Rick Allen: “the Thompson report released last week has confirmed what we all know; that the integrity of our political system has…”

“the Thompson report released last week has confirmed what we all know; that the integrity of our political system has been undermined by the influence of soft money. The soft money loophole is the primary culprit for the abuses that Congress has spent millions of dollars to investigate. Through the soft money loophole, a single donor can give unlimited amounts of money to influence Federal elections. Soft money circumvents nearly a century of campaign finance law. The bipartisan freshman task force set out to fix the major abuses of the current system. We put our differences aside and created a fair bipartisan campaign finance reform bill, H.R. 2183, the Bipartisan Campaign Integrity Act. It closes the soft money loophole, and it gets elected officials out of the business of raising $1 million special interest contributions. It is fair. It is bipartisan. Mr. Speaker, the freshman bill must be allowed to come to the House floor without any poison pills. An antilabor bill is not bipartisan reform, it is a poison pill, and poison pills are used to kill campaign finance reform. Mr. Speaker, the freshmen deserve a vote on H.R. 2183.”