Asa Hutchinson: “I rise to urge support of my colleagues for campaign finance reform. I want to recognize the remarks made by my friend…”

“I rise to urge support of my colleagues for campaign finance reform. I want to recognize the remarks made by my friend, the gentleman from Arkansas [Mr. Snyder], who is a cosponsor of the Freshman Bipartisan Campaign Integrity Act, which we are trying to move forward in this body. I want to particularly make reference to it for a few moments today to urge my colleagues, and particularly my conservative colleagues, to consider campaign finance reform. I do not believe that campaign finance reform particularly is of any ideological persuasion, but I think the conservatives have been more reluctant, for various reasons, to join the effort to reform our campaign finance system. I think they can join the effort. First of all, I am a conservative. I am very much in support of, as a former State party chairman, reforming our campaign system. If we look at the campaign finance reform ideas out on the table, we first have to acknowledge that there are some bad ideas out there. There are some ideas that I would not support, but then there are some other ideas for reform that are consistent with conservative principles. I would not support, for instance, public funding of primaries. I would not support mandatory spending limits. But I do support reforms that stop the abuses of soft money, and I think that is what we need to address. I have sponsored, along with the gentleman from Maine, Mr. Tom Allen, across the aisle, the Bipartisan Campaign Integrity Act of 1997.”