Virgil Goode Quotes

I'm running for Senate to create real change in Washington, which starts with getting big money out of politics and overturning Citizens United.

It's time to bring tough medicine to Washington. No longer will policy be set by K Street, it will be dictated by Main Street.

In every jurisdictional area that I can get my fingers on, I want to move us away from the Washington insider economy.

Everyone else is represented in Washington by a powerful lobby ... But there is no lobby for the people.

For me, it all comes down to one issue: if we can get money out of political systems, the whole world will change.

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.

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

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.

So I think that if we want to have a Congress, if we want to have government that looks like America, if we want to have government that is truly a representative Democracy, then we need to clearly address how we get our campaign laws out of the way of Democracy.

At a time when special interest money is being showered on legislators in Washington, grassroots donors offer members of Congress a refreshing independence. The $25 and $50 donor is not looking for special favors. He or she is simply expecting their Congressman to go do the right thing.

A messy participatory process is representative democracy at its best.

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

If you create a system that makes the small donors the linchpin of the system in terms of how members of Congress directly raise the funds for their campaigns, then it gives everyday citizens much more of a role - a leveraging role - in the funding of those campaigns.

The people of this country, not special interest big money, should be the source of all political power.

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.

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..

That would be the biggest shake-up Washington ever had, if big money didn't dictate who the candidates were and who got elected.

Serving in the U.S. Congress is about much more than voting on bills. It is about taking on the corporate bullies that taint our democratic process and pushing back when the system is broken.

Citizens United opened a door that's frustrated anyone who's looking.

Any constitutional amendment that simply gives Congress the option of regulating campaign finance fails to immediately achieve what the American people want, and that is a complete reversal of Citizens United and other Supreme Court decisions that have allowed corporations and the wealthy few to drown out the voices of everyday voters.

The American experiment with representative democracy has been a great success, but we need to realize that it needs to be a genuine representative democracy where ordinary people have a vote, have a voice in choosing the candidates who represent them.

With every new class of representatives that comes to Congress, there is a greater recognition of the perils of private financing of campaigns. I believe that by pulling back the curtain on the daily pressures faced by members of Congress, we can show the public how critical this reform is to the salvation of our democracy.

In the Senate, I will push to overturn Citizens United as I've been vocal about since I first served on the Town Council.

I think our politicians are bought by the highest bidder and that until we clean up our election system, then we cannot make progress on any of the issues. That's what drives me - we must restore our democracy.