Quotes & Sayings About Super Pacs

Sheldon Adelson, for example, gave more than $53 million to Super PACs, but all eight of the candidates he supported lost.59 Karl Rove, a strategic mastermind who won fame advising George W. Bush, oversaw groups that spent $175 million and still lost twenty-one out of thirty elections. — Laurence H. Tribe

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

I would do away with super PACs. I think it's a cancer. — Kent Conrad

There were 14,000 people at the rally for the president in Ohio. There were another 8,000 people in Virginia. If all 22,000 of those people opened their wallets and gave $1,000 each, that would be less than one donation from a billionaire to the super PACs. And that's why he's in for the fight of his life. — Austan Goolsbee

As the 2012 elections approach the finish line, the chatter among columnists and political reporters is about upcoming books that take readers inside the campaigns, cutting-edge efforts to micro-target voters on Internet social applications, the enormous money flowing through super-PACs, and extreme political polarization. — Juan Williams

Few developments in campaigning have been as vilified and misunderstood as independent expenditure PACs, or, as they are colloquially known, super PACs. — Bradley A. Smith

Incumbents don't like it, but political competition is a good thing. Incumbents usually outspend challengers by better than 3 to 1. Super PACs, which tend to support challengers, have nullified some of this advantage. — Bradley A. Smith

The super PACs have brought an element of fear into the equation. The fact that they can bring this money into the campaign, basically ambush you out of nowhere, and you'll have no way to fight back. — John Sarbanes

The ruling paved the way for a related decision by an appeals court in a case called SpeechNow, which soon after overturned limits on how much money individuals could give to outside groups too. Previously, contributions to political action committees, or PACs, had been capped at $5,000 per person per year. But now the court found that there could be no donation limits so long as there was no coordination with the candidates' campaigns. Soon, the groups set up to take the unlimited contributions were dubbed super PACs for their augmented new powers. — 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

By law, super PACs are required to disclose their donors. There are groups that have never had to disclose their donors, non-profits such as the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, the NAACP, and the NRA. If you want more disclosure, super PACs are a step forward. — Bradley A. Smith

There is no evidence that super PACs have led to a greater percentage of negative ads. — Bradley A. Smith

To all the worryworts out there who said super PACs were going to lead to a cabal of billionaires secretly buying democracy: wrong! They are publicly buying democracy. — Stephen Colbert

If you put your politicians up for sale, as the US does (alone in this among industrialized democracies), then someone will buy them
and it won't be you; you can't afford them. — Juan Cole

I think there's a lot of reasons for having an extended primary. I think super PACs play a role. — Reince Priebus

With super PACs, we've seen voter turnout go up; interest in elections rise; and the number of competitive races increase. The campaigns of 2010 and 2012 have been more issue-oriented than their predecessors, not less. — Bradley A. Smith