The Federal Election Commission is the supposed enforcer of the nation’s campaign finance and disclosure laws. But, with commissioners evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, the FEC has long lived up to its reputation as being an agency designed to fail. Based on the witnesses it invited to testify about proposed rules regarding disclosure of independent expenditures and electioneering communications, it seems the agency is not only designed to fail, but is setting itself up to do so.

The FEC would probably argue that the five witnesses who testified represented a cross-section of ideas and positions, from the Chamber of Commerce to the AFL-CIO; the Alliance for Justice Action Campaign to the Center for Competitive Politics and the James Madison Center for Free Speech. But in terms of the positions they advanced on whether the FEC has the authority to draft new disclosure rules in light of the Citizens United Case, the group spoke with one voice—and the message they delivered was a resounding “no.”

Eleven U.S. Senators, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeanne Shaheen, Al Franken, Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall, Sherrod Brown, Michael Bennet, Chuck Schumer, Barbara Boxer, Bernard Sanders and Kirsten Gillibrand, beg to differ. They submitted comments to the Commission urging the agency to “use its rulemaking authority to implement broad disclosure and disclaimer requirements.”

Surely, if it had wanted to, the Federal Election Commission could have found one witness to testify that the agency has the authority to draft new disclosure and disclaimer rules to ensure transparency in post-Citizens United world. It could have found one witness to suggest how the agency could draft rules that would, as the Supreme Court stated in the Citizens United case, “[enable] the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.”

In truth, even with a balanced panel of witnesses, the agency probably would have failed to adopt comprehensive disclosure and disclaimer rules. But, by silencing the voices that favor transparency, the FEC willingly abdicated all responsibility to foster open and honest debate.

Correction: The FEC does not have to invite any group to testify, rather, the agency publishes notice "to advise interested persons and to invite their participation." Nevertheless, it seems pro-transparency groups would have received a chilly reception at the hearing. As one FEC commissioner stated, "all discussion of this critical issue [of disclosure and disclaimer rules] was banned from the NPRM." Moreover, Commissioner Weintraub's motion to advance Chris Van Hollen's proposed rulemaking on disclosure of Independent Expenditures by non political committees deadlocked at the FEC while the motion to make rules allowing corporations and unions to make Independent Expenditures passed by a vote of 5-1. It remains that the agency is unwilling to proffer pro-disclosure rules. Hopefully, Congress will pass the DISCLOSE Act, thereby requiring the FEC to act.

Two of the world's shortest congressional business meetings took place today between 11:37 and 11:41am.

The Joint Committee on the Library, which oversees the Library of Congress, was gavelled into order at 11:37, and in the ensuing two action-packed minutes, Senator Chuck Schumer was unanimously elected as the committee's chair, and Rep. Gregg Harper was elected vice-chair. The Committee then adopted its rules from the 111th Congress for the 112th Congress and adjourned at 11:39.

Immediately thereafter, the Joint Committee on Printing, which oversees the Government Printing Office and public printing generally, came into order at 11:39. At that time, Rep. Gregg Harper was duly elected as committee chair, and Senator Chuck Schumer was elected vice-chair. After adopting the Committee's rules from the 111th Congress as its own, and a short statement from the new chair, the JCP adjourned at 11:41.

Both committees have important tasks to take up during the 112th Congress. They collectively share responsibility (along with the Committee on House Administration and the Senate Rules Committee) for how congressional information is made available to the public. As a starting point, we hope these two committees will update their websites that have fallen into disuse.

We hope that they will work diligently to make public information available online, in real time, and in machine readable formats. Several years ago, we released a report with recommendations on this point, and there's still a lot to do. I testified earlier this year on allowing bulk access to legislative data, and I hope this issue will be addressed in the near future.

The JCL will have particular involvement with the selection of the new director for the Congressional Research Service. As this panel discussion hosted by the Advisory Committee on Transparency identified, there is much to do to bring CRS into the 21st century, including making CRS reports publicly available.

The JCP will likely spend much of its time this year identifying ways to operate more effectively and efficiently. We hope that the effort involves releasing public documents online, in digital formats that can be easily manipulated by computers. And, of course, we're hoping for action on the Constitution Annotated as well.

They received billions in help from the federal government to stay afloat during the worst days of the financial crisis and they've--mostly--paid it all back since. Now the top six biggest recipients of money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program--the Treasury Department program adopted in 2008 to shore up troubled banks--are contributing to the campaigns of congressional office seekers across the political spectrum.

