Eliminating Taxpayer Financing of Presidential Elections

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the Castor amendment to safeguard the local government security funds that come from the Presidential Election Campaign Fund. I know a lot of the debate has been focused on public campaign financing of Presidential campaigns, but another important portion of that fund goes to local communities to help them with local security and local law enforcement costs when they host a political party convention.

And we're very proud in my hometown of Tampa to be the host of the 2012 Republican convention. It's no wonder that the Republicans selected Tampa; it's a wonderful place. We have beautiful beaches. We need the business and the jobs. So we're going to be a very welcoming community. We do conventions very well. And we're very happy that we're going to play host to the Republican convention.

But here are great warning flags going off because what I hear from my local law enforcement community is that the security costs, especially in the post-9/11 world, are very daunting. They are very concerned with the cost of providing security for the Republican convention, just like, I think, any host community would be for any party convention.

So what this amendment does is it says that, rather than completely do away with this fund, we will retain the portion that will cover local law enforcement security costs. We're going to need this help.

What I understand from my colleagues in Minneapolis after the last convention is that they received over $16 million from this fund to help them cover the costs of security, yet that wasn't enough to fully cover all the cost. And let me tell you, in this economy right now, in an area where we were hard hit by the recession in 2007, early 2007, our local governments simply don't have the wherewithal to go this extra mile and cover all of these security costs.

So what I'm asking through this amendment, as we come together in a bipartisan way to cover those local law enforcement costs, is let's not throw out the entire fund. Let's retain this amount, or what's left in the fund, to go to cover these local security costs.

Let's face it, too, this is voluntary. This is the voluntary checkoff on your income tax form that taxpayers all across America can decide if they want to do this or not. This is not something that is mandatory upon all taxpayers across the country. And if folks around the country, if taxpayers want to say, voluntarily, We want to help keep big money out of campaigns and we want to help cover local security issues, then we should be following through with that commitment and not eliminating it, not giving them any choice at all.

Overall, if the majority will not accept this amendment, since you have raised the point of order, and it seems like you don't want to bring it up to a vote, I would urge everyone to vote ``no'' on H.R. 359 because it puts in danger dollars that can be used by the City of Tampa, the Tampa Bay area, and other communities for security, transportation, preparation, and other allowable purposes.

This amendment intends to replace the $100 million we spend for security every 4 years with funding from this voluntary fund. If we kill this fund, we're going to be hurting many local communities such as my hometown of Tampa. The host committee will be way behind the eight ball. They're doing a good job but, boy, this was a commitment, this is the law, and you're going to really stick it to them by taking these security funds away.

So let's vote on making our communities safe when we rally a democracy under our political conventions.

Mr. Chairman, at this point, since the majority party has offered a point of order, it appears that they are not going to allow this amendment and probably the next one to come up for a vote. So because the majority has raised a point of order to prevent a vote on my amendment, I reluctantly ask unanimous consent to withdraw both of my amendments, which would have safeguarded our security funds for local law enforcement.

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