[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 12 (Tuesday, February 12, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H270-H273]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IN SUPPORT OF THE SHAYS-MEEHAN BILL
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Lucas) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. LUCAS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, this evening the Blue Dog
Coalition is pleased to take this opportunity on the eve of debate
regarding the Shays-Meehan campaign finance reform legislation to stand
in strong support of this important reform.
Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight as chairman of the Blue Dog Caucus on
Campaign Finance Reform to voice my support for the Shays-Meehan bill.
This bill represent real reform, and I strongly encourage my colleagues
to support it.
{time} 2000
The Shays-Meehan bill is the only campaign finance reform bill that
effectively deals with soft money and the sham issue ads.
In 1996, $262 million of unregulated soft money was spent on
campaigns. Estimates of the 2000 election place that amount of money,
soft money, at about one-half billion dollars. That is billion with a
B.
This money from unrevealed sources has the effect of drowning out the
voice of the average citizen, and it is often used to run the so-called
issue ads funded by the wealthy interest groups which oftentimes flood
a candidate's district just days before an election. These ads are put
together by unknown, unaccountable sources and are often misleading or
sometimes simply untrue. Of course, no one knows where the ad came
from, so no one is called to task for these misleading, sham issue ads.
As the recent Enron debacle shows, Congress must avoid even the
appearance of impropriety. I cannot say whether or not the executives
at Enron broke the law or received special interest as a result of the
$1,671,000 of soft money they gave in the 2000 election cycle campaign.
They do, after all, deserve a fair hearing, and we are about that
process now, but I know that the mere suspicion by the public that
Enron did receive special treatment erodes public confidence in our
government.
There is no question that the campaign finance system is not working
well for the American people. An individual or corporation can
literally pour thousands of dollars into the system without identifying
themselves or what they represent. I believe we can reform the system
to shift the balance back to the people and emphasize the voices of
average citizens, not special interest groups, reforming a system that
will enable us to focus more attention on the needs of all of our
citizens, educating our children, passing a real Patients' Bill of
Rights and protecting Social Security and Medicare.
Campaign finance reform is the right thing to do. While it is not the
be-all, end-all in government reform, it is a major step in the right
direction. The confidence of the American people is at stake. We must
return our government to the people.
Mr. Speaker, tonight I have several fellow members of my Blue Dog
coalition who are here to speak. The first speaker we have in the
coalition to join us this evening, the gentleman from Florida (Mr.
Boyd), a strong supporter of campaign finance reform since the 105th
Congress and the Blue Dog communications chairman. I am happy to yield
time to him so he can speak on this subject tonight.
Mr. BOYD. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the gentleman from
Kentucky (Mr. Lucas), who has been a strong advocate and leader for
campaign finance reform since his election to this Congress, to this
U.S. House, in 1998. I also want to recognize the efforts of the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner), who came into this body in the 1996
election, as did I, for his strong leadership, and of course we all,
Mr. Speaker, recognize the leaders in this body, the bipartisan
leadership that is provided by the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr.
Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan), who have been
strong and long and tireless advocates for campaign finance reform.
Mr. Speaker, I came to this body after the 1996 election, and our
freshman class spent some time together developing what we thought was
the most important issues that we could work on together. This freshman
class was made up of both parties, members of both parties that came in
that 1996 election, which chose together in a bipartisan way the issue
of campaign finance reform to work on, and so we have been working,
trying to get the campaign finance system of this Nation reformed since
that 1996 election.
Mr. Speaker, my colleagues know that our democratic system of
government works best when the our individual constituents participate
in the largest numbers. We have had diminished participation in our
government election systems over the last 20 or 30 years, and I think
that diminished participation is due in large part to cynicism. The
public has become very cynical about campaigns and how they are
financed and who controls them and so on.
I think they are cynical because the public believes that the current
system is skewed to give the wealthiest people in this country and the
largest special interest groups a greater say in shaping our public
policy.
The largest culprit in that cynicism, that causes that cynicism, I
believe, is a soft money loophole. Closing this soft money loophole
will restore public confidence into our campaign financing system in
our elections. Grassroots and personal participation, which we all
know, the more personal individual participation we have in the
electoral process, the better our democratic system works. If we can
improve personal participation and grassroots efforts, then we will go
a long way toward improving our system and the participation in that
system, and our democracy will work much better.
