Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank my colleague for yielding. Like Senator Feingold, I am an original cosponsor of the DISCLOSE Act, and would like to address the ``stand by your ad'' disclosure provision of that bill and the recent Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. The Citizens United opinion was a reckless ruling that overturned decades of precedent and threatens the health of the democratic process. Citizens United laid down, for the first time, a sweeping new right for special interests of all types. It said that money is speech and corporations must have free speech. This directly overturns the position taken in the Supreme Court's Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce opinion, which recognized the ``corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form and that have little or no correlation to the public's support for the corporation's political ideas.'' But now, the Court says that if individuals have the freedom to express themselves politically, then corporations, as well as unions and other special interests, should have the same rights as living, breathing human beings. The DISCLOSE Act offers a significant step in countering this ill- conceived opinion. Although the full reach of Citizens United cannot be undone short of a constitutional amendment or reversal by the Supreme Court, the DISCLOSE Act would achieve important accountability within the bounds of the Court's ruling.…”