Mark Udall: “I know there are people out there who do that for a living, and a headset is a great tool. But it was symbolic to me…”

“I know there are people out there who do that for a living, and a headset is a great tool. But it was symbolic to me that I was not out visiting with people and learning about the issues and studying the broad range of things that we are faced with while we are here in the Congress. Let me talk a little bit about the issue ads and so-called expenditure campaigns. These groups can come in and be for you or be against you. But in either case one has no say, no control over these ads that are running. In particular, I have been concerned about groups who think they might want to support me, but they could be running negative campaigns against my opponents when that is not the way I want to campaign. So we need to get ahold of these independent expenditure campaigns. We need to get ahold of this soft money situation. As Jefferson talked about, when democracy is ailing, one of the best solutions, one of the best treatments is more sunshine, more transparency. We need to make sure that all of the money that is contributed to our campaigns is visible, and people can track it and trace it. We could use the Internet. We could have almost instantaneous disclosure.”