The political parties will once again, Mr. Speaker, become a resource
for manpower and strategy rather than a conduit for unregulated money,
which they, over the last 30 years since our last major campaign
finance reform has happened, and these parties simply in the most part
now have become a conduit for large sums of unregulated soft money. The
national parties were healthy and vigorous before the onslaught of soft
money, and they can be healthy and vigorous again once we eliminate
soft money. In fact, many of us believe that soft money has broken down
the effectiveness of our national parties because it dilutes the
influence to outside organizations.
Mr. Speaker, the time is now to fix this problem. We need to pass a
clean bill that fixes our broken campaign finance system. We passed
this bill, this U.S. House passed this bill in the 105th Congress, and
it passed the bill in the 106th Congress, under the leadership of the
people that I have mentioned earlier, but in both cases the other body
failed to take up and pass campaign finance reform.
It is time now, Mr. Speaker, that Congress takes the big money out of
the elections process and make sure that everyone has equal access to
their government. Mr. Speaker, the President has promised if we will
send him a reasonable bill, he will sign it, and it is time now that
the Congress produce that bill that the President will look favorably
upon and restore confidence to the public in our electoral system.
I want to thank the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Lucas) for allowing
me to speak.
Mr. LUCAS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman
from Florida (Mr. Boyd) for his remarks.
[[Page H271]]
Mr. Speaker, the newest member of the Blue Dog coalition and a
valuable advocate of campaign finance reform, the gentleman from New
York (Mr. Israel). I am pleased to yield him time.
Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr.
Lucas) for yielding, and I want to thank him also for his leadership of
the Blue Dog and his leadership on behalf of campaign finance reform.
Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman just alluded to, I am a proud new
member of the Blue Dog. I am the only Blue Dog with this New York
accent, but certainly no less committed to the vital principles that
the Blue Dogs have been fighting for in this House, and that is fiscal
responsibility and a strong defense and campaign finance reform.
Mr. Speaker, last summer I stood on the steps of the New York City
birthplace of one of the greatest Presidents that our Nation has ever
had. He happened to be a Republican. He happened to be from Long
Island. He was Theodore Roosevelt, and his greatest distinction was
being a crusader for our environment and a crusader for reform.
I stood on those steps, Mr. Speaker, with our colleagues from the
other body, Senator McCain and Senator Feingold, and with the sponsors
of campaign reform in this House, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr.
Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan), and we chose
the birthplace of Theodore Roosevelt because he understood the
corrupting influence of special interests on our system of government.
Even in the dawn of the 20th century before Enron, before the S&L
scandal, before Watergate, Theodore Roosevelt was somebody who
understood the corrosive influence of groups who can spend any amount
of money they want and say whatever they want, however they want,
wherever they want in these unregulated soft money ads.
Theodore Roosevelt said one of the fundamental necessities in a
representative government such as ours is to make certain that the men
to whom the people delegate their power shall serve the people by whom
they are elected and not the special interests. We stood on the steps
of his birthplace in defense of that principle, and the best way to
deliver on that principle is to pass Shays-Meehan in this House this
week.
I cosponsored Shays-Meehan. I signed the discharge petition that is
compelling a vote on Shays-Meehan, and we are at a crossroads, and, Mr.
Speaker, if anyone needs any evidence of the need for campaign finance
reform, let me share with them a conversation I had yesterday in my
district in Deer Park with some of the senior citizens I represent.
We were talking about the critical need for a prescription drug
benefit for America's seniors, for Long Island seniors. One hundred
thousand Long Island seniors have been kicked out of their Medicare
HMOs. A million American seniors have lost their prescription drug
benefit. And we were talking about that problem, and I was hearing
stories from senior citizens who said, I either cut my food bill in
half, or I cut my prescription tablets in half because I cannot afford
both, and one of the points I made is I have introduced with my
colleagues on a bipartisan basis several different resolutions that
would provide for Medicare HMO stability, that would answer the crying
need of our senior citizens. Some of the people said, well, why cannot
we get these things passed; we appreciate your work, but why is not the
House of Representatives passing these bills? One woman said to me, her
name is Shirley Beja, lives in West Islip, she said, you know, why we
do not have campaign finance reform; when we pass campaign finance
reform, those other things will become possible.
