Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, if I may respond to my friend from Kentucky, I know a little bit about campaigns in Wyoming
because a large portion of the Wyoming electorate is served out of the television market headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT. As
a consequence, voters in Utah were treated to attack ads telling us how terrible Mr. Enzi was in the last campaign. We had no
idea who he was. I did not meet him until he was sworn in here. But I had seen all of the attack ads that were put on through the
Salt Lake City television stations attacking the senatorial candidate in Wyoming.

By contrast, if I may, our friend from Delaware, Senator Biden, has told us that Delaware has no television outlets at all in the
State. As a consequence, if he is going to run a television campaign in Delaware, he has to do all of his buying in Philadelphia, so
that the voters of Pennsylvania get to hear all of the glories and beauties of Joe Biden, none of whom can vote for him because
he cannot buy television time in Delaware.

What the Senator from Kentucky has demonstrated is how incredibly difficult it is to craft legislation that approaches the ideal
sought by the Senators from Arizona and Wisconsin in a market-by-market, State-by-State, election-by-election circumstance. It is
virtually impossible to do that. We ought to recognize that and defeat the whole thing out of hand.

Mr. McCONNELL. Would it not be appropriate to say, I say to my friend from Utah, that the Government has no business doing
that anyway?

Mr. BENNETT. Of course the Government has no business doing that. That is the point we made on Friday when we were
having the debate. Even if we grant the argument raised by the Senator from Wisconsin and his 126 experts that it can be done in
a way that is constitutional, we recognize that it cannot be done in a way that makes sense.

It is possible to craft a system that meets the narrow requirements of the Constitution in terms of protecting free speech, but it is
not possible to do one in a way that makes any logical sense at all.

I had risen to ask my colleague this question about the example we have before us. We are being told this is constitutional because
it is voluntary. And I suppose that is the reason these 126 scholars have signed the letter. As long as you agree in advance to give
up your constitutional rights, then the Constitution will not defend you.

The Senator from Kentucky has said it isn't really voluntary. There is a huge incentive which the Senator from Kentucky
describes as a gun pointed at your head to see to it that you are voluntary. So it is not voluntary. This is the question I had in mind.

We have an example before us of people giving up their constitutional rights in return for Federal dollars. There are some who are
so unkind to call that a bribe. But in the Presidential system now, virtually every candidate for President accepts the bribe; that is,
he or she accepts the Federal dollars in return for agreeing to limit their speech. The Senator from Wisconsin says, no, every
American has a constitutional right not to accept that money and to go ahead on their own.

Isn't it true that the only two candidates who have been able to run for President without accepting the Federal money and mount
anything approaching a worthwhile campaign are Ross Perot and Steve Forbes, both of whom approach billionaire status? Is that a
correct summary of what the Presidential system that is constitutional has brought us to?

Mr. McCONNELL. The Senator from Utah is entirely correct. Even people like Ronald Reagan, who opposed the Federal
Election Campaign Act of 1974, always checked no on his tax return as a protest against using tax dollars for the Presidential
campaign. He had no choice because the contribution limit on candidates for

President was only $1,000. You simply could not raise enough to compete for President unless you accepted the bribe that the
Government offered you to give you so much money to limit your speech. There was simply no choice. And that kind of choice, it
seems to me, is similar to what we have here and is really quite unfortunate for candidates because it restricts their options.

If I may just for a moment go back to the spending limit analogy while my friend from Utah is still up, another example would be to
compare New Jersey to New York, two States right next to each other. In New Jersey they are able to spend more money on a
candidate than in New York, even though New York has more than twice as many voting age residents as New Jersey. Two
States right next to each other, people commuting back and forth to work all the time, and yet somebody in the Government
determines that the voters of New Jersey are entitled to more communication than the voters in New York under the formula in
the original McCain-Feingold bill.

Does that strike the Senator from Utah as really very difficult to understand?

Mr. BENNETT. As I said at the outset, it demonstrates just how ridiculous it is for the Federal Government to get into the
business of determining who can spend what and for how much in a constitutional way. You end up so contorted and distorted in
your attempt to get around the obvious constitutional ban on this kind of nonsense that you create a circumstance that virtually no
one can defend on practical grounds: More money going for a candidate in New Jersey than for a candidate in New York,
different rules applying to a candidate in Delaware than apply to a candidate in Wyoming.

All of this is voluntary, but it becomes voluntary because there is a huge bribe out there waiting for you if you agree to give up
your constitutional rights. I think it is absurd.

I was delighted over the weekend to read the comments of George Will, who said that this debate is one of the most fundamental
we have had since the founding of the Republic. I had not thought to put McCain-Feingold in the same fashion that George Will
does, but he describes it as similar to the speech codes adopted in many of our campuses, the excesses of the 1950's in the days of
Joseph McCarthy, the 1920's speech activity, the Alien and Sedition Acts, but he says all of those are less significant in their threat
to a fundamental liberty than this one because they came and went in the frenzy of the day. This one would leave behind a huge
Federal bureaucracy aimed at producing exactly the kind of results the Senator from Kentucky is talking about, laying out that this
candidate in this State can spend this much, and as soon as he steps across the State line, if he decided to run in another State,
then the rules would change, the limits would change, the circumstances would change.

That kind of Federal bureaucracy intruding itself into the campaign even if it were through some tortuous method of gaining
consent on the part of those involved, constitutionally it remains clearly violative of the spirit of the first amendment, if not the
specific letter. I believe the courts would strike it down

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I see the Senator from Virginia is on his feet. I just want to make one wrapup observation
about what the Senator from Utah was just talking about.

