Russ Feingold: “the McCain-Feingold bill was first introduced in the fall of 1995, just about 3 years ago. To date, thanks to the truly…”

“the McCain-Feingold bill was first introduced in the fall of 1995, just about 3 years ago. To date, thanks to the truly extraordinary efforts of our colleagues in the other House, we are as close as we have ever been to passing that bill and making a start on cleaning up the corrupt campaign finance system that has seemed so intractable for so long. As we stand here today, only eight votes stand between this bill and the President's desk--just eight votes. Only eight Senators out of all Members of the Congress are preventing this body from joining the other body in passing campaign finance reform. Eight Senators are blocking the Senate from banning soft money. Mr. President, the time for excuses is over. It is time to finish the job. It is time to pass campaign finance reform and send it on to the President. Let me first take a moment to remind my colleagues of what happened in the other body the week after we in the Senate left for the August recess. This campaign finance reform bill that all the pundits thought was dead and constantly claimed as dead actually passed the other body by a very strong vote. The vote was 252 to 179. That is right, Mr. President, 252 to 179 in the House. It wasn't even close. By any measure, the passage in the House of the Shays-Meehan version of the McCain-Feingold bill was a landslide.”