Now, Mr. President, we are all quite correctly frequently quoting or remembering the great French observer of more than a century and a half ago, Alexis de Tocqueville , who found the genius of the United States of America to consist of free association. De Tocqueville talked about this country as being a place in which people got together voluntarily in organizations to build a church or to found an antislavery society or to organize a group of immigrants to the new West or to do any of 1,000 or 10,000 other activities. Our genius was voluntary association. In fact, some of the most thoughtful and cogent criticisms of the Soviet Union in its heyday was that it prohibited voluntary association--prevented voluntary associations of people for charitable purposes, for religious purposes, but above all, Mr. President, for political purposes.

The heart of this bill makes it illegal for a group of persons to get together to make a contribution to a political campaign for the U.S. Senate. If the Senator from Kentucky and I want to get together and form an association to promote the election of a candidate for the U.S. Senate in his State or my State or any other State, we will be violating the law if this bill becomes law. We could do it as individuals, but only with this tiny amount of money that has, effectively, been cut by two-thirds since the 1974 law was passed. Of course, as much as the proponents of this legislation dislike the first amendment, they cannot repeal it. They absolutely cannot prevent the Senator from Kentucky and me from getting together and forming this organization and going out quite independently to educate the people of one of these States about the misdeeds of an incumbent, or the glories of some other candidate. Mr. President, if they could, they would. That is the philosophy of this bill. They think that any organization of individuals is a great evil that should be prevented from engaging in campaigns for the U.S. Senate.

Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. GORTON. I yield.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Craig). The Senator from Kentucky.

Mr. McCONNELL. The Senator from Washington indicated it would be illegal under the bill for citizens to form together and form a political action committee and submit a candidate. But is it not true if an individual does it, they better do it early, because once the speech limit has been achieved, even the individual is shut out of the political process, is he not?

Mr. GORTON. The Senator from Kentucky is correct. He and I, under this hypothetical, would not be able in, say, the last 2 weeks before a general election to make any such contribution if the candidate whom we propose to support had already reached the limits provided in this law and agreed to come under its provisions.

As I say, we could not be prevented from our own independent action in that connection. But even the elaborate superstructure, which might to a certain extent lift the restrictions on the other candidate, would likely come too late

if we ourselves were late.

I find it fascinating that this bill is being debated on this floor, considering the way in which we see politics has been practiced in the last 6 or 8 months in the United States. We have had literally tens of millions of dollars spent in the most thinly veiled attack on incumbents, mostly in the House of Representatives, who supported last year's balanced budget--tens of millions of dollars. I am particularly sensitive to those attacks because so many of the victims are freshmen Members of Congress from my own State.

Yet the definitions in this bill do not constitute those labor attacks on these incumbents as either contributions to their opponents or, for that matter, independent action, because they very carefully do not advocate their defeat in so many words or the election of their opponent.