Robert Weygand: “the centerpiece of the freshman bill is a very strong ban on soft money. It prohibits national officeholders…”

“the centerpiece of the freshman bill is a very strong ban on soft money. It prohibits national officeholders, candidates, their agents, from raising, directing and coordinating soft money. The freshman bipartisan Democratic-Republican bill incorporated the ideas of campaign finance experts; Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institute, Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, Herb Alexander of the Citizens Research Foundation, we took their ideas and put it into the bill. This was not a partisan ship, this was an idea of experts. But what does all this do? What is the real issue before us with soft money? Soft money really restricts the average American from running for office. It puts tens of thousands, even millions of dollars, into campaigns, and forms great obstacles for the average American from running from office. Jefferson and Madison wanted this to be the House of the people, not the House of the elite and the special interests. Soft money does that. Let us renew those Founding Fathers' ideas. Let us renew the House of the people. Let us ban soft money. That is what the freshman bill does. I urge my colleagues to support it.”