Senate Proceeding on Sep 22nd, 2010 :: 4:41:55 to 4:53:34
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4:41:37 to 4:41:59( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: quorum call: mrs. mccaskill: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri is recognized. mrs. mccaskill: mr. president, are we in morning business? the presiding officer: we're in a quorum call. mrs. mccaskill: i a president would set aside the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mrs. mccaskill: are we in morning business? the presiding officer: yes, we are.

4:41:55 to 4:53:34( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Claire McCaskill

4:42:00 to 4:42:22( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: mrs. mccaskill: you know, i come to the floor today, mr. president, to tell a sad, sad story of hypocrisy. now it's not the first time we've told stories of hypocrisy around this capitol building, but this one is a particularly

4:42:23 to 4:42:44( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: sad story of hypocrisy because right now the ending is ugly. you know, in america, we like nice endings. this story of hypocrisy has a very bad ending. the name of this story is "who is trying to buy your government ."

4:42:45 to 4:43:05( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: there are folks out there right now trying to buy your government. the saddest part of this story is we have no idea who they are. so why is it a story of hypocrisy? well, we can start with how we got here. i have heard so many times, i

4:43:06 to 4:43:28( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: can't count them how many times i heard my colleagues in the other party talk about the evils of an activist court. well, we've got to make sure we don't have activist judges. well, no, i'm not opposed to this nominee because he's appointed by a democratic president.

4:43:29 to 4:43:53( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: i'm opposed to this nominee because activism, evil activism. we've got to watch out for activism. so along comes the citizens united case. when you look up judicial activism in a reference book, you would find the title "citizens united."

4:43:54 to 4:44:14( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: this court went off the tracks. they created precedent out of whole cloth in an effort to turn our democracy into a race for the highest bidder. now, i think that's hypocritical.

4:44:15 to 4:44:35( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: i think it's hypocritical for people to come before the senate judiciary committee and be eloquent -- because these are all smart people -- very kwepblt about the aols -- eloquent about the evils of judicial activism and then proceed to dismantle a system that is all about the

4:44:36 to 4:44:56( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: public's right to know. there's another part of this that is really hypocritical besides this notion that somehow conservative people are not judicial activists. oh, yeah, they are judicial activists. when you're active for something you believe in, it's not act v.i. in other words, judicial activism is in the eye of the beholder, and i can think of a

4:44:57 to 4:45:18( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: lot of supreme court cases that could back up that assertion. the other thing that is so hypocritical about this is the ridiculous notion that so many people in this body have talked about transparency like it's so near and dear to them.

4:45:19 to 4:45:40( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: we must have transparency. we must have an open door. we must have sunlight. let me just read you a a few of the quotes. oh, this is rich. this is really rich. public disclosure of campaign considerations and spending should be expedited. now think about that term. especially when you realize where it came from.

4:45:41 to 4:46:01( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: public disclosure of campaign considerations and spending should be expedited so voters can judge for themselves what is appropriate. good old-fashioned common sense. that's from the leader of the republican party. how about this one? i think we ought to do what --

4:46:02 to 4:46:23( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: what we ought to do is what ought to have full disclosure -- full disclosure of all the money that we raised and how it's spent. and i think sunlight is the best disinfectant. that came from the leader of the republican party in the house. i think the system needs more

4:46:24 to 4:46:45( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: transparency so people can more easily reach their own conclusions. i couldn't agree more. that comes from the senator that's heading up the republican effort to elect republican senators this year. i could go on and on. so we have a supreme court

4:46:46 to 4:47:07( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: decision that turns the section of the i.r.s. code, 501-c, into an open bizarre. -- bazaar. what was not suppose -- what was supposed to be not for profit is now unaccountable organizations

4:47:08 to 4:47:28( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: that nobody has any idea where they're coming from, who's writing the checks, and what their motivations are. these groups have fallen into a regulatory nirvana. there's no regulation.

