Christie: Sky's the limit for campaign donations
(CNN) - Chris Christie says that limiting campaign donations is "ridiculous," and is calling for a 48-hour reporting period for disclosing contributions.
New Jersey's Republican governor said at a town hall in Somerset Tuesday that rules limiting the amount someone can give to a campaign doesn't "stop money from getting into politics anyway."
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Christie noted the lack of transparency in donations to outside groups, which can accept unlimited sums of money, and have played an increasingly overarching role in politics since the floodgates were opened following a 2010 Supreme Court ruling.
"I think it should be unlimited contributions and 48-hour notification of every contribution you accept so that so if someone wants to write be a $100,000 check for my campaign, great, take it, but 48-hours later, everybody who has access to the internet is going to that Mr. Smith gave me $100,000," he said.
"And if all of sudden, I start talking in a way after that's really favorable to Mr. Smith's business, well then you're going to know that my price was $100,000."
Christie's comments came at a town-hall meeting in response to a student's question concerning a recent Supreme Court decision. That 5-4 ruling by the high court eliminated limits on how much money people can donate in total in one election season - as much money as desired to federal election candidates across the country, as long as no candidate receives more than the $5,200 cap.
Critics say the ruling further undermines already weakened campaign finance laws.
As Christie noted to the audience, his views on campaign finance haven't wavered over the years but, his national attention as a potential 2016 GOP candidate for the White House and position as head of the Republican Governor's Association, give new context to the governor's long-held belief against limiting contributions.
Christie recently made a trip to Las Vegas to court high-profile Republican donors, like Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnet who dumped tens of millions of dollars into GOP presidential campaigns in 2012.
Chris Christie the $33 million man
Christie's comments also come five months after he took over as chairman of the RGA, the group charged with fundraising for and electing GOP candidates in gubernatorial contests. Since taking over the committee, Christie has helped the group raise a whopping $33 million - success made all the more notable given the ongoing George Washington Bridge controversy, which has tainted his administration and sparked a major drop in his approval ratings in both national and New Jersey polls.
CNN Political Editor Paul Steinhauser contributed to this story
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Republicans will never nominated Christie anyway. He's too moderate.
As have beern said before, the GOP/TP Klan are really living in a bubble. They will not admit that the 2010 elections were won by them on a lie of a jobs bill. Still no bill and they are going to vote for the same old GOP/TP idiots, because they hate that a black man was elected into office twice and that is the bottom line. The GOP only cares about votes and money. They are preying on their least un-educated voters to get them elected and playing the race card to build up their hatred for Obama. They may not see it or are in denial, but the rest of us see it. The GOP is nothing but a party of racist, hypocritical, lying people. I am still waiting for the so-called gift that President Obama was handing out. Everything the GOP says or does is a complete lie.
If you're so interested in Jobs for Americans who are out of work then why did you award the contract to build the Healthcare Website to a company located in Canada? Oh that's right because its owned by one of Michelle's buddies from College I forgot....OK then if you're so interested in more Jobs for workers in America then why did you allow the Pentagon to award a Helicopter contract to supply the Afghanistan Military with Helicopters to a Russian Company? Why not let a US Company that employs US workers get the contract? Wouldn't that be good for OUR economy. What about the contract to supply the Army with the new M4A1 Rifle. Why did that contract go to a Company from Belgium? In fact although they have a manufacturing plant in South Carolina the profits are going to Belgium, and directly to the Belgium Government since they're actually the owners of the Company. Wouldn't it have been better for the US economy if the money stayed here in the US? What about the contract to build light attack aircraft for the Air Force, why did that contract go to a Brazilian Company with ties to Iran our mortal enemy? Why didn't Hawker Beechcraft win that contract? They spent 2 years and over $100 Million Dollars making sure they were in compliance with all of the silly Government regulations so they'd have a shot at getting the Billion Dollar Contract, and they employ American workers here in America. That's another Billion Dollars that's NOT going into the US economy. All of this talk about Jobs is weak where's the action? OH that's right I forgot it's election time so here comes the nonsens
Many folks like @Not Buying It seem to be completely clueless about a lot of things including the Federal procurement process.
– CGI Federal was awarded the ACA website because they had the LOWEST bid ($93M) of the 4 bids submitted, not because it was owned by someone the FLOTUS knew in college. They are not "buds" BTW.. minor inconvenient fact.
– The Pentagon has their own (separate) procurement process and just recently awarded a $1.2B helicopter project for Apache to Boeing. The also cancelled plans to buy more than the original 30 on the Rosoboronexport contract.
– Maybe FN's bid (and weapons) were of better grade than Colt and Remington's?
– the USAF LAS Embraer choice was based on some them already being in service with the Navy..
Perhaps you should check some facts before ranting about something you appear to have little knowledge of ???