The George Will column to which he referred was in the Washington Post yesterday. And just to pick out some excerpts, Mr. Will
said, `Nothing in American history * * * matches the menace to the First Amendment posed by campaign `reforms' * * *'

Further, Mr. Will said, `Thus is the First Amendment nibbled away, like an artichoke devoured leaf by leaf,' which is what the
Senator from Utah was talking about.

And toward the end of the article he called this `the most important [debate] in American history' because really what we are
talking about here is core political discussion in this country, as the Senator from Utah has pointed out.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that George Will's column, the headline of which says `Here Come the Speech Police,' be
printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

From the Washington Post, Sept. 28, 1997

                          [FROM THE WASHINGTON POST, SEPT. 28, 1997]

Here Come The Speech Police

                                      (BY GEORGE F. WILL)

Almost nothing that preoccupies Washington is as important as Washington thinks almost all its preoccupations are. But now
Congress is considering some version of the McCain-Feingold bill, which raises `regime-level' questions. It would continue the
change for the worse of American governance. And Washington's political class hopes the bill's real importance will be
underestimated.

With a moralism disproportionate to the merits of their cause, members of that class--including the exhorting, collaborative
media--are mounting an unprecedentedly sweeping attack on freedom of expression. Nothing in American history--not the left's
recent campus `speech codes,' not the right's depredations during 1950s McCarthyism or the 1920s `red scare,' not the Alien and
Sedition Acts of the 1790s--matches the menance to the First Amendment posed by campaign `reforms' advancing under the
protective coloration of political hygiene.

Such earlier fevers were evanescent, leaving no institutional embodiments when particular passions abated. And they targeted
speech of particular political content. What today's campaign reformers desire is a steadily thickening clot of laws and an
enforcing bureaucracy to control both the quantity and the content of all discourse pertinent to politics. By the logic of their aims,
reformers cannot stop short of that. This is so, regardless of the supposed modesty of the measure Congress is debating.

Reformers first empowered government to regulate `hard' money--that given to particular candidates. But there remains the
`problem' of `soft' money--that given to parties for general political organizing and advocacy. Reformers call this a `loophole.'
Reformers use that word to stigmatize any silence of the law that allows unregulated political expression. So now reformers want
to ban `soft' money. But the political class will not stop there.

Its patience is sorely tried by the insufferable public, which persists in exercising its First Amendment right of association to
organize in groups as different as the Sierra Club and the National Rifle Association. One reason people so organize is to
collectively exercise their First Amendment right of free speech pertinent to politics. Therefore reformers want to arm the speech
police with additional powers to ration the permissible amount of `express advocacy,' meaning speech by independent groups that
advocates the election or defeat of an identifiable candidate.

But the political class will not stop there. Consider mere issue advocacy--say, a television commercial endorsing abortion rights,
mentioning no candidate and not mentioning voting but broadcast in the context of a campaign in which two candidates differ about
abortion rights. Such communications can influence the thinking of voters. Can't have that, other than on a short leash held by the
government's speech police. So restriction of hard money begets restriction of soft, which begets regulation of issue
advocacy--effectively, of all civic discourse.

The political class is not sliding reluctantly down a slippery slope, it is eagerly skiiing down it, extending its regulation of political
speech in order to make its life less stressful and more secure. Thus is the First Amendment nibbled away, like an artichoke
devoured leaf by leaf.

This is an example of what has been called `the Latin Americanization' of American law--the proliferation of increasingly rococo
laws in attempts to enforce fundamentally flawed laws. Reformers produce such laws from the bleak, paternalistic premise that
unfettered participation in politics by means of financial support of political speech is a `problem' that must be `solved.'

One reason the media are complacent about such restrictions on (others') political speech is that restrictions enhance the power of
the media as the filters of political speech, and as unregulated participants in a shrunken national conversation. Has the newspaper
in which this column is appearing ever editorialized to the effect that restrictions on political money--restrictions on the ability to
buy broadcast time and print space and other things the Supreme Court calls `the indispensable conditions for meaningful
communications'--do not restrict speech? If this newspaper ever does, ask the editors if they would accept revising the First
Amendment to read:

`Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press, but Congress can restrict the amount a newspaper may spend on
editorial writers, reporters and newsprint.'

As Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, and others filibuster to block enlargement of the federal speech-rationing
machinery, theirs is arguably the most important filibuster in American history. Its importance will be attested by the obloquies they
will receive from the herd of independent minds eager to empower the political class to extend controls over speech about itself.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I yield for a question to the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I wonder at this point in time if I just might make some follow-on comments to my earlier
observation. Would the Senator be agreeable?

Mr. McCONNELL. I will.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, earlier I talked in support, the strongest support, of the distinguished majority leader's amendment.

Mr. President, I rise today to address the issue of campaign finance reform. As chairman of the Committee on Rules and
Administration, I have spent a great deal of time with these issues over the past 2 years. I appreciate the effort by the majority
leader to bring campaign finance reform to the floor for debate, and I welcome the opportunity to join in this important debate.

The Rules Committee has held 10 hearings in 1996 and 1997 concerning campaign finance reform issues. Many of these hearings
dealt with the specific issues contained in the legislation commonly known as McCain-Feingold, such as soft money, free television
time, regulation of issue advocacy, and spending caps. The committee has compiled a detailed record on these issues for the
Senate. During these hearings, we have heard from many noted experts in this field, including many of the same witnesses who
appeared before the Committee on Governmental Affairs last week.

