Frank Pallone: “I wanted to take my 5 minutes to talk about this Republican so-called Campaign Finance Reform Act proposal. When I…”

“I wanted to take my 5 minutes to talk about this Republican so-called Campaign Finance Reform Act proposal. When I looked at it today and looked at some of the details, I have to say that I was actually shocked that in the context of a so-called reform week, which I guess now on the part of the Republican leadership is limited to this so-called Campaign Finance Reform Act, that they have proposed that the Republican leadership has come up with a bill that, in my opinion, is nothing short of obscene in terms of what it would do to the political system. My constituents, I have to be honest, do not complain a great deal to me about campaigns and financing campaigns, but those that do write to me, those that do talk to me about the issue, the number 1 concern on their mind is the obscene amount of money that is spent on congressional races, on Senate races. We do not even get to the level of the Presidential campaign, but particularly on the Federal races for Congress, for Senate and for the House of Representatives. Any campaign finance reform should try to make an effort to reduce the overall amount of money that is spent on a campaign and not allow the campaign and the financing of it to be increasingly dependent upon large checks by wealthy individuals, and that is what the Republican leadership is now proposing. I have often said, and I have actually voted in the past for campaign finance reform that tries to contain a public financing component.”