the last election cycle won. I have seen no studies indicating how often newspaper-endorsed candidates win. However, newspapers are part of the marketplace of ideas and it is certainly appropriate for them to make endorsements. If these happen to influence elections, it is not a public policy problem, but is merely politics as it should be. Unlike political candidates or contributors, the media has no apparent self-interest in a particular election outcome. Freedom of the press fosters democracy; freedom to spend unlimited sums on political campaigns does not.

The endorsement of candidates by the media is very different from campaign advertising. Newspapers, magazines, and newsletters are distributed to citizens who subscribe to them. People can decide to read the Washington Post, the Washington Times, or the Kentucky Herald-Leader, or they can read the Nation or the NRA newsletter. All these publications are competing to be seen as credible sources of public information. If they continually make extreme political endorsements, they'll tend to narrow their subscriber base to similarly minded people. This is very different from bombarding a citizen with unsolicited information through a TV, radio, or direct mail advertisement that a candidate has to pay for. With the papers, an endorsement is more of a product they are selling than an expenditure they are making.

(3) In regards to the campaign finance reform initiatives in California, it is quite incorrect to say that the voter-enacted limits passed in 1996 have been ruled unconstitutional. The low limit case to which you refer has been remanded for further consideration and will likely be upheld by the courts based on the recent Nixon ruling. You are correct in noting that voters recently defeated an initiative that set very high contribution limits. The initiative, which was opposed by CALPIRG and the League of Women Voters, failed in large part because the limits were set too high and it was riddled with loopholes.

(4) In regards to Colorado and the District of Columbia, while it was the case that independent expenditures increased after low contribution limits went into effect, the overall amount of big money in the political process declined dramatically. However, Congress should take care to guard against loopholes when it lowers federal contribution limits, and also apply the same contribution limits to independent expenditures and to any advertising that mentions a candidate by name within 60 days of an election.

I hope this addresses all of your concerns. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify.

POLITICAL PARTIES IN AMERICA

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2000

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON RULES AND ADMINISTRATION,

Washington, D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in Room SR-301, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Mitch McConnell, chairman of the committee, presiding.

Present: Senators McConnell, Hutchison, and Dodd.
The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order.

I want to thank Senator Hutchison for giving us a chance to get started on time. I appreciate it very much.

I am pleased to be chairing this morning's hearing on political parties in America. Before turning to our witnesses, let me offer three observations on political parties as a backdrop for today's hearing.

First, political parties are the quintessential citizen action groups in American society. They have served as part of the bedrock of our democracy for over two centuries. The late professor Clinton Rossiter, in his book "Parties and Politics in America," eloquently stated the fundamental democratic role of political parties: "Parties and democracy," Professor Rossiter said, "arose together; they have lived and prospered in a closely symbiotic relationship; and if one of them should ever weaken and die, the other would die with it." Professor Rossiter concluded: "there is no America without democracy, no democracy without politics, and no politics without parties.'

Second, political parties have the full freedoms and protections of our Constitution. In Colorado Republican v. FEC, the Supreme Court spelled out the firmly embedded constitutional rights of political parties. The Court said, "The First Amendment embodies a 'profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.' Political parties have a unique role in serving this principle; they exist to advance their members' shared political beliefs."

The Supreme Court further explained in Colorado Republican: "As we acknowledged in Buckley"-referring to Buckley v. Valeo"effective advocacy of both public and private points of view, particularly controversial ones, is undeniably enhanced by group association. Political associations allow citizens to pool their resources and make their advocacy more effective, and such efforts are fully protected by the First Amendment. If an individual is limited in the amount of resources he can contribute to the pool, he is most

certainly limited in his ability to associate for purposes of effective advocacy."

The Court went on: "As we have said, any interference with the freedom of a party is simultaneously an interference with the freedom of its adherents."

Third, weakening political parties runs counter to the reformers' oft-stated goal of increasing the interest, education, and involvement of citizens. Political parties spend vast sums of money every year on grassroots activities, such as voter education and registration efforts. I hope that the minority witnesses today will be able to answer what I believe to be one of the many reformer riddles: How do we increase the education and involvement of citizens by decreasing the amount of resources available for the education and involvement of citizens? Does anyone really believe that we can encourage grassroots activity by defunding it?

Ultimately, I believe that America loses when her political parties lose. Imagine for a moment the world envisioned by legislation, such as McCain-Feingold or Shays-Meehan, that seeks to ban soft money and limit the speech of political parties. In a book entitled The Party's Just Begun, University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato writes a section entitled "A World Without Parties" where he paints a rather clear picture of the reformers' dream world of weak and feeble parties:

"[W]hat would that life be like without a strong two-party system? Surely, even the parties' severest critics would agree that our politics will be the poorer for any further weakening of the party system. We have only to look at who and what gains as parties decline.

"Special interest groups and PACS gain. Their money, labels, and organizational power can serve as a substitute for the parties' own. Yet instead of fealty to the national interest or a broad coalitional party platform, the candidates' loyalties would be pledged to narrow, special interest agendas instead...

"Wealthy and celebrity candidates gain. Their financial resources or fame can provide name identification to replace party affiliation as a voting cue. Already at least a third of the United States Senate seats are filled by millionaires, and the number of inexperienced but successful candidates drawn from the entertainment and sports world seems to grow each year.

"Incumbents gain. The value of incumbency increases where party labels are absent or less important, since the free exposure incumbents receive raises their name identification level...

