July 25, 1973
Page 25981
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for one of those long questions that we have a habit of asking each other on the Senate floor?
Mr. HART. I yield.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleagues this afternoon in discussing a question that goes to the heart of the American political process: campaign reform. For months, our newspapers, our television reports, and our daily conversations have been filled with discussions of the possibilities for corruption in the campaign financing process. We have been confronted again with the painful evidence that money is much too important a factor in politics.
And the conclusion I have reached from this evidence, Mr. President, is that the pernicious influence of money in politics can only be removed by adopting public financing of all campaigns.
Before I expand on my own thoughts, I would like to express my appreciation to the Senator from California, the Senator from Michigan, the Senator from .Illinois, and others who have taken the initiative to bring this question of public financing to the Senate floor this afternoon. Their commitment to this issue is to be commended.
It is appropriate, Mr. President, that our discussion of public financing today takes place at the beginning of Senate consideration of S. 372, a bill that makes important campaign reforms. By amending the communications laws, this bill will make available to major candidates for Federal offices free television time, thereby providing the American people additional opportunities to decide for whom they will vote. By limiting campaign expenditures, the bill would prohibit exorbitant spending beyond what is necessary to bring the candidate's views to the voters. By limiting the amounts of direct campaign contributions, the bill would hopefully go far toward preventing the worst fundraising abuses. And by establishing the Federal Election Commission, the bill would create a mechanism for more efficiently enforcing Federal election laws, including those requiring disclosure of campaign spending and contributions.
During the next few days, the Senate will have the opportunity to pass judgment on the details of S. 372 – and hopefully to improve it.
I have some misgivings about the wisdom of considering this legislation on the Senate floor at this time, for two reasons. First of all, the Ervin committee was charged with the mandate, among others, of recommending measures to reform our campaign practices, including campaign financing. That committee is in the midst of its work. As it proceeds, hopefully the public will focus even more sharply upon the need for thorough campaign reform. But I am not sure that, at this point in the Watergate hearings public concern has yet focused on this issue to the point where it has generated maximum support for the best reforms of which this body is capable. So I have some misgivings about the timing.
Second, I am fearful, in the absence of necessary support for public financing at this moment, that we may content ourselves with lesser reforms which, however commendable, may not be sufficient in the long run. In common with the Senator from Minnesota, I believe that private funding of elections is corruptible beyond the possibility of complete reform.
We must also adopt, in some form, a mechanism which S. 372 does not include: public campaign financing. Thus, I am worried that the Senate may pass a campaign reform bill that is less thorough than it should be.
But with this exercise having begun on the Senate floor, I think we should make the most of it.
So I am gratified that we should be discussing public financing.
To put this discussion in perspective, I would like to refer to my own experience. I ran for Governor of my State in 1954, at a time when there was no Democratic Party in Maine, at a time when there was almost no possibility of raising money for such a venture. I recall that in that year the Maine Democratic Party supported candidates in five major races – the governorship, the U.S. Senate, and three congressional races. We financed all five campaigns for a total of $18,000. That included television. That included newspaper advertising. That included getting out the vote. That included all the elements of a modern campaign.
We elected the Governor. We ran good races for the other offices. We built the base for later victories by our party in the State. And we did it all for $18,000.
The last time I ran for the Senate, in 1970, for my race alone, we spent almost eight times that amount.
Campaign costs have grown and grown and grown. The days are gone when a candidate can present himself in person to most of the voters who will choose between him and his opponent.
The mechanisms which have been developed to bridge this communication gap – to present the candidate to the bulk of the voters who cannot know him personally – all cost money. And money spent for this purpose is not wasted, since it is spent to allow Americans to make a better choice on election day – through leaflets passed out on the streets, through grassroots organization, through the transportation of the candidate to voters in their hometowns, and through the preparation and purchase of advertisements in the media.
The problem, Mr. President, is not just that money is needed. The worst abuses arise in the process of collecting that money.