Of the top fifteen recipients of campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo, five are running for office in New York state, Wall Street's home base, and five are Republican candidates seeking election to the Senate. This is based on data collected from the Center for Responsive Politics.

These six banks were the biggest recipients of money from the bailout fund created by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Bank of America and Citigroup each received $45 billion, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo received $25 billion each and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley both received $10 billion. Only Citigroup has failed to fully repay the money to the Treasury Department. Citigroup still owes $14 billion.

While the high number of contributions sent to New York pols and key individual lawmakers may be predictable, the presence of a number of Republican candidates seeking to become freshmen senators in the 112th Congress is not. Republicans have successfully used public anger against the bank bailouts to their advantage during the run-up to this fall's midterm elections.

Rob Portman, a former congressman, U.S. Trade Representative and director of the Office of Management and Budget in the George W. Bush administration running for the Senate in Ohio, is the leading recipient of big bailout bank money among GOP Senate aspirants, having raised $97,592 from the six banks.

Portman, who stated he would have voted for the bailout bill, has not run directly against the bailouts, but has taken a position that the bailout money that has been paid back to Treasury should be used to pay down the deficit.

Other GOP Senate aspirants among the top fifteen recipients of big bailout bank contributions include California's Carly Fiorina ($94,850), Illinois' Mark Kirk ($81,275), Delaware's Mike Castle ($66,000) and Missouri's Roy Blunt ($65,642).

Blunt, Castle and Kirk currently serve in the House of Representatives and all three voted in support of the bailout on October 3, 2008. They also all voted against the financial reform bill in 2010.

Fiorina, as a top advisor in the 2008 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, defended McCain's support of the bailout bill, but is now running against the bailout. In a recent debate Fiorina attacked her opponent, Sen. Barbara Boxer, for voting for the bailout and receiving campaign contributions from banking executives. The latter attack came despite the fact that Fiorina received more in contributions over the course of 2009-2010 from the six big bailout banks than Boxer.

The top recipient of contributions from the six big banks is Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand with $241,000. Gillibrand is running in her first Senate election after being appointed to take the seat of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Gillibrand has long relied on these big banks to provide funds for her campaigns. All of the banks, save for Bank of America, rank as top career donors to Gillibrand's campaign efforts.

The second-biggest recipient of contributions from these six banks is Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Banking, House and Urban Affairs. Over the 2010 election cycle Shelby received $127,050 from the big bailout banks.

While Shelby voted against the bailout legislation in 2008, he played an instrumental role in opposing the financial regulatory bill advocated for by President Obama, Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd and House Financial Services Committee chair Barney Frank. Many in the financial sector, particularly the six big banks, opposed pieces of, if not the entirety of, the financial regulatory bill and worked to strip it of as many provisions as possible.

Shelby focused sharply on a provision designed to liquidate firms that were no longer solvent instead of bailing them out with Treasury funds. Shelby declared the liquidation fund to be a proposal for bailout forever and won concessions from the Democrats in the debate over the provision.

The other candidates hailing from New York state include freshman congressmen Scott Murphy ($105,050) and Mike McMahon ($103,350), senior senator and long-time Wall Street booster Chuck Schumer ($99,100) and Reshma Saujani ($88,200), the Democratic primary challenger to Rep. Carolyn Maloney.

Murphy, who won a 2009 special election to the upstate seat formerly occupied by Gillibrand, has long ties to the financial industry having worked for Bankers Trust and Advantage Capital Partners, a venture capital firm. McMahon, whose Staten Island district houses many employees in the financial sector, fought hard for the bank's positions on derivatives during the debate over the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill.

Saujani is the only non-incumbent candidate for the House ranked in the top fifteen recipients of big bailout bank contributions. Earlier this year Saujani, a Wall Street banker, touted her Street cred by stating that she was, "running on my Wall Street record, not from it.” Saujani, in defending Wall Street, said, "Instead of browbeating Wall Street, I want to invite them to help create jobs."

Despite the in flux of contributions from the financial sector that have buoyed her campaign, Saujani suddenly backtracked on her statement that she would not browbeat Wall Street. In a recent debate with Maloney, Saujani attacked the congresswoman for failing to make the financial reform bill tougher and for hosting fundraisers with Wall Street lobbyists during the crafting of the reform bill.

The other four candidates ranking in the top fifteen recipients of big bailout bank contributions include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ($74,250), Connecticut congressman and former Goldman Sachs banker Jim Himes ($69,320), Senator Richard Burr ($67,680) and Republican Minority Whip Eric Cantor ($66,100).

