Providing for Consideration of H.R. Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act of and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Reclamation Title Transfer and Non-Federal Infrastructure Incentivization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to join with my colleagues to urge Members to vote ``no'' on the previous question so we can bring to the floor the Deutch-McGovern-Raskin bill and so we can at long last have a debate on campaign finance.

The fact of the matter is there is too much money in our politics. The fact of the matter is that this money has a corrupting influence on our politics.

Look at the bills that come before this House of Representatives. It is not about empowering people. It is always about a giveaway to a big corporation, changing the rules on who can sit on scientific advisory boards to include corporate cronies.

The tax bill that my Republican friends brought to the House floor that they voted on and that they take such pride in, basically 85 percent of those benefits went to the top 1 percent income earners in this country.

The bottom line is this place is becoming a place where money can buy anything. There is a culture of corruption that exists in this House of Representatives. There is a culture of corruption that exists in this White House, and people are sick of it.

When I talk to audiences back home--they could be liberal audiences or conservative audiences--the two issues that I mention where everybody nods approvingly are when I say that there is too much money in politics, everybody says ``yes.'' And then when I say that Congress is dysfunctional, they all nod their heads approvingly.

Enough. We need to change this system. People all across the country, an overwhelming majority, want us to change the way we do our politics. They believe that they should have the power, not corporate special interests, not people who are the wealthiest in this country.

Let's give the people of this country what they want. Let's have their voices matter more than the special interest groups.

We have tried time and time and time again to bring these issues to the floor, and we are constantly rebuked. Look, we shouldn't be surprised, because this is now the most closed Congress in the history of the United States of America: more amendments routinely get denied in the Rules Committee; more bills have come to the floor under a completely closed process.

We debate bills, again, that benefit the well-off and the well- connected. We ought to debate some bills that help regular people. And having a real debate on campaign finance reform, having a real debate on how we get big money out of our politics is an issue we should be dealing with right now. It is what the American people want.

Let's do, for once, what the American people want; let's do what our constituents want; and, Mr. Speaker, let me just finish by saying we can have that debate by voting ``no'' on the previous question.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let me repeat that to my colleagues, especially those on the Republican side.

If you vote ``no'' on the previous question, we can have this debate. We can have a debate about how we get big money out of politics. We can have a debate about how we drain the swamp, how we clean this place up.

You can go around and say you want to drain the swamp. That is just rhetoric, because what you are really doing is you are helping the well-off and the well-connected.

The people who give the most money, they get their legislation to the floor. Regular people routinely get their interests blocked in this Chamber. It is time to clean up this place.

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