John Kerry: “Yesterday, at long last, the United States Senate voted to take a first step toward reforming our campaign finance…”

“Yesterday, at long last, the United States Senate voted to take a first step toward reforming our campaign finance system. This long awaited vote comes after years of partisan delay tactics which have long prevented us from taking an up-or-down vote on this bill. It also comes after an election in which $3 billion was spent in an effort to elect or defeat candidates. Today we have the chance to pass reform which at the very least demonstrates that we've learned a lesson from years of scandal and year upon year of runaway spending. But let me be clear about something: despite the rhetoric we have heard on the Senate floor, the bill we vote on today is not sweeping reform that will give one party or the other the edge when it comes to funding campaigns. Instead, this bill simply restores, to a certain degree, the campaign finance reform laws that we enacted more than 25 years ago. Back then, in the post-Watergate era, we recognized that it was time to prevent secret stashes of cash from infiltrating our political system.”