For the People Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOLDEN. Madam Chair, before I talk about my amendment, I would first like to thank Congressman Sarbanes for his work on this bill.

H.R. 1 is a comprehensive, good government bill that goes a long way in wresting power away from elites who abuse our political system for narrow self-interests. This legislation would return power where it belongs: in the hands of working people.

As long as corporations and mega-donors finance campaigns, well- connected insiders will continue to call the shots.

Mainers have seen firsthand what can happen when the power is returned to the people. In 1996, our State's voters passed a referendum establishing the Maine Clean Elections Act.

By collecting small donations from people in their communities, Maine candidates refuse the donations of lobbyists and the well-heeled, and concentrate instead on face-to-face conversations with their neighbors. This empowers a community to choose a representative in a battle of ideas instead of a battle of bank accounts.

Maine's clean election reforms have been supported and used by candidates of all parties in my State. Republican, Democratic, Green Party, and independent candidates have used our clean election system.

In fact, in 2018, a Republican candidate for Governor used the system because he understood that it was going to free him up to spend his time going door to door and talking to the very people who he wanted to represent as Governor of the State of Maine.

Today, we have the opportunity to follow Maine's lead and bring needed reform to the rest of the country.

H.R. 1 allows candidates to refuse donations from mega-donors by implementing a matching system for small-dollar donations from everyday people.

As we have seen in Maine, candidates who use this system are good stewards of the funds they receive. But as with any system, there is potential for bad actors, and it is important that they be held accountable.

My amendment to H.R. 1 ensures that any bad actors are cut off from the matching system and sets high standards for participation. The legislation bars a candidate from using matching funds if the FEC assesses three or more civil penalties against a candidate for violating election laws.

More importantly, if a candidate willfully, knowingly violates the law, my amendment permanently bars them from the program.

Finally, my provision reaffirms that egregious violations of campaign finance laws should result in imprisonment of up to 1 to 5 years.

With H.R. 1 and my amendment, we are creating an accountable election system.

The funds for the matching program, as was just discussed, come from bad corporate actors. These are fines, penalties, and settlements from corporate malfeasance, tax crimes, and other breaches of the public trust. That money can be used to ensure that everyday people who don't have a network of deep money around them, just everyday, working people, will be given the opportunity to compete in a campaign, to go out and represent their people, to go out and spend their time talking to them face-to-face instead of spending their time dialing for dollars and talking to just the very wealthy.

It is time that the people take the power back. By passing my amendment and H.R. 1, we will take that first step. Americans aren't going to let our democracy be taken out from under us any longer.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment and ``yes'' on final passage.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

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Mr. GOLDEN. Madam Chair, I think I am going to go home this weekend to my district feeling comfortable that I understand what my constituents want.

As I said earlier, in 1996, Maine voters actually voted for a public funding program in the State of Maine. They liked the program so much that they actually upped the ante in 2015 through another voter referendum where Maine voters actually voted that they wanted to continue this program and they wanted to increase the funding to keep regular people competitive against the dark money that was flown into elections in the State of Maine.

In the State of Maine, we actually allow convicted felons to vote. They do it from prison. Because while we believe in holding people accountable for their crimes, we don't feel the need, in Maine, to take their voice away from them.

So I am going to go home knowing that I understand my district.

I also just want to take a moment--you know, some of the comments from the Republican leader, whom I respect very much, but you want to talk about spewing hate. H.R. 1 is a piece of legislation that Democrats have put forward to show that one of their top priorities is to protect our democracy, and I know a little something about it.

I fought in two wars for this country, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and I reject this socialist rhetoric. I am an American. Democrats are Americans. Republicans are Americans. We need to put this hateful speech behind us and talk about how we can work together.

I understand that there is some frustration being expressed by other side about amendments and whether or not Republicans are involved in this process. Look, I will wrap it up, but let me just say: I have voted for a number of Republican amendments in the last couple of weeks, so I would encourage them to support this amendment.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Chair, I thank Mr. Golden for his service to our country. Our country thanks the gentleman, and everyone in this institution thanks him for that service.

This bill, however, is a very bad idea. Public funding of elections is a very bad idea.

At the last second before we vote on H.R. 1, Democrats have decided they are afraid of the CBO score for their massively expensive bill. We haven't even debated it and want to hide it from consideration in this Chamber.

So they created this gimmick called the freedom from influence fund, which is proposed to add an additional 2.75 percent penalty against law-breaking or malfeasant corporations and officials at corporations. They claimed it would generate enough funds to pay the massive cost of funding political campaigns for Members of Congress.

Late last night, we got that CBO report, and the score for H.R. 1 that projects the impact of this new shell game called the freedom from influence fund and its proposed funding source, corporate fines--again, voting for this bill will allow corporate money to, for the first time, lawfully flow into the campaigns of each and every one of us in this institution.

The CBO score tells a very different story from what Democrats want you to believe. According to the CBO, this new fund will result in a reduction of income and payroll taxes, meaning corporations will have less money to spend on their payrolls, which equates to less jobs.

To quote the CBO report:

The assessment on civil monetary penalties and settlements would reduce the base for income and payroll taxes. Consequently, the revenues from the assessments will be partially offset by lower income and payroll taxes.

Put another way, H.R. 1 takes American jobs away in order to fund the campaign coffers of Members of Congress.

Furthermore, the CBO notes that, as a result of this funding source, less money will be available for other government programs that we want to prioritize in this institution.

I quote again from the CBO report:

CBO and JCT expect the increased assessment of criminal and civil penalties would reduce the amount of penalties and settlements collected under current law.

The CBO report confirms what Republicans have been saying all along: H.R. 1 is a shell game that will, in the end, hurt taxpayers because this proposal to publicly fund campaigns will be funded by the taxpayers.

However, you are going to likely hear Democrats say, instead, that this fund will run at a surplus over the first few years of its existence, which is true because they designed the bill to not make any expenditures for the first 6 years of this program.

But pay very close attention. What the Democrats won't tell you is that, once the fund starts making its expenditures, the fund will be nearly broke in 5 years, and that is assuming that the cost of running campaigns will stay static today and not exponentially increase like it has.

Again, this Democratic funding gimmick was concocted just to result in a more desirable CBO score. I don't see that as a result.

The new fund will collect money for 6 years with no expenditures, resulting in the accumulation of a large balance. Then, once the money starts flowing to every Member of Congress in this institution, it is going to run out in 5 years.

Democrats should be ashamed for making this bill H.R. 1.

When Republicans took over this institution, after 50 years in the minority, our H.R. 1 was the Congressional Accountability Act, to make Congress work better.

H.R. 1 in the last Congress, put more money in the pockets of middle- class taxpayers, families back home.

This H.R. 1 will do nothing but put taxpayer dollars in the campaign funds of every Member of Congress, and that is not acceptable to me, and that is why we should have a ``no'' vote on H.R. 1.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

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