RENO—Former Sen. Harry Reid and former Secretary of State John Kerry shared their concerns over the lack of bipartisanship in Congress on Tuesday and attributed money in politics and the absence of campaign finance regulations to congressional gridlock.

Both retired Democrats argued that the Senate today does not make the compromises needed for government to function properly. Their conversation on Tuesday was the inaugural event of the Harry Reid Public Engagement Lecture Series at the University of Nevada, Reno.

“I am really concerned about bipartisanship,” Reid said. “When John and I came to the Senate, it was so much different. You had Democrats who were conservative and moderate and they were good. We expected the same from the Republicans and we got it.”

Kerry and Reid both attributed the lack of rules around corporate campaign donations to setting candidates against each other, leading to a lack of bipartisan work.

Reid said the 2010 Supreme Court decision on Citizens United “made a lot of bad things happen.”

“In my 50 years’ experience in government, there has been nothing more harmful than that decision because money is everything in politics today and we are very close to where Russia is now,” Reid said.  “We are reaching a point in our country where a few very, very rich individuals and rich families can own and control almost everything.”

Citizens United was a Supreme Court case that found political spending was a form of protected speech under the First Amendment and allowed corporations and unions to spend money to support any candidate during elections.

“We don’t work much anymore,” Reid said. “Why don’t we work much anymore is mainly because of money.”

Reid, though, was known as a fierce partisan and prolific fundraiser before he retired in 2015 after a horrific accident at his house left him blind in one eye. He was also known as a dealmaker, but as Senate leader he was not afraid to gum up the legislative works to push through legislation or nominees he wanted or to stop GOP initiatives.

Kerry echoed Reid’s beliefs on campaign finance and attributed money to the lack of bipartisan work being done in government today.

“America needs to step back and recognize that while the money doesn’t always get what it wants, and Harry will agree it doesn’t, it almost always can get gridlock instead and that is what we have today,” Kerry said.

Kerry also criticized the schedules of senators, saying they don’t have time to work through legislation the way he did when he was a senator from Massachusetts.

“I remember back then, we would get together, we would go to Ted Kennedy’s house at night during the session, we had time to do that, they don’t have time to do that anymore,” Kerry said. “They are barely in Washington — the Tuesday to Thursday club: That is what the Senate has become now.”

Kerry said back when he was a senator, the group would talk about what they were working on, “we would enjoy each other’s company and have an exchange over the course of dinner, and we would go to the Senate the next day and get something done.”

Kerry said that bipartisan work began to end in the 1990s partially due to what he called the Gingrich Revolution, referring to the Republican Party’s success in the 1994 midterm elections, where the Republican Party won control of both the House and the Senate.

“Then came the hostile takeover of the Republican Party, which is where we are today,” Kerry said.

Kerry said before the Gingrich Revolution, there was a bipartisan, often nonpartisan effort to pass legislation.

“Back then, compromise was not capitulation and no extremist held you accountable to your efforts to try to pass something in the interests of the nation,” Kerry said.

Kerry said the effect of gridlock has been an anger among the American people that, “grew and grew legitimately.”

“You feel it, I feel it,” Kerry said. “You have to be angry at the absence of a focus on the things we all know the nation needs to be doing.”