Statement in Opposition to a Proposed Constitutional Amendment Concerning Campaign Finance Reform March 13, 1997 I rise today to oppose the proposed constitutional amendment offered by the junior Senator from South Carolina and the senior Senator from Pennsylvania. Mr. President, first I would like to say a few words about the Senator from South Carolina. Our colleague, Senator Hollings, has been calling for meaningful campaign finance reform for perhaps longer than any other Member of the U.S. Senate. I disagree with this particular approach. But I certainly do not question his sincerity or commitment to reform. Mr. President, when the U.S. Senate last had an extended debate on the issue of campaign finance reform back in 1993, the junior Senator from South Carolina offered a sense-of-the-Senate amendment to take up a constitutional amendment very similar to the one that is before us today. I remember we had a very short period of time before that vote came up, and I made a decision and I voted with the Senator from South Carolina on that day. I did so because I believed that other than balancing the Federal budget, there was perhaps no more fundamental issue facing our country than the need to reform our election laws. Such a serious topic I believed at the time merited at least a consideration of a constitutional amendment. And I will confess to a certain level of frustration at that time with the fact that the Senate and the other body had not yet acted to pass meaningful campaign finance reform in that Congress. But, Mr. President, to be candid, I immediately realized, even as I was returning to my office, that that might not have been the best vote I ever cast. I started rethinking right away whether I really wanted the U.S. Senate to seriously consider amending the first amendment to address even this subject of which I and so many other Americans feel passionately about. Then, 18 months later, my perspective on this question began to change even more as I was presented with two new developments here in the U.S. Senate. First, I was given the privilege of serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and, second, I would soon learn that the new 104th Congress was to become the engine for a trainload of proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution. As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I had a very good seat to witness first hand what was being attempted here with regard to the basic document of our country, the Constitution. It started with a proposal right away for a balanced budget constitutional amendment, and we were considering a term limits constitutional amendment, and then a flag desecration constitutional amendment, then a school prayer amendment, then a supermajority tax increase amendment, and then a victims rights amendment. In all, Mr. President, 135 constitutional amendments were introduced in the last Congress. As I saw legislator after legislator suggest that every social, economic, and political problem we have in this country could be solved merely with enactment of a constitutional amendment, I chose to strongly oppose not only this constitutional amendment but others that also sought to undermine our most treasured founding principle. I firmly believe we must continue this reflective practice of attempting to cure each and every political and social ill of our Nation by tampering with the U.S. Constitution. Mr. President, the Constitution of this country was not a rough draft. We must stop treating it as such. I want to say, because the Senator from South Carolina has just arrived and I know that he is not one who has engaged in such an attitude toward the Constitution, I know very well he only makes a proposal like this with the most serious consideration and for the goal of trying to do something about campaign spending. What I am addressing here, what I saw in the last Congress was a wholesale attempt to try to amend what seemed to be almost virtually every part of the U.S. Constitution. We must also understand that even if this constitutional amendment were to pass this body today, which it will not, but even if it did, it would not take us one single, solitary step closer to campaign finance reform. It is not a silver bullet. This constitutional amendment merely empowers the Congress to set mandatory spending limits on congressional candidates. Those are the same kind of mandatory limits that were struck down in the landmark Buckley versus Valeo decision. Here is the question I pose for supporters of this amendment: If this constitutional amendment were to pass the Congress and be ratified by the States, would campaign finance reformers have the necessary 51 votes--or more likely what would be required would be 60 votes--to pass legislation that included mandatory spending limits? Mr. President, in January I joined the senior Senator from Arizona in introducing the first bipartisan campaign finance reform proposal in over a decade. That proposal, unlike the law that was considered in Buckley versus Valeo, includes voluntary spending limits. That is to say, Mr. President, we offer incentives in the form of free and discounted television time to encourage but not require candidates to limit their campaign spending. When the Senator from Arizona and I bring that legislation to the floor of the Senate, I have no doubt that we will be met with strong resistance from a number of Senators. So the notion that this constitutional amendment will somehow magically pave the way for legislation that includes mandatory spending limits simply ignores the reality of the opposition that campaign finance reformers face here in the Senate and I think would face in the Senate at the time of ratification of any such amendment. Mr. President, this amendment certainly, if ratified, would remove the obstacle of the Supreme Court. But it will not remove the obstacle of those Senators such as the junior Senator from Kentucky who believe that we need more money, not less, in our political system. Most disconcerting to me, Mr. President, is what this proposed constitutional amendment would mean to the first amendment. I find nothing more sacred and treasured in our Nation's history than the first amendment. It is perhaps the one tenet of our Constitution that sets our country apart from every mold of government form and tested by mankind throughout history. No other country has a provision quite like the first amendment. The first amendment is the bedrock of the Bill of Rights. It has as its underpinnings the notion that each individual has a natural and fundamental right to disagree with their elected leaders. It says that a newspaper has an unfettered right to publish expressions of political or moral thought. It says that the Government may not establish a State-based religion that would infringe on the rights of those individuals who seek to be freed from such a religious environment. Last year I stood here on the floor of the Senate with a number of my colleagues to oppose a proposed constitutional amendment that