Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN)
Newly-elected Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN) appeared on MSNBC today to explain his frustrations with the broken state of democracy in the United States. He told host Chuck Todd that he was told he needed to spend 30 hours each week fundraising instead of governing, and that this is one of the reasons we need to get money out of politics:
NOLAN: We're told here, two things, one is the one with the most money gets the most vote, and number two, you should be spending 30 hours a week in fundraising and call time dialing for dollars.
TODD: Let me stop you there [...] They want you to spend 30 hours a week making phones calls?
NOLAN: For money. And you know I'm not going to do that, I haven't done that. I'm here to govern. But the fact is my last election contest years ago I think I spent $250,000. The total amount of money in my election contest this year was well over $20 million. You know, back when I was here before that was more than was spent in the presidential contest! We need to change the way we do politics. We need to take money out of politics, and the Congress needs to go back to work governing.
Watch it:
