Mr. CLARK. Yes, there is a possibility that that is the case. I would have some reservations about the timing of it now.

Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you very much, Mr. Clark and Ms. Heard, we certainly appreciate your testimony here.

Mr. HOGAN. I apologize for taking too much time.

Mr. FAUNTROY. No, that is all right.

Mr. CLARK. Incidentally, there is one thing that I did not mention, and that is we do have two memos on the constitutionality of campaign finance and public finance that we would like to leave with the committee.

Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you.

Our next witness is Mr. Arturo Griffiths, Director, Washington Ghetto Industrial Development and Investment Corporation Foundation and announced candidate for the office of Mayor.

Mr. Griffiths, it is certainly a pleasure on behalf of the committee to welcome you to the hearing, and we will be anxious to hear your testimony.

STATEMENT OF ARTURO GRIFFITHS, DIRECTOR, WASHINGTON GHETTO INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AND INVESTMENT CORPORATION FOUNDATION; ANNOUNCED CANDIDATE FOR THE OFFICE OF MAYOR, ACCOMPANIED BY ARTURO GRIFFITHS, JR.

Mr. GRIFFITHS. Thank you, Mr. Congressman, and first I want to introduce my son, who is a member of the Spanish community that does a wonderful job in helping others go forward. As a matter of fact, he is a sacrificial lamb in every aspect to help his brothers and sisters go forward. He accompanies me in most places on account of me not being in the best of health.

First I want to say that I want to congratulate the ones responsible for the legislation that is being put together. It arouses attention for one thing. It is obvious that this type of legislation is not only probably needed in Washington, D.C., but it is needed all over the country where our illiteracy rate is predominant.

Now, illiteracy is a big item in our country and every move that we make to try to get rid of it is going to be to our interest. People have voted constantly, because you are good looking, because you are rich, because your father was rich or something of that kind, or that you have on an Ivy League suit. That is no criteria for the voting. I think in all of the legislation that is being proposed that we should make every effort to have a complete education in the vote. We must also realize that the vote is sacred and confidential. Regardless of what contribution you might have, a guy goes into the booth and he votes as he pleases.

VOTER EDUCATION

Now, we cannot discourage anyone in any form. Regardless of who he is, if he is a thinker, if he is someone looking for the benefits of his children and his children's children, he cannot be discouraged.

Now, as a member of the impoverished community of Washington, D.C., of the real poor, I am dedicated to help all concerned to lift the standards, to make a man know he does not have vote for you because you have money.

It was very discouraging to me to read about a candidate employing a director of his campaign, and there was $476 that was involved to pay for that campaign manager. Now, in my case, speaking for the very poor, for the very significant in every way, $476 is a great deal. I would open an office on U Street or on 7th Street or in the Spanish community and give away money. That is what I would do. So the vote would not be what I would be involved in as much.

My duty here would be to educate my community. I mean, we have not even leared what Americanism is, and this is unfortunate by nobody wants to teach our community what it is to be a good American, and to educate them about voting.

And now, one of the other things is we live in communities but unfortunately, we do not really know our communities. If it is a black community, people are basing their concepts on the guy they heard robbed the liquor store or a guy that killed somebody. But when you look at statistics, this is a very insignificant amount of people that are involved in these type things particularly in black communities.

I also want to say that black communities might be among the best communities in the world. They are passive and they are loving, and they are respectful. So do not count and feel that there is not a thinking black community, because this is not true.

The same way goes for the Spanish community. People would say they are impoverished and they have less learning than other communities so they are not thinking. But this is not true.

So basically, I hate to see us go down the drain like we are, and yet ignoring the basic idea that the education of the vote is so important. We have not learned what the vote is, and what its technicalities might be, and what its sacredness might be, and what the existence of our children and our children's children might be. This is unfortunate.

We have too many people today that are looking to really enjoy the fruits of what the pay that they get are or the positions that they get are or the particular status aspects that they acquire are, but I am not that type of a man. I want to see our community go forward.

All of these things brought together today in campaign reform has been discussed in our country for many years. Fellows like Robert Hutchinson from the University of Chicago have demonstrated that the illiteracy rate is so high that problems of this kind will exist, and we will never be able to solve it.

What is illiteracy, you might say? And I would say unfortunately we have illiteracy at PhD levels. This is unfortunate. People with a degree, a PhD, are illiterate as has been indicated by Robert Hutchin

son.

I want to say we have a distinguished Washington, D.C. community based on the concepts of economic planning, and a community really for all. We have this community.

But we have got people that have got to realize that people from the white communities are very distinguished too. There are a lot of people here, a lot of young people of our community, that have come together and tried to destroy the elements of the old thinking. They have really asked, what is it they are going to vote for? And they do not want to be harnassed in any form. They want to, at least, assume the freedom of choice concept, and if the freedom of choice concept is not established, everybody is going to be in trouble.

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The voting process in this country has discouraged many people. I recall when I put my hat in the ring to become the Mayor of the city, which is the aspiration of every American citizen, a guy says, "I love you." And he says, "You are my friend," and he says, "You have all of the talents in the world to be a good mayor," but he said, “Do you have any money?"

I said, "no, unfortunately." I did not think I would have to buy the vote. And here I am trying to change the ideas completely so that you do not buy the vote but you give an education to the communities of what the vote means to you.

So under these circumstances, in my view, an immense program should be put together to give the citizens of Washington, D.C. an education on what the vote actually means.

So all I am saying is, all right, legislate and so on, but you are legislating for what? All I am saying is let us get our people educated of what the vote means to them and the sacredness of it.

I did not get a written statement together because, as I told you. I am from the poor and the very poor and the insignificant, from the people who did not eat yesterday and did not eat the day before; so all I am here to give is the benefit of my observations. So that is my story.

