Mr. Chairman, I wish that the authors of amendments who get up to say they are against Shays-Meehan would find another vehicle to drag down debate. We have been debating this bill for quite some time now, and the author of the amendment…

I am not asking the gentlewoman whether or not one can buy donuts. I am asking whether or not under the gentlewoman's amendment, would one be able in any way to get cash, if cash was required to go buy a cup of coffee or donuts for poll…

reclaiming my time, this sounds like an amendment that we could support. But these amendments, sometimes we need to go through the process to make sure. We have a situation where voter turnout in this country is an embarrassment, and I…

I think it is clear from the votes that have been taken that there probably is a majority of the Members of this House that are ready, willing and able to vote for passage of the Shays-Meehan substitute. I would hope that we would do…

I am not thrilled about 55 amendments to the Shays-Meehan bill to begin with, but as I add it up, it looks certainly like we could get through this in a shorter period of time... I would hope that we could get through this quickly, maybe…

One of the concerns that the minority would have, Mr. Chairman, is that we get a full list of which amendments people respond to and get it in a timely fashion. In other words, if it is at 1 o'clock tomorrow, that we could have the list at…

what we are looking to do here is try to find an agreement that gets us to a vote. Nobody rationally believes, given the UC agreement that we got on campaign finance reform before we left, that 25 hours of debate on this UC agreement, in…

We had talked about a comprehensive agreement, an agreement that would result in us being able to complete campaign finance reform by the August recess on August 7; and, to that end, many of us met today and we had talked about agreeing to…

interestingly enough, the language in here that is the appropriate language is ``expressly unmistakable and unambiguous support for or opposition to one or more clearly identified candidates when taken as a whole and with limited reference…

in our efforts, our bipartisan efforts over a period of the last several years to forge a partnership between Republicans and Democrats and find an agreement to comprehensive campaign finance reform, we have made a number of agreements and…

I, too, could potentially support the amendment, but high probability, there is no legal texture to that. I do not believe that there is any case law that has been determined anywhere that I know of where high probability was the legal…

Actually, Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman has brought up an interesting point. These ads, that are supposedly issue ads, let us talk turkey here and do one of the ads. I have it right here. Now, this is an ad we cannot find out where the…

What do we do about the fact that somebody could offer an amendment that is clearly unconstitutional? If we were to pass this amendment and somebody down the road offers an amendment that is clearly unconstitutional, our bill is dead then.

Yesterday the rule for campaign finance reform was pulled off the floor. It is now June 18, and we still have not had an up or down vote on the bipartisan Shays-Meehan campaign finance reform bill. On the same day they pulled the bill and…

the point I also was going to make on severability is, if this amendment were to pass, with all the amendments that can be offered, how easy it would be for the other side to simply offer and pass a clearly patently unconstitutional…

But what the gentleman is asking us to do is pass an amendment where if a comma is unconstitutional, a word, a phrase, the whole bill is gone. It is a poison pill to campaign finance reform.

we have been waiting for a vote on campaign finance reform now for literally years. Years. My question to somebody on the other side is, how in the world could the debate on the rule on this bill have possibly been canceled again? My…

I fully expected that we would be debating the rule on campaign finance reform at this time, but, unfortunately, there has been a delay. I do want to say that I think the debate today was enlightening at times, entertaining at other times…

I take the floor today certainly not to defend the status quo or the present system we have, but rather to rise and thank my colleagues, especially the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney)…

on a final note, let me just say in response to the argument from the other side of the aisle, the child support and alimony problem does not begin and end with sections 141 and 142 of H.R. 3150. The means test and other parts of the bill…

yesterday's Los Angeles Times got it right: ``Voters are getting tired of empty promises'' from the Republican leadership on campaign finance reform. Weeks have passed since the Republican leadership committed to holding a vote on the…

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…

they said pigs would fly before we got an open debate on campaign finance reform in the House. Well, Mr. Speaker, it is time to bring home the bacon because we are here at last. After 4 years of promises made and promises broken, we are…

April Fool's Day has come to the House 2 days early, and, unfortunately, the joke is on all of us who took the Speaker at his word when he promised last December to allow a fair debate and vote on campaign finance reform. Today, we are…

I have worked with Republican and Democratic Members over the last 5 years working to find a way to find bipartisan campaign finance reform, to level the playing field and treat both Democrats and Republicans fairly. ... But what did the…