In answer to your question, Mr. McConnell
Saturday, November 6, 1999, 1 P.M.
Outside Mitch McConnell's office in Louisville, Kentucky
Thank you for this welcome.
I have so enjoyed walking through Kentucky --the beauty is nearly overwhelming. This is a wonderful state, filled with great people
I want to speak about one great Kentuckian in particular, and that is Senator Mitch McConnell, whose office I have come to after 2,400 miles of walking.
He is on the other side of the battle lines in our effort to return the American democracy to the human scale --our effort to get the $100,000 check out of politics. But he is a most worthy opponent.
He fiercely represents his beliefs and the interests of Kentucky in Washington.
He sits as chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, which has jurisdiction over federal election laws and the administration of the Senate. He is the chairman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, a key foreign policy committee, and is a member of the Agriculture and Appropriations committees. These positions of leadership indicate that he is held in high esteem by his fellow Senators.
He is also the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which means he is responsible for supporting the campaigns of Republican Senate candidates in every state.
In 1997, he raised nearly $11 million for these campaigns from corporations and from wealthy contributors. Presently, he is raising even more for the upcoming elections.
When he speaks on the Senate floor, his arguments are well-reasoned and a delight to listen to. They make good reading, like the orations of Cicero of ancient Rome. He defends our constitution --as he sees our constitution-- with a vengeance
You are waiting for me to say something unkind.
In fact, I have come here to do him a favor, and to ask a favor. I will scold a bit, but I am not here to vilify him.
He asked a question on the Senate floor recently, and got no answer. I have, on foot, brought him his answer today.
In the recent campaign finance reform debate in the Senate, he rather sharply attacked Senator McCain, when Mr. McCain had the audacity to suggest that the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent by special interests to influence the passage of laws in Congress might indeed be influencing the passage of laws in Congress. Mr. McConnell thought that was an outrageous assumption, and asked for the names of any Members of Congress so low as to bend their votes toward the interests of contributors, like flowers toward the sun. Specifically, he said this:
"I ask the Senator from Arizona, how can it be corruption if no one is corrupt? That is like saying the gang is corrupt but none of the gangsters are. If there is corruption, someone must be corrupt."
He also said:
"It is astonishing. We have here rampant charges of corruption and yet no names are named..."
Mr. McConnell demanded the names of those who were corrupt. Mr. McCain, for reasons of friendship, courtesy and the dignity of the Senate --such as it is-- did not name names.
But Mr. McConnell persisted, demanding that Senator McCain give a name. Mr. McConnell was like a reverse-Diogenes, searching the dark corners of the Senate chamber with his lantern, looking for one dishonest man.
I have come here today to answer the question asked by Mr. McConnell, and to end his long search.
Lately, Mr. McCain has been accused of having a temper. But he did not answer Mr. McConnell's question in anger on the Senate floor.
Nor will I answer it in anger here, though it is true I can get a little testy, too. My feet do hurt sometimes, and need to be taped so that I can walk. I wear a steel corset to help my back, and it can sometimes make my words a little sharp toward the end of the day. Torture, even a little of it, does make you testy.
I have come a long way to address great men like Senator McConnell and tell them what Americans are saying about the condition of our democracy, and the role of big money in that democracy. The road wears on me sometimes and I am tempted to say in anger what all America seems to know except a few sheltered men and women whom we care for in a special room in Washington and who do not seem to notice deterioration when it comes over them slowly, or corruption when it becomes the water they swim in.
The answer to your question, Senator McConnell, is elementary.
You ask, "how can it be corruption if no one is corrupt? If there is corruption, someone must be corrupt." You are right, of course. Your analysis is pure genius. Someone must be corrupt. Who can it be?
Perhaps it is the bagman who shakes down American industries in return for protection in Congress, and in return of special tax breaks in Congress from the party in power, while average, working Americans struggle mightily to make ends meet. Have you seen such a person, Senator McConnell?
In 1997, Senator McConnell, when you took $791,945 from insurance interests who needed protection from patient rights efforts, and $602,885 from oil and gas interests who needed a free flow of tax benefits and protections against pollution laws, and $597,915 from communications interests who wanted free access to the digital spectrum and a free hand to merge into giant monopolies, you might have seen such a bag man in their offices. He's the man you were asking about on the Senate floor.
When you let a Ukraine group host a fund raiser for you in 1996, and you used your position as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee to provide a $225 million appropriation for development programs in Ukraine, did you see another fellow there, trading money for public policy? That's the fellow. He is at such meetings and making such deals almost daily, year in and out.
More to the point, Senator McConnell, though I admire your abilities and your achievements, and the hard work you perform for this state and for all of us, you are the man you asked Senator McCain about. And you are not alone. The House and the Senate are full of some of the best minds and most caring hearts in America, and they are being ethically destroyed by the financial demands of campaigning in the modern age.
We must do something, Senator McConnell, and you must help us. I have poked hard at you in these remarks, but I do so with a grandmother's love and the certain knowledge that we Americans are good people at heart who must be encouraged sometimes, and scolded sometimes.
Senator, we need your help.
We must move quickly toward the public funding of state and national campaigns. We must make the airwaves --which are public property-- available to candidates without charge if they will restrict their other expenditures.
The news media must do a much better job of reporting local and national campaigns, so that the necessity of expensive advertising is reduced.
Senator McConnell, I do not doubt that you are a great American. I know that you are. Let us drag ourselves from the noxious fumes of this poisoned house and breathe the free and clean air of true democracy again. Let us stand up and measure ourselves against each other, not against the size of our friends' bank accounts. Let us return democracy to the human scale, where it belongs.
Join us, Senator McConnell, in calling for the public funding of campaigns. Join us in demanding that broadcasters who use the public airwaves provide a public benefit at election time. Join us in ending corporate contributions to political campaigns, for corporations are not people, and democracy is.
Thank you all.
Approximately 160 enthusiastic people,
including Ellen Miller of Public Campaign, joined Doris "Granny D"
Haddock in front of Mitch McConnell's Louisville office, Saturday
afternoon, November 6. People Magazine, three television crews
and the Louisville-Courier Journal covered her arrival and her
remarks as she scolded McConnell for standing in the way of U.S.
campaign reform. Liz White, Vice-President of the League
of Women's Voters of Kentucky, applied for a permit for the outdoor
gathering a week before the event. Permits normally require a day or
two to process. By Thursday, it seemed that something was up --every
time White called about the permit, she was given the run-around. By
Friday at 3 p.m., it still hadn't been issued. One of the
secretaries told White they were waiting for a phone call from
McConnell. White then immediately called the newspapers
who asked what was going on. The General Service Administration
denied having any contact with McConnell and the permit was then
issued.