My view of how the campaign finance debate will evolve is as follows. Democrats argue that the Republicans must rely even
more on contributions from individuals--hard money--and less on large soft money contributions. Republicans argue that the
Democrats, who have relied heavily on the involuntary confiscation of the dues of union members, must agree that union members
must give their advance, written consent before a part of their paycheck should go to partisan political activities.

I received a letter from President Clinton last Tuesday in support of McCain-Feingold. He added that `any attempts to attach
amendments that would make it unpalatable to one party or another are nothing less than attempts to defeat campaign finance
reform.' I understand that latest version of McCain-Feingold does not include a requirement that union members give prior, written
consent before their dues could be used for partisan purposes. This Senator will support an amendment to add this requirement,
and I say that if the Democrats decide to filibuster campaign finance legislation because it includes this provision, then it is they
who are blocking true bipartisan reform, not the Republicans.

In the Rules Committee we have held a series of hearings on these issues that are being discussed here today. I want to focus on
one particular hearing where we allowed both sides to come in and discuss compulsory deduction by unions. And we held this
hearing. We had as a witness David Stewart, a member of the Transport Workers Union of America, local 514, located in Tulsa,
OK.

I remember him very well. He was proudly in the hearing room in his basic working uniform. He testified, and I have extracted
some of that testimony to read in this debate today, this very important debate. This is what this American worker said:

* * * I really do not agree with some of the Agendas and the Candidates that the union endorses. Yet, we are all required to fund
these agendas and campaigns just by virtue of our membership in the Union.

This is a union man, Mr. President.

As I searched for relief from this unjust requirement, I found out about the `Beck Supreme Court Decision,' which in effect gives
a Union Member the right to a refund of the Non-Bargaining expenditures of the Union. The problem is, I must relinquish my
Union Membership and the rights associated with that Membership to seek this refund. It is absurd to require me to fund the
Contract Bargaining, Contract Enforcement and Administration of the Local, yet require me to forfeit my rights to a voice in these
affairs, only because I oppose the Political Expenditures of the Union. I am not opposed to my requirement to belong to the Union.
I still attend the Union meetings and enjoy having a voice in the affairs of the Union and my career, I am not willing to give up this
activity to receive the refund afforded me by the `Beck Decision.'

We also heard from Cindy Omlin, a former teacher from Washington State. She described the schemes by which her union
illegally used her dues--that mandatory deduction--for

political contribution. The unions got caught, but nonetheless they upped the amount of dues teachers were required to contribute
for partisan activities. Our committee listened to these workers and they came forward at some risk to themselves to give this
important testimony.

At the appropriate time I hope to ask the sponsors of this legislation whether or not they have taken it upon themselves to go out
and talk to the workers and find out exactly how they feel about this onerous requirement of mandatory deduction. I will await the
opportunity to talk to one or more of the sponsors or both on this point when they have that availability.

Now I have read that the new version of McCain-Feingold may include a provision to enforce the Beck decision and require
posting of notices that employees can receive refunds. This idea, although certainly better than the status quo, is not nearly good
enough.

Effective enforcement of Beck is difficult at best. The posting of a small sign or a small note in a union magazine will not do.
Many employees will never learn of their Beck rights, and unions will no doubt continue to set up substantial obstacles to
exercising these rights. In our hearing, we heard how unions make the window for objecting very brief and it changes every year,
with the notice often buried deep within lengthy union magazines.

Moreover, single employees are very poorly equipped to challenge accountings provided by union officials as to the breakdown of
chargeable and nonchargeable activities. Also, an employee wishing to appeal this determination would need to hire his or her own
attorneys and accountants for an arbitration run under rules established by the union. The financial disclosure forms filed by unions
with the Labor Department, the LM-2, are notoriously useless in actually assisting employees to determine what percentage of
their dues go to political activities.

All of these procedural hurdles are in addition to the stigmatization of objectors, officially called agency-fee payers. Often lists of
objectors are published in union literature and cases of threatened violence are common.

I believe the only solution, and one that is not contained in the McCain-Feingold legislation, is to require prior, written consent
before dues are confiscated. I am a cosponsor of Senator Nickles' bill, the Paycheck Protection Act, which would rectify this
egregious situation. Without this provision, we will not have fair campaign finance reform.

Mr. McCONNELL. I want to thank the Senator from Virginia not only for the remarks he has made today but the way he has
listened to all of those who have come forward at the Rules Committee over the period of his chairmanship. He and I, many times,
were the only two there. He has been wonderful in giving an opportunity to a number of groups who, frankly, have had a difficult
time giving testimony in the past, who typically have not been listened to. I think he has made a major contribution in providing
some balance to this important constitutional debate.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague. Indeed, we have not fully agreed on all provisions that are
options throughout this whole realm of campaign finance, but fundamentally we certainly agree on the question of the mandatory
deduction.

We went to the difficulty of finding witnesses and brought them to the hearing room and listened to their testimony.

It is ever so clear to this Senator, and I am sure the other members of the committee, that throughout America the workers want
to be recognized for their ability to think for themselves and their ability to make decisions for themselves. This whole idea of
mandatory deduction is against free will--I think, indeed, against the very essence of what freedom is all about.

I commend my distinguished colleague from Kentucky. Let us fight on in the cause of freedom.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I am happy to yield the floor. I see the Senator from Illinois is here desiring to speak.

