Roy Blunt: “I know my friend from Massachusetts has worked hard on this bill. He has had a bill in the past on the floor that is…”

“I know my friend from Massachusetts has worked hard on this bill. He has had a bill in the past on the floor that is much tougher than this bill, that did have a total ban on soft money. It had the ability to audit campaign accounts at random. It had some stiff criminal penalties. Those are gone from this bill. What you intended to do and what you did may have been two different things. I am told they are two different things. On November 6, in fact, you could take the soft money you had on hand and pay off any past debts you had, no matter what purpose those past debts were incurred for. To open the door totally to soft money in the cycle we are in is even worse than postponing the date to begin the bill. We cannot let that happen. We cannot talk about a soft-money ban for months and then bring a bill to the floor at midnight that does just the opposite. I am very concerned about that.”