Political Quotes

“I wish to take a few minutes now to speak about my amendment No. 1693, which responds to the very unfortunate Citizens United decision. January 2015 was that decision's fifth anniversary, and it has had a pretty nefarious effect on our democracy. The premise of the decision was that unlimited corporate expenditures would not corrupt or exert improper influence in our American democratic process because there would be a regime of--to quote the decision--``effective disclosure'' that would ``provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters.'' Well, here we are. Everybody in this room knows that there has been no effective disclosure whatsoever. We live in a world of dark money in which special interests spend tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars in elections to buy influence and to try to make sure that people get their way. There is neither public knowledge nor accountability about that dark money spending. The Louisville Courier-Journal, in an editorial in June 2012, described the problem very well: Money. Buckets of it. Tidal waves that one pundit has dubbed the ``tsunami of slime.'' Well, we who are in this political world have experienced firsthand that tsunami of slime that the Citizens United decision unleashed.…”