King, Colleagues Unveil New Campaign Finance and Governmental Reform Package

Statement

Today, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) joined with a group of his colleagues to announce a new legislative package aimed at reforming America's campaign finance system and making government more accountable to the people. The package includes a bill authored by Senator King that would require real-time transparency in federal elections as well as legislation that would amend the Constitution to end unlimited campaign contributions and provisions that would reform the lobbying laws to limit special interest influence on elected officials.

"Campaigns are no longer fought out between the candidates, they are battles between outside money groups on both sides -- and the candidates are almost a second thought. The amount of outside money that is being spent on these campaigns is unbelievable," said Senator King. "Make no mistake, this is a threat to the democratic system in this country. We can look around the world where oligarchs control the government, and we're allowing that to happen here before our very eyes. It's not healthy and it's not right, and it's not consistent with the vision of the geniuses who founded this country.

"In Maine, we still have town meetings, and there is no finer example of democracy at work. Anybody can speak, and anybody can try to influence the vote -- but you can't go to the town meeting with a bag over your head," Senator King said. "You have to let people know who you are, because that's part of the information we all need in order to assess the messages that are being delivered to us. And that's why disclosure is a key part of this initiative. We're going to keep at this, and ultimately we're going to prevail, because the American people will demand that this system be cleaned up."

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