Political Quotes

“It has morphed all the way through the system. And the sad part about it is that it has not done it at the desks of the committees, it has done it in the back rooms. We can do communication these days, I guess, in the back rooms and change something, but, oh, if we want to do an amendment on the floor of the House, it is a poison pill, even if it is a good amendment. For my colleagues who want to ban soft money, Shays-Meehan does not ban soft money. We can drive an Enron limousine, $60 million worth, across this country through this bill. It does not do what the original Shays-Meehan did, what they said it would do. It does not ban all the issue ads. It only prohibits broadcast ads. It is unconstitutional. An issue ad ban is likely to be struck down. Then what are we really going to be stuck with? It weakens the national parties, but it makes special interest groups and individuals stronger. We have a great two-party system, and any other party that wants to come onto the scene in this country will be weakened by this bill.”