Is it hyperbole to describe people’s reactions to a Supreme Court decision on campaign finance as “freaking out?”

Some senators at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this morning seemed to freak out at the very use of the term itself. And we’re not even talking about the back-and-forth of late between Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the White House.

At issue is the fallout from Citizens United, a Supreme Court decision this year that has lifted restrictions on corporate and labor spending on election communications. The Senate panel heard from legal scholars about whether proposed legislation — backed largely by Democrats — could “fix” the outcome of that ruling and reinstate some of the limits. And senators, along with the witnesses, talked about the breadth of the ruling itself.

And that’s where a debate on language came in:

One witness Bradley Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission who supports the ruling in Citizens United, noted how rarely a decision by the nation’s highest court had provoked such hysteria.

And perhaps he wanted to stir it up a bit, because he then singled out Vermont — the beloved home of the Judiciary chairman, Senator Patrick Leahy, as a place where lawmakers have just been “freaking out” in the wake of the ruling.

Mr. Leahy took immediate umbrage — interrupting Mr. Smith in a loud bark, disagreeing with the characterization. “I think I understand it a heck of lot better than you,” Mr. Leahy said. Describing the makeup of Vermont’s “citizen legislators,” Mr. Leahy said they were New England-style, far more taciturn people who don’t “freak out.”

When Mr. Smith, who now teaches law at Capital University in Ohio, was able to speak again, he retorted that he had been called before the Senate panel specifically to offer his opinion, and indeed, in his opinion, “they’re freaking out.”

On a more serious note, the panelists seemed to agree rather loosely that it will be very difficult to legislate major changes to this decision, as many have said in earlier examinations of the court’s ruling.

While some have suggested a constitutional amendment, panelists today said winning approval for that would be a long and difficult process as well, even if some polls suggest that more than a majority of the public is against the new ruling. On some of the proposals for disclosure requirements — and even company shareholder approval before corporate donations could be made –the panelists varied in their opinions.

Jeffrey Rosen, a professor at George Washington University Law School, told senators he believed the disclosure requirements would be hotly contested. Doug Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, said “I think there are problems that Citizens United creates that Congress will have a very difficult time fixing.”

Some senators were also very concerned about the sweeping decision’s effect on state laws — more than two dozen states have restricted the use of corporate money in state or local elections.

That exchange led in turn to other senators reverting to use of Mr. Smith’s terminology. For example, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, divulged: “My constituents are freaking out.” She elaborated to say they were worried about whose interests would be trumped with such big money unleashed and whether “regular voices would be squelched.”

Now, it’s not that we’re not taking the committee’s examination of the court’s decision and the legislative proposals seriously. But nothing dispositive or revolutionary was revealed today in the testimony or in the divide between Republican and Democratic senators on this issue.

Except, perhaps, for Senator Klobuchar’s digression in talking about how, as a novice in politics, she spent hours on the phone to collect small political donations.

That led to the revelation that she’s set a record, for raising the most money — $15,000 — from ex-boyfriends.

We didn’t know there was a column on F.E.C. filings for that.