Thomas M. Barrett: “I am frustrated because when I talk to people in my district, in particular, young people, I find a tremendous amount of…”

“I am frustrated because when I talk to people in my district, in particular, young people, I find a tremendous amount of distrust in our democratic process. People have tuned out of the system because they do not think that it is responsive to them. They feel as though they cannot be a player in the game because they do not have a lot of money. I am someone who firmly believes that democracy works only as well as we make it work. It is the ultimate participatory sport. And if young people, or any people in this country feel that they cannot be part of this system because of what they see going on right now in our country, that is bad for democracy. That is bad for everybody here, whether they are a Democrat or Republican or an Independent. We should be encouraging people to be involved in this system. I think that the Shays-Meehan proposal takes away some of the cynicism that is out there because it lets people understand that we do not want unregulated soft money coming into this system.”