Political Quotes

“Mr. President, yesterday, in the Rose Garden, President Obama made clear the choice Members of this body face as they vote on the DISCLOSE Act. It is a choice between granting special interests unfettered and secret influence over their elections and the choice of ensuring basic protections to voices of everyday Americans. Again, these will be ads run by interest groups that do not identify themselves--unfettered, secret, unlimited in the amount of money they can spend to elect their friends to Congress. We know what happened in 2009 when corporations spent over $3 billion lobbying Congress to influence their agenda. We know with the Wall Street bill and the health care bill, more than $1 million a day was spent to weaken those laws. We know what ultimately happens, what happens when this kind of special interest influence descends on this body. First of all, the money they spend in elections to elect their friends and allies--BP, the drug companies, the insurance industries, the big companies that outsource jobs from the United States to China-- we know what happens when they spend money to elect their friends, and we know what happens when they lobby in the Halls of Congress. We saw examples of that particularly during the Bush years. I was in the House of Representatives in those days, as was the Presiding Officer representing a district in New Mexico. We saw in those days the drug companies writing the Medicare legislation.…”