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We'll be right back.

Thank you.

What do you call your rooms?

Thank you.

That's all.

John, we're meeting this morning, as you've noted in the press, already, as you've noted in the press, you've also been informed, most of the individual entities, on a subject that really left its own, as I was saying, to bipartisanship because it involves

with regard to federal elections.

Until I met with Governor Rockefeller and a couple other governors yesterday, I haven't let it off that the recent governor of Maine would not be so presumptuous as to suggest that we would act on state elections.

So I'm sure we all understand that what we are dealing with here is only a federal election campaign, which would deal with the elections for president and vice president, of course.

The second point is that the measure that I am suggesting, I'm glad to have led an argument over the points that I, up to this point, have considered making in a best in general sense in Congress, are the measure that I am suggesting is not one that is covered with pressure.

can deal with the whole subject, any subject in its totality.

And it's not one in which we can have restrictions like on the ban in which you want.

Let me put it this way.

There has been an enormous amount

but it has to do with ways that election practices, laws, financing, et cetera, et cetera, could be changed, strengthened, et cetera, to be more relevant to the problems that we have.

In fact, the difficulty is that the suggestions go off in every direction, in one way or another.

They don't go in partisan directions.

Democrats disagree.

So under the circumstances, what we ought to do would be to give the commission a rather broad chart in terms of something to suggest

and not for the purpose of excluding a number of areas that the commission might consider.

Some of them are quite obvious.

The one that I won't mention this morning is not obvious at all.

I'm saying it's one that will cause a problem with my own controversy that I just discovered.

That's what I've had to say for some time.

Not my own controversy, but it will be very interesting.

But let me get to a couple of the hiding points as far as I see it that will go over the

You could let just the items that the members would be interested in, these are the things that we want to do and so forth.

Not the record.

I mean, you know, they can figure out the credit for the items.

Well, we could go ahead and campaign finance and campaign, you know what I mean?

So that they can then have anything they'd like to add to it.

Uh, of course, we can add it to the message for tomorrow.

But in addition to that, of course, the committee can take anything.

Now, a word about the membership of the commission.

The suggestion has been made by Mr. Romney and Scott Wright that it be 17 members.

Obviously, it would be bipartisan.

The chairman will be selected by the membership of the commission.

which gives it a good independent declaration.

The four would come from the House, four from the Senate, and the seven public members that are, I mean, the public members that would be named, the nine public members that would be named for the president would include the Republican national chairman, the Democratic national chairman, and then seven others

would be basically on a bipartisan basis.

And where we personally draw on the suggestions that any of you would have, that could include people, I mean, educators, judges, all those.

I have found in that connection, and I think I was also on this with you, that there's a very great reluctance

as far as we're concerned here, and working with the commission and so forth, the attorney general will help with the staff

all that sort of thing.

And of course, there will have to be plans, but this will not be for the purpose of the conference.

particularly in the event the Commission makes legislative recommendations, Elliot, I would expect the Attorney General and the Justice Department to be helpful, as helpful when desired, to help prepare the legislative recommendations.

Obviously, when the Commission concludes its term, it may well be, it may be that the Commission may make recommendations.

It may be, of course, it's very likely that the President would make some.

And, of course, there would be no reason at all why members of the Congress or members of the Commission might want to second use the legislation of the event if there was not going to be money.

Now, this sounds quite, quite, covers the sluggish part of this, though the other way it was viewed, like it was on the S&P.

Now, one thought that I have incurred in it, and I have included in this, which has long intrigued me,

and which I think is worth considering, not for the purpose of deciding, because it's very constitutional now, is the term of office, the term of office for the president.

As you know, the vice president of the House of Representatives suggested that we should have a two-term limitation.

There's been a suggestion that there be a six-year term, and I think that that's something that is well worth considering,

Another one, which is of greater interest to the House, is a view that I have expressed many times in the past, and I feel very confident about, but I think it can't be considered.

