Date: 1990-08-03
Speaker: VANDER JAGT (republican)
Chamber: H

Mr. Chairman. I personally do not call the substitute the Republican substitute. because there are such good things in here for real campaign reform that I would not want to insult my good and dear friends on the other side of the aisle by suggesting that they are the exclusive property of the Republican Party. Besides campaign reform should not be a contest of Democrats versus Republicans. Fundamentally. it is a contest of powerful special interests against the power of the people whom all of us were elected to represent. and I do not mean to be inflammatory. but I think that it is essential that we set in context how campaign reform comes to us tonight. The facts are that this Congress began with the resignation of a Speaker who had taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from corrupt S&Ls PACs and their personnel and carried the legislative water of those corrupt S&Ls into this House. The whip resigned. and it turned out that he had been running an S&L yacht up and down the Potomac raising campaign funds illegally. it turned out to be. and as he left us. he protested. "I am not a corrupt person. but this is a corrupting system." And then with a new Speaker. we all hoped that there would be bipartisan reform of this congressional Watergate. And there at that time was widespread agreement on some essential elements to real campaign reform. Complex and controversial dispute as to how to do it. But pretty widespread agreement on some essential elements. First. we reduce the role of special interest PAC money in campaigns. Second. we enhance the role of the individual voter in the district. Third. a balancing of the playing field between incumbent and challenger. Last night. in the dead of the night. emerges for the first time the Democratic package. And to label that package "reform" is a joke. and to suggest that it addresses those three fundamental issues is an Insult to intelligence. It does not decrease. it increases the role of special interest PAC money. It raises to $122 million in the next election the PAC money that can come in. when it was only $86 million in the last election. This is an increase of almost 50 percent. The role of the individual voter is not enhanced. it is cut in half. and the role of the political parties are emasculated. It is obvious that the more important you make the individual in the party. the less importance the special interest becomes. And while I am on the role of rich people. poor people. and fat cats. little people. in the last election for which there is an indepth analysis. the NRCC raised over 90 percent of its money in contributions of less than $100. the DCCC raised over 70 percent of its money in contributions in excess of $500. And that package does not even acknowledge. let alone address. the imbalance between incumbent and challenger. Fifteen years ago the chairman of the DCCC and the Committee on House Administration announced that by raising franking and perks and in other ways. he would establish a system to preserve and protect incumbents in perpetuity. And his dream has Just about come true. as we have a 98.7percent incumbent reelection rate. It has been demonstrated earlier today that there are the votes over there to push a closed gag rule not down the mouth of Republicans. but down the mouth of the American people. on this important subject. I suppose you still have the votes to do what you want. but this substitute is your only chance in the House. in the committee. to vote against public financing. And yes. It is winnowed down. There are some motherhood issues there. But it is winnowed down. It has been shrunk down to Just two fundamental issues. because we wanted it simple as to where you stood. for or against them. The first one. we do reduce the role of PAC money by reducing the limit from $5.000 to $1.000. instead of increasing the role by 50 percent. Second. we do enhance the role of the individual voter by saying that 50 percent of the funds should come from his supporters in the district. Vote no on this. and you are saying that a special interest Washingtonbased PAC ought to be able to give 10 times as much as an individual in the district where you are running. Vote no on this and you are saying it is perfectly OK to spend 90 percent of your time in Beverly Hills and the Upper East Side of Manhattan. rather than being required to spend at least 50 percent of your effort in your district with the people you are going to serve. Vote no on this and you are saying we dont want to change what your whip called a corrupting system one iota. and we want to preserve this as a House of the incumbent. by the incumbent. and for the incumbent. that Wayne Hayes envisioned. rather than with this substitute moving it just a little bit toward a House of the people.. by the people. and for the people. that our Founding Fathers hoped it would always remain.