Robert Torricelli: “the Congress may now be closer to comprehensive campaign finance reform than at any time in 30 years. It holds the…”

“the Congress may now be closer to comprehensive campaign finance reform than at any time in 30 years. It holds the promise of restoring public confidence by reducing the amount of money flowing into American politics while simultaneously reducing the costs of campaigns themselves. It gives a fair chance to challengers, an opportunity for people to bring different ideas and a broader national debate because we end the dominance of special interests money. This can be an extraordinary, even historic week in the life of the Congress. But the well-crafted balance reached in the Senate is now in jeopardy. Campaign finance reform has meant a change in various institutions within our political culture. One of those institutions is resisting the change. I am speaking of the network broadcast industry. Just as political candidates would be challenged under the law to raise less money under stricter limits, and the political parties would operate under different rules, and the American people would operate under more restrictions to assure that money did not dominate the process, the broadcast industry, operating under Federal license in the use of the public airways, would be challenged to reduce the costs of advertising for Federal campaigns. The Congress could have insisted on free air time. We could have insisted that time be made available for public debate as in many of the great democracies of Western Europe. Our request was much more modest.…”