Russ Feingold: “just a month ago we had a discussion here on the Senate floor about the issue of campaign finance reform. I think a lot…”

“just a month ago we had a discussion here on the Senate floor about the issue of campaign finance reform. I think a lot of us worked hard on the effort. We have taken a bit of a breather for the last month and assessed the situation, and we are ready to consider resuming the fight for this very important issue. Although the debate was abbreviated, it was a pretty good debate. We certainly did not suffer from any shortage of speakers offering their ideas on how we could best reform our campaign finance laws. In the end, I was pleased the bipartisan reform bill offered by myself and the senior Senator from Arizona was able to receive the support of the majority of this body, actually a bipartisan vote, obtaining 54 votes. So I feel very strongly, although we did not complete the task, we are well on our way. And even though we fell 6 votes short necessary to ward off a well-staged filibuster, I think it is clear that there is a bipartisan majority in favor of acting on campaign reform, and many of us intend to press forward on this issue in the coming months and into the 105th Congress. The vast, vast majority of the American people want the Congress to act on campaign finance reform and we cannot allow a small minority of Senators to thwart the will of the American people and wage a stealth attempt to sweep this issue under the rug.”