When we stop the special interests, when people have as much of a
voice in this House as the special interests do by flooding our
airwaves with unregulated soft money, negative attack ads, that is when
people will be put first. When people, regular people, working people
have as much influence in this House as the special interests who flood
campaign treasuries with unregulated soft money special interests
contributions, that is when we will put people first. Maybe that is
when we will get a prescription drug benefit.
Mr. Speaker, I want to close by observing some of the debate that I
have heard on both sides of the aisle about who Shays-Meehan really
helps and who it really hurts. There are some Democrats who believe
that Shays-Meehan will help the Republicans, and there are some
Republicans who argue adamantly that Shays-Meehan will help the
Democrats. Well, Mr. Speaker, how about helping the American people?
How about helping America's senior citizens? How about leveling the
playing field here on Capitol Hill?
I thank the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Lucas) again for his
leadership.
Mr. LUCAS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New
York (Mr. Israel) for his comments.
It is my pleasure to recognize my colleague and a fellow Member from
the 106th Congress freshman class, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Phelps).
Mr. PHELPS. I want to thank, Mr. Speaker, my good friend and
colleague the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Lucas) and the gentleman
from Texas (Mr. Turner) and Shays-Meehan and for all those who have
done so much work in regards to getting this issue this far where it
should be out in the light of day. We thank them for their leadership.
I join my fellow Blue Dogs in supporting sensible campaign finance
reform. I have supported campaign finance reform throughout my entire
political career, 14 years in the Illinois State Legislature and now a
second term in Congress, and I will continue to do so until laws
regarding this issue finally are enacted.
{time} 2015
I would like to start off by commending all my colleagues for working
hard to bring this issue back to the House floor in such a timely
manner, especially, as we mentioned, the gentleman from Connecticut
(Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan), as well
as everyone who signed the discharge petition.
Remember, the discharge petition is going to extreme efforts to force
the leadership to just allow this body, the greatest deliberative body
in the world, to do what we are sent here to do: to be able to put
these issues out for everyone to understand them, to educate the public
of what is going on here, as they compensate our activity. To have to
go to the extreme of having the discharge petition in motion reflects
that there is a hard, heavy hand on the process that is trying to
control true debate, which is really at the base of this issue anyway.
So I am glad we are at this particular point.
This is an issue that is important to many of my constituents, so I
am pleased that the opportunity has come once again to pass meaningful
campaign finance reform legislation. I firmly believe we must reduce
the overwhelming influence of money in our political campaigns and
return to a system based on healthy debate over candidates' positions
on issues.
This means abolishing soft-money contributions to national parties,
which includes unregulated, undisclosed contributions by corporations,
foreign nationals, labor unions, and wealthy citizens, and restricting
soft-money expenditures by State parties in Federal elections. This
also means putting a cap on hard-money contributions to national
parties by allowing individuals to contribute no more than $57,500 per
cycle.
I strongly oppose increasing individual contribution limits, due to
the fact that these limits enhance the influence of wealthy individuals
at the expense of ordinary citizens. As someone who represents a
district in rural southern Illinois, where the per capita income is a
little over $11,000 per individual and $22,000 per household, it is
extremely important to me that my constituents' concerns are not
overshadowed by the large wallets of big business. It is crucial for
these people to have a voice in American politics, something I am
fighting every day as we face reapportionment, just to have an area
down State Illinois, to have a voice in Congress, to speak out on their
behalf, even if the majority of them cannot provide a monetary voice,
which so often happens with working people.
I have received numerous letters and calls from constituents thanking
me for signing the discharge petition and
[[Page H272]]
making an effort to get meaningful campaign finance reform legislation
back to this House floor. With the 2000 elections using over $450
million in unregulated soft-money contributions, there is no question
that the campaign finance system has gotten way out of hand. We need to
pass this much-needed campaign finance reform legislation before these
record amounts have a chance to once again be broken, if you can
imagine that.
Back home in southern Illinois, people just want the issues to be
genuinely, fairly debated; and they want to hear from the candidates,
where they stand on issues and policies that affect them. They do not
like disguised, sneaky methods of advertising, ways that promote
negative, name-calling, character destruction and remarks that are
hidden behind some technicality or strategy to smear some candidate
without even knowing who is paying for the ads or who has designed them
or who is responsible for them.
It is time we passed this legislation, and I urge Congress to join me
and my Blue Dog colleagues as we make this effort tomorrow.
Mr. LUCAS of Kentucky. I thank the gentleman from Illinois for those
comments.
Now it is my pleasure to introduce a committed promoter of campaign
finance reform, the only Member of the House from the State of Kansas
to sign the discharge petition, a friend of mine, the gentleman from
Kansas (Mr. Moore).
Mr. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Kentucky
for his leadership, and I want to thank the gentleman from Connecticut
(Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) for their
leadership in fighting the long fight here in the House for campaign
finance reform. I think we also need to extend our sincere thanks to
people in the other body, Senator John McCain and Senator Russ
Feingold, for their long fight and leadership on behalf of campaign
finance reform in this country.
On July 30, the Blue Dog coalition, of which I am a member, initiated
a discharge petition to force a vote on the bipartisan Shays-Meehan
campaign finance reform bill. I wish the House leadership would have
provided Members a fair opportunity to vote on Shays-Meehan without
that discharge petition last July. But we finally got 218 signatures,
which is the magic number, that requires the leadership to bring this
to a vote on the House floor. Now we will have our chance for that
vote. Now we will have our chance for campaign finance reform.
Mr. Speaker, there is in this country a national crisis of confidence
in our election system as a result of the huge sums of money in Federal
campaigns. This Shays-Meehan campaign finance bill is nothing more than
a reasonable attempt to clean up our campaign system.
There is in this country a widely held belief that special interests
and the very wealthiest campaign contributors have way too much
influence in our political system. This belief discourages citizen
participation in our democracy. A ban on soft money and limitations on
issue ads, together with new disclosure requirements, will make our
campaigns and elections more open and, hopefully, will counter a
growing cynicism in our country towards politics and political
candidates. I also hope, Mr. Speaker, that full disclosure and banning
huge sums of soft money will increase participation in the political
process. At a time when nearly half of all eligible voters do not vote,
we need desperately to find new ways to encourage citizen
participation. I believe passage of Shays-Meehan will do just that.
There are people, Mr. Speaker, in our country's history who fought
and died for the opportunity to vote for the people who would represent
them in their government. There are people, Mr. Speaker, around the
world who would give anything they could and would fight and die for
the opportunity to be able to elect their leaders, to be able to
criticize their leaders. We have that opportunity in this country; and
yet only about half of the people vote because of the cynicism, because
they are so discouraged about our political process, because of all the
unregulated soft money in our political process.
During the 106th Congress, Mr. Speaker, I sponsored legislation to
require so-called section 527, political organizations, to disclose the
names of contributors and expenditures. Full disclosure should be the
rule. Passage of Shays-Meehan will continue the important process of
implementing disclosure requirements that will expose political
donations to the light of day.
The negative impact of huge sums of money on our political system can
be seen in the rapid expansion of so-called issue ads, Mr. Speaker.
During the 1999-2000 election cycle, about 130 groups ran issue ads at
a cost of more than $500 million. What are they getting for that money?
Did Enron get more influence than they were entitled to in our
political system because of all their contributions? Hearings will
answer that question, hopefully.
The amount of money spent on issue ads, which can be paid for with
unlimited amounts of money not subject to disclosure amounts, increased
by nearly 500 percent between the 1995-1996 and 1999-2000 election
cycles. There is no telling, Mr. Speaker, how far spending on issue ads
will spin out of control in the years to come.
Television viewers in the third district of Kansas, which I
represent, in the Kansas City media market, were subject to more issue
ads, a total of 12,028, than any other media market in the country,
with the exception of Detroit. These issue ads, run by organizations
with innocent sounding names, like Citizens for Better Medicare,
presented themselves to voters across the country as disinterested
advocates of sound public policy. They are not.
