of any candidate or candidates for any such office or the success of any national political party,

shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. "This subsection shall not apply to contributions or expenditures made by a political committee."

MAXIMUM CONTRIBUTIONS TO AND EXPENDITURES BY INTERSTATE POLITICAL

COMMITTEES

SEC. 303. The first paragraph of section 609 of title 18 of the United States Code is amended to read as follows:

"No political committee operating in two or more States shall receive contributions or make expenditures in amounts greater than the amount obtained by multiplying 20 cents by the total number of votes cast for all candidates for the office of President in any one of the last three final elections for that office."

CONTRIBUTIONS BY NATIONAL BANKS, CORPORATIONS, AND LABOR ORGANIZATIONS SEC. 304. (a) Section 610 of title 18 of the United States Code is amended by inserting after the first paragraph thereof the following new paragraph:

"It is unlawful for any candidate or political committee to make any contribution or expenditure in connection with any Federal election from funds received directly or indirectly from a labor union, corporation, or national bank."

(b) The existing second paragraph of such section is amended by adding at the end thereof the following: "Every candidate and every political committee and the treasurer of every political committee which makes any contribution or expenditure in violation of this section shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both, and if the violation was willful, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION OF POLITICAL STATEMENTS

SEC. 305. Section 612 of title 18 of the United States Code is amended by inserting after the word "names" wherever it appears therein the words "and addresses"; by changing the figure "$1,000" to "$5,000" and the words "one year" to "five years"; and by adding at the end thereof the following:

"Subject to the penalty provided in the foregoing paragraph, any political committee which publishes or distributes or causes to be published or distributed or deposits for mailing, any such statement, shall include the following legend: "This [publication] is paid for by [name of political committee], a committee duly authorized under section 201 of the Federal Elections Act of 1953.'

"The term 'political committee', as used in this section, shall have the same meaning prescribed by section 591 of this title."

Senator HENNINGS. At the present time, financial practices in connection with election to Federal office are regulated by the Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925 and the Hatch Political Activities Act of 1939, as amended. If there is no objection, for the convenience of the Senate and others, copies of these acts will be inserted in the appendix to these hearings.

(The acts referred to above may be found in the appendix, at pp. 269 and 275, respectively.)

Senator HENNINGS. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections, and as sponsor of S. 636, I have received many communications from political scientists and others commenting on the merits of the bill as well as its specific provisions. Copies of these communications will, without objection, be printed in the record of these hearings since they afford valuable insight into the thoughts and opinions of many persons vitally concerned with the problems before the subcommittee.

(The communications referred to may be found in the appendix.) Senator HENNINGS. Now we are ready, unless, Senator Curtis, you have some observation or some statement to make at this time. If you have, we will be glad to hear from you. You may proceed.

Senator CURTIS. Mr. Chairman, I have no statement to make at this time. I think it is agreed there are certain aspects of our election laws that should be more or less brought up to date, but other than that I am waiting for the hearings to develop what should be done. Senator HENNINGS. Thank you, Senator.

It is with particular pleasure that I welcome my old friend, Mr. Leonard Hall, to these hearings. It is very gracious and very generous of you to come, Mr. Hall. I had the pleasure of serving with you in the House of Representatives 20 years ago, and enjoyed your friendship then as I do now, and on behalf of this subcommittee I want to thank you very much for taking time out of your very busy schedule to prepare the statement which you are to present to us, and to meet with us this morning. Do you care to read your statement, Mr. Hall? Mr. HALL. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Senator HENNINGS. You may proceed in any way, in your own fashion.

TESTIMONY OF LEONARD W. HALL, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE, ACCOMPANIED BY FRED C. SCRIBNER, JR., GENERAL COUNSEL, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE

Mr. HALL. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, first, I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much for your kind remarks and to say this is a novel experience for me. For 14 years I was accustomed to sitting in the situation similar to yours today. This is the first time I find myself on this side of the rail.