Mr. DURBIN. I thank my colleague, the Senator from Kentucky for yielding. I only have a short period of time here, I say for the
information of my colleague from Maine, and I appreciate this chance to rise and speak on this issue.

It has been said in debate that the columnist, George Will, has pronounced this as the most important debate in American history. I
didn't want to miss it and that is why I came to the floor today. I will not question Mr. Will because he was reared and his early
education took place in the State of Illinois, and somewhere or another he got off the course shortly afterwards, but at least we
attribute his early training to Illinois' educational standards.

Is this the most important debate in American history? It may be, because what is at stake in this debate is not the amount of
money that is being spent in a campaign, it is really not about the conduct of campaigns, it really doesn't have much to do with
political action committees or labor unions or corporations or associations. What is at stake in this debate is the future of this
democracy.

If that sounds hyperbolic, let me tell you why I say it. I am honestly, genuinely, personally concerned as a Member of this great
institution, about the fact that the American people are losing interest in their Government. The clearest indication of that loss of
interest is their participation in elections.

Now, why is it at this moment in time when the United States of America is obviously one of the most attractive places in the
world to live, where we have to almost construct a fence and a wall around our borders to keep people from other nations from
coming to the United States, why is it that at a time when our economy is booming, at a time when we are so proud of what we
have achieved not only in this Nation but around the world, that the people we serve, the American voters, have decided they are
not interested? And they have demonstrated that, unfortunately, in that quadrennial forum where we asked people to come
forward and name the leader of this Nation.

Let me show you what I am talking about. I think it is interesting in this debate about campaigns and money and voters to take a
look at what has happened in the United States of America in the last 36 years. This bar graph shows the amount of money that
has been spent on campaigns at all levels, Federal through local. If you look it was a rather meager sum, $175 million, in the
earliest years, and then skyrocketed up to $4 billion here in 1996.

So to entice people to vote, to interest them in candidates and interest them in campaigns, we have raised money in record sums
and spent it on television, radio, direct mail, bumper stickers, emery boards, pocket combs and everything we can dream of, to say
to the voters, `Look at me. Get interested. I'm running. I need your vote.' Is it working? As we plow more money into this system,
is it working? Well, the sad truth is, it is not.

Look at this percentage of those who vote in Presidential elections: Starting in 1960, 63.1 percent of the American people said the
Kennedy-Nixon election is one that we consider critically important, our family is going to vote. Look what happened in this last
election in November: 49.1 percent of the American people turned out to vote. We spent record numbers, dramatically increasing
the amount of money on political campaigns, and the voters voted with their feet and stayed home. Isn't it curious that the more
money we plow into our campaign system the fewer voters turn out?

Now let me just suggest something. If you happen to own a company selling a widget and say to your marketing department, `We
are going to double our advertising. Next quarter we want to see what happens to sales,' and you gave them twice as much money
for advertising your widget, and they came back after the quarter was finished and said, `We have the report.' You said, `What is
it?' `Advertising went up 100 percent.' `How about sales?' `Sales went down.'

What? Advertising went up and sales went down? Well, you could draw some conclusions. There was something wrong with the
advertising or there may have been something wrong with the product. That is what this debate is about.

There is not only something wrong with the advertising, it has become so negative, so nasty, so dirty, that people are disgusted with
it. There is something wrong with the products. Candidates for the House and Senate are losing their reputation or seeing their
integrity maligned because we spend so much time grubbing for money. People believe that we are captives of special interest
groups. And because they are sick of the style of campaign and because they have little or no confidence in those of us who wage
the campaigns, they stay home.

The turnout for the Presidential election last November was the lowest percentage turnout in America for a Presidential election in
72 years. Now if Jay Leno and David Letterman pronounced this election over in July, as they probably did, I don't think that
explains it. I think there was something else at work here. The American voters are at best indifferent, and at worst, downright
cynical about the system we use to elect people in the United States.

Let me also show you something that makes the case even more. I guess some people would argue, well, back in 1960 there must
have been a higher percentage of people who were registered to vote. Well, that was not the case. Our figures start on this chart
in 1964, and there were 64.6 percent of Americans were registered to vote; if you remember, 63.1 percent of those turned out to
vote.

Now, we have increased the franchise by making it easier to register to vote. You can register when you go to get a new license
for your car or driver's license renewal, that sort of thing. So, more and more Americans are getting registered to vote. There is
more participation. I think that is a healthy thing. I backed motor-voter. We are now up to 74.4 percent of eligible voters registered
in America in the 1996 election. You can be proud of that.

People have said, `Yes, I will sign the form. I'm willing to go out and put my name on the voter rolls' knowing they may be called
for jury duty or something else. They did it anyway.

Then look what happened. Despite this dramatic increase in the people who are registering to vote, remember November 1996?
Fewer than 50 percent of the American people then exercised their right to vote.

I think that is a telling commentary on this debate. If you listen to the arguments of my colleague from Kentucky, Senator
McConnell, and Senator Bennett from Utah, who was on the floor the other day, and Speaker Newt Gingrich and others, they
have analyzed the situation and said, clearly, the major problem with the American political system is, in their words, `We're just
not spending enough money. We have to put more money in these campaigns. We have to get on television more and radio more,
and mail more things to the American people. Then they will know we are out here.'

Well, they know we are out here. They just aren't buying what we are selling. They are staying home. Those who argue that the
best way to reform the system is to plow more money into the system have missed the point completely. Nine out of ten
Americans--90 percent of them--believe that we spend too much in political campaigns, not too little.

