Sam Giancana Quotes

It is campaign money that calls the tune, a fact recognized by every politician within a few minutes after getting into politics.

It challenges a linguist to define modern campaign contributions as something other than bribery.

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

This [political fundraising] is a very sophisticated system … This is a legalized bribery system where no one has to say anything. I don’t have to say what I want—you [the politician] know what I want.

I am willing to undergo the disadvantage in order to make certain that in the future we shall reduce the power of money in politics..

Until we make campaigns affordable, then we're going to have too many members of Congress out rattling the cup with special interest groups.

I don't care if the Koch brothers or Soros spend their money to promote one candidate or another. I care about members of Congress spending 30%-70% of their time raising money from .05% of us. Change the way we fund elections and you change the corruption.

It takes money to run political campaigns. This is a cancer growing on the soul of our democracy.

I have the most reliable friend you can have in American politics, and that is ready money.

You can't take a congressman to lunch for $25 and buy him a hamburger or a steak or something like that. But you can take him to a fund-raising lunch and not only buy him that steak, but give him $25,000 extra and call it a fund-raiser - and have all the same access and all the same interactions with that congressman.

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.

It starts with campaign finance reform.

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.

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

Congressman are spending too much time raising money.

The arms race for money being what it is, fundraising starts shortly after someone is elected to Congress.

Congressmen are not bribed anymore. They simply have a lot of friends who are willing to help them out whenever they find it necessary.

Campaign contributors are operating vicariously through the power of their purse rather than through the power of their ideas.

A politician taking campaign money from gamblers in Nevada is like one taking campaign money from the auto people in Michigan. Gambling is our legal business.

Congress has become the center of legalized bribery/

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

History’s pendulum is now swinging back toward the day when political finances were only lightly regulated.

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

And when the guy [politician] says “Yes, I took money, but it didn’t influence my vote”? Oh, come on. The company that’s giving you the money thinks it is going to influence the vote. Why else would they give you the money?

Most important of all the structural reforms, we need to follow through on the recent Congressional effort to discipline the use of money in politics, by setting reasonable limits on campaign spending, limiting and publicizing individual and organizational gifts and channeling much more of the money (including … all general election spending) through the respective party committees rather than through individual candidates’ treasuries.