Sean Patrick Maloney: “I rise in support of the supplemental but in opposition to the rule for the Shays-Meehan bill. What we needed was a fair…”

“I rise in support of the supplemental but in opposition to the rule for the Shays-Meehan bill. What we needed was a fair fight, an up or down vote on Shays-Meehan, a quality, balanced, bipartisan campaign finance bill that a majority of this House has supported twice and that has already passed the Senate. We needed a fair rule. But what did we get? We got a mine field. We got Shays-Meehan shattered, fragmented, broken into 14 separate parts that needs to be reassembled in separate votes into that fragile flower called consensus. After the mine field, more poison pill votes. Apparently the leadership felt they could not win on the merits so they had to manipulate the process to shortchange the American people once again. Campaign finance reform is the litmus test for real change in this Congress. And the real litmus test for supporters of campaign finance reform is voting against this destructive, unfair, undemocratic rule.”