Sam Farr

If we truly want to have an impact on reducing youth violence, I urge my colleagues to work with their local communities to initiate the kind of grass-roots assessment that Salinas did because we won't find the solutions to youth violence…

Salinas' 'Framework for Violence Prevention' is really a 'one size fits all' approach that any community in the country can follow to find their own solutions for youth violence.

Sex, drugs and rock and roll were condemned thirty years ago and here we are today talking about trying to legislate morality when we should really be talking about are education and prevention programs to stop youth violence.

I rise on behalf of the student I spoke to on Tuesday in Branceforte Middle School in Santa Cruz, Lisa Morelas. She said one thing. She said, kids are dropping out because they cannot get access to the transition of bilingual education. It…

That is one thing the gentleman is correct on. But the gentleman is absolutely wrong on the fact there is any public money on this and it is unconstitutional, because it is totally voluntary on the part of the candidate.

Reclaiming my time, the argument is how does the gentleman intend to enforce this amendment he is making? How do we enforce it? How do we check from campaign contributions? How do we go back to check whether the people are permanent…

The gentleman is going to check all of this? They are legally here. We do not go around every day trying to check whether someone is here legally. I mean, if they are here legally, they are here legally; right?

What do you do with the individual who is very wealthy and you are in a very poor district?

In the H.R. 600 that I drafted, what it said is we put limits on what you could spend, because that was the real problem. In that, we said, if you were a wealthy candidate, you can only spend $50,000 of your own money.

I am sitting here tonight wondering what is happening to us. Have we become so suspicious of our own country that we do not believe in democracy anymore? This debate is supposed to be about campaign finance reform, and now we are debating…

I like what the gentlewoman just said, but I do not think that is what the language put in here says. It says ``provide currency to any person for purposes of carrying out activities on the date of an election to encourage or assist…

Because the gentleman flies home every weekend on the taxpayers' money, he may be home on the taxpayers' money doing a political campaign event. That is his transportation to his district. So if the President goes to your district and does…

The other question is why does it only apply to Air Force One? Why does it not apply to Members of Congress?

As I read it, under existing law the penalties, in the gentleman's opinion, are very weak; nobody yet has been convicted. The gentleman stiffens the penalties and broadens the scope. And my comment on that, and I think that is correct, my…

In the history of election reform law, going back to the mid-1970s, there has been nobody convicted in violation of this law?

If a person came here, under the debate we are having on the floor now, under H-1B waivers, which are essentially the way we try to import high-tech people, professional engineers, scientists who are not American citizens to work with…

And I am just curious as to why this penalty is a more severe penalty than if an individual was caught as an illegal alien. If a person crosses the border with no papers, they are not entitled to be in this country, they are not a tourist…

Could the gentleman, for clarification, explain to me what type of person and contribution would trigger violation of this law?

But those are not foreign nationals. So a foreign national would be a person who is coming to this country but does not have a green card? For example, a tourist could be a foreign national?

I understand that. The point that I would like clarified is that it goes to a foreign national. What is the gentleman's definition of a foreign national? There is a lot of confusion as to what is a foreign national.

The problem is that the program is broken. It needs a commitment. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) certainly has given his commitment to it. I believe that he is sincere, but we need to get it off the ground.

The conference committee report is a good report. It is a good deal. The compromises have been made. And frankly, as a member of the Committee on Agriculture, the reason we got to the compromises is because the food stamp program allowed…

Nothing that they have investigated was brought for campaign finance reform. This has nothing to do with the investigation. They have not limited foreign corporations from contributing to campaigns. It has cost this House $5 million so…

Just a moment ago it was said that we were getting too carried away. Let us look at the record of who is getting a little carried away. According to Congressional Quarterly, the Republican leadership has had the most expensive…

I wonder if this trail is going to lead us into some meaningful campaign finance reform. Do my colleagues think that we could sort of get, in a bipartisan spirit, this idea that we ought to probably limit the amount of money that goes into…