Posted on 02/08/2004 6:42:29 AM PST by Valin
Mr. McCAIN: Madam President, I join my friend from Wisconsin on the floor to discuss the entire issue of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act and also at a time when the Federal Election Commission is about to make some decisions regarding implementation of this legislation.
I think it is very important that as the Federal Election Commission is considering making these rules, that it be made very clear what the intent of the authors of the legislation was. Because as I will go into in my statement, it was the Federal Election Commission that created the loopholes that caused the explosion of soft money in American politics. It was not court decisions.
It is not accidental that the Senator from Wisconsin and I have proposed legislation to fundamentally restructure the Federal Election Commission. In the meantime, the Federal Election Commission must understand and read the U.S. Supreme Court decision_I quote from the Court's ruling_stating:
The main goal of [the national party soft money ban] is modest. In large part, it simply effects a return to the scheme that was approved in Buckley and that was subverted
Madam President, the words the U.S. Supreme Court used:
"subverted by the federal electioneering efforts with a combination of hard and soft money. . . . Under that allocation regime"
That was a decision by the Federal Election Commission national parties were able to use vast amounts of soft money in their efforts to elect federal candidates.
Now, I hope the Federal Election Commission gets our message. We do not, and will not, stand for the creation of new loopholes to violate this law.
(Snip)
It is time for the Federal Election Commission, rather than being an enabler to those who want to subvert the laws, to be a true enforcer of the law, a role which they will find strange and intriguing and certainly unusual for that Commission.
I might add, too, we still have two members of the Federal Election Commission who declared their firm conviction that this law was unconstitutional. If they still hold that belief, as at least one of them has stated recently, they should recuse themselves from further involvement in a law they believe is unconstitutional. In fact, resignation would probably be in order so someone who believes in the constitutionality of this law, as affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, would be empowered to enforce it.
In 1995, my dear friend Senator Feingold and I first introduced legislation designed to limit the influence of special interests on Federal campaigns. We began our fight because it had become clear to us that our campaign finance system was broken and this breakdown was having a detrimental effect on our democracy. Seven years, four Congresses, several rewrites, countless hours of debate, amendments, and much hard work by dedicated grassroots activists later, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act became law on March 27, 2002.
(snip)
However, let me be clear, this in no way means reform is complete. Our work and the work of thousands of Americans engaged at the grassroots level, the efforts of numerous reform groups, is far from over. While the basis for BCRA, that large, unregulated political contributions cause both the appearance and reality of corruption by elected officials, is self-evident, mustering the evidence needed to prove this to the Court was an extraordinary feat.
The mountain of evidence that was compiled, however, provided a solid foundation for the Supreme Court's decision to close loopholes through which were flowing hundreds of millions of dollars in soft money.
The evidence collected included sworn statements from elected officials acknowledging they had been forced to raise large contributions for the political parties, internal memos from political party leaders to elected officials reminding them who gave big contributions prior to key votes, and testimony from business leaders who were provided a "menu of access" by party officials showing how $50,000 gets you a meeting with an elected official, $100,000 gets you a 15-minute meeting with another elected official.
The strength of the evidence on the extent of corruption and the appearance of corruption as well as the creativitywith which the campaign finance laws were being evaded led the Supreme Court to uphold BCRA, which sought to close the loopholes that had been opened in the Federal Election Campaign Act.
(snip)
Mr. FEINGOLD: Madam President, let me say how fitting it is that the Senator from Maine is presiding at this point, who has made a tremendous contribution to our efforts on campaign finance reform. It is a tremendous privilege to come to the floor with my good friend and longtime partner in campaign finance reform, the senior Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain. Everybody knows we fought side by side for nearly 7 years to see our bill enacted into law.
Finally, on December 10, nearly 2 years after President Bush signed the bill, the Supreme Court upheld our work against a constitutional challenge. It has been a long and hard struggle, and, frankly, we could not possibly be happier with the result. The Court's decision in McConnell v. FEC is a complete vindication of our effort to help rid politics of the corruption of soft money. We are very proud of and also humbled by the Court's ruling.