Isn't it an oddity that we are at this point in our history where we are actually engaging in an argument as to whether or not a
person's wealth should determine their ability to participate in a democracy? This is not a new debate. We have been through this
one before. In the 19th century, the debate was cast in a different tone. If you wanted to vote, would you have to be a property
owner? That is an evidence of wealth and stability, and some of our Founding Fathers said, well, that is a good indicator, and we
should not let people vote unless they own property, and the States can determine the qualifications of electors. Let them put that
in as a qualification.

We rejected that over 100 years ago and said that isn't what America is all about. Your participation with a vote should not have
anything to do with whether you are wealthy or poor. If you are an American citizen, you are entitled to vote. Since the early part
of this century, whether you are a man, a woman, black, white, or brown, whatever your ethnic heritage, whether you are poor as
a church mouse or as rich as Donald Trump, you get the same one vote when you come to the polls.

Listen to this debate today. The debate today says, let's change this system and say that if you are wealthy in America--let's say
you are a middle-aged, crazy millionaire who decided he wants to be in the House or Senate or a Governor, then you go out and
spend your money, exercise your constitutional right, show your freedom of speech to go forward and ask for votes. If you happen
to have more money than the next guy, your likelihood of winning is that much better. What I just said is not breakthrough; this is
established fact. Candidates with more money and political campaigns usually win. That is a fact of life.

So my Republican friends who say, `All this system needs is more money,' are basically saying, `If we can just get wealthier
people interested in running for office or people who are drawing money in from wealthy interests, special interests, that is good
for America, that is endorsement of our Bill of Rights, and that speaks well of our freedom of speech.'

I don't buy that. I don't think the American people buy that.

As amendments are produced on the floor during the course of this debate which try to enshrine wealth as the keystone for
American citizenship, I will oppose them. I hope Members on both sides will join me. It is a sad state of affairs in America if we
have reached the point where, in fact, a person's wealth is a determinant as to whether they can be a successful candidate or be
directly involved in our political process. That is what this debate is all about. That is why it could be historic in nature.

Let me address one particular example used in the debate Friday about a good friend of mine who passed away a little over a year
ago. His name was Mike Synar. Mike was a Congressman from Oklahoma. He was proud to characterize himself as an `Okie
from Muskogee.'

You have never met a political renegade like Mike Synar. I loved him. I loved his politics. He used to drive people crazy. He
would vote on issues and know that, if he went home, people would be angry with him. He would get involved in issues that made
everybody squirm and uneasy in their seats. That is just the way he was. He also decided to stack the deck against himself
because he announced when he came to the House of Representatives, representing Muskogee, he wasn't going to take PAC
money. Mike said, `I am going to take money from individuals, and I will rise or fall based on my friends supporting me, and so be
it.' He managed to survive for a number of years.

Then came 1994. All of the special interest groups that had been opposing him in the Halls of Congress decided to team up against
him back home. In 1992, they had spent $750,000 to defeat Mike Synar. Who were these people? The National Rifle Association,
the tobacco lobby, the western grazing interests. They came in, and did they debate Mike Synar on gun control in his district? No.
Did they debate him on tobacco regulation? No. Did they debate him on whether or not we are too generous in the subsidies to
western grazing? No. They came in and literally plowed hundreds of thousands of dollars into the campaign against him with
negative ads on a variety of other subjects--and it was perfectly legal. Mike escaped it in 1992, but not in 1994.

The illustration on the floor made by one of my colleagues last Friday that somehow or other `Mike Synar, with $325,000, could not
defeat an opponent who only had $10,000 and, therefore, money is not the determinate in an election,' really overlooked the
obvious. Mike Synar's money alone wasn't at risk. It was the money of a lot of special interest groups. He was defeated. He
worked very hard for campaign finance reform and a lot of other issues that I have the highest respect for.

Let me just also say that I have heard a lot of argument from my colleagues on the Republican side that this debate is really about
labor unions, and we have to get our hand on the fact that labor unions in the last election were so vocal and involved and spent so
much money. Some estimate $35 million. That is an interesting premise for this debate because, if you look at the totals that were
spent by labor and business, the business community dramatically outspent labor organizations in that campaign. Yet, many of the
amendments which we will be considering have nothing to do with the business community being restricted, only labor unions.

I think some of my colleagues should take care to watch out for what is characterized as poison pills, or those amendments that
will be put in the bill in the hope of killing the bill. It is an old legislative ploy. Take an amendment adopted on the floor, which you
are certain could never be part of the final legislation, show your heartfelt concern about campaign finance reform, knowing in
your heart of hearts that it will go nowhere with a poison pill amendment. We are going to see a lot of these, I am afraid, during
the course of this debate.

Let me address an issue that I think is critically important--television time. In the McCain-Feingold, as originally introduced, which
I and 44 other Democratic Senators endorsed, which three of my Republican colleagues have joined in endorsing, including my
colleague, the Senator from Maine, Senator Collins. I think the number may be up to four now, we have, in that original bill,
provisions that would say to a candidate that we know what is costing money in campaigns. We know where you are putting your
money.

When I ran for the Senate in Illinois and raised literally millions of dollars sitting on a telephone day after day calling strangers and
begging them to contribute, the money that was coming in was going right out the front door for television. That is where I spent
my money. Most major State candidates do the same. My colleague, Bob Torricelli of New Jersey, spent 84 percent of all the
money he raised on television. Think about that. Try to buy a 30-second TV ad in New York City that costs $100,000, and you

will understand very quickly how that could happen. In Illinois, over 80 percent of our money went into raising money and spending
it on television.

