Christopher Shays: “this is one of those difficult moments in the process of bringing forth a comprehensive bill with many supporters. We…”

“this is one of those difficult moments in the process of bringing forth a comprehensive bill with many supporters. We tried to identify amendments as killer amendments, harmful amendments, benign or helpful amendments, and essential amendments to help the bill pass. For some, this is a killer amendment. I have to be candid with my colleagues, those who support Meehan-Shays, we are going to lose some supporters in the end if this amendment passes. It is likely to pass. But one of the things I find extraordinarily ironic is I hear Members say there is agreement this amendment has to be part of Meehan-Shays. Yet the people who are saying it are not going to be voting for Meehan- Shays. So this is not particularly a friendly amendment. We already passed this legislation last year. It is waiting in the Senate. It can be dealt with there. To attach it to this bill will do what I think it is intended to do, which is to make it more difficult to pass Meehan- Shays. I accept this. I understand it. What I would also like my colleagues to understand is that the real foreign money problem is with soft money, and the opponents of Meehan- Shays do not want to ban soft money. The foreign nationals who gave money gave soft money. They did not give hard money contributions. All the outrages that people are thinking of are soft money and yet so many who are concerned about foreign money are opposed to banning soft money.”