TPM - GOP Leaders Transparently Obstruct Transparency Bill

[L. Coyote]

GOP Leaders Transparently Obstruct Transparency Bill
By Paul Kiel - Sep 27, 2007
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004314.php

The Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act is a bill that you wouldn't think anyone could possibly be against. And yet, the Republican leadership in the Senate has gone to considerable lengths to stop it -- recently by brazenly insisting on an amendment that would effectively discourage groups from filing ethics complaints against senators. Without that amendment, which Democrats reasonably call a poison pill designed to sink the bill, Republicans say it's not going anywhere.

Here's what the bill would do. Candidates for the Senate file paper versions of their campaign disclosure reports. The bill would require those reports to be filed electronically. That's it.

The House moved to that system six years ago -- which is why it's called the campaign disclosure "parity" act. The bill has forty co-sponsors, among them conservative Republicans, such as Sens. Thad Cochran (R-MS) and John Cornyn (R-TX). A cynic might say that the only rational reason for opposing the bill would be if you wanted to make it harder for people to discover who's been giving to your campaign.

When the bill came to the floor this spring, it was blocked twice by an anonymous Republican senator, using what's called a "secret hold." (Here's http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001428.php our hunt last summer for those behind secret holders http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001446.php on another bill.)

[Homer12]

1. All Republicans deserve to go to the HELL that they wish upon

other people.