FEDERAL ELECTIONS ACT OF 1955 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 1955 UNITED STATES SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON PRIVILEGES AND ELECTIONS OF THE Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10:15 a. m., in the caucus room, 318 Senate Office Building, Senator Thomas C. Hennings, Jr. (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Senators Hennings (presiding) and Curtis. Also present: James H. Duffy, counsel to the subcommittee; Gordon F. Harrison, chief clerk and counsel to the Committee on Rules and Administration; and John Dempsey, political science specialist to the subcommittee. Senator HENNINGS. The subcommittee will now proceed in the continuation of the hearings on S. 636. Our first witness today is Mr. Samuel Lubell. Will you come forward, please, Mr. Lubell. Mr. Lubell, we are very glad to have you here with us this morning. We are quite familiar with some of your writings and articles upon the subject of American politics and political science. I happen to have one of your books in my library. It is called The American Mr. LUBELL. It is The Future of American Politics. Senator HENNINGS. Future of American Politics. Mr. LUBELL. We want to get these plugs accurate. Senator HENNINGS. Which was published about 3 years ago, as I remember? Senator HENNINGS. The Committee on Rules, the parent committee, is meeting, and we want to see whether they have a quorum. If they have not-we will have to excuse ourselves this morning if they do not have a quorum. There are very few of us around here who do not have committee conflicts. Mr. LUBELL. Yes, I understand that. Senator HENNINGS. Mr. Lubell, have you a written statement Mr. LUBELL. Yes. Senator HENNINGS. For the benefit of the subcommittee? Mr. LUBELL. I prepared a fairly short statement which I could read and then I will be glad to answer any questions. Senator HENNINGS. Will you please proceed, sir, in your own way? Mr. LUBELL. Yes. Senator HENNINGS. Thank you. TESTIMONY OF SAMUEL LUBELL Mr. LUBELL. It is an honor to be asked to testify before you. This subcommittee is entirely right in feeling that the law governing election practices and campaign costs needs overhauling. So many loopholes and evasions have been developed in the present law that it comes close to being a joke. Senator HENNINGS. Mr. Lubell, before you proceed with your statement, I think it might be of benefit for the press as well as for the record for you to tell us something about yourself, without undue modesty. Give us some background, your education, your activities, the positions that you have held, your profession, and perhaps some of the things you have written and other enterprises with which you have been associated. Mr. LUBELL. Well, I like to think of myself plainly as a reporter. I have been mainly a newspaperman and magazine writer, and I have done a good deal of work in the field of politics. I have never been on the side of spending anybody's money, so I don't know—on that side I don't know too much about how that goes on. I have done a good deal of study and writing on elections, particularly since in the Roosevelt period and, as you mentioned earlier, I wrote this book, The Future of American Politics, and it-the Political Science Association was kind enough to give it its annual award as the best book on the subject in that year, 1952. Some of my colleagues in the newspaper business accuse me of trying to predict elections, and I always say, in response to that, that I try to report the actual campaigns, but in the last two elections I think my reports were quite accurate. I traveled around the country ringing doorbells, talking to voters, and when I was through with the 1952 election, I said I thought that Eisenhower would win, possibly by a landslide. And after the 1954 campaign, when I did the same sort of thing, I said I thought the two parties were more evenly balanced than at any time since Roosevelt had come to office. I did not think they were really that evenly balanced, the way the election turned out, but it seemed quite clear there was a close election, and I think most of my judgments on politics have been formed largely by talking to the voters themselves all around the country. I go out before every election in the last few elections, and after them. Now, beyond that, during the war, I worked here in Washington. I was secretary of the rubber committee of which Mr. Baruch was chairman. I was also Mr. Baruch's assistant all during the war on all the various reports that he worked on, and I was also, for a while, an assistant in the White House to Justice Byrnes when he was Director of Economic Stabilization. I do have some understanding of the inside of the executive branch of the Government. And now, I do not know if there is anything else—I think that covers the highlights of what I have done. Senator HENNINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Lubell. I think that gives us some of the background, although you have been very modest in your statement about yourself. We will proceed without detaining you any further, Mr. Lubell. You go ahead with your statement. Mr. LUBELL. Yes. I just started reading the statement, and I made the statement that I thought you certainly needed to overhaul the present law. But how are effective limits to be established upon election spending? This is a really tough problem. Completely foolproof controls are impossible, if only because as soon as any law is passed so many ingenious minds set about devising ways to circumvent the law. The problem you face in this regard calls to mind a true incident that happened during our occupation of Germany. So many GI's were dabbling in the black market there that our occupation authorities asked Washington for