Christopher Shays: “Of course people are going to vote for this amendment. But the sad thing is the gentleman who is offering this amendment…”

“Of course people are going to vote for this amendment. But the sad thing is the gentleman who is offering this amendment is not going to vote for the bill. We are faced with 55 amendments, most of them intended to embarrass or imply that a problem just exists on one side when the bottom line is we know we have problems on both sides of the aisle and we have got to deal with them. I would just rise again to say what I have said before, I really believe that some on the other side of the aisle need to be willing to do a little more investigating but a lot on my side of the aisle need to do more about reforming the system. We do ban soft money. Once we ban the unlimited sums from individuals, corporations, labor unions and other interest groups, once we ban that, we take away a gigantic incentive to call someone from any government property or to reward someone with any government activity, plane, boat, house, you name it. A $5,000 PAC contribution is not something that most people would probably seek a reward for or take the time of important people. But when one is seeking to raise soft money, $100,000, $200,000, $300,000, a half a million, a million or more, it does become somewhat of a distraction. The Meehan-Shays substitute bans soft money. It recognizes those sham issue ads as what they are, campaign ads, and then they come under the campaign laws. People have a voice but under the campaign law. We codify back.…”