Political Quotes

“I am in favor of reform, although I have not supported McCain-Feingold because I find there are serious questions as to whether the majority of that bill can be upheld in the Federal court system. That is my concern. And my concern is it totally ignores the very serious problem in this Senator's mind whereby labor unions compel their membership to donate by taking it out of their paycheck before it even gets to the union family. But anyway, I am not here to try to raise all the red hot irons. I want to keep, hopefully, this debate focused on this volume which lays out the authority of the several committees and the fairness of the resolution in this Senator's mind. I take umbrage, personal and otherwise, at the Senator's comment--he wants to generalize--that the Rules Committee is the burial ground for campaign finance reform. Other Senators can speak to their thoughts on this. But certainly for this Senator, I am very anxious to participate in reform. As I said earlier, I am working with the distinguished majority whip in trying to bring together a series of concepts which will withstand Federal court scrutiny, in our judgment, and which will move forward in substantial reform.”