Joe Lieberman: “This is an extraordinarily significant accomplishment, not only on its face but in what it says about the willingness of…”

“This is an extraordinarily significant accomplishment, not only on its face but in what it says about the willingness of the U.S. Senate to deal directly with the problem of too much money in American politics to deign to do something about it. This is a significant victory which is attributable in large measure to the leadership of the Senate, the majority leader, Democratic leader, and the leadership of the committee, the Senator from Tennessee, the chairman, and the Senator from Ohio. But it is, in truth, as has been said on other occasions, not a victory for any person or any party, it is truly a victory for the public interest. Mr. President, over the last couple of weeks there was a strange and troubling discontinuity between the growing avalanche of revelations about the impact of money on American politics and the impression it gives that American democracy is for sale, on the one hand, and the seeming movement here in the Senate, particularly in the vote in the Rules Committee last week.”