Doug Bereuter: “the foreign contributions prohibition amendment that this Member is offering along with the distinguished gentleman from…”

“the foreign contributions prohibition amendment that this Member is offering along with the distinguished gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker) will prohibit foreign individual campaign contributions. It will, in other words, permit them for U.S. citizens and U.S. nationals. This legislation essentially was passed by the House on two occasions in the previous Congress, once as a separate bill, H.R. 34, and again, in precisely the same form as offered today, as an amendment to the Shays-Meehan bill in the last Congress by a recorded vote. This Member reintroduced this legislation because the situation remains the same. Many Americans believe that it is already illegal for foreigners to make Federal campaign contributions. What happened allegedly in the last presidential campaign related to contributions from supposedly resident foreign aliens raised this subject. The problem for Americans who believe that campaign contributions from foreign contributers is already illegal is that they are both right and wrong about our current Federal election laws. The fact of the matter is that under our current Federal election laws, an individual does not have to be a U.S. citizen to make campaign contributions to Federal candidates. He or she does not even have to be a U.S. national.”