Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. As I listen to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I would just urge them to read the bill. It's only three pages long. Frankly, most of the things I've heard so far don't have anything to do with this legislation. This legislation doesn't raise the legal contribution limit for anybody. This legislation doesn't allow corporate contributions. This legislation keeps in place all the disclosure requirements for Presidential campaigns that we currently have. So those of you that are concerned about those things don't need to be concerned about this bill. H.R. 359 is really a very simple piece of legislation. It does two things: It removes taxpayer funding for Presidential campaigns, and it eliminates taxpayer funding for political party conventions by the two major parties. Now, I have to say, if you look at whether or not these ideas have been popular, historically they, frankly, haven't. When this was put in in the 1970s, the idea was that it would spread. It hasn't. We don't fund any of our elections with taxpayer dollars, our colleagues in the other body with taxpayer dollars; and, frankly, as my friend Mr. Lungren pointed out, popular participation in this program has declined for almost 30 consecutive years, from a high of 28 percent in 1980 to barely 7 percent today. So there is not much indication that it's popular.…”