[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 21628]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         CONGRESS, LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF PASSIONATE AMERICANS

  (Mr. YARMUTH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, across the country, tens of thousands of 
passionate, boisterous Americans have come to townhall meetings to make 
their voices heard to Members of Congress.
  I welcome that expression of concern. Those concerns have touched a 
wide range of issues, but there is a common theme running through all 
of them, and that is that people feel they are not being listened to. 
While I understand the frustration, I think, maybe, the source of their 
frustration is not understood. It is that, no matter how loud we 
scream, there is still a torrent of money that is pouring into the 
political system on the other side that drowns out those voices.
  So, as we debate health care and energy and the reform of our 
financial system, I hope those same passionate Americans will talk to 
Congress about the need to reform our campaign finance system, about 
the need to create public financing so that their voices, as passionate 
and as intelligent as they may be, are not drowned out by the huge 
amounts of money that we now see in the political system.
  I think this is the cause for the future as the Supreme Court debates 
a decision which could make this even more compelling need more 
salient. We need to deal with this important topic.

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