Mr. PLATTS. Mr. Speaker, as a freshman Member of this Chamber, and as one who has supported campaign finance reform and fought for campaign finance reform for close to 10 years, I need to express my great disappointment in the vote that occurred earlier today in which we defeated the rule on campaign finance reform legislation and, thus, have disallowed that legislation from coming forward.
Before I share exactly how I voted, though, I think it is important to share some of my history on this issue and how I live campaign finance reform and not just talk about it.
Over the last 9 1/2 years as a candidate first in the State House and now in Congress, I have never accepted political action committee money. I have limited the amount of money I have spent; I have limited the amount of my personal money I have spent. In fact, in my campaign for Congress a year ago, I limited my expenditures in the primary to less than $150,000; and I was outspent five to one by one opponent, three to one by another, two to one by a third opponent. We did grass-roots campaigning; and thanks to the people of my district, we were successful. I ran in that fashion because I believe money is wrongly influencing the governing process, and I think it is time we do better by the people we are elected to represent.
Unfortunately, we did not get that opportunity today; and despite my strong support for campaign finance reform; in fact, in the June 30 reports of this year, I imagine I will probably pretty easily be the Member with the lowest amount, with $7,000, maybe $8,000 in my campaign treasury, compared to hundreds of thousands of dollars, because I am not interested in being a fund-raiser, I am interested in being a public servant. But despite that history, despite that I seek not just to preach about campaign finance reform, but to try to practice campaign finance reform, citizens may be surprised to learn that I voted against the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. SHAYS), the maker of the underlying bill that was to come before the House; I voted against the position of the distinguished Senator from Arizona who wanted a vote against the rule. I think it is important that we discuss why I voted that way, even as an adamant supporter of campaign finance reform.
I would contend that the defeat of the rule and, thus, the disallowance of the bill coming up for a vote is a huge step backwards. What we have done is send the bill back to committee where it may never come out of for the rest of the session; and under the best-case scenario under the rules of this House, it will at least be several months before we get another opportunity to bring it to the floor.
What was the alternative if we had supported the rule and brought it forward? Was it perfect? No. In fact, if I [Page: H3999] had my druthers, I would go one heck of a lot further than we were proposing to do in the underlying legislation and the amendments. But if we had allowed it to come forward, if we had approved the rule, we would have had the gentleman's bill before this House, a very comprehensive campaign finance reform piece of legislation. We would have had 17 amendments before this House, 12 of which the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. SHAYS) was preparing to offer. We would have had the opportunity for two substitute campaign finance reform bills to be discussed, debated, and openly voted on in this House. What did we get? Nothing. Not one vote. We got a rule denial that sent it back to committee, and we have lost tremendous ground.
The worst-case scenario that could have occurred if we had supported the rule, that we would move a piece of legislation forward either that was in such good form and in such similar form as the Senate legislation, as the McCain-Feingold legislation, that the Senate would have concurred in it, and we would have taken a huge step to eliminating soft money, to reducing the influence of money on the process. Under the worst-case scenario, we move forward and come out with a bill that the Senate did not like, we go to conference. So we are in conference where we can hammer it out between the Senate and the House. Instead, we are still in a committee in the House, a long way from getting to a final piece of legislation.
What was the grounds for defeating the rule, those who voted against the rule. Why? What did they not like about the rule? It came down to this. This is important for the citizens of this Nation to understand. It came down to procedure over substance. It was not a question of whether each and every one of the gentleman's amendments was going to get a vote. All 12 of them under the rule would get a vote. It is that he and others wanted them all to be voted as one, in one lump sum, they had to take it or leave it, one lump sum. Do I not think that was a good approach? I think the 12 amendments was fair, was reasonable. Each and every amendment would have gotten a vote on the floor; it would have been openly discussed and debated. Instead, none of them came to the floor and the underlying bill did not.
Mr. Speaker, it is a sad day, I think. As one who has fought for this reform, and we got so close to getting a substantive vote, and instead, we are back in committee. All 228 members who voted against the rule, if they so strongly believe the rule was flawed, I would encourage each and every one of them and I would hope that each and every one of them will bring forward a discharge resolution with what they think we should do and that all 228 are on that discharge resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I urge that we as a House do campaign finance reform once and for all and do it right.