The present situation, if you figure that a house campaign costs around $100,000, and an urban district is not right to get $100,000,

And also, in the period of time, what you find is that a member is elected to the House.

He serves in the House for a year, then he runs for a year.

And in the year he serves, he's helping to raise money so he can run.

And it's not a good and healthy system.

So my feeling has been for a long time that the Constitutional Amendment

Providing for the election of half the members of the House every four years would be .

So I am in full accord with that view.

Well, if we take the lead, then you tell us to follow along.

Well, what you would do that way, you see.

You do that and get the reflection of the presidential election.

But then you stagger it so that you can't remember something.

The point is, as you will see, I am not recommending it, but I am suggesting it.

President Eisenhower, after I had talked to him once in Gettysburg, let me say, this may be a time when people will want to consider it.

And they didn't.

I'm interested in.

So then would you run across there, and then briefly, and then we got word.

I'm interested in getting the gist of the members.

Mr. President, before that, I'd like to make one point on this employee intern business.

Ms. Sanders told us when that came up before that they felt that the Senators were against it for fear of erasing that information.

I don't think that's by any means a large sentiment in the sense that you may have a scattering of people, but I'd like to nail that one early and now.

I do not believe the Senators have moved on that point two or three minutes ago.

I can't see that at all.

Well, if you're a judge before your term, you can run for the Senate.

Oh, I see.

That's all right.

I mean, so let's all run anyway.

But very few, I think.

But one reason I left the House 21 years ago was because there was a case of campaigning beginning the day after the election, and it sure as hell got a lot worse since then.

Oh.

Well, now, let's try to not stress this with Pete Rubino.

Well, I want you to know, I'm putting in the message, now that he thought of committing any of you, but to show you,

The rest of the message deals with campaign techniques, financing, etc.

All right, let's go ahead.

Well, President and gentlemen, before taking up the provisions of the draft joint resolution, I might say, by way of general characterization, that the joint resolution informs the three basic specifications laid down by the President.

First, that the part of the commission be as broad as possible to measure it.

only tests of relevance and effectiveness.

Second, that the composition of the commission be bipartisan in makeup and nonpartisan in function.

That it be as independent as possible so that it can attract men of the highest confidence, experience, and personal force.

And third, that the commission be spurred to move

has its work in the sense of urgency and that it's fairly important and ultimately recommended, let's say, another remedial action as soon as possible so that such remedial action can itself move ahead as quickly as possible.

Mr. President, I think it's urgent to move as quickly as possible.

If you want this effective for the

Elections in 74, which I think is the design.

I think we'll probably be in session in October or thereabouts.

Well, even if we're not, Jerry, we would be prepared then to move ahead and come back to the second session.

But don't you agree that the 74 elections ought to be the target date for the effectiveness of the election?

Well,

Especially for parts of it, the 74, you can catch an awful lot of it.

Your constitutional benefits, you know, if you do have any constitutional benefits in the area.

Well, just to take it off, why don't we just date at least, so that they can add it.

I think Mike, they're not going to act on such a thing as this legislation at the end of the session, you know, if we're all tired and rested.

at least get it so that they could have it, say, a month before the session begins.

They decided to put it in September, see, that gives them a month.

Finally, it's a month, but then, of course, we'll tell the chairman to get off the scale and get it done sooner if they have specifics.

One thing that can be done here is that if they get down to specific recommendations the commission agrees on, they can fire those over right away, and then you can act if those things are covered in October.

See what I mean?

You take, for example, the finance provisions.

Both national and financial have had one hell of a time.

You know, I'm knowing how to comply with the law.

There are technical violations .

That really needs to be changed.

And it may be that that can be changed early enough so that they start catching up.

Go ahead.

The section two of the draft resolution

establishes the commission to be known as the non-filing commission on federal election reform.

Section 3 is the charter of the commission and divides the study effort of the commission into three parts.

The first is dealing with election and campaign reform.

I'll read the draft language.

