Richard Gephardt: “I hope that we can still have a rule today that is fair and seen as fair by Members on both sides of the aisle. This…”

“I hope that we can still have a rule today that is fair and seen as fair by Members on both sides of the aisle. This issue is a bipartisan issue. It is an issue on which we have always had bipartisan support. What we are saying today is that a vote for the rule as it presently reads is a vote against real campaign reform. I know there is disagreement on that, but all we are really saying is that we would like and appreciate what we believe is a fair procedure. And to us that means allowing us to have a manager's amendment putting all of the changes that we want to make in our bill in order with one vote. We then are happy to face any amendments that anyone wants to, in an orderly way, make against this bill and then vote on the Ney bill and then vote, if that does not succeed, on the Shays-Meehan bill. This is an important moment in our democracy. There are many of us who feel deeply that this system is flawed, that there is too much money involved in campaigns, that the American people have become cynical about politics and about our democracy, and we have to be able to at least have an effort to pass real, meaningful campaign reform now, today, or at the latest tomorrow or next week. I ask the leadership in all sincerity to give us what we believed was a fair procedure, for us to be able to get our bill perfected and in front of the Congress, take any shots with any amendments that are desired and then give us a vote on Ney and a vote on Shays-Meehan.”