Cliff Stearns: “I rise today to speak on campaign finance reform, legislation once again before this Chamber. I, like most of my…”

“I rise today to speak on campaign finance reform, legislation once again before this Chamber. I, like most of my colleagues, support some type of campaign reform. I know that reasonable and balanced reforms to our current campaign finance system is necessary. Unfortunately, the Democrat bill, the Shays-Meehan bill, does not strengthen or improve our campaign finance system as well as I think the Ney-Wynn bill does, which is a Republican alternative. In fact, I think the Democrat bill does more to harm than help both the political process and the Constitution by hurting the ability of political parties to increase citizen involvement and participation, unconstitutionally limits free speech, and tilts the playing field towards one party or another. For this reason, I applaud the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn) in their bipartisan bill for their efforts at sensible reform for our current system. Proponents of the Shays-Meehan bill, which is support by the minority leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), claim their legislation puts an end to soft money. That is false. None of the proposals before this body ban a complete ban of soft money. Even the most cursory of glances indicates there is no soft money ban in the Shays-Meehan campaign finance legislation.”