In fact, these and other groups are funded by special interest money,
and viewers at home often have no way of telling who paid for these
issue ads. The American people have a right to make an informed
decision; and the only way that can happen, Mr. Speaker, is by full
disclosure, and special interests should not be afraid to disclose
their funding of issue ad groups.
The House has passed the bipartisan Shays-Meehan bill twice before. I
urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass this bipartisan
legislation tomorrow for the third and final time. I hope and believe
that if this goes to the President's desk, the President will sign this
into law. If that happens, the Democrats do not win, the Republicans do
not win. The true winners in our system, Mr. Speaker, will be the
American people.
As Senator John McCain has said on many occasions, it will either be
the special interests or the people's interests that will be
represented in Congress. We need to come down hard on the side of the
American people.
Mr. LUCAS of Kentucky. I thank the gentleman for those comments, my
good friend from Kansas.
Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to recognize the gentleman from
Crockett, Texas (Mr. Turner), the House sponsor of the discharge
petition and the policy Chair of the Blue Dog coalition. I am pleased
to yield to this gentleman for his statement.
Mr. TURNER. I thank the gentleman from Kentucky.
We are at a historic moment in the House of Representatives because
we have the opportunity once and for all to end the contributions of
large sums of soft money to the political process, a practice which was
never intended by those who sought to reform the campaign finance
system in the early 1970s. But smart lawyers figured out how to get
around those reforms; and we are left today awash in soft money pouring
in, $25,000, $50,000, and $100,000 at a time, from special interests.
The connection between those who give hundreds of thousands of
dollars to the political process and the shaping of public policy
should be apparent to every American. Those of us who have fought for
campaign finance reform do so because we believe that the current
system is destroying the public's faith and confidence in the
legislative process and because we believe that it is time to end the
hundreds of thousands of dollar contributions that are polluting this
political process.
Enron, we know, contributed over $1.6 million in the last election
cycle. We do not know for sure what all they got for that $1.6 million,
but we certainly know from our own experience of common sense that they
expected something if they were contributing money in the sums of $1.6
million. The American people understand that those with the big bucks
speak louder in these halls than the ordinary citizen. That is
inconsistent with representative democracy. That is inconsistent
[[Page H273]]
with building the kind of government that every American can be proud
of and have confidence that when we meet in these halls we work for the
public interest rather than the special interest.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to be a part of a press event hosted
by a group called Committee for Economic Development, CED for short.
{time} 2030
Mr. Speaker, this is a group who came to Washington to fight for
campaign finance reform. No, it was not a group of reformers, those who
are on the outside looking in wanting the system to change. These were
people who had been on the inside, who had seen the system work. They
were a group representing over 300 business leaders who have advocated
forcefully for the abolishment of soft money and for the passage of
sound campaign finance reform legislation.
The business leaders that came yesterday included a wide range of
very well-respected leaders from across our country. We had people like
Ed Kangas, the former CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, an accounting
firm, a man who stated very forcefully that he has seen the system
work. He stated, ``When government is too intertwined with money,
Americans will view it as suspect, and at worst corrupt. Businesses
should not have to pay a toll to have their case heard in Washington.
There are many times when CEOs feel like the pressure to contribute
soft money is nothing less than a shakedown.''
That is from a former CEO of a major accounting firm who has made the
contributions in soft money, and he is ready to see the system changed.
Other business leaders who gathered here in the Capitol yesterday to
speak out in favor of campaign finance reform, including people like
Frank Doyle, CED chairman; and Warren Buffett, the chairman of the
board of Berkshire Hathaway, Incorporated. We had George Rupp,
President of Columbia University and cochair of the CED subcommittee
that wrote their report on campaign finance reform. We had Harry
Freeman, the former executive vice president of American Express, and
dozens of other business leaders speaking out in favor of campaign
finance reform.
On the list of supporters of campaign finance reform as published by
the Committee for Economic Development, we had a former Vice President;
former Republican Secretaries of Defense, Treasury and Labor; a former
United States Senator and Republican National Committee chairman; and a
former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman. These men and women
understand the way that this system has come to work, and they believe
it is corrupt and that it is time for a change.
