With the ease of the internet it should be no problem to see the campaign financial information of every candidate that runs for office. In the House of Representatives, all of their important people and numbers are easily accessible online. Yet that is not the case for the Senate.
Dianne Feinstein and Russ Feingold have been working on getting a bill pass so that the public can see documents in pdf format rather than in giant boxes of paper for a few years now and you would think that having the majority could speed things up. Apparently they could not due to a secret Senator in the Republican caucus. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) brought up the objection to the bill but did not name who was holding up the legislation.
Feingold had a quick reply:
“I am disappointed that a Republican Senator has chosen to block my bill to require Senate campaign reports to be filed electronically. This bill has bipartisan support in the Senate and significant support around the country, from editorial boards to bloggers on both the left and the right. I am aware of no opposition to it at all. I do not understand why someone in this body would block a bill that simply brings the Senate filing process into the 21st century, and do so anonymously and without explanation.”
In the last session of Congress we found out that Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) was the sneaky bastard who fought to keep public information from being widely dispersed. The question is who is doing it now? Could it be Mr. Internet tubes again or another one of his Republican buddies? Knowing the effectiveness of the blogosphere, I think we will discover the culprit and put the hot, glaring spotlight on them in no time.
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