Russ Feingold: “to make concluding remarks, and later Senator McCain will make other concluding remarks, let me again clarify the point…”

“to make concluding remarks, and later Senator McCain will make other concluding remarks, let me again clarify the point about constitutionality. The Senator from Virginia said clarity of conscience prevents him from working for this bill because of the PAC ban. But the fact is the Senator from Kentucky and the Senator from Virginia and the Senator from Washington all voted for the Pressler amendment 3 years ago that does exactly what our bill does. It bans PAC's, but if the courts say PAC's cannot be banned, it has a voluntary limit on PAC's. The reason they voted for it then, the reason it is OK now, is because it is constitutional, and this is a red herring. The real issue here is what this vote is going to be. This is the vote on campaign finance reform. I admire the candor of the Senator from Kentucky, who simply says he wants to kill campaign finance reform this session. He is not up here proposing an alternative. He admits that is his goal. That is the vote. This is the first bipartisan bill in 10 years. Who will benefit from this bill? Many people will benefit. Incumbents will benefit from having more time to work on the issues, to not have their fractured attention, as the Senator from West Virginia indicated. Challengers will be the main beneficiaries. Just look at the real statistics. Incumbents blow challengers out of the water with the money. Does anyone out there believe this bill would actually help incumbents?”