Barney Frank: “As my friend from California, who teaches constitutional law, among other things, at the time when he still had a day…”

“As my friend from California, who teaches constitutional law, among other things, at the time when he still had a day job, knows, there is a complex set of opinions, and some things are allowed and some are not, and there is also a gray area, and some of us think that what has clearly been banned from regulating should be expanded. But no one, except apparently the gentleman from Texas, thinks that the current constitutional doctrine makes all of this unconstitutional. Everyone recognizes that there is an area of regulation, and I believe that the gentleman from Connecticut and the gentleman from Massachusetts have together come up with a bill that has enough appeal within what is constitutionally possible, so the gentleman from Texas's first reaction, he said, was to block the bill from coming to the floor; the second reaction was to come up with the most bizarre rule which is designed, in fact, to prevent anything from ever coming forward; and the third to inaccurately claim it is unconstitutional. I will repeat as I close and say I think we should do a constitutional amendment. It should be done in the normal way of a subcommittee and committee markup. But none of that means that the Shays-Meehan bill, particularly in some of its core provisions, like limiting soft money, is remotely arguably unconstitutional.”