My concern is that we continually ask ourselves that fundamental question: Does the national party convention serve a useful purpose, and to what degree will we be undermining that purpose if we don't focus on the larger question and keep in mind the fact that it is the national party convention that nominates the Presidential candidates.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I look forward to a discussion of the very narrow concerns State by State, candidate by candidate, in terms of regional primaries.

Mr. SWIFT. With that, we are ready to begin. It is a great deal of pleasure to welcome both Mr. Thomas and my good friend Charlie Bennett to the committee. I know that you have a committee to chair very shortly, so we will put your prepared text in toto in the record. You may proceed in any way you choose.

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE CHARLES E. BENNETT, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA Mr. BENNETT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for this chance to speak today before the subcommittee on an issue which I have been interested in for some 20 years or longer, regional pri

maries.

Perusing my files recently, I ran across a newspaper column dealing with the Presidential nominating process. Here is a portion of what it said. This is a quotation from a news article:

This outlay of money is not the only excess. The expenditures of time and energy are equally disproportionate. Preparations in New Hampshire have been under way since last October, some 9 months before the Republican convention. The candidates are competing there on a hand-to-hand basis, like local office-seekers, and they must meanwhile keep their eyes on the 49 other States.

The above statement could have been made yesterday in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the St. Louis Dispatch or some other newspaper, but it didn't. It appeared in February, not February last but February, 1964, over 20 years ago. And it was in the Washington Star, now defunct.

This dramatizes the point that for years now, people have criticized the nominating process and how it has faulted itself, but there has been no action. They have talked of regional primaries, but it has been talk, pure and simple. It is obvious to almost any observer that the present way we nominate the Presidents is, at best, haphazard. What we need is action to back up our words of criticism.

We won't necessarily solve all the problems for all the years, and the future of the democratic process changes from time to time. It could be what we enact today might be the best we could do for our day. Things may change in the future. So, we are not necessarily putting anything in stone, but we try to make an improvement.

I have introduced what I believe to be very sound legislation. My bill, H.R. 251, would establish a series of six regional Presidential primaries at which the public may express their preference for the nomination of a candidate for election to the presidency. To receive Federal financing under existing law, a candidate would have to run in at least one State primary in each of these regions.

The bill is very straightforward, very simple, very workable. Such a system or regional primaries would reduce the chance of a

handful of people choosing a Presidential nominee. With all due respect to the wonderful people of Iowa and New Hampshire, that is what we face today. Individuals running for President now spend an inordinate amount of time and money stumping States that really won't provide that many delegates in the nominating process later on. In so doing, candidates try to catch fire as they roar toward the more populous States. In George Bush's words, they want "the Big Mo in momentum".

To make matters worse, small States such as Iowa and New Hampshire are scheduled mere days before a huge pack of primar ies, referred to in 1984 as Super Tuesday primaries. Of course, before 1984 it was assumed that such a front-stacking system would help a wellknown frontrunner such as Walter Mondale. But as we all know, Gary Hart's upset win in New Hampshire propelled him on a flaming trail that nearly garnered him the nomination.

What would H.R. 251 do? It would provide a systematic approach that would help reduce the extremely high campaign expenditures as well as the great amount of time that is now spent on a Presidential primary in a particular State. Additionally, it would help eliminate the costly jockeying that occurs between different States in their efforts to be the most influential primary election.

I believe that regional primaries as outlined in my bill would provide a solution to all of these problems and would allow candidates of all persuasions to actively participate in the primary proc ess without requiring them to concentrate on particular States due to financial restraints.

We ought to move to deal sensibly with the inherent problems which our present ad hoc system of primaries doesn't provide. Certainly we need to strike a balance between well-known candidates and underdogs. It has been said that a Presidential primary would virtually eliminate the chance of an underdog to gain momentum needed to get nominated. This obviously shouldn't happen, but neither should we tip the scales toward unknowns, thus ensuring that already prominent candidates have little chance to get nominated. This bill is a good compromise between the present system and a national primary on a nationwide basis.

