Quotes & Sayings About Campaign Finance

Unfortunately, money in politics is an insidious thing - and a loophole in our campaign finance system was taken advantage of with money going to existing or new 527 groups with the sole purpose of influencing the election. — Olympia Snowe

Tom DeLay may or may not have broken campaign finance laws, but he did his best to look like he was breaking them. — P. J. O'Rourke

I think that the influence of people with power and money to distort democracy and have their interests served before the rest of the population is the biggest problem. That is caused by two things: campaign finance and the way that's structured, and by the Citizen's United supreme court decision. So those two things are keeping democracy from working right. — Shepard Fairey

Super PACs and a corrupt campaign finance system are destroying American democracy. We're proud that we have received four million individual contributions, more than any candidate in American history at this point. — Bernie Sanders

For Randy Neugebauer, the Texas Republican who chairs the investigations subcommittee, the top sources of funding for his 2012 reelection campaign are from the insurance, banking, finance, securities and real estate industries. — Gary Weiss

I admired the way McCain worked on campaign finance reform. I admired the way Nancy Pelosi stiffened the Democrats' spine during the health care debate. I admire the way Barack Obama has raised a dog in the White House without ever putting it on the roof of the car for a vacation drive. — Gail Collins

From 1976, Judy to 1996, we had six presidential elections. And it was run under the Campaign Finance Reform Act of 1974. In all six of them, every candidate agreed to limits of what he could collect in contributions and what he could spend in seeking a nomination. And they all abided by it. — Mark Shields

The polluters had triumphed by overturning the campaign-finance laws. "There was a huge change after Citizens United," he contends. "When anyone could spend any amount of money without revealing who they were, by hiding behind amorphous-named organizations, the floodgates opened. The Supreme Court made a huge mistake. There is no accountability. Zero. — Jane Mayer

We need real campaign finance reform to loosen the grip of special interests on politics. — Tom Daschle

Every major federal campaign-finance-reform effort since 1943 has attempted to treat corporations and unions equally. If a limit applied to corporations, it applied to unions; if unions could form PACs, corporations could too; and so on. DISCLOSE is the first major campaign-finance bill that has not taken this approach. — Bradley A. Smith

As Day and other observers had reported, the slaves were leading very comfortable lives. After this tactic [slave rebellions in the South] failed, it became obvious to the conspirators that an actual military invasion was the only solution to their campaign. The merchant bankers of New England, who were directly controlled by the Rothschilds, were no instructed to finance a military attack against the South. Their instrumentality was the already well-known terrorist, John Brown. He was financed by a group famed as "the Secret Six". — Eustace Mullins

When you look at the money spent by labor unions for Democrats, it comes as no surprise the Democrats crafted a campaign-finance 'disclosure' bill with the thresholds adjusted to exempt unions. — Mark McKinnon

Actually criminal sanctions that are given could be up to five years for violating the rules and regulations under the campaign finance reform. This is like the Alien and Sedition Act of years and years ago, decades ago. — Jay Alan Sekulow

Well, paycheck protection is an important ingredient for a successful campaign finance reform measure. — Andrew Card

Most Republicans are not prepared to stand up to the fossil fuel industry because they get a lot of their campaign funds from the Koch brothers and other people in the fossil fuel industry. That tells me why we have to reform our campaign finance system. — Bernie Sanders

For years, liberals have demonstrated a near religious devotion to the cause of 'cleaning up elections' with campaign finance reform, the wondrous panacea that would finally rescue our great country from corruption in politics ... How anyone could believe that corrupt politicians could or would legislate away their own corruption is completely beyond me. — Anthony Gregory

It's just a lot safer to be an incumbent. So I think they have used the campaign finance reforms. They have passed laws that will help themselves stay in office. And I think that's one of the flaws that we do have in the system. — David Brooks

But having said that, what's happening with campaign finance reform and our political culture is devastating. — Robert McChesney

I have a lot of stands on a lot of political issues. I'm very big on campaign finance reform. I still think most Americans aren't aware of how the dumping of big corporate dollars and private donor dollars has totally corrupted the political system and taken it away from them. — Morgan Fairchild

