Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator from New York for his courtesy. I too will be brief. It is an extraordinary honor to represent Oregon in the Senate. Having this special privilege, I have tried to make the lodestar of my service transparency and accountability. It is why I worked with the distinguished Senator from Missouri Mrs. McCaskill to end secret holds in the Senate. I have had more than 600 open town meetings. That is why we take legislative drafts and put them online so citizens can comment wherever possible. It is all about transparency and accountability. Today's campaign finance system is neither. It is not transparent, it is not possible for Americans to see who is giving what sums to what particular candidate, and there is no accountability--certainly no accountability in the sense that when people go to the polls in Vermont or New Hampshire or New York or anywhere else people know who has given a donation so that they can factor that in to their political judgment. With the explosion of mass media, the tradition of negative campaigning through pamphleteers and partisans has grown and grown to the point where the typical voter cannot find a way to avoid the flood of half truths and outright falsehoods. It becomes even harder to send the message that voters want; that is, we made our choice because we have full and complete information. Now, all of this was getting worse until the Congress came together to take two steps.…”