Political Quotes

“as a freshman Member of this Chamber, and as one who has supported campaign finance reform and fought for campaign finance reform for close to 10 years, I need to express my great disappointment in the vote that occurred earlier today in which we defeated the rule on campaign finance reform legislation and, thus, have disallowed that legislation from coming forward. Before I share exactly how I voted, though, I think it is important to share some of my history on this issue and how I live campaign finance reform and not just talk about it. Over the last 9 rac{1}{2} years as a candidate first in the State House and now in Congress, I have never accepted political action committee money. I have limited the amount of money I have spent; I have limited the amount of my personal money I have spent. In fact, in my campaign for Congress a year ago, I limited my expenditures in the primary to less than $150,000; and I was outspent five to one by one opponent, three to one by another, two to one by a third opponent. We did grass-roots campaigning; and thanks to the people of my district, we were successful. I ran in that fashion because I believe money is wrongly influencing the governing process, and I think it is time we do better by the people we are elected to represent.”