Rick Allen: “In addition to the soft money problem, that really arose or became dominant in the 1996 election cycle, and I think it…”

“In addition to the soft money problem, that really arose or became dominant in the 1996 election cycle, and I think it is important to understand that this is political speech. This is free speech. We have got a first amendment. So it is not possible to say with respect to outside issue groups that they cannot run ads, they can never run ads. All that we are saying, all that McCain-Feingold says, is that if within 60 days of an election, when they mention the name or show the likeness of a candidate for Federal office, then it is brought into the reporting scheme that applies to Federal elections. Because at that point, it is pretty clear they are trying to influence the outcome of a Federal election, and that kind of regulation has been upheld. It seems pretty clear that that should be a constitutional way of improving the information that flows to the public, because the bottom line is, I believe, that we believe that the American public is entitled to know who is running ads out there.”