Rick Allen: “Mr. Chairman, this body makes laws. We do not generally try to interpret them. And when we do interpret them, we do not…”

“Mr. Chairman, this body makes laws. We do not generally try to interpret them. And when we do interpret them, we do not do very well in a number of cases. And this proposed amendment is one case where we are not doing very well, in my opinion. Now, I recognize that this is a sense of Congress, that is, this amendment if attached to the Shays-Meehan substitute would not be binding law. This is a sense of Congress. We are not really here making campaign finance reform law. We are trying to embarrass the Vice President. That is what we are trying to do here today, at least those on the other side are. Now, I know that the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) are willing to accept this amendment. It is kind of hard to explain the other side of it. And I understand that. There are many people on this side of the aisle who will vote for it, and they will vote for it because it ought to be the law and it ought to be clearly the law that they do not do fund-raising on Federal property. But the fact is that the law is not that clear. We are talking about the Pendleton Act. That is what controls fund-raising from Federal property. And not once in the history of this Republic has someone been prosecuted for fund-raising from Federal property.”