The Commission now, A, conduct an extensive and exhaustive study of practices engaged in by political parties and individuals in the course of federal political campaigns, including, but not limited to, one, the adequacy of procedures for the enforcement of existing laws relating to political campaigns and campaign financing.

Two, the existing and alternative methods of financing political campaigns.

Three, the review of federal tax laws as they relate to the financing of political campaigns.

Four, the purposes for which money is expended in political campaigns, such as development of campaign organizations, campaign advertising, voter registration, and polling.

Fifth, the methods and procedures by which candidates are nominated for federal office by political parties.

Six, the advocacy of safeguards against unethical,

disruptions, fraudulence, violence, or otherwise wrongful campaign tactics.

And seventh, the length of period over which candidates are required to campaign for nomination in an election federal office.

I should say that this does not tend to be an exhaustive list of subjects.

It is a elective only.

The commission itself can investigate some or all or additional subjects and can assign priorities on these subjects on the basis of its own determination.

The second part of the charter directs the Commission to consider the advisability of changing the terms of office of members of the House of Representatives or the Senate or the President of the United States.

And finally, the charter section directs that the Commission make recommendations for such legislation

constitutional amendment or other reforms as its findings indicate, and in its judgment undesirable to revise the control of practices and procedures of political parties, organizations, and individuals participating in the federal electoral process.

Section four, gentlemen, is section zero, the composition of the commission.

It's brief and I'll read it.

The commission shall consist of the following members.

First, four members of the Senate, two from each of the major political parties appointed by the President of the Senate.

Second, the four members of the House of Representatives, two for each of the major parties appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Len, may I interject here, if I might?

In looking over the draft yesterday, I think there was a provision in the one submitted to me, and I guess to others, that the Speaker should appoint these two recommended already leaders.

I don't think that's necessary.

The speaker and I have never had any problems in that regard.

I think that would make me nothing but an errand boy, and I don't care for myself.

For the office, I'd do it, but I'm dealing with an actual terrible...

The way you do it, actually, I should have caught that myself.

If you don't mention it to the case, I'll send a recommendation.

Just say two will be appointed for the Speaker and two will be appointed for the President of the Senate.

That is the way it's done.

The way it's done.

We've made that change.

Oh, okay.

And the way it's done is completely different from what the other senators over the line have done.

Well, it's more than the House of Representatives.

Two committees and a major political party appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives have changed the way it's done.

I remember when I was vice president.

It makes me very excited.

Thank you for pointing it to us.

You're very welcome.

I wonder how the devil I've done it.

First, one of these things that decidedly comes by.

Somebody else don't know what it is.

But don't care at all if I have a question on this part.

Then in the last campaign bill that we enacted,

And many of us will remember, I think, I gave them all a bottle on the conference, and how I had a position in which the senator now sits on the independent Federal Elections Commission.

And I was one of those who felt very strongly about it.

But when we got into conference, it was stricken as largely on the insistence of one country

But it took three hours, and it's a very regrettable condition.

I wonder if you could serve.

You're playing here the inclusion of an ongoing supervisory independent committee, in my course.

So it's kind of led to this appropriate subject

In the last speech, uh, you know, uh, uh, you, I suggested that the committee could recommend us, uh, that is an ongoing supervisor.

It was at least in the draft four that I saw a position put in draft five.

Right, so that's a good idea.

That terms the provision of the appointment of individuals to private life.

Nine individuals to private life to be appointed by the President of the United States, two of whom shall be the respective chairmen of the National Political Party having organized and secondized voter plurality in the last national election, and seven of whom

shall be selected from the general public on the basis of their experience and expertise in public service or political science.

No more than four of the seven selected from the general public shall be members of the same political party.

Finally, the chairmen and vice-chairmen shall be designated by the commission from among the members of the commission.

I'll pass over the administrative terms, which are generally drawn upon the enabling of resolutions, creating other

And go finally to Section 9, which deals with the time of reporting.

