October 8, 1975
Page 32320
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I support the Federal Election Commission's revised regulation governing constituent communications accounts maintained by officeholders.
Contributions made for the purpose of enabling a Federal officeholder to communicate his views to his constituents will clearly be of some benefit to an incumbent's candidacy during a period immediately prior to an election. The same is true of contributions to non-incumbents who maintain similar accounts for the purpose of communicating his or her views.
The revised regulations proposed by the FEC would have expenditures made from such contributions applied against the campaign spending limits of incumbent candidates during the last 2 years of a Senator's term of office and during the last year of a House Member's term. The same could apply to non-incumbents seeking election to the Senate or House.
It is obviously difficult to define with any precision the period of time before an election that such expenditures would benefit a candidate, but I believe the proposed regulation in its revised form establishes a reasonable standard.
Regardless of the nature or purpose of constituent communications — and the proposed regulation does not address this issue — it is consistent with the language of the Federal Election Campaign Act that expenditures made for this purpose from contributions should be applied against the campaign expenditure limits set forth under the statute at some point prior to an election.
Nevertheless, I wish to make it clear that since passage of the act last year, I have had increasing reservations about the constitutionality and wisdom of fixing limits on the amount of money which any candidate for Federal office can expend on his campaign.
The right to communicate one's views to the voters, and the right of voters to make a choice among candidates based upon an informed judgment of what a candidate stands for, is basic to our democratic process. As a practical matter, exercising this right today requires access to expensive commercial communications media. Spending limits which restrict that access may, in my opinion, be inconsistent with the first amendment freedoms embodied in the Constitution.
This issue is presently before the courts and, as the Supreme Court indicated Monday, will be decided in the next few months.
Today, the only issue before the Senate is whether, under the language of the present statute, expenditures made from contributed funds by persons seeking election to Federal office should be applied against the statutory campaign spending limits during a reasonable period prior to an election.
On that narrow issue, I believe the regulation proposed by the Federal Election Commission should become effective.