Robert Underwood on Government Reform Delegate to US House (Guam)

Keep campaign soft money; allow legal resident contributions.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) adopted principles on campaign finance reform today to ensure that the reform efforts underway in Congress do not limit the growing Latino population’s path to political empowerment. The CHC principles support maintaining the hard money individual contribution limit at $1000, allowing “soft money” to be used strictly for voter registration and turnout activities, ensuring that legal permanent residents are not stripped of their right to make campaign contributions, and raising election reform as philosophically linked to campaign finance reform without slowing down legislative progress on either effort. “These principles are very important to the empowerment of minorities and we will press forward to ensure they are addressed in whatever legislation is ultimately passed by Congress,” said Silvestre Reyes, Chair of the CHC. “We in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus hope to join with the Congressional Black Caucus to advance these principles.”

Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) adopted principles on campaign finance reform:
1. The CHC opposes the increased hard dollar campaign contribution limits as passed by the Senate. The limit in current law is $1000, and the Senate amended McCain-Feingold to raise the limit to $2000, indexed for inflation.
2. The CHC supports exemptions that would allow soft money to be used strictly for voter registration and get-out-the-vote activities.
3. The CHC supports the right of legal permanent residents to make campaign contributions. Current law allows this, but past amendments to campaign finance reform bills have sought to outlaw legal permanent residents’ right to make campaign contributions.
4. While campaign finance reform and election reform are linked philosophically because they seek to strengthen the integrity of our democracy, the CHC does not rule out nor necessarily support linking the two issues legislatively.