Burr, Cantor and Reid voted for the 2008 bailout. Himes was elected to Congress in 2008 after the vote had taken place. Both Reid and Himes supported the financial reform bill, while Burr and Cantor did not.

Over the past few weeks, we've been looking at the connections between the Senate Finance Committee and the former staffers of committee members turned health care lobbyists. Our previous posts focused solely on those connections -- one visualizing the connections to committee chair Max Baucus and another showing the connections for all Democrats. Another way to look at these connections is to look at the fundraisers these lobbyists are throwing for Finance Committee members.

After reviewing the data on Party Time, only four fundraisers for Senate Finance Committee members were found to be hosted by one of the staffers turned health care lobbyists. The four fundraisers were for three senators: Chuck Schumer, Mike Crapo, and two fundraisers for Orrin Hatch.

Unfortunately, the total campaign contribution data for these dates is not yet available due to reporting schedules. Also, the data from Party Time, due to the source of the data, does not always contain host information. It is without doubt that there are many more fundraisers occurring for Senate Finance Committee members with their former staffers turned lobbyists as hosts.

As I continue to take a look at congressional committees and their connections to the health care industry, I'll keep my eye on the fundraisers they are throwing for key committee members and bring that data here.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced a new regulatory model for the financial system that includes regulating hedge funds for the first time. In the past, hedge funds have largely escaped government oversight in the form of regulation and have been warded off legislative attempts to regulate them by leaning on powerful friends.

During the 2008 cycle, hedge fund campaign giving skyrocketed to $16.8 million--an increase of approximately 400%. Three of the top four recipients are predictable, Barack Obama (1st - $1,316,436), Hillary Clinton (2nd - $760,400), and John McCain (4th - $605,750), all major presidential candidates. The third largest recipient of hedge fund money was Banking Committee chair Chris Dodd, receiving $705,450 from the industry. Recently, Dodd has made overtures towards regulating hedge funds and other financial groups currently outside of the regulatory framework, calling the age of "don't ask, don't tell," in the financial world, over.

The only other significant lawmaker to have received large sums from the hedge fund industry is Sen. Chuck Schumer, the long-time protector of the financial services industry and supporter hedge fund deregulation. Schumer received $344,600 from hedge funds over the course of his career.

The debate over Geithner's new regulatory framework will be intense and it would be important to keep your eyes on the powerful Senate duo of Dodd and Schumer to see what they support and what they oppose. They have some powerful friends and Dodd might need their financial support in his tought reelection race next year.

Here we go again! Just today, Sen. Russ Feingold introduced a bill, S. 482, to require senators to file their campaign finance reports electronically, rather than in paper format. The Senate is the only body that does not require the electronic filing of these reports, causing delays in disclosure and a general loss of transparency for the public. Feingold has introduced a version of this bill in each of the last three Congresses. We hope that this is the last year that Sen. Feingold has to introduce this bill.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, a co-sponsor, explained the bill as "a no-brainer. It should be approved expeditiously to increase disclosure and move the Senate's reporting system into the 21st century." Also, Sen. Thad Cochran, the lead Republican co-sponsor, hopes that "the Senate will consider the bill in a timely manner and approve it so that we can begin to operate under a modern filing system."

The Sunlight Foundation has actively pressed for the passage of this commonsense bill for over two years now. Last year, the previous version of the bill, S. 223, was blocked by Sen. John Ensign after he attempted to attach a poison pill amendment to the bill. This year, we hope that the Senate will consider this bill on its own merits and not try and block it or weigh it down. As has been stated in previous sessions of Congress, there is no public opposition to the bill itself. If you want to see our previous coverage of the bill please follow the tags "Electronic Filing" and "S. 223".

The bill as introduced has 25 co-sponsors hailing from both parties. They are: Sens. Akaka, Alexander, Bennett, Bingaman, Brown, Cardin, Chambliss, Cochran, Dodd, Durbin, Feinstein, Grassley, Harkin, Isakson, Kerry, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Lugar, McCain, Nelson (NE), Reed, Reid, Rockefeller, and Schumer. We hope that more join on to support transparency and Pass S. 482.

Like the Little Engine that Could, Senate Bill 223, the Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, keeps chugging along against some pretty intense opposition. In August we launched Pass223.com to build support and find out which senators are willing to officially support the bill and to go on the record to oppose John Ensign’s poison pill amendment. Our persistence has created two new cosponsors Sens. Chuck Schumer and Daniel Akaka.

Keep calling your senators and asking them to cosponsor S 223 and oppose the Ensign amendment we need to demand that the Senate stop dragging their feet on this bill. I think we can get this little bill to the top of Capitol Hill.