would have prohibited the desecration of the U.S. flag. I did so because that amendment as proposed, for the first time in our history, would have taken a chisel to the first amendment and said that individuals have a constitutional right to express themselves unless they are expressing themselves by burning a flag. Now, Mr. President, I deplore as much as anyone in this body any individual who would take a match to the flag of the United States. And I am firmly convinced that unrestrained spending on congressional campaigns has eroded the confidence of the American people in their Government and their leaders. I believe we should speak out against those who desecrate the flag. I believe we should take immediate steps to fundamentally overhaul our system of financing campaigns. Mr. President, I do not believe, as the supporters of this constitutional amendment and other amendments believe, that we need to amend the U.S. Constitution to bring reform to our system of financing campaigns. Mr. President, sometime in the next day or so, this constitutional amendment will lose. That has been predetermined, or the supporters of this amendment probably would not have been granted consideration here on the floor of the Senate in this manner. This debate has some characteristics of a charade. Again, that is not because of the author, who is sincerely advancing this provision because he believes in it and he thinks it should become part of the Constitution. The ultimate outcome of the charade is everyone knows this will not pass. There are those who want this to sort of be the campaign finance reform debate for this Congress. Have a couple of days of talk, no amendments, have a vote, and be done with it. Be done with campaign finance reform. Mr. President, believe me, I know the feeling. The Senator from Arizona and I have been there. We were there last year, last summer. We were allowed to bring our bipartisan campaign finance reform legislation to the floor last June, but here was the deal: No amendments, just 2 days of debate, and then we had to vote on cloture, whether we will filibuster, just after 2 days. That was it. No chance to fix the bill up or make it appealing to other Members like we do in other things. That is very similar to what is going on here. We were only allowed to do that after the votes had been counted and assurances given that our bill would suffer a quick and painless death. It was not entirely painless, but it was not unanticipated. We did get a majority of the votes in this body on the first try, 54 out of the required 60 votes but, of course, when the process is set up like this, this simply with these few options, we know the outcome and we know what will happen here. Mr. President, I want to point out that things just look a little different this year on the issue of campaign finance reform than they did a year ago. A few things have happened. The McCain-Feingold bill has not been placed on the Senate Calendar this time. It does not appear that the majority leader is terribly interested in bringing it up before the March recess, the Memorial Day recess, or possibly even before the turn of the century. We can speculate about the meaning of that, but one thing is clear: This constitutional amendment will not pass this body, and until this body makes a commitment to considering meaningful, bipartisan campaign finance reform, campaign spending in this country will continue to go completely unrestrained. Nothing in this constitutional amendment before the Senate today would prevent what we witnessed in the last election--the allegation of illegality and improprieties, the accusations of abuse, and the selling of access to high-ranking Government officials would continue no matter what the outcome of the vote we had on this constitutional amendment. Only the enactment of legislation, Mr. President, that bans soft money contributions and that encourages candidates to voluntarily limit how much they spend on their campaigns will make a meaningful difference. Mr. President, I see Members of the Senate as having, really, three choices. First, they can vote for constitutional amendments and partisan reform proposals that basically have predetermined fates of never becoming law. That allows you to say you voted for something and put the matter aside. Second, they can stand with the junior Senator from Kentucky and others who stood here on the Senate floor last June and told us all was well with our campaign finance system and we should all be thrilled that so much money was pouring into the campaign coffers of candidates and parties. That is a second option that some folks are still pursuing. A third option, Mr. President, Senators can join with the Senator from Arizona and myself and others who have tried to approach this problem from a bipartisan perspective and have tried to craft a reform proposal that is fair to all. We have said on countless occasions that our proposal is open to negotiation. We simply have two goals: To encourage Senate candidates to spend less on their campaign and to give challengers an opportunity to run a fair and competitive campaign against well-entrenched incumbents. If you share those goals, we can work together to produce a meaningful reform proposal. Let me say our proposal is picking up steam. We seem to be adding new cosponsors a couple of times a week. Three days ago, I was challenged on the floor by a stated opponent of our bill as to why I was unwilling to address, he said, a particular aspect of our campaign finance system. Now, this surprised me very much because, in the 18 months since this legislation was originally introduced, this Senator had not approached me one single time to ask if I would be willing to address that issue. I told this Senator the other night, and I say to all my other colleagues, if you share those two basic goals of reducing campaign spending and leveling the playing field with the Senator from Arizona and I, we are willing to work with you to address those concerns. Let's do this in the context of a real effort, a real debate, not a charade. That real debate will begin when a comprehensive bipartisan campaign finance reform bill is brought to the floor of the U.S. Senate. After this amendment fails, and as the Governmental Affairs Committee proceeds with the investigation into illegal and improper conduct by Presidential and congressional candidates in the last election, it is my hope that there will be an opportunity for an open and full debate on the issue of campaign finance reform. Mr. President, without meaningful bipartisan campaign finance reform, the American people will continue to perceive their elected leaders as being for sale. Unfortunately, they will continue to distrust and doubt the integrity of their own Government. So, Mr. President, I urge the Members of the Senate to reject this amendment, again, with the understanding that I greatly admire the sincerity and commitment that its author brings forward on this issue.

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