basis, we are going to be in a position to come back to the Congress, with this and very specific and highly defensive recommendations for some resources in that area. Mr. FISHER. I might add, I have had an opportunity to take a look at that study made by the National Archives, and I can assure you that there will not be any great increase in numbers of persons on the staff. It would be a matter of reassigning responsibilities. FINANCIAL RECORDS Mr. DEPUY. My final question, just a practical question. How do individuals who want to take a look at financial records that have been filed by candidates-the press, or anyone who is interested-how do they go about coming into your office and getting a copy? Are there adequate xerox facilities if they want copies, and what happens if someone comes in and asks for a copy of a disclosure statement of Candidate X, as a practical matter? Mr. FISHER. There are adequate xerox facilities, and I would like our executive secretary to speak to the administrative procedure. Mr. PERKINS. Whenever they ask, whoever is qualified to see them, we make them available right away, and if they need the copies, we make that available, again, if they are authorized. Mr. DEPUY. And that would be true under home rule, assuming it passes the May 7 referendum, with the expected additional filings of a lot of candidates for the various offices? Mr. PERKINS. That will be true. As a matter of fact, part of the study is to make certain that the records are kept in such a way, and no trouble would be involved in getting the proper one for the proper person. Dr. MARTIN. And may I add the Board would regard these reports as public information, and should be freely available to interested people, so we would certainly want to facilitate making it easily available. Mr. DEPUY. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. INCREASING BOARD MEMBERSHIP If I understand you correctly, Mr. Fisher, what you are suggesting is that the two additional members be part-time, and the other three members be made full-time. Is that correct? Mr. FISHER. That is correct. Mr. HOGAN. And the full-time membership is based on the fact that you are going to have an increased work load? Mr. FISHER. We have an increased work load. I work just about fulltime at it now. Mr. HOGAN. What would be particularly wrong with, you know, maybe having a chairman or something full-time, but having all of the other members part-time? Mr. FISHER. I think that is a very good second choice. Mr. HOGAN. But your first choice is to have the others full-time? Mr. FISHER. Yes. INDEPENDENT BOARD OR COMMISSION Mr. HOGAN. Turning to the concept of an additional Commission, Congressman Nelsen, the ranking minority member of the Committee, was the Chairman of the Nelsen Commission, and one of the things they addressed in that study was the proliferation of commissions, advisory boards, and what have you, that exist in the District of Columbia, and they tried to whittle away at some of these. I think there are something like 150 boards, commissions, advisory boards, what have you, in the District of Columbia-maybe 186 or something. I have forgotten what it was. I realize that we are talking about an important function here, but I wonder whether in appointing the members of the Elections Board itself, you could not put the protections in there to assure the independence that you would not have to have an additional Commission. In other words, if you are going to establish a new Commission, obviously the idea in doing it is to give independence. Could not the same thing be done with the Elections Board, to insure the independence is there for all of the members, let alone the two members? Mr. FISHER. Yes, I think that would be an appropriate route to take. LOBBYING Mr. HOGAN. Congressman Nelsen has indicated he is interested in adding to any elections bill, the campaign bill reported out of this Committee, a provision calling for control of registration and disclosure of lobbying. Now, I assume that the logical place for that to fall would probably be with the Elections Board, since it is closely related. I wonder if you could give to the Committee an estimate of what you believe would be the cost of regulating and monitoring such a program for the District of Columbia, the idea being that with an elected Mayor and elected City Council, you have 13 Council members in there, but obviously there will be a substantial amount of lobbying going on in the local government. And it seems to me you need some assistance, probably; calling the respective Houses up here-the Senate and House you could probably get some information on what their workload is, but it would be helpful to have your view on how much this would cost. I do not think it need necessarily be any great, detailed regulation, but certainly I think there should be some minimum amount of regulation of lobbying in the District of Columbia under the Home Rule Act. If you could do that, it would be very helpful. Mr. FISHER. I Would be glad to submit that, along with the information that Congressman Fauntroy had requested. Mr. HOGAN. Fine. Thank you. As far as the regulations are concerned, you said-perhaps, Mr. Perkins, you were the one who said that you thought 30 days to crank up. Are you not now subject to the Administrative Procedures Act, the D.C. Administrative Procedures Act? Mr. FISHER. Yes, we are. TIME ELEMENT Mr. HOGAN. Would you not have to publish a set of proposed regulations, and would that not be subject to 30-day review comment by those who would be subject to it? Would you not get into a procedural question here that would probably run in excess of 30 days? Mr. PERKINS. Well, it works like this. It could be promulgated in 30 days. It takes 30 days, however, for them to become law. There is an emergency procedure to put into effect some rules, or all rules, in fact, if it is absolutely necessary, and there is no other way to go. For instance, the time frame in which we have to operate now, if you have up until we have until May 20 for a new petition to go out for the Mayor and Council-we have to have regulations in place for that. The only way we can get them in after May 7 will be to go by emergency, and they can be reviewed, and there is a complete procedure for the public to come in and ask that they be changed, and whatever. Mr. HOGAN. What are we talking about the time limit, so far as 30 days are concerned. 