Mr. FAUNTROY. Thank you, Mr. Griffiths. You have made some very salient points, and you can rest assured that your words have been taken down, word for word, and will appear in writing.

Counsel?

Mr. DEPUY. No questions.

Mr. FAUNTROY. Counsel?

Mr. HOGAN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to welcome this witness and say I am very happy to see you.

Mr. GRIFFITHS. Glad to meet you.

Well, I have come to these meetings, as a member of the community, to learn and I imagine you gentlemen are up there to educate us one way or the other. I can be held by the hand and taught, too. That is all I came here to understand because I would like to be taught, too. And if you men are assuming the leadership role of our community and do not have us, we, the poor people, the means of learning, I cannot understand it.

So it is very hard because I do not think people have really discussed this whole area of educating people to the vote. And I would really like to know what you think about it. As I say, I do not know all about it, but I do look forward to my leadership having an idea of what is going on.

Mr. FAUNTROY. As I say, there is little to quarrel with the points you have made about the importance of education as to the value and the importance of the vote. So I will not take you up on that.

Now, if you want to bring up some extraneous matters like whether or not ministers should be engaged in politics, I would discuss that, but that is not germaine to this hearing.

Mr. GRIFFITHS. No. Well, I am not saying that, Reverend. You must understand that as a fellow from the sticks of this community, that freedom of choice is very important to me. Freedom of choices has to be not discouraged under any circumstances.

That is why I fight for it. The freedom of choice is our biggest freedom, that is one of the reasons why I think every citizen should be given equal opportunity.

Mr. FAUNTROY. Certainly; that is why I cannot quarrel with the points you make.

Mr. Griffiths, before you leave, would you kindly have your son state his name for the record?

Mr. GRIFFITHS, Jr. My name is Arturo Griffiths, Jr.

Mr. FAUNTROY. Oh, you are junior? Well, glad to have both of you. Our next witness is Mr. Anton Wood, Statehood Party nominee for the office of D.C. Delegate.

Is Mr. Wood here or a representative of him here?

[No response]

Mr. FAUNTROY. Our next witness is Mr. Allan Budka, President, Socialists Workers' Campaign.

STATEMENT OF ALLAN BUDKA, PRESIDENT, SOCIALIST WORKERS'

CAMPAIGN

Mr. BUDKA. Thank you, Mr. Fauntroy. It is clear from the statement that was issued on behalf of our Campaign Committee, we cover areas other than just the funding of campaigns. I will try to restrict my remarks basically to the funding with a few comments on the other points that have been mentioned.

I think that the fair election practices that are talked about, probably a great deal a response to the Watergate happening around Washington, as was pointed to by the representative from Common Cause; however, I think that the proposals put forward so far both at a national level and a local level will not put an end to activities such as Watergate. We saw some tremendous resourcefulness on the party of CREEP to bypass already existing legislation. And I am sure that even in the future we would also be witness of such resourcefulness.

So that I think that in addition to the fact that the legislation proposed and being discussed would not be adequate to handle questions like Watergate, there is also a block to minority parties, whether they be the Socialist Workers' Party or the Statehood Party or the People's Party. I want to touch on a few of these points.

For instance, on the basis of the tax check-off-and I say this for the record more so than for discussion-but as now established, the check-off is for a majority party to be registered and for a minority party, it would require five percent of the vote, which in the '72 elections would be four million votes.

MINORITY PARTIES

I do not think that there are any existing minority parties right now that could qualify under such stipulation. In addition to that is, that the setup puts a charter on the continued dominance of the political system by just two major parties; the Democratic and the Republican Parties.

I think that some of the points brought up by the Republican Treasurer and the gentleman from Common Cause on time avail

ability to candidates is an important avenue that should be looked into by the committee members. I think it is important to keep in mind that it not just be held to so-called major candidates but to all candidates.

On the point that the Republic Treasurer made on the reports and how difficult it is to file a report, it sort of made me smirk a little because you can imagine if the treasurer of the Republican Party with the resources of the party including legal staff and so on has difficulties with the reporting, you can imagine then the difficulties of someone from the Socialist Worker's Party or some other minority party that does not have those resources to also meet the requirements of the report systems as now set up. They are extremely complicated and time consuming.

BROADCASTING TIME

I think one of the major points in general fair campaign practices to be looked at perhaps by this committee is the whole question of equal time. The equal time provisions are important and the steps being made to cut those back. Those are one of the few guarantees of allowing minority parties an opportunity to present their views equal to that of the Democratic and Republican Parties without tremendous expense for media time.

The gentleman from Common Cause pointed to the large amounts of money being spent for the media.

REPORTING

I think that the other major problem with the filing of the report is that as listed the names and addresses and occupations of the donors to political campaigns are to be reported. In most cases this does not present a problem. However, in the case of minority or so-called radical parties it does present a problem, as is the case with my party, the Social Workers Party and other parties having the contributors to their campaigns harassed by members of the FBI or local police officials.

In addition to that, I would just like to state-and I will keep my remarks very brief-I woud just like to cover two other brief points, which may not be within the bounds of this committee to deal with, but I think are something that the members of the commitee should keep in mind in the discussion of the D.C. fair campaign practices.

PETITIONS

Those are, first of all, the point on the petitioning. As the petitioning requirements within the District of Columbia are set up now, the candidates of the Democratic and Republican Parties can be assured a place on the ballot with less than 100 signatures where a statehood party can be placed with less than 100 signatures while a party like the Socialist Workers Party takes some 25,000 signatures to place five candidates on the ballot.

Also you have the simple fact that in the District of Columbia the petitions of the Socialist Party in 1971 were removed from the Board