Victor Fazio: “I rise today in support of Shays-Meehan. The bipartisan bill will: Eliminate soft money contributions to political…”

“I rise today in support of Shays-Meehan. The bipartisan bill will: Eliminate soft money contributions to political parties from individuals and organizations: Require disclosure of contributions for issue ads that target specific candidates within 60 days of an election; and Prohibit state parties from spending any soft money on activities that affect a federal race. Most importantly, it would return the electoral system to the American people by limiting the amount of unregulated, unreported money in local politics. Madam Chairman, every Member of this body has heard from constituents who have lost their faith in the system. The American people no longer see an opportunity to participate in the system. Each campaign cycle, we see an increase in the amount of money funneled into local races by outside special interest groups that have no ties to the community. In 1996, the top two dozen outside groups spent $150 million dollars on independent negative ads. Such free, uncontrolled spending has perverted a fair, democratic system into a bidding war by unknown entities. The American people are tired of unregulated negative attack ads and the Shays-Meehan substitute takes a major step forward in regulating undisclosed funds to launch negative attack ads. The time has come to pass meaningful campaign finance reform.”