The Chair recognizes the gentleman
from Texas (Mr. PAUL).
1998 Ron Paul 90:1 Mr. PAUL.
Mr. Chairman, I yield myself
such time as I may consume.
1998 Ron Paul 90:2 Mr. Chairman, this amendment is
very simple. The major candidates receive
a lot, a million dollars, to run
their campaigns. Then they have national
debates, and then they can purposely
exclude other candidates. I am
not talking about 10 or 20 or 30 very
minor candidates, I am talking about
candidates who spend weeks, months,
years, hundreds of thousands of dollars,
just to get on the ballot. Some will not
even take the money, but some qualify
to be on 40 and 50 ballots, and they are
purposely excluded.
1998 Ron Paul 90:3 This amendment does not dictate to
those who hold debates, but it would
require that those major party candidates
who take the taxpayers’
money, they take it with the agreement
that anybody else who qualifies
for taxpayers’ funding, campaign funds,
or gets on 40 ballots, would be allowed
in the debate.
1998 Ron Paul 90:4 I cannot think of anything that could
boost the interest in the debates more.
Fewer and fewer people are watching
debates. There was the lowest turnout,
the lowest listening audience to the debates
in the last-go around. It was the
lowest since we have had these debates
on television.
1998 Ron Paul 90:5 Forty-two percent of the people
turned out and were interested in the
debates prior to the election in 1992,
and we had a major candidate, Ross
Perot. Of course, the only reason he
was able to achieve a significant
amount of attention was because he
happened to be a billionaire. That is
not fair. In 1996, they did a poll right
before the election to find out who was
paying attention. We were getting
ready to pick the President of the
United States. It dropped to 24 percent.
1998 Ron Paul 90:6 If we want people to be
civic-minded,
interested in what we are doing, feeling
like they have something to say about
their government, we ought to allow
them in. We should not exclude this 42
percent that have been excluded. I
think opening up the debates in this
way would only be fair and proper. It
would be the American way to do it. I
strongly urge my colleagues to support
this fair-minded amendment.
