Mike Levin: “So the result is now a vicious combination, outside of the limits of our campaign finance laws, of, one, huge amounts of…”

“So the result is now a vicious combination, outside of the limits of our campaign finance laws, of, one, huge amounts of money; two, funding the worst type of campaign attack ads. And the net result is that the exceptions to our campaign finance laws have swallowed the rules. The rules basically no longer exist. It is up to this body and to the House to restore limits--restore some fences around contributions so what we intended to do, and the portion of what we did that was affirmed by the Supreme Court in the Buckley case, can be operative in the real political world that we operate in. It is a daunting task to plug these loopholes, to make the law whole again--to make it whole, to make it effective. If we don't do this, if we do not act on a bipartisan basis and adopt real campaign reform, and if we do not make real what Congress intended to do 20 years ago, and which the Supreme Court has said we can do, where the advocacy of the election or defeat of a candidate is involved--we are allowed to act relative to campaign contributions. We know that. We were told that in Buckley. Providing our aim is at those contributions which go to the effort to elect or defeat a candidate, we are permitted to act providing we act in a way which is clear and has a bright line, and which is aimed at a problem, a societal problem which we identify. Clean elections are something that we are allowed to seek to achieve.”