"The news media, particularly television news, gain. Party affiliation is one of the most powerful checks on the news media, not only because the voting cue of the party label is in itself a countervailing force, but also because the "perceptual screen" erected by party identification filters media commentary. People tend to hear, see, and remember the news items that reinforce their party attitudes and biases.

"And, yes, political consultants gain. The independent entrepreneurs of new campaign technologies-such as polling, television advertising, and direct mail-secure more influence in any system of party decline. Already they have become, along with some large PAČS, the main institutional rivals of the parties, lur

ing candidates away from their party moorings and using the campaign technologies to supplant parties as the intermediary between candidates and the voters.

This is truly a frightening picture. I ask my colleagues who support putting the Government in control of political speech and in charge of suppressing political parties: Is this really the world that we want? Do we really want a system where challengers and citizens who make up political parties lose? Do we really want a world where the undeniable winners are guaranteed to be so-called special interest groups and PACs, wealthy and celebrity candidates, incumbents, and most of all, the news media and political consultants?

I am going to call on the ranking member for his opening statement in a moment. For our first panel today, we want to welcome Congressman Chris Shays and Congressman Marty Meehan-we appreciate your being here and one of the most prominent election lawyers in town, Bobby Burchfield. We appreciate your joining us as well. And also Senator Hutchison is with us, so first I will call on the ranking member, Senator Dodd.

Senator DODD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Let me begin by thanking you for holding this hearing on what I think many of us feel is one of the most glaring campaign finance problems in need of reform, and that is, the unsatiable appetite for unlimited, unaccountable soft money. I am deeply grateful to you for holding this hearing and also for having two of the people on Capitol Hill most responsible for advancing this particular cause. You will understand a strong dose of parochial pride in the presence of Chris Shays, my good friend and colleague from the State of Connecticut, and our neighboring colleague from the State of Massachusetts, Marty Meehan.

Having served in the House for 6 years, I know the rules. I sat on the House Rules Committee, in fact, and unlike this chamber, when the Rules Committee set the parameters for debate, it is virtually impossible to get around that. It is just a Herculean effort to try to bring something to the floor if the leadership decides that it is not going to happen.

I served when Tip O'Neill was Speaker, and I know how powerful that Rules Committee can be when it comes to saying no. Their strongest suit is saying no rather than saying yes.

The fact that these two individuals, these two House Members, a Democrat and a Republican, joined forces and were able to allow the majority in the House to give voice to a proposal that has caught the imagination of the American public is an incredible achievement. As someone who served in the House, served on the Rules Committee, and knows how difficult that is, I am not sure it is as widely appreciated as it ought to be in this country for the tremendous accomplishment that both of you were able to achieve, not so much on your own behalf but on behalf of an awful lot of people in this country who think this system is seriously broken and in desperate need of repair. So I congratulate both of you.

Again, I am pleased that the chairman has seen fit to have you here as early witnesses in this discussion on the Senate side. I am confident we will hear as well from John McCain and Russ Feingold, who have made similar efforts here. The majorities in both

Houses are clearly for the McCain-Feingold/Shays-Meehan approach. It is not a question whether or not a majority of House and Senate Members, Democrats and Republicans, want this bill passed. The issue is whether or not we are going to get to have a clean vote on it where 51 Members in the Senate and a simple majority in the House, as you achieved, will be able to be sustained. So I thank you for your efforts. You have truly achieved almost the unachievable under normal circumstances, and it is no small accomplishment.

I also want to take a minute to welcome the other witnesses who are going to be here. Mr. Burchfield, we welcome you as well. Mr. BURCHFIELD. Thank you, sir.

Senator DODD. And I certainly know of your solid reputation on the other side. You are an accomplished attorney and have some strong views on these issues.

Federal elections today have become a huge money chase. We all know it. To say otherwise is to be foolish, in my view. Nowhere is that more evident than in the race for soft money contributions. In the current Presidential cycle, the national parties have raised over $100 million in soft money. That is an 81 percent increase over the amount raised in the last comparable period, 1995.

Whether you view soft money as a loophole or an unintended consequence, in my view there can be no question that it is being raised and spent today by political parties to influence Federal elections. And if soft money is financing Federal elections, then in this Senator's mind there is no question that it can and should be regulated.

Many of our witnesses today will testify to the need to have strong political parties. I don't disagree with that. In fact, I strongly support that conclusion, Mr. Chairman. I am deeply worried that we are disassembling our political parties in this country, and doing so without being mindful of the contribution that a strong two-party system made to the American century, the 20th century, on countless occasions. I don't want to see us arrive at a day when we end up looking like a Balkanized parliament. In too many places around the globe, tiny fractious groups have inordinate sway in forming majorities, as we see in several democratic societies and governments. Or you have 535 individual parties roaming around, in a sense, and trying to get consensus to move an agenda forward in the American public.

So I am one who clearly supports those who are worried about what happens to political parties in this country. I know that is a minority view. I know in the notion of some that if we just eliminate the political parties in this country it would be a wonderful achievement. I couldn't disagree more. But I don't happen to subscribe to the notion that the only way that you can guarantee the future viabilities of political parties is through the maintenance of the soft money process. I don't think those two are irreconcilable.

I take a back seat to no one in my determination to make our political parties stronger, but I happen to believe that can be done in the absence of soft money. Now, maybe I am a sole voice in that regard, but I hope not.

So I am anxious to hear again today from our witnesses in this regard. It is an important debate. It is one that I hope we are going