Trent Lott: “just a bit of history, as I recall it. Of course, we have passed campaign finance reform bills in the past. I voted for…”

“just a bit of history, as I recall it. Of course, we have passed campaign finance reform bills in the past. I voted for the one that is in law now. I believe, in more recent history, there have been occasions when maybe--I know the Senate passed a bill one year. I think it wound up languishing in the House. And then the reverse, I think, has happened. I really believe from my time in watching the Senate that some time is your ally, giving things an opportunity to be carefully considered and percolate along a little bit. Last year a lot of people talked about how we were able to get a lot of legislation passed at the end of the session. One of the reasons is a lot of those bills had been in the mill for months, some of them 2 years, some of them 10 years. But they finally were ready, and they, in most instances, had broad support. So there is a history of our making a run at it. We make a stand, we make a statement; we get nothing. Are we interested in making a statement about our concern, or are we interested in getting something done? I think the latter is the case.”