Christopher Shays: “Mr. Chairman, first I wanted to say to my colleagues that this afternoon we continue the effort to restore integrity…”

“Mr. Chairman, first I wanted to say to my colleagues that this afternoon we continue the effort to restore integrity into the campaign process. The substitute proposed before the chamber, the Meehan-Shays proposal and McCain-Feingold in the Senate, seeks to ban soft money, the unlimited sums by individuals, corporations, labor unions and other interest groups. It seeks to recognize sham issue ads as they are, campaign ads, and put them under the campaign law. It seeks to codify Beck. It seeks to improve the FEC disclosure and enforcement. It seeks to ban district-wide franking 6 months to an election. And it seeks to ban foreign money and fund-raising on government property. We have an amendment before us right now which basically seeks to gut the second part of our proposal dealing with the sham issue ads.”