Political Quotes

“if this important bipartisan Shays-Meehan proposal has any defect, it is that it does too little, not too much, as its detractors have claimed tonight. With the Shays-Meehan proposal, we take a very important step to reform, but it certainly is not the last step that we need to take. Only one-ninth of 1 percent of Americans gave $1,000 to a federal candidate during the last election cycle. The sole purpose of this amendment is to allow that elite group to give even more. If we succeed in banning soft money on the one hand, but we increase the amount of hard money on the other hand, we will have simply taken from one and given to another. We have merely traded Tweedle-Dee for Tweedle-Dum. The purported inequity that this amendment allegedly corrects is that candidates for the Senate can receive $2,000 during a 6 year term. But without this amendment, Members of the House can already receive $1,000 every 2 years or $3,000 during the same 6 year period. There is no inequity to correct. Mr. Chairman, this amendment should be rejected.”