We are not here to gloat. It is not polite or useful to do so. But if I had a dollar for every time someone said on this floor or in the media that our bill would never stand up in court, I would actually be a wealthy man.
Rather, we are here to thank our colleagues who joined with us to pass this historic reform, to review the Supreme Court landmark decision, and briefly take a look forward, as Senator McCain has already done. As we often noted during the debate, the McCain-Feingold bill was not intended to be the last word on the topic of campaign finance reform. The Court's decision will serve as a guidepost for future reform initiatives.
(snip)
I think it is actually hard to imagine a more clear statement from the Supreme Court than the one delivered in December in McConnell v. FEC. The margin of the Court was narrow, as it often is in complicated and highly contested cases. But the majority could not have been more emphatic that what we did in McCain-Feingold was a constitutional approach to the problems of soft money and also phony issue advocacy that Congress identified and we tried to address.
I have to tell you, that was enormously gratifying after the hard work we did in this body to pay attention to the Court's previous decisions. It meant a great deal to me personally that we looked at what the Court had said about the first amendment of the Constitution and crafted our legislation with respect to that. That is exactly what we did.
(snip)
The Court said:
"We are mindful that in its lengthy deliberations leading to the enactment of BCRA, Congress properly relied on the recognition of its authority contained in Buckley and its progeny."
I was particularly pleased at the deference the Court showed to congressional judgments about the problems with the system and the best way to address them. That deference has often been lacking in recent opinions in other areas, but this time the Court realized that Congress has special expertise in this area and needs to have the authority to actually address real world problems in the way that it believes will be most effective.
This is enormously important for the future of reform. It shows that the Court understands that under our Constitution, Congress is not powerless to address threats to the health of our democratic or political processes.
(snip)
As currently structured, the FEC seems simply incapable of properly applying the law that this Congress enacted. Virtually every complicated [*S579] issue is approached from a political perspective, and the political parties have extraordinary sway over the Commission's actions.
Senator McCain and I viewed the BCRA rulemaking process as a test, if you will, a final chance for the FEC to change its approach and to finally begin to faithfully enforce the law in a nonpartisan fashion. We were very disappointed in the result. We have, therefore, concluded that the FEC, as currently constituted, cannot provide the strong and consistent enforcement of the Federal election laws that this country needs. So together we have proposed to replace the agency with a new body, the Federal Election Administration.
We need to have an agency led by people who are respected by both sides of the aisle and will carry out their responsibilities in a nonpartisan manner rather than simply having representatives from each of the parties canceling each other out with a partisan approach to their jobs. Our bill makes individuals who have worked for or served as counsel to parties or candidates ineligible to serve as administrators.
(snip)
Senator McCain and I have also introduced a bill to provide free air time to congressional candidates. The cost of television advertising has skyrocketed, and we believe the Nation's broadcasters, who make great profits from a public resource_the airwaves_should contribute to improving the democratic process. I look forward to continuing to discuss this bill with our colleagues as well.
We do not expect any one of these three major reform bills will be considered on the Senate floor this year. But there is one bill that can and should be enacted very quickly. That is a bill we have introduced to require electronic filing of Senate campaign finance reports. Right now, the Senate lags way behind the House in providing current and complete disclosure of contributions to and expenditures on our campaigns. This is really an embarrassment. It ispossible the Rules Committee can quickly correct this problem, but if not, Senator McCain and I have introduced a bill to bring the Senate into the 21st century, and we should enact it promptly.
(Excerpt) Read more at campaignlegalcenter.org ...
As I've said before, This is only the beginning. Until every election in every state, city, village, school board...etc. is federalized.
But there is one bill that can and should be enacted very quickly. That is a bill we have introduced to require electronic filing of Senate campaign finance reports. Right now, the Senate lags way behind the House in providing current and complete disclosure of contributions to and expenditures on our campaigns.
I say yes.
WRONG! McCain is the one who should resign for ignoring the fact that "Congress shall make now law... abridging the freedom of speech."
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