Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer an amendment that will make it easier for the American people to figure out who is trying to influence their vote through campaign ads. Right now, when someone is placing a political commercial on the air, the TV station is required to upload to the FCC public site information that identifies the name of the ad's sponsor, the duration of the ad, and the cost of the ad. But the FCC's site is cumbersome, slow, and impossible to search, which defeats the purpose of this requirement. This amendment clarifies that nothing in the underlying bill will prevent the FCC from requiring those entities that must submit a public inspection file to do so in a machine-readable format, which would guarantee that it is easily sortable, searchable, and downloadable. Adopting the Lujan amendment will send a message to the FCC that there is strong congressional support for making this information more accessible so that the American people have at least a chance to figure out who is trying to influence our elections. Furthermore, this amendment would fix a real-world problem, unlike the underlying bill, which is a vague solution in search of a nonexistent problem. I reserve the balance of my time.”