Goldman Sachs was one of those companies whose illegal activity helped destroy our economy and ruin the lives of millions of Americans. But this is what a rigged economy and a corrupt campaign finance system and a broken criminal justice is about. These guys are so powerful that not one of the executives on Wall Street has been charged with anything after paying, in this case of Goldman Sachs, a $5 billion fine. — Bernie Sanders

Maybe when they no longer receive Sierra magazine in their mailboxes, journalists will understand how campaign finance reform abridges free speech. — Matt Welch

If your party serves the powerful and well-funded interests, and there's no limit to what you can spend, you have a permanent, structural advantage. We're averaging fifty-dollar checks in our campaign, and trying to ward off these seven- or eight-figure checks on the other side. That disparity is pretty striking, and so are the implications. In many ways, we're back in the Gilded Age. We have robber barons buying the government. — David Axelrod

In 'Citizens United v. FEC', the Supreme Court ruled that sections of the federal campaign finance law known as McCain-Feingold imposed unconstitutional restrictions on the First Amendment rights of corporations. — Eric Schneiderman

My issue with campaign finance is 100 percent disclosure. Wear a suit with patches from your big contributors. Depending on the size of the contribution, that's how big the patch should be. — Gary Johnson

Some corporations don't want free markets, and they don't want democracy. They want profits. And they use our campaign finance system to loot our commons, to steal from our treasury, and the other shared resources of our community - the air, the water, the public lands, the wildlife, the things that belong to all of us that are held in trust for future generations. Corporations cannot act philanthropically in America. — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In fact, corporate and union moneys go overwhelmingly to incumbents, so limiting that money, as Congress did in the campaign finance law, may be the single most self-denying thing that Congress has ever done. — Elena Kagan

The plea agreement negotiated by Janet Reno's Justice Department with Nora, Gene and Trisha Lum is a hoax. It allows two key players in the campaign finance scandal to plead to lesser offenses and effectively concludes a serious investigation that, if taken to a conclusion, could have seriously affected the Clinton Administration's claim that it committed no illegalities in the campaign finance scandal. Nora Lum was a close confidant of Ron Brown and remains close to John Huang. Trisha Lum, her daughter, worked for Brown at the Commerce Department and worked on trade missions. — Larry Klayman

Legislative action will never bring genuine campaign-finance reform. Consultants will prove endlessly inventive in gaming whatever system the reformers can devise so as to give their candidate an edge and allow the power of massive money to be felt. But reform laws will become irrelevant and redundant as the Internet replaces the special-interest fat cats as the best way to raise money and takes the place of TV as the most effective way to get votes. — Dick Morris

School performance, public health, crime rates, clinical depression, tax compliance, philanthropy, race relations, community development, census returns, teen suicide, economic productivity, campaign finance, even simple human happiness - all are demonstrably affected by how (and whether) we connect with our family and friends and neighbours and co-workers. — Robert D. Putnam

I find that students are very strong on my issues, stronger than anyone: anti-death penalty, anti-racial profiling, campaign finance reform, questioning the anti-terrorism bill. — Russ Feingold

There are two reforms that we need to restore our democracy. The first is campaign finance. We need to get the corporate money out of the election process. And second, we need to resolve the dysfunction in the environment. Looters are running agencies that are supposed to be protecting us from pollution. — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

One of the reasons this election is so important is because the Supreme Court hangs in the balance. We need to overturn that terrible Supreme Court decision, Citizens United, and then reform our whole campaign finance system. — Hillary Clinton

What distinguishes the campaign finance issue from just about every other one being debated these days is that the two sides do not divide along conventional liberal/ conservative lines. — James L. Buckley

The reality is we that have a corrupt campaign finance system which separates the American people's needs and desires from what Congress is doing. So to my mind, what we have got to do is wage a political revolution where millions of people have given up on the political process, stand up and fight back, demand the government that represents us and not just a handful of campaign contribution - contributors. — Bernie Sanders

Nobody wants campaign finance reform more than me. It would save me a fortune. — Andrew Tobias

Campaign finance and ethics reform only works if it curtails all special interest groups equally and does not carve out any exceptions to benefit one party or another. 'Pay to play' reform was passed to limit the influence of big spending contractors over the public officials from whom they are trying to obtain work. — Thomas Kean Jr.

