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Kerry's speech on the DISCLOSE act.
a little bit late, I know, but I only saw it toda.y
http://www.kerry.senate.gov/press/release/?id=a22969a6-84dc-40fc-8471-8f6c27000479
Mr. President, I have been involved in campaign finance issues now for the past 40 years. Despite the progress that Senator Mitchell and others have helped us make, we have still gone backwards on this critical issue. This is due to the influence of money itself. I've seen the debate over campaign finance reform endure highs and lows -- and I think all of us would agree that the role of big money in politics is bigger than ever and the effort to find a way to reduce that role more paralyzed and stuck than ever before.
When I first came here in 1985, we were working with people like Joe Biden and Bill Bradley and David Boren to find ways to take the big money out of politics and replace it with a public match for Senate and House races. We came close, but the status quo stopped us. After the soft money scandals in both parties in the 1990's, we finally passed the McCain-Feingold effort, modest as it was to at least ban soft money. That of course had the unintended consequence of introducing America to the 527 groups where again the message and the debate was taken away from the candidates and given to outside groups with huge sums of money. But never even then did we imagine that with one decision, the Supreme Court could tilt the voice of our democracy and our discourse so heavily in favor of large, unaccountable interests at the expense of the average American. But that's what happened in Citizens United.
...
Does anyone believe we can reach for that kind of Senate given our broken campaign finance system? Where all of our time is forced to be spent raising money – and where the secret donors blow candidates out of the water with on air bombs and distortions? Does anyone here think that system won’t drown out the voices of people who get into public service to get things done? And as long as that is true, I guarantee you will continue to see elections won by the most ideological candidates who do the bidding of the extreme interests. That is not what the Founding Fathers wanted for this body.
Ours is a system today where billions of dollars can be spent by any millionaire or billionaire or the largest corporations in the world to distort our democracy and diminish the voice of candidates -- to pollute our airwaves spending whatever whenever -- and the average American today doesn't even get to know where the money is coming from. That's an insult to every American, it violates the rules of honorable discourse and debate, and it's a threat to every public servant running for office today.
...
And I'd add, this should be something every Senator supports. Because one thing we've seen in American politics is that, it may not happen overnight, but in time, this kind of excess is a threat to both sides. The money that favors one side in one election cycle may challenge the next party in the next election. And no one who cares about the Senate should tolerate the diminishing of this institution by outside interests.
This is not a game. The stakes for the American people are too high to let special interest ploys hide behind faceless and unidentifiable campaigns.
When I first came here in 1985, we were working with people like Joe Biden and Bill Bradley and David Boren to find ways to take the big money out of politics and replace it with a public match for Senate and House races. We came close, but the status quo stopped us. After the soft money scandals in both parties in the 1990's, we finally passed the McCain-Feingold effort, modest as it was to at least ban soft money. That of course had the unintended consequence of introducing America to the 527 groups where again the message and the debate was taken away from the candidates and given to outside groups with huge sums of money. But never even then did we imagine that with one decision, the Supreme Court could tilt the voice of our democracy and our discourse so heavily in favor of large, unaccountable interests at the expense of the average American. But that's what happened in Citizens United.
...
Does anyone believe we can reach for that kind of Senate given our broken campaign finance system? Where all of our time is forced to be spent raising money – and where the secret donors blow candidates out of the water with on air bombs and distortions? Does anyone here think that system won’t drown out the voices of people who get into public service to get things done? And as long as that is true, I guarantee you will continue to see elections won by the most ideological candidates who do the bidding of the extreme interests. That is not what the Founding Fathers wanted for this body.
Ours is a system today where billions of dollars can be spent by any millionaire or billionaire or the largest corporations in the world to distort our democracy and diminish the voice of candidates -- to pollute our airwaves spending whatever whenever -- and the average American today doesn't even get to know where the money is coming from. That's an insult to every American, it violates the rules of honorable discourse and debate, and it's a threat to every public servant running for office today.
...
And I'd add, this should be something every Senator supports. Because one thing we've seen in American politics is that, it may not happen overnight, but in time, this kind of excess is a threat to both sides. The money that favors one side in one election cycle may challenge the next party in the next election. And no one who cares about the Senate should tolerate the diminishing of this institution by outside interests.
This is not a game. The stakes for the American people are too high to let special interest ploys hide behind faceless and unidentifiable campaigns.
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