Political Quotes

“today I introduce the Constitutional and Effective Reform of Campaigns Act, or ``CERCA''. This legislation is the product of 2 years of hearings in the Rules Committee, discussions with numerous experts, party officials, and candidates, and nearly two decades of participating in campaigns and campaign finance debates in the Senate. Many of the proposals in this bill have been made in some form by several of my Senate colleagues and by Members of the House, and I readily acknowledge drawing on their expertise. Most particularly, the important discussions during the meetings of this year's task force headed by Senator Nickles, at the request of Majority Leader Lott, were invaluable. This legislation offers an opportunity for bipartisan support. It is a good faith effort to strike a middle ground between those who believe public financing of campaigns is the solution, and those who believe the solution is to remove current regulations. It offers a package of proposals which realistically can be achieved with bipartisan support and meet the desire of the majority of Americans who believe that our present system can be reformed. In my judgment, we will not succeed with any measure of campaign reform in this complicated field without a bipartisan consensus. In drafting this legislation, I began with four premises.…”