Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, if the spirit of bipartisanship that we have heard much about over the course of the last few days is to be any more meaningful than ``I'll smile at you if you'll smile at me,'' then I think that a place to start with true bipartisanship is to allow the people, Republican and Democrat alike, who want to do something about the increasingly corrupting influence of money and politics at all levels of our Federal elections, to give them an opportunity to come forward and craft a bipartisan solution to this tremendous problem. Thoughts of bipartisanship and of campaign finance reform are hardly new to this institution. Indeed, in 1995 in New Hampshire, in the summer, in front of a senior citizens' group, we had many smiles from President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich looking at each other, shaking hands, being very bipartisan and collegial and friendly over the concept of campaign finance reform. And what happened after that? Absolutely nothing. It took from that summer until the next summer before we got something in this House called reform week, which ended up being a reform hour, which denied to us an opportunity to consider the bipartisan Clean Congress Act, a measure that by its very name had broad bipartisan support and was designed to do something about the influence of money in our campaigns. I believe the American people want us to address this problem.”