Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to announce my reintroduction of the State Ethics Law Protection Act. At a time when indictments and allegations of ethics violations of our elected leaders have become all too common, now more than ever we must use every tool at our disposal to fight corruption. Unfortunately, the Federal Government is currently preventing numerous States from using one of the most important tools we have to fight cronyism, corruption, and waste. My home State of Illinois, which is no stranger to these issues, along with several other States around the country, has taken a stand against corruption by passing laws to eliminate shady pay-to-play contracting. Pay-to-play politics is the practice of trading campaign contributions for lucrative government contracts. Pay-to-play practices erode the integrity of our public works projects and allow individuals to profit at the expense of American taxpayers. It is the most common example of government corruption. Fortunately, it is also one of the easiest to solve. Anti-pay-to-play laws are designed to ensure that the competitive bidding process for government contracts is open and fair, not rigged or otherwise biased by lining the campaign pockets of those responsible for awarding the contracts. Amazingly, a loophole created in a previous administration in the Federal Highway Administration's contracting requirements is making it difficult, if not impossible, for States to implement these anticorruption laws.…”