Zephyr Teachout Quotes

As dismayed as Americans are with the influence of the special interests that finance election campaigns, they've been reluctant to embrace the alternative: taxpayer-financed elections.

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

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

I'm convinced that unless you have some public financing of elections, you are never going to remove the power of wealthy interests over elected officials.

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

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.

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

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.

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

We need to get big money out of Washington.

In fact, corporate and union moneys go overwhelmingly to incumbents, so limiting that money, as Congress did in the campaign finance law, may be the single most self-denying thing that Congress has ever done.

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.

Trying to take money out of politics is like trying to take jumping out of basketball.

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.

I don't think politicians should be allowed to take money for their campaigns from outside interests.

Money in politics is a huge issue.

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.

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

It is very important at this juncture to eliminate the influence of big money and special interests in politics.

We have become part-time Senators and full time fund-raisers. Even the schedule of the Senate itself is now arranged around the need to raise money for the next political campaign, rather than around the need to solve the nation's problems and do the people's business.

Everybody's an expert at campaign financing.

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