John Doolittle

I rarely agree with my hometown newspaper. It is one of the most partisan Democrat newspapers in the United States, known as the Sacramento Bee. But they did write an editorial which had many points of agreement. I have put it out in a…

Well, I assure the gentleman, there is lots of room for debate in this. The Buckley case, of course, is completely consistent with prior cases on the First Amendment and has been upheld repeatedly, dozens of decisions since then, so it is…

I respect the honesty of the gentleman. I completely disagree on the solution, but I think some of the problems he has identified are real problems.

during the course of debate on campaign reform, I have repeatedly voiced concern that the Shays-Meehan legislation, if enacted would threaten citizen participation in our democratic system. Numerous provisions in Shays-Meehan restrict the…

Whereas now that is clear. If we do not use certain words, it is clearly beyond the purview of Federal regulation. Now everything is arguably within the purview.

there is clearly a major difference of opinion about the Shays-Meehan bill and what it does. And those of us who have taken the floor in opposition have opposition for very principled reasons. They support it for principled reasons. But I…

I am not satisfied with the gentleman's response to me on the voter guide, why he thinks that is permitted by Shays-Meehan. Now the gentleman is asking me to comment upon his hypothetical.

it was my intent when we offered this to have it drafted in such a way as to protect the printed material or material on the Internet. It really was not my intent to go beyond that. The wording of the amendment arguably does go beyond…

in drafting the original amendment, which we are now seeking to modify, although we strike out the coordination language in this subsection B, I would just reference the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell) to the overall section 206…

this is the amendment that basically protects voter guides to be distributed by groups. The Shays-Meehan bill severely chills the freedom of speech in this regard and places restrictions that will subject anybody currently distributing…

I want to note that one of those points says promoting homosexuality to school children. And then down below in the real fine print, which no one can read from here, the Christian Coalition is described as a pro-family action organization…

let me say that my amendment is pretty clear, I think. What the gentleman was describing was exactly what Bill Clinton and Al Gore did in this last election. Now, Shays-Meehan wants to make that illegal. I do not want to make that illegal…

I would submit my bill addresses this, H.R. 965. Because I would submit it is the severe limits on hard-money contributions, which are contributions by contributors directed to candidates, that are driving this problem. The Constitution…

Then support my amendment and then it will make it unambiguous. The problem with the Shays-Meehan language is it is ambiguous because we have the phrase ``in an educational manner''.

also the requirement in Shays-Meehan is that the publication must contain, ``no words that in context have no reasonable meaning other than to urge the election or defeat of one or more clearly identified candidates.'' See, this is the…

it is quite obvious that there is not too much money in the system just by the facts. The amount of campaign spending as a percentage of GDP is relatively constant at 4 to 6 percent. We keep hearing these exaggerated claims that they…

how much is too much money? I keep hearing this assertion made out here, we spend too much money on campaigns. How much should we spend?

in the context of the debate in the House, the phrase ``campaign finance reform'' is really synonymous, it is a code word for the government regulation of political speech. I would just like to pose this question: If regulation works so…

I was just concerned. It is clear to me, reading the law, that you have to have words of express advocacy. I just wanted to make sure that it was the gentleman's understanding, my colleague from California, that we were not dealing with…

Mr. Chairman, we believe as Republicans that we ought to leave the First Amendment alone.

Oh, there are terrible constitutional problems with this bill. How can the gentleman say that? This bill is filled with problems. Does the gentleman really believe for a minute that this bill is constitutional?

It is a disaster. It gave birth to the cancer we face today that you cite as the reason for your reform; your side gave us all of this monstrosity.

I just wonder if he could tell us what is too much money or perhaps what is the appropriate amount of money that we should spend.

It is not from a handful at all. It would be from a number of people. It would all be reported. And if people think that is too much, they would not vote for them in the election. What is the matter with that? That is freedom. That is…

Reclaiming my time, it is the people of my colleague who own the New York Times, the Washington Post, every major newspaper in this country; and under their system, they can do whatever they like. And under a Shays-Meehan/Hutchinson-Allen…