Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'd like to thank Justice Stevens for being here and joining us.  Prior to being in the Senate, I spent much of my professional career as an advocate before the Court and I must say it is a different position to be on this side of the dais rather than answering questions from Justice Stevens.  And I will note that of all of the justices, Justice Stevens often disagreed with the position of my clients, and there was no justice whose questions were more incisive, more friendly, and frankly more dangerous than Justice Stevens'.  Always with a twinkle in an eye, he would ask a question, counsel wouldn't you just agree with this small little thing, that if you said yes would walk you down a road that would unravel the entire position of your case.  So it is very nice to have the good justice with us.

And I want to thank all of the witnesses who are here for our second panel as well.

This topic is a topic of great import.  The entire Bill of Rights, the First Amendment is the most important; it is the foundational right of every other right that is protected of citizens.  And I will say that of the issue of campaign finance reform, this is perhaps the most misunderstood issue in all of politics.  Because campaign finance reform restrictions are always pitched as let's prevent corruption; let's hold politicians accountable, and they do exactly the opposite.  Every single restriction this body puts in place is designed to do one thing: protect incumbent politicians. 

And it's powerfully good at that because at the end of the day there are three speakers in a political debate.  There are politicians, there is the media, and there are the citizens.  Campaign finance reform is all about silencing number three so that the politicians can speak unimpeded.  And I will say there are colleagues of mine in both parties who will stand up and say "these pesky citizens' groups, they keep criticizing me."  Well that is the nature of our democratic process and if you choose to run for public office there are 300 million Americans who have a right to criticize you all day long and twice on Sundays.  That's how our system was built. 

And I will tell you this.  I am certainly one who will defend the rights of our citizens to speak out whether I agree with their speech or not.  The Sierra Club has an absolute right to defend their views as does the NRA.  Planned Parenthood has an absolute right to defend its views as does the National Right to Life.  That is the way our system operates. 

And campaign finance reform is all about lower the limits, lower the limits, restrict the speech, restrict the speech and what happens is the only people who can win elections then are incumbent politicians, because incumbent politicians have armies of lobbyists and entrenched interests that raise the money and fund them and any challenger that comes across has to raise the money.  And if you don't have an army of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of bundlers, you cannot effectively challenge an incumbent, and that is not the unintended effect of these laws, that is the intended effect.

Our current system makes no sense.  Right now we have super PACs that are speaking on the sidelines and you have politicians who play games.  They speak, since they cannot speak directly under the law, they say who will rid me of this troublesome cleric.  And a group springs up and speaks, and if the group is supporting you you kind of hope what they say bears some resemblance to what you believe, but you're not allowed to talk to them.  So if they happen to get it wrong there's not a dern thing you can do. 

A far better system would be to allow individuals unlimited contributions to candidates and require [snaps fingers] immediate disclosure.  As John Stuart Mill said, let the marketplace of ideas operate; let more speech counter bad speech, rather than this silly game we play right now.

Now I will note there are a series of canards that get discussed in this issue.  The number one canard is money is not speech.  We can restrict money because it has nothing to do with speech.  That statement is categorically, objectively false.  Money is and has always been used as a critical tool of speech whether publishing books or putting on events or broadcasting over the airwaves.

And I would suggest to each of the witnesses and to everyone thinking about this issue, ask yourself one question.  For every restriction that members of Congress or advocates put forth ask yourself one question.  Would you be willing to apply that same restriction to The New York Times?  And let me note, The New York Times is a corporation., so everyone who says corporations have no rights, fine. 

There are some who say let's restrict political speech within 90 days of an election.  Very well then, would you be willing to say The New York Times may not speak about politics within 90 days of an election. 

McCutcheon said you can't tell citizens they can only support nine candidates.  If they want to support 10 or 11 or 12, they're entitled to do so.  If you think McCutcheon is wrong, would you be willing to tell The New York Times you may only speak about nine candidates or only candidates in New York. 

Look those restrictions are all obviously and facially unconstitutional, and I would ask you, why does the corporation like The New York Times or CBS or any other media corporation in Congress' view enjoy greater First Amendment rights than individual citizens.

Our democratic process is broken and corrupt right now because politicians in both parties hold on to incumbency.  We need to empower the individual citizens, and I'll say this in closing.  I agree very much with Justice Hugo Black, who famously said with regards to the First Amendment, "The words 'Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech' means exactly what it says.  No law means no law and we should be vigorous protecting the rights of individual citizens to be engaged in the political process and to hold every one one of us on both sides of the aisle accountable.  It's the only thing that keeps our democratic process working.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.