Robert Weygand: “I am a member of the freshman class, a freshman class that came in here on the role of amending our campaign finance…”

“I am a member of the freshman class, a freshman class that came in here on the role of amending our campaign finance laws to make it better for all citizens to participate in this Congress. It was a bipartisan commission of freshmen, freshmen Republicans and Democrats, who crafted a bill, who worked hard all last year and this year. So what does the Republican leadership do here today? It says, to heck with all that you have done, to heck with the people of America, do not consider what is a bipartisan, good-faith effort to revise our laws with regard to an open government. We are going to close it down. We are going to take what we have done in a smoke-filled back room and put it before you and try to jam it down the throats of America. That is what the Republican leadership has said here today. We should be ashamed of what they have done, we should be ashamed of the leadership that they have shown America, and we should vote down anything they present to us next week; and I ask my fellow colleagues, particularly the freshmen, to oppose what they are doing to us next week and oppose what they are doing to America.”