I am going to read my statement. I may skip here and there to save time, but, generally speaking, I will follow it.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: It is a privilege to appear before this committee to testify on S. 636. It covers a subject with which I am concerned and it attempts to handle some problems which I think need solving.

I would like first to discuss with you the existing statutes so far as they cover expenditures by political committees. As you know, the present limitations were fixed many years ago when the dollar had far greater value than it does today, when the national population was much smaller, and when many essential campaign items did not exist, such as television and the use of air travel. As this legislation recognizes, the present limits on spending are outmoded and unrealistic.

I start from the general premise that if realistic limitations are placed on both campaign expenditures and campaign contributions, then this committee will have produced proper and beneficial legislation. No one wants elections to be bought by the extravagant expediture of money and anyone would deplore a situation wherein a few individuals or organizations by the weight of their contributions could dominate a party or a candidate.

Likewise, I am very favorably impressed with the intent of this bill to seek better reporting methods. Under the bill the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate are directed to develop uniform methods and forms for making the reports on both expenditures and contributions. When executed by the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate, the issuance of these forms would greatly simplify the whole reporting process and eliminate much confusion that now exists.

At this point I must say that my enthusiasm for S. 636 becomes a bit less. By that I mean I believe this legislation becomes most unrealistic in attempting to broaden the reporting base by doing some of the following things, and I do not intend to list them all

By including every conceivable kind of a committee, right down to and including the precinct committees;

By apparently including the delegates and alternates to National, State, and county conventions;

By introducing numerous additional classification requirements, such as alphabetizing the names of contributors and breaking the contributions down into dollar categories;

By requiring individual written authorizations from a candidate for all committees acting in his behalf;

By placing complicated bookkeeping and accounting responsibilities on candidates;

By requiring the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate "to ascertain whether candidates, political committees, or others" have not filed statements or filed defective statements and to give notice to them of such failure, and further "to provide for the preparation and periodic publication of compilations," analyzing the total contributions and expenditures "in each statement."

Our experienced staff people estimate that the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate might be handling a million or more reports each election year. Not only does this legislation propose that every conceivable kind of a committee make reports but they have to do so seven times each election year. I am afraid that the offices of the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate would be approaching stupendous size if this law were followed out to the letter if every committee, no matter how small, lived up to the spirit of the law and if the Clerk and Secretary followed all of the directives of this bill.

And you should note that all of these reports must be filed and preserved for 10 years.

In this connection I might add I am advised that to carry out the various proposed methods of reporting, including alphabetizing, classifying, and so forth, we would have to increase our bookkeeping force substantially and that under present laws our bookkeeping department frequently works till 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning to meet the deadline on the reporting we now have to do.

But I think there is one provision in this bill that will interest you gentlemen more than any other and should give considerable concern to every person who runs for Federal office. It is the proposal to make candidates for office responsible for all expenditures made in their behalf and to impose an overall limit, not on the amount spent by a candidate or a committee, but instead on the total amount expended by or on behalf of a candidate in a campaign. S. 636 recognizes that thousands of political committees campaign for a slate of candidates. It provides a formula for allocating committee expenditures among the various candidates supported by a committee. In large States where many committees function, the setup would be unworkable from a practical point of view. In my own State of New York, in a presidential year, committees will be set up in election districts and wards, cities and towns, in counties, and in congressional

districts. All of these committees, in addition to the State committee, will work for a straight Republican ticket. That means that they will be working for the Republican candidate for the United States

Senate.

Under S. 636 the candidate for the United States Senate must authorize, in writing, each of these committees to support his candidacy. This, in itself, is a tremendous task. Proper protection would require use of registered mail. I might point out there would be a large expenditure just for this one item of postage.

What is to happen if the candidate fails to give the written authorization and the committee nevertheless campaigns vigorously for a straight party ticket? Is it intended to penalize the members of the committee, who, in good faith, wish to work for the candidate for the United States Senate, or is it intended to place criminal liability on the candidate for office although he cannot control the action of the committee?