Surely there's a way to ensure that all have a fair chance: the Gary Harts, the Pierre du Ponts, the Richard Gepharts, Pat Robertsons, George Bushes and Mario Cuomos. The have-nots-low name recognition, low funded program-should have a reasonable shot against the haves-the high name recognition, high funded candidates. We can do that and will if we enact legislation that provides an adequate number of regional primaries. I believe my bill does that in a very simple fashion.

There is a broad purpose here, more effective democracy. My chief interest in primary elections is to increase the grass roots or democratic base of our country. Admittedly, there are other possible advantages such as elections cost containment. Regional primaries would put sense into the Presidential nominating process. The process we now have is so disjointed as to promote political psychosis on behalf of candidates, not to mention campaign coordinators. We now have a hodgepodge of decisions being made in caucuses, primaries and smoke-filled rooms, with no rhyme or reason to it.

Some Southern State legislatures have moved toward a Southern regional primary. This is another case of the people and the States being ahead of us up here in Congress. While we should applaud these States for their taking the initiative, we in Congress should take this up and move to a comprehensive, fair, consistent regional primary system. Only by an act of Congress can we insure a uniform system of regional primaries. My regional primary bill would force candidates to focus their attention on one region of the country at a time, thus allowing them to develop ideas and suggestions and to develop a real coordinated program that would have a focus for the voters and get a grasp of who stands for what among the population. We in Congress must get in tune with the States and the people. Regional primaries is an idea whose time has come.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for letting me speak today. Let's move to ensure that future Congressmen aren't still debating this in the year 2004 and beyond. Thank you very much for your kindness in allowing me to appear.

Mr. SWIFT. Congressman Bennett, thank you very much for your statement. I note that you suggested 22 years ago they were campaigning in New Hampshire 9 months before the convention. They are doing that now 21⁄2 years before. And they have already started the delegate selection process in Michigan, which is 2 full years before the convention. One wonders what happens when we start working on the next one before we have elected a President, and we're moving in that direction.

One question is all I have. It gets to the question of enforcement. If a State should simply decide that it was going to ignore or defy Federal law, do you have any suggestions as to what would be an appropriate enforcement mechanism?

Mr. BENNETT. Well, in this law it says that it won't be allowed to hold primaries and the Federal Government can preempt this field of law. That has been constitutionally held. So, they could not hold an official primary for a State after the passage of this particular bill.

Mr. SWIFT. I would presume that what you are saying is that any delegates that would be selected in what would be, quote, “an illegal primary" would be subject to challenge in their own

Mr. BENNETT. That's correct.

Mr. SWIFT. Mr. Thomas.

Mr. THOMAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

That may be debated by others as we come along in terms of whether or not the parties have the right to control.

Mr. Bennett, in terms of setting up six regions for primaries— and I look at the geographic regions; my colleague, Bill Nelson, does the same-some folks view the United States from the West looking East, and some view it from the East looking west in terms of how you group States together. Some of these groupings make more sense to me than other groupings. It's always difficult, for example, in the West when you have a State like California with the number of delegates at stake in both the Democrat and Republican convention, to assume that folks are really going to spend much time in Nevada or that there is a regional media market that can reach 1,200 miles because it can't. And so some of the arguments that we are making, I think, we have to realize we are using in one

part of the country and then applying it across the country when it may or may not fit, because we don't have such things as interstate regional media markets in California spilling over into Nevada or Arizona. And in terms of a convenience in terms of grouping, I guess it's more convenient to say you can travel 1,500 miles within an area for campaigning. But I just noticed that on all the regional ones where we structure it, it's a convenient breakdown. But it probably won't relate to actual candidates' time spent or money spent on media.

But in addition to the regional arrangement that you have broken out, you also require States to do certain things. That is, they allow the States to have the primaries with the exception of. Is it your intention then that every State that decides to hold a primary is going to have to have a real primary, that is, they can't have beauty contests? Or would they be allowed to have a contest in which it really is meaningless in terms of the selection of delegates, bound or otherwise, to a convention that is more just a popularity vote on a Presidential candidate?