Section 9a reads, the Commission shall submit to the Congress and President such interim reports and recommendations as it considers appropriate, and the Commission shall make a final report.

of the results of the study conducted by and pursuant to this resolution, together with its findings and such legislative proposals as it deems necessary or desirable to the Congress and the President at the earliest practicable date, but no later than January 1, 1974.

That will be modified in the course of the earlier discussion.

90 days after the submission of this final report, as provided in Subsection A, a public commission shall cease to exist.

Now would you move into the draft.

uh four or five or whichever one it was and uh go about the last couple pages where i came among those things that the committee might consider part of the following so if you get an idea as to what some of my thinking is uh then maybe you might create some ideas in your own this president uh

What a commission such as the one I have proposed might recommend is that these are a few examples of the kind of reform that would certainly consider strict limits on the size of individual campaign contributions, strict limits on the size of campaign contributions, or the amount of campaign assistance that can be given by business, labor, or professional organizations.

And that incidentally would be that the commission might consider refining such organizations in a way that would not allow circumvention.

tighten control over the activities of multiple organizations working for the same candidate, shorter election campaigns, new disclosure rules that would simplify not only the filing of reports, but also the public discovery of what was important.

Shorter elections, and I mean, just, I don't know if the Vice President's smiling at that.

We all go with that, Mr.

Prince.

I sure go with that.

But if you know that it is the British government,

Unfortunately, everybody who tries to fly a Charles or Rhodes Scholar, you know, who tries to fly it here, it just doesn't work.

The minute that that one can start, you can't say anything.

I mean, it's been so often talked about, we should put it in.

But the problem is, how many elections did they occur?

On stated dates, you know when every election is going to be for the next century.

You can begin to get ready for any one you want.

In the case of the British, there's no way of knowing exactly when the election is going to be.

So it'd be by shortening the time before you declare it, the Prime Minister can automatically reduce the campaign.

I don't know whether that's really realistic.

Well, if you have the funding arm of the campaign, you're not allowed to come into existence.

Well, the expenditures could not be made before a certain time or something like that.

The only question I read about this is the proliferation of dates and primaries in the respective states, which really is a great...

hindrance to this whole project and you might be sort of making recommendations for uniformity.

But as we know now, you have such a tremendous variety of dates in relation to primaries and obviously one has to be well prepared for a primary before you can consider a general election.

In regard to that particular passage, we do have this problem that although we are guided by federal laws, we are also guided by the respective primary laws of our states.

And those cannot be affected by this one.

I think you found the states uniformly getting in line with that particular thing, obviously because of the finances.

What is your reason for doing that, Bob?

Marlowe's country, the snow is falling out pretty heavily in November, and we think it's a better election campaign time.

Yeah, that's one reason, and then two, we feel that it would, in shortening the campaign, it would increase the election, the interest of the electorate, and cut down on the expenses.

Well, I'm for the shortening, but why would it be shortening it to October?

Well, because it comes toward the end of the, I mean, it's closer to summer.

Well, there'll be one month left in the campaign, we would hope.

Well, we've started to talk about it.

It might be a little bit October that you started.

You know what I mean?

Now we start Labor Day.

My brother and I start the first of August, Johnny.

We start 4th of July after that base, Doc.

Well, I don't know if we'll start on Labor Day.

I start on Labor Day.

We start on Labor Day.

Well, nevertheless, the idea is impressive.

Really, the mayor needs to make strong suggestions to the respective states to set up a late primary date and a specific general election time.

That would go very closely over.

What it really does is compress the time because no state can have a primary before January.

So you at least save one month.

between January and October rather than January and August.

We have our progress in March.

And frankly, I love it because the guys are going to run against it in the property.

Can't get started in the middle of the winter.

It's hard to go.

You're right there.

You've got to watch the time.

Go ahead.

and all these people are members of the committee and every day they vote.

No way.

There's disclosure rules that would simplify not only the filing of reports, but also the public discovery of what was important in those reports.

Reducing the cost of reaching the public by making free television time available to candidates.

Throw in there, let me see, you have there the problem of, which has been created before, radio and television.