30 days from what? The enactment of this act, or the first time you published the proposed regulations, or exactly what time frame are we talking about? Mr. PERKINS. It would be 30 days from enactment of the act, assuming that we had a fair idea of what it was going to be like. We could have that prepared and ready to go into the D.C. register. So 30 days would then be 30 days from enactment. So signing by the President would give us that time to have it ready. Mr. HOGAN. And it would be ready in the sense that it could go into effect at the end of 30 days? Mr. PERKINS. At the end of 30 days. Mr. HOGAN. From the time that the President placed his signature on the bill? Mr. PERKINS. Yes. Mr. HOGAN. Are you familiar with the proposals that have been made of the Federal standards on the political arms as they relate to corporations and labor unions? Mr. PERKINS. Vaguely. STANDARDS Mr. HOGAN. So you are probably, then, not in the position to testify as to the advisability of incorporating the same standards that are in the Federal bill in this local bill having to do with the political arm of the corporations and the labor unions? Mr. PERKINS. No, I have not studied that, and could not comment on it. Perhaps Dr. Martin, who is a political scientist, could. Dr. MARTIN. I would say, in general, Mr. Chairman, that there would seem to me to be advantages of having uniformity in the regulations to facilitate the ease in understanding them, and it seems to me that basically good standards ought to be applied to both national and local levels, I would see no important reason for any serious differentiation between the requirements in this situation. Mr. HOGAN. Do you have an opinion? You will be administering this bill if it is enacted. Would it seem to you to be a natural add-on, as it were, to put lobbying into this bill, so you would be getting the whole package at the same time, rather than have it come at a somewhat later date? Mr. FISHER. That would seem natural to me. Dr. MARTIN. Yes. I would think, sir, that if the regulations can be worked out, and in such a fashion as to be clearly understood and to be adequately available, with adequate time for all people concerned, and if this would permit the regulations to be drawn in the usual kind of safe and effective fashion, I would not want to see this important aspect of the legislation rushed to the point that it might be defective, or might have provisions that would not be as viable as legislation with a little greater time for consideration. But short of that, I would see no reason for postponing it. Mr. HOGAN. Well, certainly, the urgency for issuing the Boardissued regulations with respect to lobbying would not be there. In other words, you could do that under your non-emergency procedures, and you could establish them and refine them in this time. You would not have to undergo any emergency procedures, it seems to me, as respects that. Mr. MARTIN. Surely. Mr. HOGAN. Finally, on your two additional members, is it your position that you would have the two additional members appointed as they are provided for in the Home Rule enactment or by the Mayor, Commissioner? In other words, the members that you are talking about? Dr. MARTIN. I would think that they could be appointed in the way that is provided in the Home Rule bill, or there might be some other apparatus to supplement that to have some additional input, such as I think has been suggested by Congressman Fauntroy. Mr. HOGAN. Turning for the moment to another matter, there is a matter coming up on the House floor on Monday, as I understand it, having to do with the civic center. Presumably, a matter of referendum will be taken up at the same time. I trust that you would have no problem in getting that matter on the ballot within a relatively short time, assuming that the charter referendum were provided for in that bill when it comes up on the floor on Monday. Mr. FISHER. I would like our staff person to speak to that. Mr. PERKINS. We have to print an extra ballot, which I have researched and found that it would take-at the latest it would have to be about the 20th, and that is because we have to have available absentee ballots. As you know, they come under the Federal Elections Act. Mr. HOGAN. But you could print them up in a relatively short period of time? Mr. PERKINS. In a relatively short period time up to the 20th. After that it would be a strain. Mr. HOGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. ADAMS. Thank you very much, Mr. Fisher, for appearing here with your colleagues. We appreciate your testimony. Mr. FISHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. ADAMS. The next witness before the committee is Mr. Fred Thompson, Director of the Office of Federal Elections of the Gen eral Accounting Office, accompanied by Mr. Bradley Litchfield and Mr. James Scarborough. Gentlemen, if you wish to come forward, the committee will be pleased to receive your testimony. As I have stated before, proceed either by presenting your statement in full, or if you wish to include it in the record and desire to summarize it, the committee will do it in either fashion that you prefer. STATEMENT OF FRED THOMPSON, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF FEDERAL ELECTONS, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY BRADLEY LITCHFIELD AND JAMES SCARBOROUGH Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would introduce Brad Litchfield on my right and Jim Scarborough on my left, as attorneys from the Office of General Counsel, who have been very helpful in trying to pull all the loose ends together here. I do not have a great preference as far as reading or summarizing. My statement is not tremendously long, so perhaps the best thing to do would be to plow through it so that we would be sure and understand all of the points. Mr. ADAMS. Mr. Thompson, that would be fine. I am going to be required to go to Interstate Committee for a few moments and I will be back. I have read your statement. Before I leave would you just answer one question, and then I will come back and try to participate in questions with my colleagues and counsel. CANDIDATES AND REGISTRATION On page 2 and 3 of your statement, you refer to registration by Federal candidates as not now required under existing law, only political committees: "we think registration statements by candidates are essential and should be required to be filed as soon as an individual receives a contribution or makes an expenditure for the purpose of undertaking a campaign." And you go on to say, "political committees should be required to file organization statements as soon as they organize." I am curious about an apparent dichotomy there. Suppose a political committee is formed for a Federal candidate, in this case, a municipal candidate, and they proceed to collect money and to spend money for that candidacy, but the candidate does nothing. Do you think he should be required to file a statement that he is a candidate? Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I do, and perhaps I omitted some words that should have been in there. I think in addition to saying that when the individual receives a contribution or makes an expenditure, you could insert the words "or consents to someone else doing it for him Mr. ADAMS. And would you require him to consent before a committee could be formed to run him? Mr. THOMPSON. Yes, I would generally. I realize that you get into some sticky constitutional areas here and also that evidence in particular cases becomes pretty elusive. But I would at least impose a requirement that committees, who collect and spend for a candidate who has not authorized them to do so, state on any literature or ads it |