David Thomas: “Mr. Chairman, we are finally here, and I rise in strong opposition, unless my colleagues are surprised, to Shays-Meehan…”

“Mr. Chairman, we are finally here, and I rise in strong opposition, unless my colleagues are surprised, to Shays-Meehan and their bill. Last week this House defeated a constitutional amendment that was authored by the minority leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) that would allow Congress to limit spending for the first time. He got 29 votes. Fifty-one Members of this House voted present, and I do not know about other Members, but I did not come here to vote present. I came here to vote yes or no, to do the people's business. But there is a lot of shenanigans going on, and all the shenanigans can be put aside because now we are into the meat of the issue. Now the author of the constitutional amendment, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), said the amendment was necessary because neither Congress or the States have any constitutional authority to limit expenditures, independent issue advocacy or uncoordinated. The current explosion in third-party spending is simply beyond our ability to legislate. This is what the minority leader has said, yet Shays-Meehan does just that. It attempts to legislate control of political spending and political speech, spending and speech that we are told by the minority leader was constitutionally beyond our reach to legislate. Now the Shays-Meehan bill is nothing short of an attempt to gut the First Amendment in my opinion.”