Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I take this time to urge my colleagues to allow us to proceed to the DISCLOSE Act to deal with campaign finance reform. I thank Senator Schumer for his hard work on this issue to bring forward a bill that I hope can enjoy sufficient support so we can continue to advance campaign finance reform. Election campaign finance reform is difficult to pass in this body for many reasons. First, it requires bipartisanship. We know that. We know we need to bring together Democrats and Republicans to say: Our legacy on fair elections is more important than our own individual elections, and we have a responsibility to the American public to deal with a growing problem in American politics; that is, the influence of money, particularly during election time. That is why we celebrated in 2002 with passage of a bipartisan campaign reform act. Under the leadership of Senator McCain and Senator Feingold, we were able to come together, Democrats and Republicans, and advance campaign finance reform to reduce somewhat the influence of special interest corporate money in our political system and to add further disclosures so the American public could know who is trying to influence their vote. That is what campaign finance reform is about, to limit corporate money and provide greater disclosure. Democrats and Republicans came together in 2002 to get that done. The protection of our fair election process has now met a new opponent.…”