Janice Schakowsky: “representing the State of Illinois was the great Senator Paul Simon just for two terms. He decided not to run again, and…”

“representing the State of Illinois was the great Senator Paul Simon just for two terms. He decided not to run again, and one of the reasons he decided not to run again was that he knew that he was going to have to raise an obscene amount of money in order to be a viable candidate for the United States Senate. Paul Simon has been a paragon of integrity, a person who has represented the highest in public service, and decided not to run. And he would tell a story during the campaign about how, after a long day on the trail, he would come back to his hotel room and there would be a stack of messages, all those pink slips that we all get telling us who to call back, and he would look through that list and among them would be maybe four from people or PACs that have contributed a lot of money. And he said, you know, I just want to ask you, who do you think after a long day it was that I felt a priority to call back? Now, he was making an admission about how campaigns and how running for office really works. He said, yeah, I called those big givers back because, without the millions of dollars that it took to run for the United States Senate, all of those things that I believe in and that my constituents stand for, I would not be able to be there in the Senate. And it was partly that that drove him from office. I think what Paul Simon was saying is that money to the extent that it is a factor in politics imperils our democracy.”