John Chenoweth: “as my colleagues know, it may seem odd that I would be standing up here supporting the Doolittle bill because I can tell…”

“as my colleagues know, it may seem odd that I would be standing up here supporting the Doolittle bill because I can tell my colleagues this Congressman, as a candidate, had millions and millions of dollars of negative campaign ads targeted against her. The very ad that ran against the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) ran in my district, and I am very opposed to that kind of campaigning. It is despicable. But the way to get at it is not through more confused and confusing rules and regulations, not through a bureaucracy, but through a full disclosure, which the Doolittle bill requires. The bill that I am an original cosponsor on requires full disclosure, and then it leaves it up to the voters to be able to make that determination as to what is truthful and what is correct, as they did in the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske's) campaign and as they did in mine. I probably had more dollars, millions and millions of dollars, targeted at me from these very kinds of groups with those kinds of ads than any other congressional candidate in the Nation. And yet the voters in Idaho decided to cut to the chase and get to the bottom line. What my voters in Idaho did not have was who was really paying for those ads, and the Doolittle bill requires full disclosure because then it takes it out of the hands of the bureaucracy and puts it in the hands of the voters to make the final decision.”