"The Supreme Court is helping [corporations] buy elections." - Sen. Elizabeth Warren

On Tuesday, the Senate voted 79-18 to open debate on a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United.

Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats gave passionate speeches, but as Al Franken explains below, the cloture vote passed for pretty cynical reasons. He doesn't have much hope for actually passing the bill, but he believes Republicans allowed the debate to go forward to avoid votes on other issues, like minimum wage, jobs, infrastructure, and more.

As Franken notes, millions of undisclosed dollars are going into political campaigns, despite the majority of Americans who object to the way Citizens United has corrupted politics.

A constitutional amendment requires a 2/3rds vote by the Senate and ratification by 2/3rds of the states.

Since we have a House that isn't doing anything anyway, this is probably a good time for a debate on campaign finance. If nothing else, it should give Americans a really clear idea of who is and is not behind having billionaires buy their office for them.