Political Quotes

“1 week ago we passed a very important good government bill, the one that would make sure Members of Congress cannot benefit from insider trading information. I added to that an amendment that I think is a good government amendment. It calls for people who are involved in political intelligence gathering--we don't hear much about that profession, but it is quite a business. I asked that they be registered just like lobbyists are registered, and I would like to speak to the point of why that is very important and why it is important to bring it to the Senate's attention, even though it passed by a vote of 60 to 39 just a few days ago. In the dark of night on Tuesday of this week, the House released its version of the insider trading bill that goes by the acronym STOCK, which wiped out any chance of meaningful transparency for the political intelligence industry. Think about the chutzpah of the people in the House of Representatives--a small group of people--taking out the language I put in that bill when similar language is cosponsored by 288 Members of the House of Representatives, but it happened. So that bill is coming back without the Grassley amendment on it, and we need to think about what we are going to do if we believe in good government, and if we believe there ought to be more transparency in government. What we are faced with is a powerful industry that works in the shadows-- economic espionage.…”