Can I put radio and television in there, or radio and television?

But it has been almost universally suggested that this be done.

The television network people object.

They say that, well, we will provide the time on Equal Time, but then you get the Equal Time leads and all the rest of it.

And the problem here, again, is that peripheral parties, you know, nutheads, et cetera, et cetera.

But certainly, when we look at the enormous cost of television these days,

The time is rapidly approaching.

We have to do what is done in virtually every other city that has so-called free elections.

The two major parties on a free basis.

The commission might consider a prohibition against charging of premiums with Vladimir Putin.

Well, I think that's a reprehensible practice.

It is.

Particularly when it comes from the people that complain much about violations and the high cost of financial care from the campaign.

But a charge of premium for political advertising as opposed to any other kind of advertising seems to be its discomfort.

We had that in the bill, the last bill.

Yeah, the charge is not higher than it seems to be, as long as you agree.

How's this deal?

President, I wonder if there's any reason why we couldn't set by federal law the date by which the date of the nomination of the prime minister for candidacy to federal office.

I'd like to.

To determine the length of the campaign rather than looking at the stage.

And I know you're talking about President Feinstein.

Well, Congress too.

Congress too?

I mean, I don't see why we can't set the date, if we can set the date of the general election.

You could set the date for the nominating.

Well, what do you figure, how does the Green Party's movement in any of these areas, what?

That would determine the length of the campaign.

Well, Mr. President, I just hope that George and Bob Strauss can get together and give some consideration to the National Convention being held in September.

Yeah, sure.

That would be helpful.

We do control the primary expenditures of the new election.

Well, that's the only reason why you can't control the date of the federal election.

Well, we're talking about two as the presidential and the other two as the House of Senators.

Right.

It shows you what the commission can get into.

I think one of the most important areas, and it wasn't clearly clarified, was the prevention of federal expenditure rules

Both in the state as well as in the federal.

You need a relationship.

That's right.

There ought to be a clear preemption.

Make it clear that you're preempting state law, so that you don't have to file a vote.

Yes, it is.

It is.

Our attorney, Matt Rose, is going to look at it.

That's where some of the law probably has to be verified.

President just pointed out that most of these points that have been covered so far are in the bill that is now under discussion.

And we're certainly hoping to get a bill out sometime this year.

Of course, the commission might come up with other decisions on it, but at least the hope was that we could get this bill out and through certainly in time to take care of next election.

Let me say on that point, there is no intention, whatever, to have the commission preempt it.

the legislative initiatives that are being undertaken here.

Or for that matter, for example, the Urban Committee.

I mentioned, for example, in my remarks, the Urban Committee will obviously make some recommendations for legislation

In fact, what I do think a commission does hard is it generates public discussion and public support for action on bills that otherwise may lie around.

You see what I mean?

And that's the purpose here.

That's always a problem.

Commission overlaps with what the Congress may already be doing in various ways.

But there's an enormous public interest that is far broader than the Congress here, and that's what we're trying to do.

The last two of the examples cited by the President are the possibility of new federal laws that would make illegal practices that are now unethical and finally the establishment of an independent Federal Elections Commission with its own enforcement powers.

There are other examples.

That is, that is... President, what about, what about a ceiling on spending?

I didn't hear you cover that, did you?

Yes, yes.

I noted the layoffs on contributions, but that in itself is going to help situations like I'm sure Marlowe and I are accustomed to in our state today.

The great bulk of the spending is not in the advertising, but in the funding of county organizations to get out the votes on election day.

Of course, the governor's organization always has plenty of cards, plenty of funds, and plenty of people.

And I would hope there would be some way to get at this.

Mr. President, we've discussed this before.

Did you remember the first election, campaign election bill that we dealt with?

Originally, he excluded governors, and we found out that this was just an impossibility.

Truly, let's all put a governor in.

No, no, I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about from the aspect of restrictiveness, from the aspect of campaigns.

I never deal with this fairly until they can get at that, because I can pour a million dollars into the precinct on election day.

