Political Quotes

“I am pleased Congress is making this effort to reform the campaign finance laws. When the last election resulted in a Senate that was evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, it occurred to me there could not be a better time for the Senate to take up this legislation and try to write a bill that improved our Federal election finance laws. It is a subject with which we are all very familiar. It makes it very difficult, therefore, for the Senate to work on an issue such as this. We are all biased in one way or the other because of experiences we have had, but my experience was, as a candidate for Congress in the early 1970s, at a time when we had passed the first major reform of Federal election laws, that the 1972 elections were the first real test of the reforms. Some of the law had been ruled unconstitutional, but virtually every candidate had to report, for the first time, where he was getting the money he was spending in his election and how he was spending it. These reports had to be made to the Federal Election Commission. A copy had to be filed with the secretary of state in the State where one was a candidate. As to disclosure, people had a right to know where the money was coming from to support candidates, and how they were spending it, who they were giving the money to, if they were giving money to people, or if they were buying ads. Whatever was being done with the money, it had to be reported.”