Chuck Schumer: “If you wanted to design a corrupting statute that would blow over our body politic, you would come up with a statute…”

“If you wanted to design a corrupting statute that would blow over our body politic, you would come up with a statute like 527. Although it was inadvertently drafted, and was never intended for this purpose, its effect eats at the very core of our Republic. Imagine if someone came to you and said: Let's make political contributions tax deductible, unlimited, and secret. Most people, if they were given that case de novo, would say: What? We could not do that. That would be the most pernicious violation of the kinds of things we stand for in this democracy that one could imagine. Yet that is where we stand today. If this statute is not changed, anyone can give unlimited amounts of money and get tax deductions for them. Organized crime could contribute to a candidate--not to a candidate, but organized crime could contribute to one of these funds, put ads on the air, and dramatically influence elections. Drug dealers, criminals, could set up funds and affect candidacies. Foreign governments, people from afar, could do this, and there would be no way to track them down or find it out.”