The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Pursuant
to the order of the House of Friday,
July 17, 1998, the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. PAUL) is recognized for 5 minutes
in support of his amendment.
1998 Ron Paul 86:2 Mr. PAUL.
Mr. Chairman, I believe
this is a perfecting amendment, it is
not in the nature of a substitute, and
that has been cleared in the Committee
on Rules.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The
Clerk designated it as an amendment
to the amendment in the nature of a
substitute.
1998 Ron Paul 86:3 Mr. PAUL.
Mr. Chairman, both
amendments that I have should be perfecting
amendments, and if permissible,
I ask unanimous consent that
they both be accepted as such.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. It is an
amendment to the amendment in the
nature of a substitute. The gentleman
is amending the Shays-Meehan amendment
in the nature of a substitute as
permitted by the rules.
1998 Ron Paul 86:6 Mr. Chairman, my amendment is
very simple. It is an amendment that
deals with equity and fairness, so I
would expect essentially no opposition
to this.
1998 Ron Paul 86:7 It simply lowers and standardizes the
signature requirements and the time
required to get signatures to get a Federal
candidate on the ballot. There are
very many unfair rules and regulations
by the States that make it virtually
impossible for many candidates to get
on the ballot.
1998 Ron Paul 86:8 Mr. Chairman, I want to make 4
points about the amendment. First, it
is constitutional to do this. Article I,
section 4, explicitly authorizes the U.S.
Congress to, “At any time by law make
or alter such regulations regarding the
manner of holding elections.” This is
the authority that was used for the
Voters Rights Act of 1965.
1998 Ron Paul 86:9 The second point I would like to
make is an issue of fairness. Because of
the excess petition requirements put
on by so many States and the short period
of time required, many individuals
are excluded from the ballot, and for
this reason, this should be corrected.
There are some States, take, for instance,
Georgia, wrote a law in 1943.
There has not been one minor party
candidate on the ballot since 1943, because
it cannot meet the requirements.
This is unfair. This amendment would
correct this.
1998 Ron Paul 86:10 Number 3, the third point. In contrast
to some who would criticize an
amendment like this by saying that
there would be overcrowding on the
ballot, there have been statistical studies
made of States where the number of
requirements, of signature requirements
are very low, and the time very
generous. Instead of overcrowding,
they have an average of 3.3 candidates
per ballot.
1998 Ron Paul 86:11 Now, this is very important also because
it increases interest and increases
turnout. Today, turnout has
gone down every year in the last 20 or
30 years, there has been a steady decline
in interest. This amendment
would increase the interest and increase
the turnout.
1998 Ron Paul 86:12 The fourth point that I would like to
make is that the setup and the situation
we have now is so unfair, many
are concerned about how money is influencing
the elections. But in this
case, rules and regulations are affecting
minor candidates by pushing up the
cost of the election, where they cannot
afford the money to even get on the
ballot, so it is very unfair in a negative
sense that the major parties penalize
any challengers. And the correction
would come here by equalizing this,
making it more fair, and I would expect,
I think, just everybody to agree
that this is an amendment of fairness
and equity and should be accepted.
