Campaign Expenditure Transparency Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2630, the Campaign Expenditure Transparency Act. This is legislation that I introduced to my colleague, Representative Castle, in early June in order to ensure that Federal officer holders and candidates are not personally enriched from expenditure of campaign funds. I want to thank Mr. Castle, the majority leader, the chairman of this Committee on House Administration for working to bring this bill to the floor today.
Numerous Members of Congress employ their spouses and family members for campaign activity, and the vast majority of them do this work appropriately and ethically. Unfortunately, others have not, and this practice has shown the potential to foster corruption and invite abuse. I joined my colleague, Mr. Castle, in introducing this legislation because I believe it will help preserve the integrity of the institution and end the perception that office holders and candidates can benefit themselves financially from their campaigns or service.
The Campaign Expenditure Transparency Act would end the practice where Federal office holders and candidates employ their spouses in their campaigns and financially benefit from contributions to the campaign. The bill also requires a separate disclosure to the FEC of all of the payments, including direct and indirect compensation which are made to immediate family members.
Specifically, H.R. 2630, as amended, would prohibit any Federal office holder or candidate from directly or indirectly compensating his or her spouse from any political committee he or she controls for services to the committee. This language was used to ensure that someone could not get around this prohibition by acting as a subcontractor or vendor to another individual or company receiving payments from the political committee.
Additionally, this would ensure that the legislation does not prevent a spouse from being employed by a company that provides a service to a political committee, unless the spouse's compensation is increased as a result of that business. For example, a spouse could be employed by a phone company that the campaign contracts with so long as the spouse's compensation is not increased based on that contract.
Similarly, a spouse that is a shareholder of a publicly traded company could receive dividends from that company notwithstanding the fact that a committee purchased services from that company.
The legislation also does not prohibit committees from paying for legitimate travel and campaign expenses that are incurred by a spouse, as long as the FEC has determined the expenses to be appropriate campaign expenditures. The bill recognizes that spouses are often properly involved in campaign activity and that committee funds can be used to reimburse appropriate expenses.
The Campaign Expenditure Transparency Act, as amended, stipulates that the penalty for violation of the provisions of the bill, if the candidate knew of the violation, would be imposed on the candidate and not on the committee. The amended version of the bill also clarifies the penalty is not a reimbursable expense by the committee.
The legislation has the strong support of a number of reform-oriented organizations, including Democracy 21, the Campaign Legal Center, League of Women Voters, Common Cause, Public Citizen, and U.S. PIRG.
I would also like to stress that many of our colleagues again have employed their spouses or immediate family members in their campaigns and have done so lawfully and ethically. Our family members are frequently our most trusted advisers and are willing to put in long hours for little compensation. However, we are aware of cases in which this practice has been abused, and it is for this reason that this legislation is regrettably necessary. Given the low public confidence in all public institutions at this point, this legislation is one important way to begin restoring the public's faith that elected officials are working in the public's interest and not in their own. I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation.
I want to take just a minute to address some of the comments that my friend from Texas has made.
First, of course, there is nothing in this legislation that would break up a good team. There is nothing in this legislation that prohibits spouses from working. And where, like most families these days, both members of the household need to work to support that family, there is nothing in this bill that would stop it.
It does provide that a spouse that has CPA skills or other skills employ those skills on someone else's behalf for compensation. They are more than welcome to provide those skills, as many of our spouses do, I think almost all of our spouses do, on a volunteer basis to help our campaigns. But the appearance of propriety, and in some cases the actual impropriety, of having spouses working on commissions where a percentage of everything the campaign raises effectively goes into the household of the office holder is one of the driving forces behind this legislation.
I should mention that in my colleague's own home State of Texas, the State legislature and the Governor have passed and signed legislation prohibiting this practice in Texas. So if you were running for the State legislature in Texas or you were an office holder in the State legislature in Texas, you would not be able to employ your spouse and pay your spouse out of campaign funds. That is a misdemeanor in Texas. So there are States that are really leading the way in terms of making sure that we avoid any appearance of impropriety. And I think that Congress, given the problems have been manifest in this institution as well, needs to follow the example of some of those forward-thinking States.
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Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman for his comments, but it is hard to avoid the irony of my colleague's objection that the bill is going too fast. For weeks now, we have been hearing the objection that the ethics reform measures in the House have been moving too slow; that we passed the lobbying reform bill in the House, that it hasn't gone through the Senate, we haven't gone through the conference committee. We are not progressing with the process of trying to clean up the institution.
It's going too slow. Well, today we're hearing the problem with this bill is it's going too fast. It seems like we can't get the speed exactly quite right. It's either too slow or too fast.
