Campaign Fundraising and Spending Is Out of Control

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, campaign fundraising and spending is way out of control. We need a constitutional amendment to fix it. The American people have to help this Congress, because it will not do it by itself.

Many years ago, Will Rogers, whose statue sits just outside the doors to this Chamber, joked, ``We have the best Congress money can buy.'' Unfortunately, that joke has not grown old.

After witnessing this past election cycle, the campaign money expended to elect this Congress, both Chambers, is way out of bounds. The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that a record-breaking $4 billion was spent in the 2010 midterm elections.

Now, $4 billion equals 4,000 millions. So 4,000 millions was spent to elect the current sitting Congress. The number of Members being elected didn't change. The amount of money being raised changed. It skyrocketed. The opportunity for people of ordinary means with great talent to gain election to office in our country is disappearing election after election. It's very hard for talented people of ordinary means to raise 4,000 millions.

To put that number in perspective, 4 billion, or 4,000 millions, divides up to about $8.5 million spent on each of the 435 seats in this Chamber and those who are up for election in the other; $8,500,000 having to be raised every 2 years. Yes, an average of $8.5 million per Member was expended in each of the races. That is 50 times more than the amount of money the job pays. We would be better off to say to the American people, ``We're going to get rid of all of this campaign donation stuff and just beg our salaries from the public.'' It would be a lot cheaper, and we wouldn't have to spend it on all those ridiculous ads. Imagine the outrageous amount of fundraising that sits on the head of every single Member in this Chamber.

This past congressional election, in fact, was more expensive than even the last Presidential cycle in which $2 billion was spent. And they said that that was the most expensive race in U.S. history, and Wall Street financiers were the major contributor in that Presidential race.

How is it that as our country is fighting to recover from near economic collapse and the average American is struggling to make ends meet, with national unemployment still at 9.4 percent, somehow billions and billions of dollars were able to be thrown by big interests to affect the election? It is because, unlike the average American, big financial players, big business, multinational corporations, all kinds of well-funded ideological groups have deep pockets, and they do try to buy access and influence what happens. And this situation makes it much more difficult for ordinary Americans to have their voices heard here.

The American people know this. They are frustrated. These big interests should not outweigh the American people's voice nor vote. The American people should have the primary access and influence here, not deep-pocketed interests. Truly the American campaign finance system is out of control. We all know it, and we all know it needs to be fixed, and that ought to be a priority of this new Congress.

Real campaign finance reform thus far has been unattainable because neither party wants to stop the money chase because they both think that next time out they might be the ones to really grab all those gold rings. Too much of that money is playing insider politics, and that is why the American people feel that they are being forced to the sidelines rather than the front lines in our elections. They feel like they are pushing a big boulder up the hill, and every time they cast their vote, that somehow that boulder comes right back down on them.

Reform is being thwarted again and again by outside interest groups and deep-pocket interests. The Congress is unwilling and seemingly unable to act on its own, along with Supreme Court rulings like Citizens United v. FEC and Buckley v. Valeo.

Mr. Speaker, I have introduced H.R. 8, a new constitutional amendment that I put in every session to bring this system under control. There could be no more important priority to our country than giving our politics back to the American people again.

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