And what can you and I do about it?

Well, the thing he's gonna do is they run us as a team.

The governor and the senator and the congressman and the county commissioner are all on the same team in this county.

How are we going to divide that together and save so much respect?

We've got worse than that in Pittsburgh in today's election.

You know, the Democratic mayor and their father-in-law.

You can't stop it.

The Democratic Republican position.

It means nobody wants to, you know, because they, obviously, I know all of you.

I've just watched some of your faces.

I know you've gone around this track a lot, but, uh, you can't, uh, you can't say that.

It seems to me, Mr. President, the big benefit of this is to have a nonpartisan, bipartisan group that will take away from some of these self-appointed organizations that are seeking to move in and to be the judge of the conscience of the candidates and the public in the area of campaign.

Some of the recommendations of some of these groups, in my opinion, in the last two years have been impractical because they really didn't understand the way it worked.

And it seems to me a group here, particularly with the two national chairmen,

who are pros, and I use that in the right context, can be very helpful in coming up with some specifics that'll be down-to-earth, practical, and still constructive.

I talked about Strauss last night at dinner, and his impression was very favorable, I think, with George and Bob giving this Bruce and Substance

In the practical point of view, it can be, it should come up with some good recommendations.

But I also suggest while we're here today that in terms of the commission, of course, we can't make it quite as good as the legislation has been asked, but the commission, I would love names for public members.

I think that would be the names for us to remember.

Well, there should be no notices.

It's not overlooked the fact that there are quite a few women voters.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. President, I understand someone's, I guess it was Elliot's comment, that the judiciary out of business is going to respond to me.

Did I understand you to say that?

Judges?

Well, I always make the point that, generally speaking,

Chief Justice, who was, I've talked to him a few times about various other matters, likes judges to, you know, be judges, and not to get involved in things that must be directly related to the judiciary, but that's kind of a defeat that he's sort of, what do you mean, what do you think, Bob?

I don't, you could get a good judge on his side.

I agree with the Chief Justice, yeah.

But he's been very, you know, he encourages, you know, we have often thought, and when we had other commissions in kind at the time, like one of our colleagues in Brussels put a judge on, you know, like that, you know, the chance of good retired judges.

Yes, yes, yes.

Well, there you have it, Paul.

You've got it.

You know, we've been in front of the Supreme Court.

You've got Warren, the clerk.

The difficulty there is the effect.

But in any event, those are names that we'll have to consider here and we'll have to consider the names of the Congress.

Now, some have suggested that, and I'm not saying this to indicate what you all do, but it would add great prestige to the Commission if the leaders

would go on.

The problem I see with that is that it's a problem of time.

I mean, if you put Mike and you, for example, on it, put Jerry and Tim on it, that'd be great, but I think you've got a problem with time.

And let me say, I didn't appeal to me a great deal if they'd be willing to go on.

What do you think, Raul?

Not too much to do.

I forgot I could say that.

There are members who are real experts, Mr. President, in both the House and the Senate, who have had the background of the last go-round we had on this, and the time factor, I don't know about TIF,

to do a good job, I think you have to be on the job.

And I just don't see how, at least I don't.

One of the great benefits of this is to get a member who, I mean, obviously every member's busy, but to get a member who's really interested in the subject and put him on there, and then he'll really, because among these commissions, I mean, there are commissions that are about three or four people that run it sometimes, right?

And the only meeting you'll have full attendance will be the first one.

Well, the photograph.

And then, of course, there is this enormous support to the staff.

But nevertheless, what I meant is, you put three or four good members, a couple of good senators, a couple of good House members on that, and they will have an enormous effect on this commission.

Because they're going to know so much more about it than the public members putting in black candidates.

unless the public members happen to be people who are former members of the House, or perhaps even indecent, and she might put a former governor on.

I have thought of that possibility as a possibility.

Mr. President, I might also suggest there's a great deal of background that we can all pick up, because since I've been here on the Constitutional Amendment Committee, we've had hearings on one term, we've had all of this sort of thing, and we've got some good background in

We've got some good material that's already there.

