Maxwell Frost: “Mr. Speaker, today we have a historic opportunity to enact meaningful campaign finance reform. The Senate completed its…”

“Mr. Speaker, today we have a historic opportunity to enact meaningful campaign finance reform. The Senate completed its work and passed a bill. The bipartisan Shays-Meehan measure has been twice passed by this House in previous Congresses. We are on the threshold of bringing real reform to a system that is out of control and overrun by big-monied interest. Yet here we are debating the merits of a procedural rule that can only be characterized as guaranteed to fail. It does not allow the Shays-Meehan bill to be considered as a coherent whole. It is disingenuous and unfair. This rule allows for 22 amendments designed to eviscerate the Shays-Meehan legislation; designed to kill the bill. Until we can get a clean up or down vote, we might as well tack up a 'for sale' sign on all of our office doors. We need to question the overall strategy behind this rule. If Shays-Meehan does not get defeated on the floor, then the opponents have paved the way for it to die in conference with the Senate. I urge my colleagues to support genuine reform; that they not be afraid of real action. Restore integrity to our political process, restore America's faith in its political process. Defeat this rule. Support a clean vote on campaign finance reform.”