Lloyd Bentsen: “as one who has consistently supported the Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform bill (H.R. 2356) and who signed its…”

“as one who has consistently supported the Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform bill (H.R. 2356) and who signed its discharge petition, I rise in strong support of this critical reform legislation. I also would like to recognize the leadership of Chris Shays and Marty Meehan, as well as my Texas colleague, Jim Turner, on this issue. Mr. Chairman, our campaign finance laws must be reformed to reduce the influence of money in politics and restore the balance originally achieved by the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974 (FECA). Since coming to Congress in 1995, I have come to believe that our political process faces the very real risk of being hijacked by the prevalence of 'soft money' contributions. In the last election cycle alone, the two major parties took in nearly $500 million in soft money. Certainly, such huge, unregulated 'soft money' contributions to political parties threaten to corrupt the integrity of our political process. Mr. Chairman, Shays-Meehan represents an extraordinary opportunity to give voice to citizens whose individual voices are increasingly being drowned out by unregulated issue ads that purport to provide voter education but are actually not-so-veiled efforts at influencing the public's views of a certain political candidate. H.R. 2356 strikes a critical balance between the need to protect our rights to free speech, guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, and the need to make meaningful reforms to our political system.”