Yes, absolutely.

In fact, the cooperation of the members would be very much appreciated, I suppose.

Now, let me ask this question.

I urge you, actually, I'll send a message tomorrow.

We'll incorporate some of the thoughts we've had here.

Because trying not to be all inclusive and not exclusive.

My point is that I would hope that all of this

that the leaders would agree that they would give us a high priority number and get the doggone thing enacted so that we could pass a, you know, have an appropriation for it.

Why don't we ask for appropriation?

We haven't begun yet, but we will in the next subject, and we probably will get it from that certain order.

So I'll be doing it here.

Mr. President, my first choice would be to have a lieutenant from the Senate to go on.

Just as long as we can finish up the new bankruptcy act and submit it, I don't think we're about to finish.

We've got our first draft now.

Well, what I meant though, what I meant, Mike, is that when I think we get that, I mean, what I was, when I was not asking you to say that, could the House and the Senate give this a high priority number and get it enhanced, you know, get the commission beamed, or what is your, what is your, well, I think we could, but we'd have to depend upon Howard and Marlowe, which is taking initiative in their case.

Yes, it goes to that committee.

They get something out, we'll get it out.

We asked you to be here.

That's the sign about the house.

The house that you get referred to.

The house administration chairman's not here right now.

I would not want to speak for Wayne Hayes.

Anybody seem to know him?

I will consider doing that, but I don't want to be pinned down yet, Mr. President.

As a matter of fact, there are so many professional reform groups in America last year that pressured a miserable bill that was absolutely disgusting, costly, in every way, and the reporting ended a little bit.

There was no appetite in the House whatsoever to get it to this field again.

They just would like the

It should be the wages of the bill that we had last year, but that bill was a monstrosity.

You're speaking of the finance bill.

I'm talking about the finance bill that we passed last year.

And there's going to be a... That's what we're trying to get out of here.

It might have been a lot of roadblocks.

We're going to do a big fight for a lot of them.

But wouldn't you say, Ted, this is a way in which we can correct some of those problems that all of us are familiar with.

The reporting procedures, I mean, the number of reports are just unbelievable.

And, Ted, it's just a way to qualify our state.

Calm it down.

We've got to the point now, you've got, I think, 135 members from the last election who still haven't closed.

Uh, they campaigned the committees last year.

They don't know how to go about closing their campaign committees.

Constantly, they're all...

They're all...

And this may kick it off, you know, this could help.

It sure can't hurt.

I mean, here's, we understand this is not something, we ought to understand, this is not something that passes legislation.

This is something that considers and recommends to the Congress and stimulates the Congress to get off its tail and do something about some of these things.

Now, this thing, 4,000 violations of President Leone and then both national committees have

No way.

And it's just, and here, honest people, if you hear these guys now, they're finance chairmen, they're not accountants, lawyers, or something.

And the poor guys get in there, and they're not trying to steal or anything.

All of a sudden, they're filing a third violation of the law.

It's not the best kind of legislation.

See, what I mean is that the commission, and I've talked to some of the members about this, but the commission at least, well, it can move into this area.

It can move into other areas.

But it could stimulate the kind of thoughtful consideration for getting the right kind of legislation.

Maybe we can't get it by 74.

Maybe it's going to take till 76.

Let's not be under any illusions.

But there isn't anybody here who doesn't believe that the present system needs to be changed, Jim.

There's no question about it.

So, and it doesn't have to be the House, because we've got a more political attitude than the statesman likes.

I'm not the president.

I just give you the price, and you're right to do so.

Except that my own point is that if we just let things go along, I do, and say that the committee process will work in the junior way and so forth, you are not going to get it.

the broad public support, the broad public understanding, and the broad consideration of this that is needed at this point.

That's the reason I'm recognizing this.

It seems to me, Mr. President, that you're still going to stay under attack by all of these organizations, whereas if you take the initiative of creating this, that you're modifying some of that attack.

