Political Quotes

“before I start, I thank Senator Hatch for his decades of service to this body, and I wish him well in retirement. This CR is about one thing--transparency, sunlight, and making sure people know what is going on with their government. I rise on behalf of the millions of Americans who are tired of seeing their democracy undermined by mega-donors as they hide in the shadows. As my friend from Maine said, it would be like going to a public meeting with a bag over your head. That is what this is about. Take the bag off. Take them out of the shadows. Since the Supreme Court's ruling in 2010 in a case called Citizens United, we have had our democracy and our elections for sale. Over the past 8 years, billions of dollars have been spent to influence our elections. Nobody knows where this money comes from. It could be coming from foreign countries. Just 3 years after the unpopular Citizens United decision, these wealthy families once again used the Supreme Court to chip away at our democracy with the McCutcheon ruling. A handful of our Nation's wealthiest families have used this court ruling to hide behind political action committees with stoic names so they can build pipelines of cash to push their own agendas. While we are still tallying the totals from this past election 5 weeks ago, we know that dark money groups in 2016 spent $1.4 billion in that single election. If we don't take an aggressive approach, more dark money is going to flood our elections.…”