In first speech back, Reid blasts Koch brothers

Published September 9, 2014 1:43pm ET



THE HILL — It took Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) less than 10 minutes on Monday to mention conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch in his first floor speech after Congress’s five-week August recess.

“We have had in this country a flood of very, very dark money coming into this nation’s political system,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “Radical billionaires are attempting to buy our democracy.”

Later Monday, the Senate will vote on whether to proceed to a constitutional amendment that would reverse two Supreme Court decisions by limiting money in politics.

Reid said the vote was necessary because the Koch brothers are trying to “buy America” through campaign donations to conservative candidates. He said that the billionaire brothers have paid for 44,000 30-second ads alone this election cycle — that’s 16 days worth of television.

“These two brothers try to fix every election to their liking,” Reid said. “This constitutional amendment is what we need to bring sanity back to elections and restore Americans’ confidence in our democracy.”

Read more at The Hill.