Mr. BENNETT. The bill I have introduced is a very simple bill. It will allow a flexibility of how you approach the binding quality and things of that nature.

As I said earlier on in my off-the-cuff remarks, this isn't something forever. This is something for 1986 and four or five decades later. Things change, and you can't keep them from changing; and it would be unwise for you to attempt to.

The early system of choosing Presidents was a pretty good one for our forefathers when they met in town meetings, and things of that type. Things have become much more complex. The nature of America may be different. You referred to the coverage of TV and how important it is in 1986. It could be slightly different. It could be more important. It could be more coordinated. Things change in the media all the time.

I am not saying this is forever. There may be an improvement on it in the future. But for right now, this is something that can be done. It makes definite improvements over what we have. It doesn't solve all theoretical problems that may occur in the future. When you refer to the disparity in States, in California consider how different you are in one section of the State and the other. And the same thing is true of Florida. The same thing is true of Tennessee. The same thing is true of many, many States. So, it's just an effort to make sense to divide it up. It's obviously arbitrary. But even within States there are greater differences than there are between States.

So, we are trying to get something that makes sense to concentrate on, in a particular area. We are trying to get rid of the abuses of the present system and get as many good things as we can in the future. But we don't necessarily expect in this bill we are going to solve all the problems of the future.

Mr. THOMAS. You indicate that it is a simple bill. I guess from our perspective in dealing with party registration in States and the relationship between States and requirements in some States in which they don't require you to register on a particular party affiliation, and your bill indicates that you are going to have to set up a register procedure, my concern is that we are dealing with more

than one subject matter in your bill. We are setting up a regional primary, but we are requiring from the Federal level procedures that some States now don't practice because they choose not to do

it. My concern is that we are probably going to get in in terms of the mechanics of forcing people into one party or the other, requiring that those folks who are on the ballot be committed or not committed, and that we are placing a degree of uniformity from the Federal level that we perceive is desirable, that the States for some reason or other don't see as desirable. And I think we are going to have to eventually get into those kinds of questions if we want to go beyond simply allowing the regional primary.

We are doing more in this bill than just allowing a regional primary, aren't we?

Mr. BENNETT. Correct.

Mr. THOMAS. We are dictating to the States how they are going to have to relate to the voters in that State as well and how the voters in that State are going to have to relate to the candidates that are selected in the primary. Regardless of what their choices are now on a voluntary basis, they are going to be forced into this uniformity. I think that is going to require an additional amount of hearing on this particular bill and all those others that do more than just provide for dates for regional primaries. But I think it's something we have to talk about.

Mr. BENNETT. Well, I am not wedded to any particular language. I just want the Congress to come forth with a bill that solves this problem. It struck me that the bill that I have introduced is pretty simple. When you get married, you make the same sort of decisions that the States and the Federal Government have. In other words, you don't expect to win every battle. You have to make some adjustments to your spouse. That's part of being married. That's part of having a Federal system. Some States will maybe find it very objectionable. When you look at the tremendous revolution that has occurred in the South with regard to its patterns of the past, and it has come out pretty good; so, sometimes we learn by having somebody force things upon us, as painful as it may be at the time. The common good of America is strengthening the process of electing the President and Vice President. These are such important things that maybe these tiny little changes here can be lived with. I don't believe that States are all that wedded to these little tiny points about whether you register in a particular party or not. I have never met a man from any particular State that felt that this was very basic to the success of democracy.

Our present system is a bad system. Just to wait for a perfect system is not doing our service to our country. We should find the best we can for our day and get it enacted and not expect it to be necessarily the thing that is going to be a half century from now or even two decades from now. But right now we ought to make progress.

Mr. THOMAS. I think it is well spoken, and I like your analogy between the Federal system and marriage. The only objection I have to it is that I found out that in the voting procedures in the States you can register decline to state. But that's pretty tough to do in a marriage situation.