Mike Thompson: “I join in the proposition that it is time we address the issue of campaign finance reform in this body. It is too bad…”

“I join in the proposition that it is time we address the issue of campaign finance reform in this body. It is too bad that we are having to consider it in what may be considered the midst of a Presidential campaign year. It should not be a partisan matter. Senator John McCain, of course, has been the leader, along with Senator Feingold, on the bill on which I am privileged to be one of the original cosponsors. So we are trying to take a bipartisan look at it. We have spent entirely too much time in times past as parties trying to figure out what would be to our advantage and our disadvantage, and both parties have done that. Nobody really knows the result of reforms we might make in terms of the success of political parties. I continue to believe that the primary ingredient is the quality of the candidate and the quality of the message regardless of what rules we play under. I have the simple belief that there is too much money in the system.”