I think it is a good illustration that if we don't address the reason campaigns are so expensive, we are not going to see any real
reform. Now, the people who represent the television industry say you can't do that; you can't take away time that this station can
sell to a private advertiser and give to it a political candidate. But they forgot something very basic. The people who own television
stations and make a very handsome profit do it because they are using our airwaves--not the Senate's airwaves; the American
people's airwaves. We own these airwaves. We license these companies, at no charge, to use our airwaves and make a profit. It
is not unreasonable for us as a people to go back to these television stations and say we want to take a slight and tiny percentage
of those airwaves and dedicate them to cleaning up the American election process, to make sure that the time is available for
incumbents and challengers alike on a reduced level--or even free in some circumstances--so the voters can hear legitimate
messages and we will clean up the message in the process. It won't be the drive-by shooting ads you see in campaigns. It will be
informative. People will know where Durbin stands on Social Security and where his opponent stands on Social Security. Things
like that. That is not unreasonable. For the stations to say, `don't even touch it; we own the airwaves, not the American people,' I
think they need a reminder as to how this got started. They are licensed by this Government, representing the American people, to
make their profits. Now the argument that we are going to take away reduced costs of TV time is troubling to me. If you don't
reduce the cost of television, you will in fact continue to have political campaign costs skyrocketing. You will have men and
women running for election and re-election to seats, spending the majority of their time raising money to pay for television.

So I think the original McCain-Feingold provision is absolutely essential. I think we should continue on not only to eliminate soft
money, not only to reduce the cost of television, but also to go after issue ads that are actually candidate ads. Political candidates
and those who work around us watch television more closely than anybody, because we search that screen during a campaign
cycle to find the tiniest of print on the bottom of the TV commercials, which identifies who paid for it.

On the Saturday night before the election last November, bone weary, I pulled into my apartment in Chicago, and I was going to
relax a little bit. It was in the closing days of the campaign. So I slumped down in a chair, grabbed the remote control to listen to
Saturday Night Live. Somewhere between the news and Saturday Night Live, up pops four television commercials, one after the
other, and every one of them blasting me. What a treat that was to sit in the chair and get pummeled by four different
commercials.

The most unique thing was that not a single one was paid for by my opponent, the Republican Party in Illinois, or the National
Republican Party. They were paid for by committees and organizations that most people never heard of. These are organizations
which mushroom up during campaigns, take some high-sounding name, collect millions of dollars, undisclosed and unreported, and
run ads, the most negative ads on television, against politicians. That is an outrage. It is an outrage that I have to account for every
dollar I raise and spend and I have to identify the television commercials that I put on, either comparing my record with my
opponent or speaking about something I believe in, and these groups can literally run roughshod over the system, spending millions
of dollars without any accountability.

McCain-Feingold addresses that. Thank God it does. If we don't put an end to this outrage, most of these other reforms are
meaningless. To eliminate soft money and to allow special interest groups, whether on the business or labor side, to continue to
spend money unfettered in issue advocacy and the like is outrageous. The McCain-Feingold legislation is an idea whose time has
come.

I hope that a number of my colleagues will step forward, as my colleague, the Senator from Maine, has done already. We have 49
votes, ladies and gentlemen, for McCain-Feingold. We need one more. Every Democrat has signed onto this bipartisan legislation.
We now have four Republican Senators. We need one more. Who will it be? Who will step forward and say, `This is the most
important debate in American history and I want to be on the right side of history'? I hope we can come up not only with that 50th
vote, but with enough votes procedurally to keep this issue alive. The rules of the Senate, like cloture and filibuster and the like,
allow people who in the name of good government, or whatever, can stop an issue in its tracks. I hope that doesn't happen. I hope
we can debate this to its conclusion and have a real vote on real reform.

I yield the remainder of my time.

Ms. COLLINS addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.

PRIVILEGE OF THE FLOOR

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Steve Diamond, from my staff, be accorded privileges of the floor
for the duration of this debate.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise to urge my colleagues to seize this opportunity to make much-needed changes in our
campaign finance laws by supporting the modified version of the McCain-Feingold legislation. I am pleased, Mr. President, to be a
cosponsor of this landmark bill.

Shortly after becoming President of the United States, one of our former Presidents was asked what his biggest surprise was on
assuming office. Without hesitation, he said it was his discovery that things were actually as bad as he had been saying they were
during the campaign.

Mr. President, during my Senate campaign, I told the people of Maine that our Nation's campaign finance system is broken. Since
my election, I have spent a great deal of my time questioning witnesses at the hearings held by the Governmental Affairs
Committee. Unlike the former President, what I have discovered is not that things are as bad as I had been saying they were; it is
that they are much worse.

The twin loopholes of soft money and bogus issue ads have virtually obliterated our campaign finance laws, leaving us with little
more than a pile of legal rubble. We supposedly have restrictions on how much individuals can give to political parties; yet, Yogesh
Gandhi is able to contribute $325,000 to the DNC to buy a picture with the President, and Roger Tamraz mockingly tells a
committee of the U.S. Senate that next time he will spend $600,000, rather than $300,000, to buy access to the White House. We
supposedly prohibit corporations and unions from spending money on political campaigns; yet, the AFL-CIO spends $800,000 in
Maine on so-called issue ads which anyone with an ounce of common sense recognized were designed to defeat a candidate for
Congress.

