Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I pick up where Senator Van Hollen left off because, when he was fighting for the DISCLOSE Act in the House, I was the manager of that bill on the floor here in the Senate. It would do something very simple. If you are spending more than $10,000 in an election, we ought to know who you are. That is pretty easy. It is not going to rope in lots of small donors. It will get the big interests who are out there trying to control our democracy and hide who they are while they are doing it. As Senator Van Hollen said, this started with Citizens United--a wretched decision that unleashed unlimited money into our politics, but it said that the unlimited money was going to be transparent. That was its predicate: It is going to be transparent. You won't have corruption because everybody will be able to see. The ad will say: We are ExxonMobil, and we paid for this message. Well, of course, the dark money forces, in having achieved that victory at the Supreme Court, went right out and violated that predicate--right out. They have built an entire architecture of deception around their campaign finances since then. It is the 501(c) corporations that don't have to report their donors. It is the donor- advised trusts that are money identity laundering devices for big donors. It is even as simple as phoney-baloney shell corporations. Sometimes they are stacked up, and the money goes to the phoney-baloney shell corporation.…”