Posted on 03/27/2002 6:23:59 PM PST by TLBSHOW
Today I have signed into law H.R. 2356, the "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002." I believe that this legislation, although far from perfect, will improve the current financing system for Federal campaigns.
The bill reforms our system of financing campaigns in several important ways. First, it will prevent unions and corporations from making unregulated, "soft" money contri-butions -- a legislative step for which I repeatedly have called.
Often, these groups take political action without the consent of their members or shareholders, so that the influence of these groups on elections does not necessarily comport with the actual views of the individuals who comprise these organizations. This prohibition will help to right that imbalance.
Second, this law will raise the decades-old limits on giving imposed on individuals who wish to support the candidate of their choice, thereby advancing my stated principle that election reform should strengthen the role of individual citizens in the political process.
Third, this legislation creates new disclosure requirements and compels speedier compliance with existing ones, which will promote the free and swift flow of information to the public regarding the activities of groups and individuals in the political process.
I long have believed that complete and immediate disclosure of the source of campaign contributions is the best way to reform campaign finance.
These provisions of the bill will go a long way toward fixing some of the most pressing problems in campaign finance today. They will result in an election finance system that encourages greater individual participation, and provides the public more accurate and timely information, than does the present system. All of the American electorate will benefit from these measures to strengthen our democracy.
As a policy matter, I would have preferred a bill that included a provision to protect union members and shareholders from involuntary political activities undertaken by their leadership.
Individuals have a right not to have their money spent in support of candidates or causes with which they disagree, and those rights should be better protected by law. I hope that in the future the Congress and I can work together to remedy this defect of the current financing structure.
This legislation is the culmination of more than 6 years of debate among a vast array of legislators, citizens, and groups. Accordingly, it does not represent the full ideals of any one point of view.
But it does represent progress in this often-contentious area of public policy debate. Taken as a whole, this bill improves the current system of financing for Federal campaigns, and therefore I have signed it into law.
GEORGE W. BUSH
THE WHITE HOUSE,
March 27, 2002.
Bite your tongue! That broken pledge led to 8 years of the Clintons!! The country can't take 8 more years of the Clintons!!!
I didn't vote for the little soft handed daddy's boy and only voted for his daddy for VP. By the time Reagan left office I regretted not having written in a VP vote for Wobbly.
The pathetic little vanity attached to W's speech here is hilarious: "The dems planned on ruining our free speech, but W foiled them by signing their bill"....huh? ahaha
Skimming the rest of the thread actually makes me feel sorry for the pompom shakers. Look at the retarded things they're reduced to writing in defense of their boy.
Ahaha, this is too much.
Face it, ma'am. Signing a bad bill into law is taking responsibility for it. The President's powers include the power of veto. Signing this dreck makes it W's responsibility now, since he didn't exercise his power to stop it.
I'll let you know in a few years whether or not your statement qualifies as the most ridiculous. It'll take that long to wade through all the other recent statements contending for that title.
Your post was absolutely full of outright lies. Go back and edit it so that nothing but the truth is left. It'll end up looking like a turd with all the crap scraped off of it.
"Most intelligent president" my big old hairy butt. I guess you have figures showing that 139% of Americans think so, huh?
At least the dems tell us they want big gov't and high taxes, while the repubs are doing the same thing on a "piece meal" basis. I suggest you take an overview of what bush has done domestically. Oh yes, they throw a nugget with a small tax reduction while they vote themselves a $4,600 pay raise at the midnight hour with an amendment. As for the tax reduction, many people are finding that it may not be a "windfall" after all, just a pre-payment on 2001's returns.
I know that you must compromise in politics, but, this guy is not compromising. He's taken the dems programs just as clinton took the 1994 repub program as his own.
He didn't even fight for the nomination of Judge Pickering until it was too late.
He issued an exec order for law enforcement not to co-operate with congress's investigation of the lowlife clintons, what is that all about? They protect each other just as they will find a scapegoat in enron and protect the moneys boys and girls. They also conveniently have no interest in global crossing. Just the fact that terry mac made $18,000,000 from a $100,000 "investment" should raise a red flag for an investigation of some sort.
What bush done is what congress does, which is to say, they set-up a gov't agency and then they appoint bureaucrats to run them, thus abrogating their their power to un elected officials who rule us by "fiat". In bush's case, he did not have the decency to take a stand and chose to abrogate his responsibility to the Supremes.
Gutting the Constitution is a GREAT political strategy!!! Brilliant!!! Bush looked so handsome when he signed away our rights..... *sigh*.....
I can't WAIT for him to reauthorize the Assault Weapons ban.... he is so smart, outfoxing the liberal Democrats by doing exactly what they would have done if they had the White House......... and did you see that fetching dress Laura was wearing....?.... *sigh*......
Isn't he just DDRRREEEAAAMMMmmmmyyyyy........?
Gave myself away? I wasn't aware there was some arcane political esoterica associated the use of "junior."
I said it before, many times. I'll say it again: I never liked Bush, either of them. I voted for Bush while holding my nose. It was a vote against Gore, which happened to fall to Bush.
I'm sorry if by calling him "junior" I'd inadvertantly dissed your hero. But he was never mine. I voted for Keyes in the primary, and wanted Browne in the general.
The worst mischief always gets passed under cover of "the war effort." Been true throughout human history. True now.
Great statement. Thank you for posting it. I've added it to my collection of quotes.
Bush showed his character yesterday, and it was the character of a tyrant. Only a tyrant would attempt such an egregious assault on the Bill of Rights.
Violated.
Yes, it's true, those rats forced him to sign the bill at gunpoint in order to disillusion us non-whores into staying home or voting 3rd. Mmmm-hmmmm.
You disgust me...
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