Roy Blunt: “today we have really started what can be a great debate in this House. We are often frustrated by how long the Senate…”

“today we have really started what can be a great debate in this House. We are often frustrated by how long the Senate takes to talk about the ideas that they talk about. We are also often frustrated by the fact that we do not have the time to chase important ideas to an important conclusion. The law of unintended consequences seems to particularly appeal every time we try to change our campaign finance laws. In fact, many of the things we will talk about in this debate will be why the reforms after Watergate have not worked. Many of the things we will talk about is why we cannot enforce the laws we have. If there is a smoke and mirrors problem, like I just heard that term used, in our law today, the smoke and mirrors problem is why we cannot enforce the laws we have and how we turn that into a debate about why we need more laws. But we do have time for this debate. This is a debate that goes to the core of our process. It goes to the core of what the next generation of folks who run important public office are likely to deal with. We can take the time. We have the time. We are going to talk about important things. I just heard a moment ago the need to rewrite the First Amendment. I am not opposed to revisiting the Constitution. In fact, I was for revisiting the Constitution recently when we talked about the need to have a balanced budget amendment in the Constitution.”