Louise Slaughter: “almost every year since I have been in the House we have struggled to try to pass meaningful campaign finance reform…”

“almost every year since I have been in the House we have struggled to try to pass meaningful campaign finance reform, and this year is no different. Ten poison pill amendments and substitutes have been introduced that are designed to weaken the Shays-Meehan bill. This bill is necessary to cut off the flow of unlimited and often undisclosed money into the Federal election system. Specifically, the bill closes two primary loopholes through which this money flows into Federal campaigns, soft money and sham issue ads. All of us have received letters and phone calls from constituents who care about this issue and want this system cleaned up. One of my constituents stated that as long as the fox has full access to the henhouse, he has no plans to repair the hole. So it goes with politicians, he said. He believes the only way campaign finance reform would happen would be to take it out of our hands. Let us prove him wrong. Congress needs to close these loopholes now to stop the corruption of elections into the 21st century and to restore Americans' faith in their government. Vote yes on Shays-Meehan and no on the poison pill amendments.”