Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 12, 1973
Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, June 12, 1973
[00.20.40] The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, -which became effective April 7, 1972, changed that by eliminating entirely the distinction between a, campaign for nomination and a campaign for election, It required that all contributions and all expenditures in any political campaign be reported. Although the bill was signed by the President on February 7, it, did not become effective until April 7 because the Congress specifically allowed 60 extra days for operation under the old law. The distinction between election financing and nomination financing had existed for almost, 50 years, and countless candidates, for the Presidency, the Senate,, and the House of Representatives had observed the requirements of the one and the exemption of the other. In 1972, candidates for such offices in both political parties formed finance committees that did not have to publish or their transactions prior to April 7, and organized new reporting committees, after that date. In the President's campaign a Finance Committee for the Re-Election of the President had been created solely to raise funds for the renomination , and this committee terminated its activities On April 6; it was not, under the law, required to file reports. A new Finance Committee To Re-Elect the President was created to operate beginning April 7, and it has filed all public reports required by the new law. We readily acknowledge that our fundraising operated under the old law until April 7, 1972, the Federal -Election Campaign Act of 1971; under this law the fact that contributions need not be reported gave, the. committee and its contributors a right of confidentiality The issue Of confidentiality versus disclosure of such information has never been fairly presented to the public. It has been made to appear that the committee engaged in secret, thereby concealed and suspect, transactions which would not have occurred had they been required to be disclosed. That is not true. The transactions were valid and proper and the question of whether they were to be reported Was a question of law that involved important rights of individuals. The committee's position all along has been that nondisclosure created no advantage to It, but that it was a right of' the contributor which the committee could not- properly waive. The right to live without undue intrusion is a long-respected benefit of the American system. Therefore the committee did not release the names of contributors before April 7. [00.23.47--shot of Sen. TALMADGE lighting up a huge cigar--presumably to help the time pass while STANS speaks] It, has never objected to any contributor disclosing his contribution. And on one occasion, just before the election the committee released a list of such contributors--up to March 9, 1972--only after consulting with those making the, larger gifts, Much has also been made of the fact, that a few records of the committee before April 7 were destroyed. The fact is that, the very large part of such records has been preserved, and the committee believes that the others can be reconstructed if needed. But, the important point is that there was no illegal act in throwing away any of these records, and even those that were retained could have been disposed of, Not only was there no statutory requirement that records of transactions before April 7 be preserved it, was not even necessary that any recordings be made at all. At least, that's what our lawyers told us at the time, and that corresponded with what we had been told in the 1968 campaign. The Finance Committee To Re-Elect the President, undertook to observe strictly all the, provisions of the new law, beginning April 7, and also urged its State committees to do likewise. Systems and controls were developed to insure that would be the case. Notwithstanding this, there have been a, few instances in which the committee has been cited by the General Accounting Office and the Department of Justice for failure to report transactions which occurred after April 7, and in at, least one case, the; Department of Justice has ruled in favor of the committee. The committee believes that it, has valid explanations for this small number of technical violations, and that, considering the hundreds of thousands of' contributions received and bills paid, its record of operation under a new and highly complex law that came into being in the middle of the campaign should be commended rather than criticized. [00.26.03]