Christopher Shays: “The difference between soft and hard money, soft money is unlimited, hard money is limited campaign contributions. The…”

“The difference between soft and hard money, soft money is unlimited, hard money is limited campaign contributions. The Supreme Court said clearly, they just affirmed it in the Missouri case just a few weeks ago, it is constitutional and proper to limit what individuals can contribute. In the limited dollars, which we do not impact, Democrats raised in 1996 $221 million. That is a lot of money. What do you think the Republicans raised? Democrats raised $221 million. Republicans raise $416 million. So we saw $195 million raised more by Republicans than Democrats in hard money, and we do not change that law. Now, I will say what I think evens it out is my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have a lot of friends in Labor. While Labor cannot under our bill contribute soft money, and while they cannot have the sham-issue ads where they can use union dues money, they can still have ads; but they have to use political action committees. They still have a plethora of union workers to go to the polls and stand outside. So they have a clear advantage there. We have a clear advantage in the hard money contributions. They have a clear advantage in the number of workers they can get out on election day and make some calls beforehand. But our bill prevents all that. Corporate treasury money that goes to both parties, all the union dues money that goes, it is illegal.”