[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 1053]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      REFORM CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAWS

  (Mr. CLEMENT asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. CLEMENT. Madam Speaker, 218 signatures. Two hundred eighteen 
signatures. That is what it took to finally force the Republican 
leadership to bring campaign finance reform to the floor of this body.
  In America we have a substantial number of people who do not vote in 
elections, who do not participate in elections. Why? Because of the 
influence of big money.
  Should we not base it on the richness of message, rather than the 
richness of someone's pocketbook? In other countries, many countries of 
the world, they vote more, they participate more. But we have all this 
soft money, and you cannot trace that soft money. That is the 
difficulty and the problem that so many people are having, because it 
ends up in all these political campaigns all over the country, but you 
cannot trace it.
  We have an opportunity this week, knowing that we have not even had 
the opportunity to reform since the 1970s, but we have an opportunity 
this week to bring about campaign finance reform. They have already 
passed it in the United States Senate. We can do the same thing in the 
United States House of Representatives, and we can do it by saying to 
all concerned that we want to give everyone an opportunity to 
participate in the electoral process, no matter who you are or where 
you live.

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