We in this body decry legal loopholes, but we have reserved the largest ones for ourselves. Indeed, these loopholes are more like
black holes, and that sucking sound you hear during election years is the whoosh of six-figure soft money donations rushing into
party coffers.

Why should this matter, we are asked by those all too eager to equate freedom of speech with freedom to spend? It should matter
because political equality is the essence of democracy, and an electoral system driven by big money is one lacking in political
equality.

Mr. President, this is an issue of great concern to the people of my home State. While there are differences in Maine on how the
system should be

reformed--I, for one, do not believe that meaningful change requires that we make taxpayers underwrite campaigns--there does
seem to be a stronger consensus in Maine than elsewhere on the need for reform.

If my colleagues will indulge me a bit of home State pride, I think the Maine perspective results from old fashioned Down East
common sense. Maine people are able to see through the complexities of this debate. They focus on what is at heart a very simple
and yet very profound problem. As long as we allow unlimited contributions--whether in the form of hard or soft money--we will
not have political equality in this country.

It is not simply the lack of a level playing field for those seeking public office. What is more important is the lack of a level playing
field for those seeking access to their government.

It strikes me that the Maine attitude may be shaped by the fact that many communities in my State still hold town meetings. I am
not talking about the staged, televised town meeting which has become so fashionable of late. I am talking about a rough and
tumble meeting held in the town office or the high school gym or the grange hall. Attend one of these sessions and you will
observe an element of true democracy: People with more money do not get to speak longer and louder than people with less
money. What is true at Maine town meetings is unfortunately not true in Washington.

Mr. President, let me address a very disquieting aspect of the debate on the McCain-Feingold bill; namely, the misinformation that
is being spread about what the bill would do. In that connection, I would emphasize that McCain-Feingold does not bar issue
advocacy. I will say that again because the legislation's opponents persist in misstating this point--McCain-Feingold does not, and I
emphasize not, bar issue advocacy.

To explain this aspect of the bill in more detail, and to share with my colleagues an experience that contributed to my becoming a
cosponsor, I need to go back to the 1996 race for Maine's First Congressional District in the House of Representatives. In the
course of that election, the AFL-CIO spent $800,000 to defeat the Republican candidate. They did this by running a steady
barrage of blatantly negative ads.

Now why am I protesting a national union, using money from its general treasury to run a saturation campaign of negative ads that
may well have decided a Maine congressional race? Whatever our objection to such ads, isn't that perfectly legal? The answer is,
or at least is supposed to be, no. Current law prohibits a union, as well as a

corporation, from spending money, other than through a PAC, to influence an election for a Federal office.

That leads to another obvious question--if current law forbids unions from using non-PAC money to run ads to influence a Federal
election, how was the AFL-CIO able to spend $800,000 to defeat a Republican congressional candidate in Maine? Mr. President,
that question takes us to the heart of the problem and to the need for McCain-Feingold.

Unfortunately, some courts have interpreted `expressly advocating' to require that the ad use words such as `vote for' or `vote
against' or `elect' or `defeat.' If the ad avoids those magic words and makes at least a passing reference to an issue, as the
AFL-CIO did in Maine, those courts concluded that it does not expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate, and the
union may run it.

Mr. President, the situation I have described has led to the biggest sham in American politics. Nobody in Maine believed that the
AFL-CIO's negative ads were for any purpose other than the defeat of a candidate. Indeed, at least one newspaper which
endorsed the Democratic candidate blasted the union ads against his opponent. Ads of that nature make an absolute mockery out
of the prohibition against unions and corporatings spending money on Federal elections.

The `express advocacy' provision in McCain-Feingold is designed to do away with this sham. Contrary to what some have said, it
would not affect independent ads financed other than by a union or corporation, except to enhance the reporting requirements,
which everyone in this body purports to favor. It also would not stop unions and corporations from running true issue ads.

Mr. President, I would say to my colleagues that if you believe, as I do, that it continues to represent sound public policy to prohibit
unions from using their vast general funds to dictate the results of Federal elections, particularly in small States like Maine, then
you should support McCain-Feingold.

Mr. President, let me also take a minute to explain the bright line test for express advocacy that has been the subject of
ill-informed criticism during this debate. What that test would provide is that any television ad that clearly identifies a candidate and
that is run within 60 days of an election would be deemed express advocacy.

I view the bright line test as a key provision of McCain-Feingold, and I support its inclusion for two reasons. First, the courts have
said that for constitutional purposes, people must clearly know what they can and cannot do, something which the bright line test
gives them.

Second, and contrary to what some opponents of the bill have said, the bright line test lessens the power of the Federal Election
Commission. By having a clear standard, rather than one which requires a case-by-case analysis, the regulatory agency has less
discretion to determine what the law should be and when actions should be brought. Thus, those who have argued both against the
test and against a greater role for the FEC are in reality arguing with themselves.

Mr. President, this subject is more complex than any of us would like, but behind the complexity is a simple proposition. Current
law has given rise to the widespread practice of running bogus issue ads, and that should not be allowed to continue. Those
Members of this body who support the prohibition against unions and corporations using their vast resources to dictate the results
of Federal elections should vote for McCain-Feingold. Those Members who do not support the prohibition should take the honest
road and work for its repeal. The one unacceptable course is to perpetuate a sham that undermines the integrity of our election
laws.

