Political Quotes

“The Polman article recites a number of Senators who voted no against proceeding with the DISCLOSE Act, having made in the past very forceful affirmative statements in favor of disclosure. It may be that by reminding those 4 Senators, perhaps 1 of them or 2 of them--we only need 1, if the 59 votes hold--they could be persuaded to vote aye and proceed to consider the bill. Then we have the advocates of McCain-Feingold. If we compare the rollcall vote on McCain-Feingold, we find there are a number of Senators who voted no against taking up the DISCLOSE Act, Senators who previously had spoken out forcefully in favor of finance limitations and in favor of transparency. Perhaps at least one of those or perhaps even more could be persuaded to vote to proceed with the so-called DISCLOSE Act. There has been a plethora of political commentary about the dangers to our political system by having anonymous campaign contributions. The last election was inundated with money, and the forecasts are that the next election will be even more decisively controlled by these large contributions and by these anonymous contributions. So to preserve our democracy and to preserve the power of the individual contrasted with the power of the wealthy, I believe that ought to be very high on our agenda. There is a corollary to the need for some change, some reform as a result of what happened in Citizens United. In that case, we had two votes, and they were decisive.”