Let us assume, however, that proper authorization is given to the hundreds of committees supporting a candidate for United States Senate in New York State. The total amount which may be spent by these committees, by the candidate himself, and by all others in his behalf, is $250,000. The amount spent by each committee is to be allocated among the various candidates supported by the committees in the same ratio as expenditures on behalf of each candidate for printing and advertising, radio time, and for television time, bears to the total of such expenditures.

How, as you reach the last weeks of the campaign, can a candidate for the United States Senate personally control these expenditures or know whether or not they come within the limits of his campaign fund? It would certainly mean that no expenditures of any substantial amount could be made by any committee for the benefit of the overall ticket without clearing with each candidate. This, for all practical purposes, is impossible. In large States it would require complicated bookkeeping records and the retention of fulltime accountants to make the proper allocation of expenditures to be sure they would be kept within limits.

I cannot believe that any one of you gentlemen in your campaigns would want this added responsibility.

The purpose of the proposed legislation is good, but I am sure that anyone who has worked in a campaign, particularly in a hectic close campaign, knows that such a law could not be obeyed and that candidates and committee officers, although acting in good faith, might find themselves subject to fines or prison penalties.

You know that some of the penalties in the bill are not based on willfulness or on knowledge but are absolute, placing liability on the candidates at their peril.

Your committee, too, should carefully consider whether it is advisable to place an overall limit on the amount which may be spent for a candidate in a campaign and at the same time to place responsibility for this amount on the candidate. It is a radical departure from any provision of the present law, and to me it is entirely unworkable.

Turning to another aspect of regulation of campaigns, this bill fails to treat with a provision of the Hatch Act that I think needs serious attention by this committee. I refer to section 13 of the act, which

now prohibits the purchase of any articles the proceeds of which benefit any political committee or organization advocating the success of any national political party. I might say that one of my predecessors, Mr. Summerfield, now Postmaster General, discussed this provision at some length in his letter of resignation as Republican national chairman when he joined President Eisenhower's Cabinet. He pointed out while this limitation was basically sound that "unfortunately, the framers of the law made it so drastic that it prevents the national committees of both parties from receiving reimbursement for anything whatsoever."

I am in complete agreement with the position taken by Mr. Summerfield. I think that the people of both the Republican and Democratic National Committees who have been active down through the years will tell you that both committees have regarded this language as inhibiting them from selling anything of value.

When I became chairman of the Republican National Committee on April 10, 1953, I caused a meeting to be held the following day at which there was an extensive discussion of the possibility of publishing a party magazine and selling it. This project was under serious consideration for several weeks when finally our legal advisers told us that they would not take the responsibility of advising that the purchase of a party magazine was not in violation of the Hatch Act.

A month or so later the Democratic National Committee began publishing the Democratic Digest and selling it. Evidently, their lawyers took a slightly different view. Nevertheless, we think the law should be clarified in this regard, and we would favor an amendment which would allow a political committee to sell political material on a nonprofit basis-the price only to cover cost.

Speaking generally, I support all attempts to reduce the cost of political campaigning, to place practical limitations on the amount of money which can be expended, and to cut down the tremendous demands for funds which all political committees face at the present time. I think this can best be done, however, by increasing the knowledge among all voters of the work done by political committees for candidates, encouraging more and more voters to participate in politics, and by giving full publicity to financial contributions. I question whether the results we all desire can be obtained by imposing heavy fines or complicated regulations.

I also suggest that we attempt to reduce the cost of political campaigns by the voluntary shortening of campaign periods. As you know, the Republican National Committee has taken a great step in this direction by fixing the opening date of the 1956 Republican National Convention for August 20, the latest date in history for such a convention and one which will reduce the campaign by almost 2 months. While the saving resulting from this reduction in the campaign period may be more than offset by the tremendous increase in expenditures for such items as television, we think that additional cuts would be possible if the several States made a similar effort to cut down both primary and election campaigns at that level.

Gentlemen, you have tackled a very important and complicated problem. I wish you well.

Senator HENNINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Hall. If you would be so kind as to abide a few questions, possibly. I see the distinguished