Christopher Shays: “I oppose this substitute because the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) would allow candidates to raise unlimited…”

“I oppose this substitute because the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) would allow candidates to raise unlimited sums from individuals. Right now the limit is $1,000; from PACs it is $5,000. He would have an unlimited amount. The national parties are limited to $20,000; he would have an unlimited amount. The State parties have $5,000. Under our bill they can do $10,000, but he has an unlimited amount. He has an unlimited amount to the aggregate that can be contributed in all campaigns. But in addition he does not even have full disclosure, particularly as it relates to third party proposals. When third parties come in, all they have to disclose is the name of their organization. It is a very clever thing. He calls it disclosure, but we do not know who that organization is. They can just have a sham name: The Committee for Better Government. We do not know who is part of that, we do not know who contributed, we do not know if there were five people, a hundred, a thousand. We do not know if a individual contributed $1 million, $2 million, $10 million, a dollar.”