to be corruption.

So I just ask my friend from Arizona what he has in mind here, in suggesting that corruption is permeating our body and listing these projects for the benefit of several States as examples.

I ask the Senator from Arizona, how can it be corruption if no one is corrupt? That is like saying the gang is corrupt but none of the gangsters are. If there is corruption, someone must be corrupt.

[...]

So I repeat to the Senator from Arizona, the question before us is not reading a list of what he considers to be inappropriate projects. That is not the issue. The issue is, where is the corruption? You cannot have corruption unless somebody is corrupt. There is not corruption without somebody being corrupt. You can’t say the gang is corrupt and none of the gangsters are. If the Senator from Arizona believes there is corruption, he has an obligation, under the Senate rules and the Federal bribery statute, to name the people. Who is being corrupt? Who are the people putting all of these items in these bills? What was their impetus for doing it? Who made the contribution, as the Senator from Utah said, and to whom? Where is the corruption?

It is shocking to have these allegations when there are no specifics.

What is new is Senators who serve here, walking these Halls every day, who meet with their fellow Senators every day, who watch their fellow Members take official actions every day, go before the American people and declare openly and with great conviction that votes are being bought in the Halls of the U.S. Capitol. When Senators make those kinds of allegations about their colleagues, I think we are suggesting they ought to back it up. They ought to back it up.

There are specific rules in the Senate that prevent taking an official action in order to reward somebody for a contribution. In addition to that, we have bribery statutes involving public officials:

Any public official who ‘directly or indirectly,’ corruptly, demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally or for any other person or entity, in return for . . . being influenced in the performance of any official act . . . shall be fined under this title . . . or imprisoned for not more than 15 years, or both, and may be disqualified from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

We have suggestions of violations not only of Senate rules but of Federal bribery statutes, without specifics. That is unfair to the Members of this body who are doing their very best to represent their constituents who are honest, hard-working, and good citizens. It is unfair to the Members of the Senate to have these aspersions cast on their honor and the honor of this institution.

We are not just talking about the appearance of corruption. What the Senator from Arizona has repeatedly said is things such as, ‘corrupts our political ideals,’ ‘we are all corrupted,’ ‘the corruption of Congress,’ ‘soft money is corrupting the process.’

These have been allegations of corruption, which is a violation of Senate rules and a violation of Federal bribery statutes.

I would suggest to all of our colleagues, in our exuberance to pursue our different points of view on this issue, do not suggest corruption unless you have evidence of corruption. It demeans the Senate, and in the instances of Senators Bennett and Gorton, it demeans a specific Senator. It is clear from this debate, there is no evidence--none whatsoever--of corruption.

Let me give you poll data of how people feel about newspapers and see if the Senator thinks we ought to legislate based on the appearance there to restrict the activities of newspapers.

A poll taken in September of 1997 indicated that 86 percent of the American people believe newspapers should be required to provide equal coverage of congressional candidates; 80 percent want restrictions placed on the way newspapers cover political campaigns; 68 percent believe newspaper editorials are more influential than a $1,000 contribution; 70 percent believe reporter bias influences the coverage of politics; 61 percent believe the candidate preferred by a reporter will beat the candidate with more money; and 42 percent believe newspaper editorial boards should be required to have both Republicans and Democrats.

This is the public’s perception of the newspapers, which operate under the first amendment, just as American citizens and parties do.

If the argument is that we should pass legislation restricting first amendment rights based upon perception, I am wondering if the Senators also believe we ought to eliminate the newspaper exemption from the Federal Election Campaign Act and react to the public perception that newspapers need a bit of this Government regulation of speech as well?

Excerpted from the Congressional Record of the October 14, 1999 Senate debate. The Congressional Record is available at THOMAS -- U.S. Congress on the Internet. For the above debate, choose “106th Congress,” then “All Congressional Record Issues by Date and Section,” then October 14, 1999 Senate, then “BIPARTISAN CAMPAIGN REFORM ACT OF 1999--RESUMED (Senate - October 14, 1999),” then “Full Display.”

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