Raja Krishnamoorthi Quotes

The democratic process is supposed to be one person one vote, but it turns out that money is talking louder than the votes.

Do the elected officials in Washington stand with ordinary Americans - working families, children, the elderly, the poor - or will the extraordinary power of billionaire campaign contributors and Big Money prevail? The American people, by the millions, must send Congress the answer to that question.

Large sums of money really unbalance the democratic process.

Special interests and Congress are too closely connected and the ties that bind are the millions spent on campaigns.

Most of the corruption in Albany is legal corruption, not illegal bribery. It comes from campaigns being funded by millionaires and corporations.

The Citizens United decision dramatically intensified the political gridlock in our country.

The key to fixing public financing is to free politics from big money.

Money is the root cause of why our political system is broken and why Americans are so frustrated.

What has become clear to many Americans is that the electoral system is bankrupt. As the political process becomes more privatized, outsourced, and overrun with money from corporations and billionaires, a wounded republic is on its death bed, gasping for life.

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

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.

In constant pursuit of money to finance campaigns, the political system is simply unable to function. Its deliberative powers are paralyzed.

I think that's most unfortunate about our Democratic system, that you're confining it to people who are either very wealthy in their own right or have capacity to gain access to large amounts of money.

Without putting the brakes on out-of-control campaign contributions from individuals and corporations - it will be business as usual, with 1 percent of Americans pulling the strings.

Until we totally change the way we elect our leaders, until we remove private money from public campaigns, lying will be the de facto method of governance in this country.

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

Obama/Romney, Romney/Obama - the most important election of our lifetime? Fact is they're all the same - bought and paid for with the same money. Ours is a country of the SuperPAC, by the SuperPAC, and for the SuperPAC.

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

Whether you are on the Right or the Left, everyone can agree that there are a lot of outside influences in American politics that are not good for the system. There's just too much money.

We don't need to allow any more Nancy Pelosies to wind up in Congress.

The idea that a congressman would be tainted by accepting money from private industry or private sources is essentially a socialist argument.

Experience in other countries shows how big money, rather than the best political candidate, can influence politics.

Campaign finance and ethics reform only works if it curtails all special interest groups equally and does not carve out any exceptions to benefit one party or another. 'Pay to play' reform was passed to limit the influence of big spending contractors over the public officials from whom they are trying to obtain work.

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.

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