February 13, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 28 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Page S1286]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 H.R. 1

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, as I alluded to earlier this week, I 
have a feeling this conference is just getting started discussing 
Speaker Pelosi's signature bill, H.R. 1. I, for one, am eager to 
continue shining the spotlight on the Democrat Politician Protection 
Act and asking why, exactly, Washington Democrats are so intent on 
assigning themselves a whole lot more power over what American citizens 
can say about politics, how we can say it, and how we cast our ballots.
  Remember, among the many fairly blatant power plays built into this 
legislation is a naked attempt to turn our neutral Federal Election 
Commission into a partisan weapon. The FEC is a body that, since 
Watergate and for obvious reasons, has had an even-numbered membership 
and equal division between the two parties. Enforcement and penalty 
require both parties to agree, or at least one Commissioner from one 
party has to agree with three Commissioners of the other party. This is 
meant to ensure that complaints are evaluated on their substance, not 
for purely political considerations.
  I guess Speaker Pelosi and her colleagues are tired of playing fair 
and trying to persuade the old-fashioned way because the Democrat 
Politician Protection Act would take the FEC down to a five-member body 
and give sitting Presidents--listen to this one--it would give sitting 
Presidents the power to appoint the Chairperson. They would turn the 
FEC into a nakedly partisan body and give the sitting President the 
power to appoint the Chairperson--where his or her party would have a 
3-to-2 advantage--who holds the keys to determine whom to investigate 
and what enforcement to pursue.
  The evenness of the FEC is a vital way to ensuring that Americans' 
political speech and campaigns for public office are regulated fairly 
and evenhandedly. Of course, that needs to be done on a bipartisan 
basis, but the Democrats want to throw that right out the window and 
carve out a partisan majority on this crucial Commission.
  This proposal is outrageous enough on its face, but just wait until 
you hear about all the new things the Democrat Politician Protection 
Act would let this newly partisan FEC actually do.
  First, they turn it over to the party of the President, so they have 
a clear majority to go after the minority. But let's see what they can 
do. There are incredibly vague new standards that seem tailor-made to 
give this partisan FEC the maximum latitude to penalize or silence 
certain speech. You begin to get the picture. Of course, this partisan 
FEC is going to want to silence the voices of its opponents.
  Let me give a few examples.
  The newly partisan FEC would be handed the ability to determine what 
kind of speech is ``campaign-related''--growing its jurisdiction and 
widening its bureaucratic wingspan over more of the public discourse, 
including issues of the day and not just elections.
  Private citizens, for example, would be required to make the 
government aware of times they spend even small amounts of money in 
engaging in First Amendment activities. Private citizens have to notify 
the government if they are going to engage in spending small amounts of 
money on First Amendment activities--on expressing themselves--or they 
will face penalties. More speech would fall into this category whereby 
Americans would have to dutifully notify Federal bureaucrats that they 
are speaking their minds or else pay a fine. To put it another way, it 
is free speech as long as you fill out government forms and mail a 
couple of carbon copies to Washington.
  In other cases, the Democrats want to impose stunningly vague, broad, 
and potentially unconstitutional restrictions on the abilities of all 
kinds of advocacy groups--on all sides of the political spectrum--to 
exercise their constitutional right to speak out about elected 
politicians and their positions on substantive issues.
  Let's go over that again because I know this is a technical subject.
  Under the guise of cracking down on ``super PAC coordination,'' the 
Democrats want to give a partisan FEC new powers to prohibit advocacy 
groups from weighing in on politicians' job performances and the issues 
of the day under a broad set of new conditions. Washington Democrats 
want individual American citizens, civic groups, trade associations, 
labor unions, and nonprofits to face more restrictions, more hurdles, 
and more potential penalties for daring to have opinions about the 
political races that decide who goes to Washington in the first place.
  Call me old-fashioned, but I remember when both political parties 
were more interested in trying to win debates than in trying to shut 
down debates. This will be an FEC designed to stifle free speech and 
tilt the playing field in the direction of the President's party. I 
remember when constitutionally minded leaders on both sides of the 
aisle would have recoiled at efforts to chill or even to prohibit a 
private citizen's ability to speak.
  Let's not forget, in every one of these cases, when these fuzzy, new 
lines and vague rules need enforcing, who has the final say? Why, it is 
the newly partisan Federal Election Commission that determines who gets 
to speak and who doesn't. My Democratic colleagues are trying to muddy 
the rule book and mount a hostile takeover of the referees all at the 
same time.
  Let me just close with this. Back in 1974, as the creation of the FEC 
was debated here in this Chamber, California Democratic Senator Alan 
Cranston gave this warning: ``The FEC has such a potential for abuse in 
our democratic society that the President should not be given power 
over the Commission.''
  Wise words.
  Back then, a California Democrat was warning against a partisan 
takeover of the American electoral system. It is the distinguished 
Member of the House from San Francisco, Speaker Pelosi, who is now, 
today, cheerleading for that very change.
  The Democratic Party has changed its views on this subject a lot in 
the last 45 years, but the purpose of the FEC has not changed one bit, 
and neither has the importance of the First Amendment.

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