Fmr Sen Fritz Hollings (D-SC) - Why Fillibuster Shennagians Work (hint: it's the fundraising)

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Money has not only destroyed bi-partisanship but corrupted the Senate. Not the Senators, but the system. ... today, there's no real work on Mondays and Fridays, but we fly out to California early Friday morning for a luncheon fundraiser, a Friday evening fundraiser, making individual money appointments on Saturday and a fundraising breakfast on Monday morning, flying back for perhaps a roll call Monday evening. This persists for six years.

In my last race in 1998 to be elected the seventh time to the United States Senate, I had to raise $8.5 million. That factors out to $30,000 a week, each week, every week, for six years. You don't start collecting money the year before your re-election date. Rather, you are in constant fundraise mode. There's no way to raise $8.5 million in little South Carolina, so I had to go to friends all over the country. That meant arranging trips during the week to travel the country on the weekend. And $8.5 million also means that you have to depend on the Democratic or Republican Campaign Finance Committee. These Campaign Committees in the Senate guarantee partisanship. We have party lunches every Tuesday, which is to help the party members that are up for re-election the coming, or that year. All members are constantly raising money for the other members, traveling, making talks, so that you can get help from the Committee when your time comes around. ...

Money is the reason filibusters work. Both Republicans and Democrats go along with filibuster threats. They never really bring out the cots and require all night speaking. One Republican holds the floor for his side and one Democrat for his side, and the rest of the Senators can go to New York or California to fundraise. ... Nineteen ninety-eight was twelve years ago. It takes more money now. I told aspirants against Jim DeMint this year that they have to raise $4 million to $5 million before they get help from Washington. The Republicans will easily put $15 million in the campaign to keep DeMint's seat. And what was an $8.5 million race in 1998, has now become a $12 million to $15 million race.

Today, the campaign committees in Washington look for a candidate not with ideas or experience, but with money. ... Now public finance has become passé. Obama's classmates went to Wall Street instead of law offices, and with the internet and his classmates, he raised more money than Chris Dodd, the Chairman of the Wall Street Committee.
The need for money goes up and up, and the very corruption that we tried to prohibit in 1971 and 1974 has been corrupted by the Supreme Court.

More on how the Supreme Court has perverted the system at (please read, it's very informative)

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2010/06/political_fundr/