Ed Whitfield: “Mr. Chairman, I think the real concern that we have today, the crux of this issue of the debate that we are really…”

“Mr. Chairman, I think the real concern that we have today, the crux of this issue of the debate that we are really talking about today, gets down to this definition of express advocacy. The Supreme Court has consistently and very clearly said that express advocacy is language that explicitly requests the defeat or the election of a candidate. And if it says that, if the ad says that, you must use hard money. And that is money regulated by the Federal Election Commission. The gentleman was correct. Any wealthy individual, a multimillionaire can go out any time they want to and buy an ad, and that is an independent expenditure. They can expressly advocate the defeat or the election of a candidate. What we are talking about today is issue advocacy; and these are the many organizations around our country, the thousands of organizations that may want to participate in the political system. The Supreme Court has made it very clear that that is, goes to the very core of a democracy, of the right to speak about issues in an election. What this bill does is it makes it unclear about what can and cannot be done. That is a chilling of the first amendment right of political free speech.”