Political Quotes

“I yield myself the balance of my time. To my good friend from California, the Buckley v. Valeo decision equated money with free speech. The oil and gas industry, over a period of 20 years, has contributed close to a quarter of a billion dollars to the political process. There is no question of the influence they have had. There is no question of the incestuous relationship between the oil industry and the regulators which led us to this deepwater drilling catastrophe. What this legislation aims at doing is curbing the influence of these oil companies on our political process so they can't get a lease, use the revenue from that lease, put it back in the political process, and ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. We can't let the oil companies do that anymore. We have to protect our government here; we have to protect the Constitution of the United States, and we can't give them the ability to usurp the Constitution, trying to do it in the name of free speech. I would like to conclude by saying this: The language that is in this amendment is the same language as that for TARP recipients, so there is nothing special about the language. It's the same one for TARP recipients, saying that someone that gets Federal money, they shouldn't be able to use their position to go back to the government and get people elected who are going to give them more money.”