I look forward to debating this issue in the days ahead.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagel). The Senator from Michigan.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, let me congratulate the Senators from Arizona, Wisconsin, Maine, and other Senators who have
joined so strongly in this effort--an important bipartisan effort--to finally reform the campaign finance laws. The system is terribly
broken. I think most of us know that, and I hope enough of us will get together to really reform it properly.

The time has finally come for Congress to decide whether we are going to fix this system, which is in shambles, and fix the laws
that are now doing so much damage to public confidence in our governmental operations. These laws are now so full of loopholes
that what was intended to be limits on campaign contributions in effect are easily evaded. And if we are going to close those
loopholes we must do it together. This will not happen if Democrats and Republicans do not come together. It is going to require
that kind of a bipartisan effort if we are going to restore public confidence in this campaign finance system.

For the past couple of months, members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee have sat through hours and days of
hearings on the failings of our campaign finance laws. We have asked dozens of witnesses hundreds of questions on the problems
of the 1996 elections.

My constituents are asking me just one question. `Are you going to do something about it?' That is what they want to know. They
have heard our questions. They have heard the answers. They know we have observed the witnesses. They have seen and heard
the debate. And, of course, the majority who have not been able to watch the hearings personally know that the campaign finance
system is a subject of great debate.

Yet the question I get wherever I go is, `Are you going to do something about it?' It is a simple question. It is a direct question. My
answer is, `I hope so, and I am sure going to do everything I can to see that we finally do in fact close the loopholes that have
made a shambles of the laws that are supposed to set limits on how much money could be contributed by individuals to our
campaigns.'

The Senate hearings have focused much of their time on allegations of illegal conduct in the 1996 elections. But the vast majority
of what the public doesn't like is not what is illegal, although they surely don't like that. It is what is legal. Most of it involves the
so-called soft money or unregulated money because both parties have gotten around the law of the 1970's by establishing a whole
separate world of campaign finance. That is the world of so-called soft money--contributions that are not technically covered by
the limits under current law.

In the 1996 election, the Republican Party raised more than $140 million in soft money. The Democrats raised over $120 million.

That is how we get to these enormous sums of money in the last campaign, like the $1.3 million to the Republican National
Committee from just one company in 1996 and a $450,000 contribution from just one couple to the Democratic National
Committee the same year.

Once that soft money loophole was opened and once that loophole was viewed as being legal, the money chase was on, and that
chase has been carried on by both parties. When you couple that with the high cost of television advertising, you have the money
chase involving just about all candidates. The chase for money has led most of us in public office or seeking public office to push
the envelope and to take the law to the limits in order to get the necessary contributions. The money chase pressures political
supporters to cross lines that they should not in order to help their candidates get needed funds. The money chase in political
campaigns is a serious disease and it has become chronic. Most of us have been affected by it. Most of us have spent too much
time fundraising and in the process pushing the fundraising rules to their limits. We know in our hearts that the money chase is a
bipartisan problem and that bipartisan reform is the right way to go.

If the Senate hearings have exposed illegal practices that would otherwise go unpunished, that is useful. If the hearings have also
exposed activities that are currently allowed but which should not be, and if that arouses public opinion so that Congress will end
the money hunt, that would be a major contribution. But if those hearings leave no solid record of legislative reform behind, we will
have done something far worse than missing an opportunity. We will be deepening public pessimism and thickening the public
gloom about this democracy's ability to restore public confidence in the financing of our campaigns and our elections. And that is
why I believe the enactment of major campaign finance reform is so critical. Existing law says that individuals cannot contribute
more than $1,000 now to any candidate or political committee with respect to any election for Federal office. Existing law says
that corporations and unions can't contribute at all to those candidates. And Presidential campaigns are supposed to be financed
with public funds. That is the law on the books today. And yet we have all heard stories of contributions of hundreds of thousands
of dollars from individuals, from corporations and from unions--Roger Tamraz giving $300,000 to Democrats. What happened to
the $1,000 contribution limit?

Here is a Democratic National Committee document relative to DNC trustees. These are major contributors, I think $100,000, and
they're offered various events to attend if they make that large contribution. What are the events? The events are two annual
trustee events with the President in Washington. That is just an offer of access for contributions. But these are not the
contributions that the law is supposed to limit to $1,000 for each candidates. These are $100,000 contributions. These are the soft
money contributions. And these are the connections to access. Both parties do it.

Here is the 1997 RNC Annual Gala, May 13, 1997. Right in the middle of all of this angst, all of this concern about big money and
access, it has this dinner. It is open, nothing hidden about this. Cochairman of the Republican National Committee Annual Gala,
$250,000 fundraising goal.

What do you do? You sell or purchase, sell or purchase, Team 100 memberships or Republican Eagle memberships. That's
$100,000 I believe for Team 100. And what do you get? You get, among other things, luncheon with the Republican Senate and
House committee chairman of your choice. It is the open offer of access in exchange for a contribution, and the contribution is
soft money. It is not the $1,000 contribution to come to a dinner. It is give or raise $250,000 and you get lunch with the committee
chairman of your choice. It is like the Democratic National Committee offer, give $100,000 and you get two receptions with the
President.

Now, one of the ways we are going to stop this abhorrent offer of sale of access in exchange for contributions is if we get to the
soft money loophole it is the most direct way to get to it. Here are some other examples, recent examples of soft money. This is, I
believe, a Team 100 document, a Republican document called hot prospects. Who is the third prospect? Some retired inventor.
And here is what the document says.