In my political experience, I cannot recall that I was ever asked to give a quid pro quo for a campaign contribution. I can say that in all honesty. No one ever came to me and said, "Senator, in return for your support on such and such a proposition, we will contribute." And I doubt that contributors approach other public figures asking for a quid pro quo. But the absence of such instances by no means demonstrates that our political financing system is not corrupt.
Big contributions from individuals and political groups to these campaigns lead inevitably to questions of private versus public interest. A surprising number of those contributors are not looking for anything in return for their gifts, but the economic stakes of public policy are high enough to raise clouds of suspicion. We do not have to unearth venal arrangements – the actual quid pro quo – to uncover the real dangers in campaign finance. Those who have stakes in public policy choose to give financial support to candidates whose known philosophies and voting records reflect the contributors’ views.
This financial support can influence the ability of candidates to mount effective campaigns. When the candidate they support is successful, he represents his contributors' views in public policy decisions – not because he was asked to do so, but because he honestly agrees with their views. Thus, the effect is that those with wealth to contribute may have disproportionate representation in the councils of government.
Or, as the Senator from Michigan has pointed out, contributors buy access to a Senator, a Governor, or a Congressman, taking away his time from consideration of other issues with which he should be concerned.
Money is a factor, too, in the decisions of candidates about how they will spend their campaign time: Fund raising activities distract the candidate from his most important goal of presenting his views to the public.
And regardless of whether a contributor has any influence at all the public is presented with the appearance of corruptibility. Thankfully, we ultimately enacted campaign disclosure laws. One result has been, however, to intensify the perception of the public that people with money are buying us. The disclosure laws have heightened public cynicism.
To remove the influence of money, and the appearance of corruption, it is not enough merely to restrict the amount which individuals or groups can give directly to candidates to $5,000 for each congressional primary and general election or to $15,000 for each Presidential primary and general election, as S. 372 does; or even to some lower figures.
For candidates would still need campaign funds to bring their case before the public. Imposing contribution limits at levels which would permit adequate campaign financing would still preserve the unfair influence of contributing individuals and groups upon public policy. Only public campaign financing can have the result of creating public confidence in the public that our system is responsive to them, that it is honest, and that those elected to public office are men of integrity.
The fact is that the reforms in S. 372 do not have that result, as commendable as that bill or amendments to it may be.
Congress has already made a step toward public financing in creating the dollar check-off, which gives Presidential candidates, once they have won the nomination of their party, the option of accepting public funds or relying on private contributions. But the dollar check-off has not yet proved to be a success, and we have only hopes that it will help reform campaign financing in the next Presidential election. More comprehensive – and effective – public financing measures are needed.
Mr. President, I hope that our forthcoming consideration of S. 372 will produce legislation that will contribute to campaign reform. But I also hope that Congress will not put aside the question of campaign reform until it has enacted a workable system of public financing to truly remove the influence of money from politics.
So I commend the Senator from California and the Senator from Michigan for indulging me in this colloquy on public financing. I join them in the expectation that it will lead to serious consideration in committee of public financing proposals – including the thoughtful ones already proposed – from which we can develop sound, thorough, public financing legislation.
Mr. President, in conclusion, let me say to the distinguished Senator from Michigan that he may have lost the thread of my questioning, but perhaps not the development of my argument. I thank the Senator for his patience.
Mr. HART. Mr. President, all of us are grateful for the comments made by the Senator from Maine, who speaks from a very deep experience. I doubt whether anyone in Maine views any vote he casts as a reaction or a response to any contribution he ever received. I doubt that could be said of many of us. I am sure that there are people in Michigan, generally those who think that every one of my votes is dead wrong, who believe that they are in response to the money I have been given. Each of us likes to think that is not true, but if so much as only one person in Michigan believes that of me, the strength of our society is weakened.
As the Senator says, it is the appearance which we must overcome, and public financing will move us in that direction.