David Schweikert: “I actually appreciate the study mechanisms, but this is actually one a little bit broader. How many of us are from…”

“I actually appreciate the study mechanisms, but this is actually one a little bit broader. How many of us are from States that have actually had public funding or public matching of our State legislatures? I am from Arizona; I have actually lived this experience. And do understand, we used to--in Arizona--refer to it as the ``no new moderates'' piece of legislation. If you actually look at what happened to Arizona--and my understanding is this happened in other States--personal experience: I was 28 years old when I got elected to the Arizona Legislature. I was there. You had to go knock on a door. You had to ask someone for a couple hundred dollars. You had to listen to them. They would look you in the eye, and if they thought you weren't worthy, you walked out the door without anything. It turns out asking for money is part of the vetting process. Well, a few years later--so we have had it for 25 years in Arizona-- here is what happened: You are part of the group over here on the right or you are part of this group on the left. In Arizona, you get a couple hundred people to write you a $5 contribution, and you get elected. Within two election cycles, we wiped out half of Democrats, half of Republicans, maybe one- third of the body who were in the moderates. So when I was in that State legislature for 4 years, half the Republicans were conservatives, half the Republicans were moderate; same thing on the Democratic side.…”