financial experts to devise a really tight system of currency control. One day two of these experts happened to be talking over the plans they had made while riding in a jeep. The GI, who was driving, kept laughing as these experts talked. Finally one expert asked, "What's funny? Are these plans to keep GI's out of the black market so bad?" "Oh, no," replied the driver. "You fellows are smart enough, but just remember there are only two of you and think how many there are of us." Control of campaign expenditures should be seen as a continuing contest, a never-ending struggle. Whatever bill is framed here should be written in that spirit. What is needed are fresh ways of giving vitality to three guiding principles: 1. Punishment for those who break the law. You never will have an effective corrupt-election-practices law until a few politicians and some overgenerous campaign contributors are put into jail. 2. The fullest possible publicity for all campaign contributions and expenditures. 3. Periodic revision of the law. Controls on campaign funds generally are most effective right after they have been put into effect. It takes some time for campaign spenders to figure out what they can get away with under the letter of the law. As they learn to evade the spirit of the law, its effectiveness drops very rapidly. Periodic changes are needed to keep pace with this progress in evasion, as well as with changes in campaigning techniques. Your task is made still more difficult by the fact that election spending has been so poorly controlled up to now. To cite only one example, there has been a tendency to disperse campaign spending in many scattered groups, largely to get around the limits laid down in the existing law. Before campaign spending can be brought under control, this trend will have to be reversed in favor of a greater centralization of responsibility for election spending. Another vital need is a greater will and desire on the part of the public to punish and end campaign abuses. In short, I do not believe that this problem can be resolved as a one-shot effort. What you are trying to do requires ceaseless vigilance. You may also find that you can improve on the situation only step by step, changing the law every few years as you learn what works and what does not, what can be corrected and what abuses persist. The bill before this committee would make an important contribution toward organizing the basis for such ceaseless vigilance. In a number of its specific provisions, however, it does not go far enough. First, as to enforcement, I do not think you can police any law, let alone one as detailed as this one, through a committee of Congress. Some one agency in the executive branch should be given the responsibility-and held accountable for investigating violations of the law and prosecuting violators. You might want to create special units within the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service for this purpose.. Second, as to the proposal to raise the ceilings on permissible campaign expenditures, that is essential if you are to have a basis for enforcement. The limits on spending must be brought up to a level consistent with the inflation of the last 15 years and with the expensive addition of television costs. However, may I stress that there is littleor no point in raising the ceilings unless you are determined to enforce the new ones. Any new campaign ceilings that are set should still strive to reduce the total election spending that is now going on. Campaign spending generally is pretty wasteful. When too much money is available it encourages not only corruption but a contempt for public opinion.. The belief spreads that candidates can be sold to the voters as if they were a new kind of mouthwash or toothpaste. The less money our two political parties have the stronger will be their resistances to campaigns of this type. Third, as to publicity, the reporting of funds might be stiffened by two additional requirements: (a) An additional date for filing these reports to be set as close as possible in advance of election day; (b) some requirement that contributions and expenditures be made public relatively quickly after the contributions are received or the expenditures are made. My objective here is to get as much as possible of this information out to the public before election day. The fear of candidates that excessive spending may hurt their election chances would serve as an additional and strong restraint. The public would have the opportunity to vote against anyone who spent too much money. You might also consider requiring all persons contributing over a specified amount-say $500 to $1,000-to report their contributions. At present only the person receiving the funds must file reports. Why not make the buyer and the seller equally punishable? Such a provision might also open the way for getting at the sources of funds that are used for spreading what you might call hate propaganda. I am not suggesting that anyone's right to say what he thinks be curbed. I do feel that those who finance such campaigns should be identified in the arena of public opinion. The idea of extending the law to cover primaries as well as general elections is fine. Some experimentation will be needed before you can determine what are the best means of attaining the objectives you have set. I have often thought that it might be worth experimenting along this line: To remove all limitations on the amounts that can be spent for a trial period of perhaps 3 years, covering at least 1 presidential and 1 offyear election. In that period require complete publicity by the giver and receiver of all campaign contributions, both direct and indirect, in both general and primary elections. In addition a watchdog group |