Top 1200 Campaign Finance Reform Quotes & Sayings

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.

If the need for comprehensive campaign finance reform was not already clear, the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United permitting unlimited corporate and union spending in campaigns certainly made it so in 2010.

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

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.

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

I think there is an overwhelming support for campaign finance reform, and that includes conservatives and Republicans. Where the problem is is with the leadership; with the politicians who are benefiting from the big campaign contributions, and the dark money in the electioneering communications and so forth.

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.

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

Almost every day, you see an article in the papers about someone violating a campaign finance law.

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.

Now, in an analysis of campaign finance filings by Politico we learned the [Donald] Trump campaign has paid Trump businesses more than $8 million so far in this race, that includes $1.3 million in rent for campaign offices, half a million for food and facilities for events, over $300,000 for corporate staffers, and nearly $6 million for the use of Trump`s private plane.

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

Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.

Repeal of the individual AMT has been a fundamental element of Republican tax reform campaign promises for years.

If we don't get reform in campaign financing, then we can write this country off.

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

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

So now we are pushing economic reform, bank reform and enterprise reform. So we can finish that reform this year, in September or October. Then our economy may be much more, you know, normalized.

Tom DeLay may or may not have broken campaign finance laws, but he did his best to look like he was breaking them.

One such issue that Arkansans want action taken on is campaign finance reform. And this is a problem that is not really all that complicated.

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.

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.

I have gone from a proponent of campaign finance reform to a revolutionary during my time in public service.

The biggest issue that we have to contend with is campaign finance reform.

It is my preference that the Democratic Party leads us forward in a way that is about standing up to special interests, in a way that advances campaign finance reform, in a way that fights for meaningful prescription drug reform.

It starts with campaign finance reform.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Talking to Republicans who aren't leaders - that's not very difficult both on anti-trust and on campaign finance reform. I think it's a lot more complicated when you talk to highly funded leaders - that's the innate, deeply problematic part of our politics.

The structure of private campaign finance has essentially pre-corrupted our politicians, so that they can't even recognize explicit bribery because it feels the same as what they do every day.

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?

The leftists are constantly whining and moaning about all the money in politics. They want campaign finance reform, right? They want to get all the money out of politics. They want government money governing campaigns. They want all the money out, they say. But then you look at their coffers, and it's overflowing with hundreds of millions of dollars.

I have, ever since the first day of my campaign, called for criminal justice reform.

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.

It is easier to disrupt consumer finance. It is much harder to disrupt institutional finance, Wall Street. It is very heavily regulated, and because it is institutional finance, you are dealing with incumbents.

The Federal Reserve is not charged with designing or evaluating proposals for housing finance reform. But we are responsible for regulating and supervising banking institutions to ensure their safety and soundness, and more broadly for the stability of the financial system.

Have you ever noticed how statists are constantly "reforming" their own handiwork? Education reform. Health-care reform. Welfare reform. Tax reform. The very fact that they're always busy "reforming" is an implicit admission that they didn't get it right the first 50 times.

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.

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

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.

Why would the Obama campaign officials oppose any effort to ensure the legitimacy of a campaign contribution? It's the same reason they oppose voter ID laws. The Obama campaign evidently believes that election fraud and campaign finance fraud are permissible tools for the purpose of retaining power.

I'm not a fan of the #DeleteFacebook campaign. I think that they can reform.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos owes Ohio $5.3 million for campaign finance violations, and Mike DeWine's office refuses to collect the fine.

We need to end unlimited, unaccountable money for all political parties by passing comprehensive campaign finance reform.

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.

Let's face it, the subject of campaign finance is not always scintillating. But it's incredibly important.

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.

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.

I was deep into it - worldwide liberation politics as well as domestic - but by the end of the '80s, I had decided it all comes down to one single issue: campaign-finance elimination.

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.

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

If you look on Amazon - if you do a search for personal finance, there are literally 20,000 books written on personal finance, and there's no real reason for it. I mean, personal finance is pretty simple.

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.

The campaign finance scandal in America is the global warming of American political life - with cash substituting for deadly solar radiation.