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SMITH / STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS**                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            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Statement of 

**Commissioner Bradley A. Smith
**June 4, 2002
**Public Hearing 
**On
**Prohibited and Excessive Contributions:
**Non-Federal Funds or Soft Money
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           This is one of the most important rulemakings ever to come before the Commission.  BCRA’s requirement that these first, highlycomplicated regulations be completed within 90 days has placed a tremendous burden on ourstaff, and more importantly has forced the Commission to require public comments to besubmitted in a very short time period.  I amfairly certain that this necessarily brief comment period has had the effect of preventingmany members of the public from commenting on the regulations, and has forced others toprepare their comments in a greater hurry than is desirable for such a complex,far-reaching piece of legislation.  Nevertheless,I am pleased that we have received many thoughtful and detailed comments from the public,and I am pleased that many of those commenters have rearranged their schedules to appearbefore us today and tomorrow.

Last week four members ofcongress - Senators McCain and Feingold, and Representatives Shays and Meehan - issued apress release touting their comments on these draft regulations, and so I think itappropriate to comment briefly on that release.  Thelawmakers write that they “believe the Commission should give great weight to ourviews in order to implement the law properly.”  Now,I’ve been through a few of these hearings as a Commissioner, and through severalcongressional hearings as a witness, and I have yet to encounter a witness – myselfincluded - who did not think that his or her views should be “given greatweight.”  I assure the lawmakers that Ihave read their comments and that I will give them great weight, as I do all thoughtfulcomments we receive.   

However, I do not agree with SenatorsMcCain and Feingold, and Representatives Shays and Meehan, when they write that,“Only if the Commission adopts the recommendations we make in these comments will thefinal regulations reflect the will of the people of this country.” Indeed, if we wereto take this assertion at face value, there would be little reason either to have thishearing, or even to solicit or accept other comments other than theirs, for anyalternative views would have to be ignored.  ButI disagree with the apparent assumption that other commenters cannot shed light on“the will of the people,” or, more importantly, the proper interpretation of thestatute actually passed.  

I reject the belief that the views of theNAACP are to be discounted – indeed ignored – simply because they are not inaccord with those of the four lawmakers.  Ireject the implication that the views of the Alliance for Justice and The LatinoCoalition; of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees and theAFL-CIO, and of state and national political parties representing millions of members areto be ignored every time that they raise concerns about these proposed rules that are verydifferent from those raised by these four men.  Indeed,I am impressed by the broad consensus among these diverse commenters, and I assure all thecommenters, whether they are here in person today or not, that I will consider yourcomments carefully, and will not ignore them merely because they may offer a differentpoint of view or a different interpretation than that offered by four members of congress.

The lawmakers also statethat their views “best represent Congressional intent on the key provisions at issuein these regulations.”  But 58 othersenators, and over 230 House members, voted for the bill. While the views and floor statements of the four lead sponsors do merit someparticular consideration, the vast majority of issues addressed in these draft regulationswere never addressed during floor debate.  Thisincludes even those that they have identified as “key” issues in theirtestimony.  For example, there was no floordebate on the definition of “agent.”  Thereisn’t anything in the Congressional Record suggesting that the legislation wasintended to change the definition of office building from that used in theCommission’s past advisory opinions.  Therewas no debate over what it means for a national committee to “indirectly establish,finance, maintain, or control” an “entity.” Thus I cannot conclude that these post-hoc comments of four men are definitive ofcongressional intent.

Nor is "congressionalintent" such an easy animal to corral.  Forexample, we are told repeatedly that the intent of the bill was to limit so-called softmoney to the maximum extent possible.  Yet weare told by other commenters that adopting some of the formulations favored by thesponsors will hurt voter registration efforts in minority communities, while other lawfulinterpretations would not.  I do not believethat a majority of Congress intended to cut back voter registration in minoritycommunities, and I do not believe that this would be a good policy result.  So congressional intent is not always so clear. 

With that in mind, itshould also be noted that in signing the legislation, President Bush raised concerns aboutthe constitutionality of portions of the legislation. While he did not specify which portions he was referring to, it is clearlyincumbent on us to take the views of the President into consideration in drafting theseregulations.  Thus it is imperative that weattempt to draft these regulations in such a way as to assure their constitutionality.  BCRA will not accomplish any of thePresident’s or the congress’s objectives if the courts refuse to enforce it onconstitutional grounds.  And, of course, ourown oaths of office require no less.

Finally, I note that thelawmakers also suggest that if we do not follow some of their suggestions, it will“signal a lack of will on the part of the Commission to interpret and enforce theAct.”  However, on many of these issuesother commenters, from across the political spectrum, are unanimous in suggesting that theregulations are too broad and strict, basing their arguments on the Constitution, onlegislative intent, on long-standing rules of statutory construction, and on reasons ofsound policy.  And I want to point out that insome areas, the lawmakers themselves indicate that the draft regulations are overlyrestrictive as, for example, with proposed Section 300.52, pertaining to solicitations byofficeholders on behalf of non-profits. 

I hope that the fact thatthe sponsors found our draft regulations at times overly restrictive will put to rest anynotion that the FEC “lacks the will” to enforce the law.  These hearings are not, as some have claimed,about whether or not we will have “strict” enforcement or “loose”enforcement.  They are about whether or not wewill have proper, constitutional, enforcement based on the law Congress has passed and thePresident has signed.  To that end I will domy best, and I thank all of the commenters for their assistance in that crucial task.************ |