Political Quotes

“I believe Chairman Leahy will shortly be joining us to discuss the DISCLOSE Act. I ask unanimous consent that an op-ed piece authored by former Senator Warren Rudman and former Senator Chuck Hagel--two former Republican Senators who distinguished themselves in this body and have gotten together to write an article about the DISCLOSE Act--be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: [From the New York Times, July 16, 2012] For Political Closure, We Need Disclosure (By Warren Rudman and Chuck Hagel) Since the beginning of the current election cycle, extremely wealthy individuals, corporations and trade unions--all of them determined to influence who is in the White House next year--have spent more than $160 million (excluding party expenditures). That's an incredible amount of money. To put it in perspective, at this point in 2008, about $36 million had been spent on independent expenditures (independent meaning independent of a candidate's campaign). In all of 2008, in fact, only $156 million was spent this way. In other words, we've already surpassed 2008, and it's July. In the near term, there's nothing we can do to reverse this dramatic increase in independent expenditures. Yet what really alarms us about this situation is that we can't find out who is behind these blatant attempts to control the outcome of our elections.…”