Political Quotes

“late last night the House embarked on what will prove to be a historic debate on campaign finance reform. Over the next few weeks, we will have the opportunity to truly strengthen our democracy and respond to the 72 percent of Americans who say that there is too much money in American politics. Most importantly, this debate will clearly identify those Members who support real bipartisan reform by a vote for the Shays/Meehan bill from those who are tied to the status quo. It is a fact that undisclosed money is overwhelming our current election system. The most effective way to solve the problem is to ban soft money, the huge sums given by corporations, interest groups and labor unions. These unregulated contributions are at the heart of nearly every single investigation that the majority party has focused on this year. The other problem with our current system is the proliferation of campaign ads masquerading as issue ads in congressional races all across the country. According to a report published by the Annenberg Public Policy Center and the Pew Charitable Trust, more than two dozen organizations engaged in campaign advertising during the 1995-1996 election cycle, but because they called their campaign ads issue advocacy, they did not play by our campaign rules. As a result, nearly $150 million worth of these ads, a third of what all candidates nationwide spent themselves, went undisclosed. Nobody knew where the money came from.”