Barbara Kennelly: “I want to state my strong support for the amendment offered by Representative Carolyn Maloney to the Shays-Meehan…”

“I want to state my strong support for the amendment offered by Representative Carolyn Maloney to the Shays-Meehan campaign finance reform bill. This amendment creates a 12-member commission to recommend changes to current campaign finance law. I am a strong supporter of the Shays-Meehan bill and look forward to its enactment, but we all recognize that there may be some aspects of the current system of financing political campaigns that may not be addressed by the Shays-Meehan bill. The commission will serve as a necessary backstop, so as we encounter unanticipated campaign finance issues, we have a process to review and make recommendations to resolve these issues. I think this commission amendment is an important addition to the Shays-Meehan bill. I did not support and voted against an earlier substitute to the underlying campaign finance bill that just provided a commission approach to address the abuses in the current campaign finance system. It is way past time for more review and study of the problems in our current system. We know what the problems are and the Shays-Meehan bill addresses these problems. To just enact a review commission would only further delay legislating on this important issue. Our job here is to make laws. We can not continue to abdicate that responsibility on the issue of campaign finance reform. We have a good bill before us--the Shays-Meehan bill. The Maloney amendment will make this good bill better.”