Political Quotes

“That statement is, of course, nonsense. The argument that if the Shays-Meehan bill was constitutional we would not need the amendment, is simply not true. It is, of course, often the case that you will be for a bill that takes you to the limits of what is now constitutionally possible and later for an amendment, and I would give a specific example: soft money. I would like the gentleman to tell me, because the Supreme Court did say in the Buckley case that we can ban contributions, soft money contributions, not expenditures, would the gentleman tell me out of his great store of constitutional knowledge, recently acquired, what Supreme Court decision says that soft money ban would be unconstitutional? Mr. DeLAY. It is very clear. Reclaiming my time, it is very clear in Buckley versus Valeo. They are very clear that if we collect moneys that is used in support of an idea or in the support of a particular issue, then we cannot limit the expenditures of the contributions of those moneys.”