Campaign finance reform historically has been a bipartisan issue. I hope it will be again.

Fundamentally, the Republican Commissioners seem not to believe in the campaign finance laws that Congress has passed and that they are bound to enforce.

Comprehensive campaign finance reform is crucial to our democracy, but at the very least, we need to make sure that the FEC is enforcing the laws that are on the books.

This is a huge amount of money flooding into the system, and I think it corrupts the system.

Billionaires may keep spending, but they cannot keep hiding.

I really appreciate your statement that we are going to have a vote this year on a constitutional amendment. I think it is about time.

The American people deserve to know who is spending all this money to influence their vote.

It is a broken system based on a flawed premise that spending money on elections is the same thing as free speech.

This is not about free speech, and the American people know it.

What DISCLOSE is about is the basic core principle of the voters knowing where the money is coming from.

Thank you both very much, and we look forward to you sorting out this dysfunctional FEC.

Thank you very much, Chairman King, for holding this very, very important hearing on our democracy.

I do not think we can truly fix this broken system until we undo that false premise.

I believe one important step is to have a functioning FEC where all six seats are filled with Commissioners in terms that have not expired.

The Supreme Court laid the groundwork for this broken system in 1976 with Buckley v. Valeo.

The unfortunate thing about the Citizens United ruling, in my opinion, is that we have now... reached the point with that ruling that corporate treasuries are now in play in terms of campaign finance.

I would, if confirmed, want to consult with both the Commissioner and with the President to make sure that all of the important issues are taken into account before a decision is made on extending that mandate.

I think, first of all, I should say that as DCM in Guatemala from 2009 to 2011 I had the opportunity to work with many that are in the current government now.