David Thomas: “yet another example of overzealousness. The gentleman said that what we do is allow more folks to shovel in even more…”

“yet another example of overzealousness. The gentleman said that what we do is allow more folks to shovel in even more special interest money. Special interest money is usually defined as political action committee money. Our bill cuts political action committee contributions by 50 percent, far more than the Democrats' bill provides. We had testimony in front of the committee that labor unions are now involving themselves in the political process to the tune of $300 to $400 million. That amount is not disclosed. The provisions that we have in the bill requires that union political money to be disclosed. What we do is empower the rank and file to say, if you want your money spent for those political purposes, by all means, tell the unions to go ahead. But if you do not, following the court's decision, you can say no. We allow the rank and file to say no to the unions if they want to. It is their choice. That is the kind of positive reform many Democrats are afraid of.”