The reason that we're here today and moving quickly on this bill is that the bill was the subject of an amendment by my colleague in a separate bill introduced by a Republican Member, an amendment introduced by myself, a Democratic member on the Rules Committee. The bill itself was introduced by Members on both sides of the aisle. The subject matter is very straightforward. Should we pay spouses out of campaign funds, or should we not pay spouses out of campaign funds? Should we disclose whether family members are getting paid, or should we not disclose whether family members are getting paid out of campaign funds?
There is, I think, a fairly broad, almost unanimous agreement on the merits of the bill. Even my friend that just stood up to object to the bill says he agrees with the substance and the intent of the legislation. So it's a consensus work product, a bipartisan work product, and given the criticism that we haven't moved fast enough, we're trying to move fast. This is an effort to move fast, but also to move thoughtfully, and that's why we're here today.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I just want to address very quickly the comments by my friend, and then reserve the balance of our time. I don't have any remaining speakers.
I think that, if anything, there's a more compelling case here in Congress than there is in my friend's home State of Texas to enact a prohibition like the one contemplated in this bill. Texas may be in session only 180 days of the year. My guess is that the Texas members of the legislature are paid probably substantially less than we're paid in Congress, and the financial burden on those members of the legislature is probably, therefore, greater than the financial burden that we face. Whether they have to have a full-time campaign office or not probably depends on what kind of a district they're running in. If it's a very competitive district, then they probably pretty much have to be in campaign mode all the time. So if Texas can do it, where their members are paid less, where the financial pressures are probably greater, we should be able to do it here.
It's not often, I have to say, that I point to Texas as the example to follow, but when Texas gets it right, I'm more than happy to acknowledge it.
There is also, I think, a certain irony with my friend's argument that the Democratic majority promised an open government, and then here we're offering this bill, and we're moving quickly on this bill, and his stating opposition to a bill that is designed to bring transparency to the process.
I don't know how you can argue in favor of open government and be opposed to a bill that offers greater transparency. Part of the reason the present system is inadequate is people do pay family members, but there's no way for the public to know that they're family members because they may not have the same last name, or they may pay a business that is controlled by the family member. And so there's no transparency, and the public doesn't know that that money is really going to the family; that when the candidate is out there, or the officeholder, asking for contributions for their campaign, that a certain percentage, whether it's explicitly on a commission, or it's just by virtue of a paycheck, that a certain part of that money is going into either the candidate's own pocket or the officeholder's own pocket because it's going to their spouse, or it's going to their son-in-law who doesn't bear the same name, and people aren't aware that it's going to the candidate's son-in-law and daughter.
So this does bring about greater transparency. I think it's needed.
There are Members that have been very open also. And this is why we've gone to a prohibition vis-a-vis spouses. There are Members who have been very open about the fact that they pay their spouse on a commission for every dollar they bring into the campaign, and they make the same argument my friend makes, which is it's very out in the open. Everybody knows about it. People that contribute to my campaign know that a certain percentage of that is going to go to my spouse, and they make the same argument; it must be fine since people are aware of it.
But part of the problem is that people making the contributions are aware of it, and so they know that by giving an officeholder a contribution, they're also giving that officeholder a personal contribution through their spouse. And maybe that interest that wants to curry favor with that Member thinks, what better way than giving a contribution where I know actually a part of that's going to go directly into the pocket of the officeholder.
So that's part of the reason why we're here. And I urge my colleagues to support the bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I'll close very briefly.
I appreciate the points that my colleague is making. There is a need for the transparency, even in the case of a spouse, particularly a spouse that may not carry the same last name as the officeholder.
But more particularly, if a spouse even has the same name, or a son with the same name sets up a company, the company doesn't bear the officeholder's name, there's no way for the public to know that that money is actually going to the family.
But more than that, you know, I think sometimes we get in the habit of thinking about how does this affect us; how does this affect our family; does this seem right to us, rather than how does the rest of the country view this. What does the rest of the country think about this? What does someone out in California or Texas or any of our 50 States think about this?
And I don't think they view it the same way we're discussing here today. I think they look at this and they say, gosh, when I send a contribution to this Presidential candidate or this Senate candidate or this congressional candidate, I expect that to go to the campaign. I don't expect that to go to their family. That's not right. And I don't think they would be moved by saying, well, you know, those officeholders, they often have a difficult financial situation themselves, and certainly many do. But I think that the public has the right to expect that when they support a campaign, when they support a candidate, that the funds go to the campaign, they don't go the candidate or their family. Or if they're going to go to the family, outside of the spouse, that there's very broad disclosure so that the public can make an informed decision about how they want to use their resources.
That's the purpose of the bill. I urge my colleagues to support it.
Again, I want to thank my colleagues Mr. Castle and Mr. Platts on the other side of the aisle. I want to thank our chairman and our majority leader and our Rules Committee Chair for their support, as well as the Speaker.
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