John Doolittle

What I would like to see happen is to deregulate. If you deregulate, they are not going to have soft money. It will not be needed. Issue advocacy will dramatically drop. Look at what went on in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the…

The point is, right now, only the people who are personally rich can spend unlimited amounts of money. At least under this system, if they are not rich themselves, they can go to those who have money and they can contribute to them instead…

I just wanted to read a quote by Mr. Robert F. Bauer. He is a leading Democrat election lawyer and counsel for the Ohio Democratic Party in its current suit against the FEC to have a court strike down the FEC's allocation formula which…

Let me just ask the gentleman, setting aside for a minute soft money, then, since that is somewhat nebulous and it is not spent by the candidates themselves, how much hard money is enough?

What is the definition of special interest? Is all the labor PAC money the gentleman got special interest?

under the present disastrous system which this philosophy has given us, the philosophy of my colleague, the only ones who have unlimited rights are the rich. But somebody who is not rich, who wishes to go and run for a Federal office, is…

My colleagues want more regulation, more government and less freedom. I might point out that since the 1974 FECA amendments, political participation has steadily declined in this country. And then I hear the philosophy of the gentleman and…

the system we have now is not better than the one we had. One wrong does not make a second wrong. All we would need to do is have full disclosure in a very timely fashion like one of the proposals before us will do, and you would let the…

there is so much that is wrong with the present system, but the Democrats gave us this system. We had a Republican President who, unfortunately, signed it into law. It is a disastrous system. Before this system came into being, most people…

I would just observe I do not think any of this debate has in any way been improper. I mean this is getting right to the heart of what these issues are, and frankly I would just want to say that I think we are going to have to have this…

I am happy that we are considering this proposed amendment to the Constitution, because this amendment, without question, is where the debate ought to be on the government regulation of political speech which is under consideration. I want…

make no mistake about it, at the heart of this debate on campaign reform is our right as American citizens to freely engage in political speech, a right which is guaranteed to us under the first amendment of the Constitution. Throughout…

we constantly hear these days from reformers who support a bigger Federal Government that campaigns cost too much and that government must step in and further regulate campaign spending. But I ask my colleagues, is spending on political…

I strongly support the DeLay amendment. I think it is a great amendment, and I hope that it survives unscathed through both Houses of the Congress. This deals with the most fundamental obligation of government, the reason we pay all of the…

the first amendment is quite clear, ``Congress shall make no law bridging the freedom of speech.'' And yet, the whole business of campaign reform as has come out before the Members of the House largely centers on how do we bridge the…

I would like to praise the House leadership unabashedly for making the decision they did and allowing this to go before the House on a suspension calendar. I wholeheartedly endorse that decision. All of this folderol about the…

Mr. Chairman, I submit what is ridiculous is that this Congress would continue to fund such as a disastrous program as Legal Services at all, let alone pass this amendment. Mr. Chairman, what is ridiculous is that we continue to fund a…

Let me just say with what time I have left, Mr. Chairman, that this is perfectly appropriate for local and State entities to carry out. I think we will not end the abuses as long as the remote Federal Government continues to fund and…

our forests are really in deplorable condition. My colleagues can see and anyone who flies over the Sierra Nevadas can see just what a terrible state they are in, how years of drought and insect infestation have killed in some cases more…

I listened. I have friends on both sides of this debate, and I happen to be on one of the sides, but it is almost as if we were debating two completely different sets or had two different sets of facts because the representations are so…

Mr. Chairman, in closing the arguments for this amendment tonight for the conservative budget substitute, let me be clear: We support the effort that the Committee on the Budget has made and applaud them in that effort. Some of us will be…

Mr. Chairman, while CATS appreciates the hard work of the Committee on the Budget and especially its chairman, we feel that more can and should be done to reduce the size of Government, lessen the tax burden on American families, and…

Mr. Chairman, this is an opportunity to more than double the tax cut that will go to every person in the Nation. This is a chance to say no to Washington bureaucrats, yes to families, yes to economic growth. Vote yes on this substitute.

Mr. Chairman, I think the Boehlert amendment is extremely ill-considered. I really wonder, as a member of the authorizing committee that passed the Herger-Pombo bill out, you read the language, it simply says, ``Consultation and…

You can have a 500-year flood every year in a row for 3 or 4 years. That does not mean they happen every 500 years. We had a 500-year flood. We had a 250-year flood a couple years before that in parts of the State. So, yes, I blame it on…