Robert Torricelli: “I will share publicly what I discussed with the Senator previously privately; that is, my concern that if he is correct…”

“I will share publicly what I discussed with the Senator previously privately; that is, my concern that if he is correct that the Federal courts will not allow McCain-Feingold, as currently written, to deal with express advocacy or independent expenditures, then we face a fundamental problem in that express advocacy and independent expenditures would be unregulated while we would be reducing the ability of the political parties or candidates to express themselves. We would, therefore, be dealing with campaigns by surrogates over the heads of the political parties and the candidates. In my judgment, that does not constitute reform, and it raises the question, as I expressed to the Senator privately, whether there should be a severability clause at all in this legislation because, in my judgment, if you cannot constitutionally deal with express advocacy and independent expenditures, I, speaking only for myself, do not believe that we can regulate the candidates in the political parties as envisioned by this legislation.”