John Tierney: “I rise this afternoon just to speak briefly on the issue of campaign finance reform. As the Speaker knows, we have had…”

“I rise this afternoon just to speak briefly on the issue of campaign finance reform. As the Speaker knows, we have had very little opportunity for deliberation and debate of this issue in the current Congress, over the objections of a fair number of people who really believe strongly that the American people deserve and in fact are requesting that Congress deal with this matter. One of the bills that has been presented of the many bills that are before this Congress that could be debated and deliberated and voted upon this session, if the Republican leadership so desired, is the clean money, clean elections bill which I was proud to sponsor, H.R. 2199. I would like to take a little bit of this time to explain some of the concepts in this bill so people will understand just what one of the proposals is that could be dealt with in this particular session. The clean money, clean elections bill would have a privately funded candidate, if so desired, and a publicly funded candidate.”