John Doolittle: “in the context of the debate in the House, the phrase ``campaign finance reform'' is really synonymous, it is a code…”

“in the context of the debate in the House, the phrase ``campaign finance reform'' is really synonymous, it is a code word for the government regulation of political speech. I would just like to pose this question: If regulation works so well, then why are we in such a mess after 25 years of regulation? It was the liberal Democrats that rammed this through in 1974 with the cooperation of a Republican President. This is when we received the limits on what individuals could contribute. This is what gave birth to PACs. This is what gave birth to the terms soft money, hard money, issue advocacy, independent expenditure. All of these, it is like opening Pandora's box. It started maybe in 1971 but got infinitely worse in 1974. Pretty much, that is how we have continued through the present. This has produced the morass of complex, disastrous laws that we have right now where loopholes were closed in 1971, and more were closed in 1974. Guess what. For every loophole that was closed, a new one opened up over here on the other side. We cannot enact comprehensive campaign finance reform; i.e., complete government regulation of political speech. Why? Because we have a Constitution. The Constitution, as long as it exists, provides certain ``loopholes,'' namely, certain freedoms that American citizens will have. So the more we attempt additional regulation, the more unintended consequences we will have over here; and the morass we have now will be made even worse.”