Chris Van Hollen: “I rise in strong opposition to this measure, which, along with the Supreme Court's radical decision in Citizens United…”

“I rise in strong opposition to this measure, which, along with the Supreme Court's radical decision in Citizens United, takes our Nation's campaign finance system in precisely the wrong direction: less transparency and less information for the voters. Americans from across the political spectrum--Democrats, Republicans, Independents--want less special interest money in politics, not more. They want clean, transparent, and competitive elections; and campaigns where candidates--those of us in this room and Presidential candidates--rise and fall based on the quality of their ideas, the strength of their arguments, and their ability to attract support from the voters that they seek to represent. What they don't want are campaigns decided by how much secret money flows into an election from secret outside groups. And they will no longer tolerate, I believe, those politicians turning around and saying to those citizens: You have no right to know who is paying for what in our political campaigns; you have no right to know who is paying for those TV advertisements you're watching.”