4:47:29 to 4:47:49( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: there's nobody watching much there's nobody asking questions. the social welfare organizations, 501-c-4, like crossroads, which is one of these that have sprung up, has been the top spender -- the top spender. it hasn't been the republican

4:47:50 to 4:48:12( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: committees or the democratic committees, the top spenders in the senate races is a group we have no idea what it is or who's writing the checks. now, you know, we've got to realize that they don't even have to file anything with the

4:48:13 to 4:48:33( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: government with the i.r.s. until february, march, april. how many people think these organization are going to be around after november? really? how naive are you? you know, there -- they've got to find some excuse, right?

4:48:34 to 4:48:54( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: because this is embarrassing that they're blocking our efforts at making campaign finance contributions transparent. you can't -- you can't really say, hey, we're going to change our mind about transparency because we've got an election to win and we've got a bunch of rich people out here who want to write big checks or big

4:48:55 to 4:49:16( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: corporations who want to write big checks. so what do you do? you try to make it about the big, bad unions. you know what? these need to apply to unions too. they're doing ads right now, they should be saying what unions are doing them and we should know where their money comes from. we do know where their money comes from. it comes from their members.

4:49:17 to 4:49:39( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: but we ought to know who's doing it. and this law requires the same thing of unions that it requires of anyone else who's writing these big checks. who is gonna buy your government? it could be like a game show. you've got a big wheel and spin the wheel and people could guess

4:49:40 to 4:50:00( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: who's buying the government. i'll tell you the one i'll worried about. i'm worried about government contractors. there has been big, big money in government contracting. and i've no from a firsthand experience, when you start shaking the trees of these government contractors, they

4:50:01 to 4:50:21( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: fight back. as i've tried to clean up some of the contracting messes that have littered the financial landscape of the federal government, i have run into an amazing amount of resistance from the underground power of these government contractors. let's just look at blackwater. we now know they have created

4:50:22 to 4:50:43( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: dozens of fake names to do business with government. many of them noncompetitive, many of them highly lucrative. they're hiding the identity of their company for purposes of contracting. can you imagine what they're capable of if they get to write checks to influence elections with nobody knowing it? i'm in big trouble.

4:50:44 to 4:51:04( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: i've got to tell you the truth. because i've gone after a lot of these big contractors, and now i know that i think my picture's probably on a lot of their dart boards. and now they don't have to worry about throwing a dart. they don't have to wore about -- all -- worry about -- all they

4:51:05 to 4:51:26( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: have to do is sit around and anonymously write checks, write a check for a million dollars, blow out an election in a state and nobody has to know who did it. foreign interests, yes. the citizens united case created all kinds of loopholes that are actually delineated in the case.

4:51:27 to 4:51:49( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: they explain the loopholes that are being created if you read the entire decision for foreign corporations. it's like after that case we've fallen down a rabbit hole in terms of everything that we should believe in in terms of our election processes. you know, in the old days they

4:51:50 to 4:52:12( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: used to have the term the bag man. and the bag man was not exactly a positive term for people. the bag man was the guy that was in charge of carrying the money around in a bag. there was a time in this democracy that they actually did that. big bags of cash were carried

4:52:13 to 4:52:34( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: around and delivered to people's desks in every level of government in this country. and the people in this great democracy rose up and said, you know, we want to clean this mess up. we want candidates to have to report how much money they're getting. some states they said we want to limit how much they're getting.

4:52:35 to 4:52:56( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: we limit how much we get. i don't know why we're not honest about this. i don't know why they don't just propose an alternative bill that we do away with any kind of limits. frankly, it might be a better tradeoff. if somebody's put a gun to my head and said you have to choose, do you want all the money that's being spent on campaigns disclosed where it's

4:52:57 to 4:53:17( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: coming from or do you want limits? you know, i think i'd take the disclosure. because i trust the american people if they know who's paying the bill, they can make a good judgment. they can make a good yument. whether -- good judgment whether or not they trust what that mailer says or what that

4:53:18 to 4:53:34( Edit History Discussion )

Claire McCaskill: robocall says. trust. trust is the great intangible around here. you know, we really can't do our jobs with dignity and with honor