Charles Cobb, the president of the Committee for Economic
Development, had this to say: ``The old canard that the business
community supports the status quo and fears reform has been demolished.
Business leaders know that the current broken system is not good for
them or for our democracy. It gives politicians and corporate America a
black eye, and it skews the decision-making process. More importantly,
it damages our democratic system, and that is not good for our economy,
American business or our Nation's future.''
That is what America's business leaders had to say about the current
system. It is broken. It must change, and tomorrow on the floor of this
House we have an historic opportunity to bring about that change.
The bill to be introduced, the Shays-Meehan legislation, has already
passed the United States Senate in the form of legislation sponsored by
Senator John McCain and Senator Russ Feingold. Senator McCain was
present at the press event yesterday joining with these business
leaders for passage of the Shays-Meehan, McCain-Feingold legislation.
All of us who have been involved in the political process understand
the difficulty that we all face in raising money for political
campaigns, but we have a set of rules that were adopted in the early
1970s that will work quite well. They specify that there are limits,
caps, on the amount that individuals can give to political campaigns.
We have in the law caps that special interest groups can give to
political campaigns. This legislation is designed to make those limits
real again by taking away the loopholes that have been created over
time by smart lawyers who have told their clients and politicians that
you can get around the rules simply by being sure that you are not
contributing in a way that could be perceived as coordinating that with
a political candidate.
As a consequence, the American people watch during each election
cycle a slew of political ads on television paid for by the political
parties and special interest groups that are paid for not with
regulated contributions, the source of which can be clearly ascertained
by anyone who wants to examine the report of a political candidate, but
which are hidden from public view by a system that has evolved over
time, allowing contributions of soft money in unlimited amounts.
This is a system that we want to change tomorrow on the floor of this
House. Let there be no mistake about it, one of the alternatives being
offered, the so-called Ney-Wynn substitute, does not clean up the
current system. It does not ban soft money from the political process.
In fact, Enron could have given 80 percent of the money they gave if
the Ney-Wynn substitute becomes law tomorrow.
The only true reform legislation on this floor tomorrow is the Shays-
Meehan bill. This is the right bill for America. It is the right bill
for this Congress, and it will return political power to the people of
this country, to the average citizen who does not have the thousands of
dollars to pour in in campaign contributions and special interest money
to this process.
When those who are leaned on to give this money in the business
community are willing to stand up and tell this Congress they are ready
for the system to change, and when many of us who joined together
signing the discharge petition which allows us to have this debate when
the leadership of this House refused to bring a fair rule to this
floor, when the politicians and the business leaders are joining
together and saying the system ought to be changed, it seems to me that
the system certainly deserves to be changed.
Those who take the money and those who give the money are saying the
system is wrong, corrupt, and it is destroying the public's confidence
in the political process. We hope every Member of this House will join
us tomorrow.
There are many reasons for Members of this House to have questions
about this change in campaign finance because many on both sides of the
aisle have become addicted to this soft money. They raise it, and by
raising it, they secure their positions of power and influence. They
know that those that they call to make those big contributions
understand that even though maybe unspoken, there is an understanding
that those who give the money have the access to the front door of this
Congress.
We believe that is wrong. We believe the American people believe it
is wrong. We believe it is time to change the system. We look forward
tomorrow to having a victory for the American people on the floor of
this House.
Mr. LUCAS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, in closing this body will have a
unique opportunity to restore a voice to our constituents tomorrow when
it takes up this campaign finance reform bill. The American system of
government is too precious to allow soft money to limit the power of
ideas.
In the 2000 election cycle, 980 companies and individuals gave over
$100,000 of soft money into that process. The type of reform that we
are talking about will protect the ability of individuals and
grassroots organizations to build on the power of their ideas and not
be overwhelmed by this big money. I believe that is the way our
forefathers intended our system to work.
As one of our friends in the other body often says, because of the
lack of reform, the big money sits in the front row, and the average
citizen sits in the back. We need campaign finance reform, and we need
it now.
Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues here in this House will do the
right thing, stand up for their constituents and pass the Shays-Meehan
campaign finance bill.
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