Gerald Kleczka: “today, at long last, the House of Representatives will finally get a fair vote on campaign finance reform legislation.…”

“today, at long last, the House of Representatives will finally get a fair vote on campaign finance reform legislation. In order to reach this point, 218 Members had to sign a discharge petition to force the anti-reform Republican leadership to bring this measure to the floor for a debate and hopefully passage. H.R. 2356, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2001, is necessary if we are to remove the undue influence of soft money on our political process and the unregulated issue advertisements that inundate our airwaves during each election season. When Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971 it included a provision that allowed national political parties to use unregulated contributions, "soft money," for generic party-building activities such as get-out-the-vote drives and voter registration efforts. We have recently seen an unacceptable increase in the amount of soft money used in campaigns. In the year 2000 elections alone, $495 million in soft money was spent by the parties, an amount that is nearly double the $262 million spent four years earlier.”