Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to speak to regret that the constitutional amendment proposed by Senator Udall lost 54 to 42. Of course, a majority voted for it, but we need two-thirds for a constitutional amendment. I first want to thank Senator Udall for his great leadership on this issue. As chairman of the rules committee and a member of the Judiciary Committee, I have worked with him on this, and I know his passion and dedication to straightening our country out, straightening our system of campaign finance out. Second, I want to say this: We are going to keep fighting until we get this done. The only way really to cure the Supreme Court's misguided ruling, whether it is in Citizens United or McCutcheon, is with a constitutional amendment. Our day will come. We are not giving up. When the Supreme Court issued its ruling in McCutcheon several months ago, it was another step on the path towards destruction of our system of campaign finance laws. First in Citizens United and then in McCutcheon, the Supreme Court has been chipping away at the actual foundation of our democracy that everyone is equal in the political arena. It just does not mean equal in terms of votes; it means that if you are a multimillionaire, you should not be allowed to drown out the messages of everybody else. If Congress does not respond, our system is going to collapse. This year, the amount of independent expenditures from a small number of individuals will exceed the money spent by all the others.…”