Kent Conrad Quotes

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

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

It starts with campaign finance reform.

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

The role of money in politics is a major problem and particularly the role of unchecked anonymous money.

Money has too big an influence on our politics in Washington and somehow we need to do something about that.

As long as we, in the United States, continue to insist that our politicians have to spend all of their time raising millions of dollars for television ads, it will be corrupt. If we leave it up to the politicians to clean up lobbying and finance reform, nothing is going to change.

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

The money in politics is a cash cow for the media.

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.

We must reduce the influence of money in politics, beginning by overturning Citizens United and taking back our system from the millionaires and billionaires who can give unlimited and undisclosed amounts of money to influence our elections.

We need to get big money out of Washington.

I had hoped that the current presidential campaign debates might educate the public as to what is really involved in the ongoing controversy over campaign financing.

Anyone who has been around Washington politics long enough can't avoid this truism: Election-year money is like a rushing river that invariably finds cracks in any dam the reformers erect.

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

I think the idea of getting money out of politics is critical.

The American system of political spending is so unregulated that it might make Adam Smith rethink free markets.

Soft money will find its way and seep into the political system and corrode it, unless we plug every hole.

The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution of democracy.

Money in politics is like ants in your kitchen. You close all the holes and get them all out or they'll find their way in again.

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

While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.

The Federal campaign contribution limit of $2,500 is way too low. You can’t even buy a Democrat for $2,500.

Our democratic system is slowly being corroded and eroded by the influence of PAC money.

I will not be doing Super-Pacs of any sort. I think allowing unlimited contributions to campaigns is a terrible and an unfortunate step towards plutocracy.