Sam Gibbons: “since September 11, we have been focused on fighting terrorism across this Nation. However, this Congress has not failed…”

“since September 11, we have been focused on fighting terrorism across this Nation. However, this Congress has not failed to address its other priorities among the American people. One of them is to reform our election laws after last year's election chaos. What I rise today to do is to congratulate the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) of the Committee on House Administration for their hard work in creating a bipartisan piece of legislation which addresses campaign finance reform, and it does it in three critical ways: First, this piece of legislation tells Congress that it must resist the urge to federalize what is constitutionally preferred by States and localities. The primacy of States and localities in the area of elections must be respected. Congress should seek to empower the duly elected State and local officials, not dictate to them. Secondly, Congress must examine ways to eliminate fraud. Inaccuracies in voter rolls lead to all sorts of problems nationwide, including fraud. The days of the ``cemetery vote'' and other ``ghost'' voting must come to a rapid close everywhere. Finally, Congress must address disenfranchisement, whether intentional or unintentional. One person, one vote is a principle that crosses all party lines.”