Political Quotes

“218 signatures. Two hundred eighteen signatures. That is what it took to finally force the Republican leadership to bring campaign finance reform to the floor of this body. In America we have a substantial number of people who do not vote in elections, who do not participate in elections. Why? Because of the influence of big money. Should we not base it on the richness of message, rather than the richness of someone's pocketbook? In other countries, many countries of the world, they vote more, they participate more. But we have all this soft money, and you cannot trace that soft money. That is the difficulty and the problem that so many people are having, because it ends up in all these political campaigns all over the country, but you cannot trace it. We have an opportunity this week, knowing that we have not even had the opportunity to reform since the 1970s, but we have an opportunity this week to bring about campaign finance reform. They have already passed it in the United States Senate. We can do the same thing in the United States House of Representatives, and we can do it by saying to all concerned that we want to give everyone an opportunity to participate in the electoral process, no matter who you are or where you live.”