Political Quotes

“I rise today to oppose the Wamp amendment, which doubles the amount of money an individual can donate to a candidate, known as hard money, from $1000 to $2000. I personally believe that we should decrease this maximum amount by 50% to $500 if we are really serious about campaign finance reform. The Wamp amendment is a complete step backwards in trying to get the money out of our political system. As Public Campaign states in its report, The Color of Money, ``It is an indisputable fact of our political system that those candidates and laws favored by wealthy contributors usually prevail over those whose backers, or would-be backers, cannot afford to give large sums. As American University law professor Jamin Raskin has stated, this system is `every bit as exclusionary to poorer candidates and voters as the regime of the high filing fee and the poll tax' was in discriminating against African Americans and poor people in the South.'' Because of wage disparities and lower incomes in minority and poor communities, these constituencies don't have the resources to contribute to campaigns. We only further disenfranchise them if we raise the amount of hard money that an individual can contribute. Additionally, this hard money system makes it much harder for women, people of color, and low-income people to run for office. This is undemocratic. Allowing that amount to be doubled will only give wealthy people even more influence in our political system.”