Anna Eshoo: “I was attracted to public service at a very early age when I was in high school. We did not vote then. You had to be 21…”

“I was attracted to public service at a very early age when I was in high school. We did not vote then. You had to be 21 years old to vote. And I became involved in the presidential campaign of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. When he won, I honestly felt that I had put him over the top with the work that I had done. It was a time when public service was celebrated. Today in 1998, 38 years later, I am sorry that we cannot report the same thing. Why? Because people do not believe that this place is on the level. And they are right. Why? Because money influences everything that takes place here. We must step up to the bar and encourage the American people that they can indeed have confidence in this institution and their representatives by reforming a broken congressional finance campaign system. Vote for the Meehan-Shays bill. It is the real one. We should pass it, and we should be judged as to whether we have voted for it or not.”