Ron Kind: “as a member of the Freshman Finance Reform Task Force, I rise in strong support of the Shays-Meehan bill. Madam…”

“as a member of the Freshman Finance Reform Task Force, I rise in strong support of the Shays-Meehan bill. Madam Chairman, today we are finally given an opportunity to vote on meaningful campaign finance reform legislation. This vote is long overdue. For almost two years we have heard about the abuses in the campaign finance system. We have heard from our constituents that they feel their voice has been drowned out by the big money special interests who push their own agenda. We have heard a lot of rhetoric from leaders in Washington who say they want to clean up our elections yet have failed to allow a vote on changing the system until now, when it is too late to effect this year's elections. There are many members of this body who are committed to reform of our broken campaign finance system. I applaud the efforts of my friends Congressman Shays and Meehan for their courageous leadership on this issue. The Shays/Meehan substitute is a good bill and I will support its passage. The Shays/Meehan substitute will take the biggest money out of the political process and finally bring some control to the independent expenditures that have come to dominate our elections. It is a good first step to fix a problem that has no simple solution. I have been working over the past year and a half with a bipartisan coalition of freshman members of Congress to craft our own campaign finance reform bill. That bill, H.R. 2183, is the base bill being considered today.”