On the recordJuly 16, 2012
I wish to thank the Senator from Rhode Island for his leadership and my other colleagues who are out here tonight. I wish to be clear again about what this bill is. First of all, it is very clear it is constitutional. In the Supreme Court, eight of nine Justices have said that. As I listen to the debate tonight, I also think people at home should know this is about a few actors in the country who have been allowed to spend wild amounts of money without saying who they are. This doesn't prevent them from spending the money. It simply says they need to say who they are. My sense, having spent time with people who are often asked to contribute to these campaigns, is that people who have the means to spend $10,000 on political activity, by and large, would actually like this disclosure requirement. The reason they would like this disclosure requirement is so they can say to people who are trying to list them and distorting our politics and having them pay for negative attack ads they don't agree with and they don't think are true, could say no because they know they could say to the people: I am not going to sign up for that because I don't want to put my name on that. There is an enforcement mechanism I think virtually everybody in America would support and certainly at home would support.…
