[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 11 (Wednesday, January 26, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H482-H483]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ELIMINATING TAXPAYER FINANCING OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 54 and rule
XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House
on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 359.
{time} 1134
In the Committee of the Whole
Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the
Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill
(H.R. 359) to reduce Federal spending and the deficit by terminating
taxpayer financing of presidential election campaigns and party
conventions, with Mr. LaTourette in the chair.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The CHAIR. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered read the
first time.
General debate shall not exceed 1 hour equally divided and controlled
by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and
Means and the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on
House Administration.
The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Roskam), the gentleman from
Washington (Mr. McDermott), the gentleman from California (Mr. Daniel
E. Lungren), and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Brady) each will
control 15 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Roskam).
Mr. ROSKAM. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, last night, the President in this very Chamber issued
us an invitation. In that invitation, there were several opportunities,
but two of them I would like to highlight. One is, he said this: He
said he is willing to eliminate whatever we can honestly afford to do
without. I take the President at face value that he's interested in
doing that.
The thing that the President issued was an invitation where he said
this: He said, in fact, the best thing we could do on taxes for all
Americans is to simplify the Tax Code.
Well, the law of governing Presidential election campaign funds in
the Presidential Primary Matching Payment Account is located in the
Internal Revenue Code, which really inherently makes no sense.
And I think during the course of this debate, Mr. Chairman, we're
going to lay out the argument as to why the President's first point can
be greeted and agreed to, that first goal that this is simply something
that we can do without.
Let me make a couple of quick points. I think it's important to
recognize the irony of the Statement of Administration Policy that was
published on January 25, and I'm reading in the third paragraph, he
says--the administration, in criticism of this effort, says, ``Its
effect would be to expand the power of corporations and special
interests in the Nation's elections to force many candidates into an
endless cycle of fundraising at the expense of engagement with voters
on the issues.''
How can that be, Mr. Chairman? President Obama, when he was a
candidate in 2000 for the United States Presidency, declined to
participate in this fund, both in his primary and in his general
election. And if President Obama has been able to rise above that, I
think other Americans can rise above that.
Also, I would just like to bring your attention to that same
argument, and that is, a ``Dear colleague'' that was sent criticizing
this bill said basically the same thing: By creating a viable
alternative to private fundraising, the public financing system was
designed to level the electoral playing field and ensure that
candidates remain accountable to voters, not special interests.
So does that mean, implicitly, Mr. Chairman, that candidates who
didn't participate in the program are somehow not accountable to
voters? I think President Obama would say he's really accountable to
voters.
I reserve the balance of my time.
{time} 1140
Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen).
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank my colleague.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this measure, which,
along with the Supreme Court's radical decision in Citizens United,
takes our Nation's campaign finance system in precisely the wrong
direction: less transparency and less information for the voters.
Americans from across the political spectrum--Democrats, Republicans,
Independents--want less special interest money in politics, not more.
They want clean, transparent, and competitive elections; and campaigns
where candidates--those of us in this room and Presidential
candidates--rise and fall based on the quality of their ideas, the
strength of their arguments, and their ability to attract support from
the voters that they seek to represent.
What they don't want are campaigns decided by how much secret money
flows into an election from secret outside groups. And they will no
longer tolerate, I believe, those politicians turning around and saying
to those citizens: You have no right to know who is paying for what in
our political campaigns; you have no right to know who is paying for
those TV advertisements you're watching.
Let's remember what we are talking about here. The current
Presidential financing system that this bill would eliminate arose from
public outrage in the post-Watergate period. Rather than Presidential
candidates trafficking in secret slush funds, our Nation decided that
our democracy would be better served by a system of public disclosure,
contribution limits, and emphasis on smaller-dollar contributions
matched by the Presidential financing fund.
The system is voluntary, one line on our Tax Code, not complicated;
and while not perfect, for most of its 36 years in existence, it has
served this Nation well. Candidates from across the political spectrum,
from Ronald Reagan to Jesse Jackson, have voluntarily participated in
the Presidential financing system.
As my colleague on the other side of the aisle mentioned there is no
doubt
[[Page H483]]
that the current law needs to be modernized; it needs to be fixed. We
saw that in the last Presidential election. But rather than throw out
something that has served the country and the electorate well for 36
years, let's fix it. And the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price)
and I and others have introduced legislation to do exactly that.
So rather than shielding an avalanche of unlimited special interest
money from public view, we should shine a light on it. We should do it
by modernizing the Presidential system, and we should also pass the
DISCLOSE Act, which we could have brought up and voted on except for
the previous question was just defeated.
Mr. Chairman, at the end of the day, our Nation's democracy doesn't
belong to Presidents or Members of Congress; it belongs to the voters
who send us here, and we have a solemn responsibility to safeguard it
on their behalf and protect it for future generations from the lessons
in corruption in history. Let's mend it. Let's fix it. Let's not throw
it out.
The CHAIR. The Committee will rise informally.
The Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Smith of Nebraska) assumed the chair.
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