Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I commend Senator Merkley and Senator Bennet for their extraordinary work, indeed, in collaboration I believe with our colleague Senator Brown from Massachusetts to make significant improvements in the crowdfunding provisions of the House bill. As Senator Bennet and Senator Merkley have indicated, this represents a potentially very productive way to raise capital, and they have provided protections that will ensure investors in this process are not disadvantaged, and I commend them for that. It addresses one of the significant issues in the House bill but, frankly, not all the significant issues. There are some extremely glaring, I think, provisions in the House bill that we attempted to address in the Reed-Landrieu-Levin substitute. That substitute amendment, although it received a majority of votes, did not receive enough to achieve cloture to be the bill we are now considering. We are now considering the House bill. I have an amendment to that House bill that addresses one of several difficulties with the House legislation. Investors, when they buy stock in public companies, expect routine disclosures. They expect to know on a quarterly basis, and in a very real sense on an annual basis, what is the company doing? What are the prospects of the company? All that goes hand in hand with the widely dispersed ownership of a public company.…”