And as a matter of fact, I might suggest... What's number one?

Not even this announcement, I might suggest that you put some of mine...

As the public, frankly, doesn't bother me.

You know, I doubt seriously you'd do that, but I certainly, you know, I'm not saying that you ought to get some of these organizations to get their people on, because I think they'd be spending a lot more time investing.

There's been so much reform up in the Senate and House that the words be coming out.

We've got to get away from that.

I want to sort of emphasize a little different here.

I'm concerned that this may be a way

We want to leave up and strengthen the recommendation that this commission should issue interim recommendations.

You know, as they deal with a particular skeleton, which could be, let's say, we could do something with the tax.

Some of these things this year, for example, if you, if they come up with a recommendation in case for the general election or the primary election, you might be able to, you've already said this, but I just,

I want to emphasize, and I think you want to be sure, in regard to the tender of reports, you don't want to run into the privilege of being dismissed by a holdout reform.

Well, there are two or three things that are in there.

First, it specifically says in no way is to hold up any, or inhibit any acting by current committees of the House and Senate that are acting here like your committee.

Second, that as far as the committee is concerned,

It does not need to wait, it should not wait until its final day of reporting to make all of the reporting.

It should make eight other reports when it has agreement on certain matters.

Uh, we'll put that in, I think that would be good.

Could I ask a simple question?

Yeah, I'm just wondering, I had some time in my house.

in this kind of thing isn't going to need a lot of us people to feel that they were getting to the action, get these reactions, and thereby expedite their pushing their own favorite election campaign reforms.

Is that consistent with this?

Or is this a commission which will consider a reform to both actually encourage us members to get in there and push for the enactment

Their favorite reforms, even to the extent of trying to beat the Commission to representation.

You know better.

you're going to find pretty broad-based support.

And the business community, I know lots of people in the business community are concerned about some of the provisions in the present law.

Last week or two weeks ago, Leonard Woodcock in Michigan, head of the UAW, came out for something very similar to this.

And I think labor, you'll be surprised, or at least that segment of labor, will be anxious for something of this kind.

You've got Common Cause and in the House you've got Hugo and John Anderson and I guess a number of others on both sides of the aisle.

I think there'd be more support than you suspect for something of this kind.

And I think it's better to have it done by a group such as this than to have some individuals who may have some interests of their own for one reason or another.

I think Wayne Hayes would be pleased, Mr. Speaker, you know, the jurisdictional point we had last year.

This, however, I think can have a very profound effect on the, on generating the kind of reform, if I'm keenly aware of the fact that when they got to that jackass in Mansfield last night, it turned out to be a Mongolian gig, the worst stick that ever ran.

And everybody should have known at the time that it was passing too much of a hurry.

But we might even hear,

But it's the same thing.

Working hard.

Can't come up with constructive ideas.

Do not buy into it.

And frankly, any nice thing that's gonna be done practically, I can assure you, I'm not gonna take just the commission's recommendations.

I mean, unless I go through the field and they've worked, it will run by the Congress, but it will, I think, it will give us some new ideas and we'll get some public interest generated in the right direction about the fact that most of the men in politics are at least transparent and do a decent job and are just a bunch of people trying to please the public, which is true, and we all know it.

My thing,

It will enable us to take a look at some of these deeper questions.

And I guess I'll leave it at that in terms of the...

and so forth and so on.

So I am not suggesting the leaders as a result of the meeting, but the purpose of this meeting is to say that I am sending a message in a bipartisan spirit.

I would appreciate bipartisan consideration of it.

And your ideas will be certainly very, very thoughtfully considered.

As far as the membership is concerned, it will be broad-based, and we'll appreciate any issues that you have on it.

And if we can get it through the House and the Senate, we would be grateful.

As an early date.

Senator, I want to commend you.

I think his hand is right.

And if the people want something like this, I think you're moving in the right direction.

I don't think there's going to be such a problem.

Oh, I'm just going to send you the fax.

I'm going to send you the fax.