John Thune: “This is a very, very simple issue. We cannot get any simpler. This is a question of whether or not political…”

“This is a very, very simple issue. We cannot get any simpler. This is a question of whether or not political participation ought to be mandatory; in other words, we ought to be required to take something out of our paycheck and give it to a political cause even if we do not agree with it, versus whether it ought to be optional. It is that simple. This concept cannot get lost in the complexity, although it has been tried. They tried to disguise and delude and distract and divert and everything possible during the course of the last debate. But the fact of the matter is that on its surface this is a very simple issue. People who work hard, who join unions, can still contribute to political processes. There is nothing to deprive them or prevent them from doing that. All this simply says is it has got to be optional. All we have to do if we want to do it is we have that option every year. I think, again, that is consistent with the way the political process ought to operate.”