Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, it is hard to find the words that will truly reflect what an abomination the campaign finance system in America has become. The fact is, the only people who seem happy with the current state of campaign finance are billionaires who have phones full of contact information of the most powerful people in the land. Otherwise, if you are a typical American--putting in a hard day's work, supporting your family--you probably have the sense the campaign finance laws are rigged for the big and the powerful.

There was an era when running for office was as simple as putting your name out for the public, getting a few local civic groups in your corner, and bringing in a few modest donations to get your campaign off the ground. Certainly, it is not that way anymore. It has now been well chronicled how a wave of money--particularly from a few secretive powerful individuals like the Koch brothers--has flooded American politics in the last few decades. That has grown exponentially in the years since the Citizens United decision. The fact is, there has been a tidal wave of dark money buying influence across America's political system.

This isn't just about too many political ads on television and radio. Voters know that unless they unplug entirely and settle for a life out in the woods, they are going to see a lot of ads. Even beyond ads in the election season, there is this deluge of money buying the support of beltway think tanks, currying favor among lobbyists, funding so- called social welfare organizations that, frankly, aren't doing a whole lot of social welfare.

The bottom line is, for those like the Koch brothers, having deep pockets means you can buy the right to grab hold of the levers of power of the American Government. You can create a whole lot of noise that virtually drowns out the constituents back home.

I am heading home tomorrow. I have about nine townhall meetings scheduled in rural communities. They are always amazed that we are having those kinds of discussions--my colleague Senator Merkley does them as well--because it seems that in most of the country, everything that resembles the government we know so well, direct contact, open to all town meetings, is getting drowned out by a deluge of dollars that creates all of this noise--fake noise, to use the language of the times--that drives out real discussion about substantive issues.

I am going to talk about an example, one that has certainly generated some real concern over the last few months. If you want to see what is wrong with the election system, in my view, you don't have to look much further than some of the letters I have exchanged recently with the National Rifle Association. A few months ago, there were news reports of a potential financial relationship between a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin and the NRA. The big question was whether the Russian money had been funneled into the NRA to assist the Trump campaign and influence the outcome of the election. In my view, I would say that is a question that most right-minded Americans would like to have answered.

I am the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, where we have jurisdiction over the Federal Tax Code. That includes the rules that pertain to political groups and tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organizations like the ones that are maintained by the NRA. I began in a series of letters that were sent to the organization, sent to the NRA, to ask questions about their foreign funding. The series of shifting answers I got in return from the NRA was enough to give you whiplash. First, when we inquired--because we had seen all of these news reports--they said: ``Nothing to see here.''

Then, as we followed up and found that a little hard to square with these public news reports, they said: ``Well . . . we get foreign funding, but just from that ONE Russian, and that's it.''

Then, we heard another version of what was going on at the NRA. They said it was a couple of dozen Russians giving money to the NRA. We continued to follow up, and they told the press and they told me: Hey, we are done with the Congress. We are not interested in answering any more questions. We are busy. We have other things to do.

That pretty much sums up the problem we have heard described on the floor this week with the campaign finance system. The information Americans have access to in campaign finance reports is just the tip of the iceberg, just the beginning of unpacking this whole question of where the money comes from in our political system. Everything under the waterline is where it gets seedy, but powerful interests have managed to figure out how to keep their handiwork hidden. The powerful use shell companies to mask the identities of who is funding campaigns and so-called independent expenditures. Even simple questions asked of these powerful groups influencing campaigns--questions like, ``Do you get money from overseas,'' the Congress and the American people cannot get a straight answer.

There are Members who want to see real changes made to bring some sunlight into this system. They see how important this is, giving the onslaught of attacks on the campaign finance laws that are coming from the Supreme Court. These attacks are one major reason why I have cosponsored legislation to create a constitutional amendment allowing Congress and the States to regulate and restore faith in our campaign finance system.

With respect to this approach, I didn't arrive at this judgment casually. Constitutional amendments, in my view, ought to be reserved for those situations when the delicate balance set up by the Founding Fathers has been upset or, in this case, jurisprudence that governs the system has also changed. That is the situation and the challenge our country faces today.

I know several Members of this body have put policy ideas forward. Many of them, in my view, have real merit. Virtually all of them, in my view, would be an improvement on this rotten abomination of a campaign finance system that exists today. Virtually every day folks back home get inundated with the smarmy political ads sponsored by groups that have these names that are just nonsense--names like the ``American Association for American Values in America.'' There is one after another. I will hear about what citizens think about this during those nine townhall meetings that I am going to be having over the next few days at home. Citizens often say it is really good to have our elected officials do this. Sometimes they would kid me that we have more cows than we have voters.

Still, we are here to have this conversation because that is what I think the American political system ought to be about--direct communication, an ongoing discussion with voters, our actually being there, having the people we have the honor to represent be able to look us in the eye, to ask questions, and say: We want to hear your thoughts because we believe that is how we can hold you accountable. The flip side of that judgment is that they don't think they can do it with the campaign finance system I have described today.

All of this is fed by these reports about lawmakers who march up to Koch Industries in order to plead for support for one proposal or another. When people read these articles, they say that it sure feels like that is what the political system has become all about. It is why I have done even more open-to-all town meetings. It is one way that I can show, at least on our watch, that that is what we are doing to counter the fact that a handful of the most powerful, like the Koch family, can generate a disproportionally loud voice in our system of government.

The fact is the campaign finance system is broken, and it is long past the time to have fixed it. I have appreciated my colleagues' coming to the floor this week to speak out on it.

I believe, as has been written, that this series of letters that I have exchanged with the NRA, just over the last few months, is a textbook case of how broken the campaign finance system is--what happens when powerful organizations and individuals like the Koch family can have a disproportionally large voice in the political system.

I think the Senate ought to get about the business of fixing this system and ending the current way in which political campaigns are financed, which, as I said when I began my remarks, is such an abomination that it doesn't pass the smell test.

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