Bradley A. Smith Quotes

We have to talk about the way we finance campaigns.

Spending limits have proven a monumental failure at limiting campaign spending in presidential elections, merely diverting the money underground.

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

Ultimately, the question of campaign contributions will be decided by the public.

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.

The Citizens United ruling did not invent special-interest spending; it enables corporations and unions to advocate directly on behalf of a candidate rather than running more subtle 'issue ads.'

Well I think money has been going into political campaigns for a very long time.

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

Every American knows that political campaigns are too long and too expensive.

Public [campaign] financing and free television time are the things that will diminish the high influence that money has on politics.

All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law.

Not since the gilded age has our politics been opened so wide to corporate contribution and donations from secret sources.

We agree that Citizens United is a very bad decision. We don't believe outspending your opponent is the way to go, since we don't believe we will ever be outspending our opponents!

More money is being spent on our elections, with less disclosure of where that money is coming from, than ever before.

Dependence on private money to run campaigns causes pain to Republicans and Democrats alike - and business owners. It's time we did something about it. And public financing of elections should be the first step.

You shouldn't have political action committees.

A lot of the Citizens United problem could be solved if we knew where the money came from for all these ads. The companies create these entities with fake names - like 'Citizens for Nice Puppies' - which means that the sources of the money are unaccountable.

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.

Wealthy individuals have always had the capacity to influence politics, of course, but only after two key campaign finance cases - Wisconsin Right to Life and and Citizens United, have they been able to do it in such a large and blatant way.

The decision in McCutcheon v. FEC is a devastating blow in efforts to rein in out-of-control costs of campaigns.

Because Republicans have no ideas, they want to turn elections into the battle of dollars.

I do not believe wealthy candidates should spend vast resources in their own campaigns.

The reality is that asking the public to fund political campaigns accomplishes nothing. Candidates continue to seek interest-group support through other channels, both financial and in-kind, and corruption problems abound.

I think we have to look at the whole way campaigns are financed. The No. 1 problem is PAC and special-interest money.

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