Asa Hutchinson: “with the failure of the Senate to address the problem of campaign finance reform, the spotlight has returned to the…”

“with the failure of the Senate to address the problem of campaign finance reform, the spotlight has returned to the House to create momentum for this effort. As a conservative editor, Bill Kristol, recently suggested, there is a conservative grassroots hostility to the massive soft money donations and the apparent influence such donations buy for big businesses and unions. Mr. Speaker, we must not let the American people down and shuffle aside reform. Do not forget that unlike the Senate, we must face the voters next year. To oppose this reform effort is not only bad policy, but it is bad politics. In 1992, the voters abandoned the Republican and Democratic Parties in significant numbers, attracted by the reform platform of Ross Perot, who understood that the people are tired of the Washington status quo. Mr. Speaker, we cannot surrender control of Congress to the multinational corporations and unions, which pump millions of dollars of soft money into the system. We must return power and influence to the grassroots, to the people who sent us here. Mr. Speaker, as a conservative, I came to Washington with just such an agenda; to return authority to the people back home. To abandon that reform would be to abandon that effort. I cannot do so.”