I think there are two basic approaches you can use for campaign finance. One is complete openness, everybody knows absolutely everything, but no limits. But you let people decide.The other is just have a national public system. — David Brooks

I think we need to take on the greed of the billionaire class, a disastrous campaign finance system. — Bernie Sanders

One of the biggest issues for me is campaign finance reform. — Cameron Russell

The number one lobby that opposes campaign finance reform in the United States is the National Association of Broadcasters. — Robert McChesney

Democrats' desperate attempt to focus on campaign finance reform instead of laws that may have been broken by the Clinton-Gore campaign is like Mike Tyson demanding a reform in boxing regulations after biting off a piece of Evander Holyfield's ear. — Cal Thomas

It starts with campaign finance reform. — Zack Space

At the federal level, this problem could be greatly alleviated by abolishing the Electoral College system. It's the winner-take-all mathematics from state to state that delivers so much power to a relative handful of voters. It's as if in politics, as in economics, we have a privileged 1 percent. And the money from the financial 1 percent underwrites the microtargeting to secure the votes of the political 1 percent. Without the Electoral College, by contrast, every vote would be worth exactly the same. That would be a step toward democracy. — Cathy O'Neil

Scaling back the campaign finance reform bill may get more Republicans aboard, but it leaves many of us who have been involved in the reform movement for years in believing that we are doing something and accomplishing nothing. — Robert Torricelli

There's issue of a corrupt campaign finance system, where big money interests and Wall Street are trying to buy elections.Those are the issues that are resonating. — Bernie Sanders

By 2009, [Richard] DeVos's son, Dick and daughter-in-law Betsy were major donors on the Koch lust and facing a $5.2 million civil fine of their own for violating Ohio's campaign-finance laws. — Jane Mayer

For many years, we have had these campaign finance reforms, and they have been failures. Money is more coursing through our system than ever before. Incumbents have used the laws to advantage themselves. And one of the reasons I think they have been failures is we have tried to crush down the money in places like the political parties, and it has squished out into opaque super PACs and sort of hidden channels. — Mark Shields

I would like to have an ample fund to spread the light of Republicanism, but I am willing to undergo the disadvantage to make certain that in the future we shall reduce the power of money in politics for unworthy purposes. — William Howard Taft

I certainly want campaign finance reform. I just wish this would do it in a way that would stand up to a constitutional challenge. — Ben Nelson

We are very frustrated because we have a Supreme Court that seems determined to say that the wealthier have more right to free speech than the rest of us. For example, they say you couldn't stop me from spending all the money I've saved over the last five years on Hillary's campaign if I wanted to, even though it would clearly violate the spirit of campaign finance reform. — William J. Clinton

As one of the German employees of the WIC in Brazil noted, "the Jews, more than anyone else, were in a desperate situation and therefore, preferred to die sword in hand than face their fate under the Portuguese yoke: the flames."32 The Amsterdam Jews showed their support of the Jews in Brazil by helping to finance a privateering campaign that captured approximately 220 Portuguese vessels, effectively imposing a blockade on — Jeffrey Gorsky

The bottom line is that if politicians weren't in the business of granting favors and exacting tribute, every single issue surrounding campaign finance reform would be irrelevant. After all, why would anyone spend money for influence, access, favors and tribute if the only thing that politicians do is to live up to their oaths to uphold and defend the Constitution? — Walter E. Williams

The reason that minorities and women don't have a better shot at getting elected to the Senate or to statewide office is because the campaign finance rules are so skewed as to make it very difficult for non-traditional candidates to raise the money necessary to get elected. — Carol Moseley Braun

Let's not overlook, though, what we do know about the campaign finance scandal, and the fact the Chinese were involved in our presidential campaign and our congressional campaigns. — Fred Thompson

I think the presidency is a bad way to measure the effective campaign finance, because in the presidency, there is so much publicity, there's so much money floating around. — David Brooks

Already, there is evidence that crimes are being committed with regard to campaign finance, and the FEC is unable to do anything. — Thom Hartmann