It’s like déjà vu all over again. During the 110th Congress, Senator Russ Feingold (Wis.) introduced S. 223, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, a bill that would do nothing more onerous than require senators to electronically file their campaign finance reports. Majority Leader Reid attempted to bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote, only to have it blocked by a controversial, unrelated “poison pill” amendment offered by a single Republican senator. Early in the 111th Congress, Sen. Feingold introduced the same bill, now as S. 482, Majority Leader Reid is attempting to bring the bill to the Senate floor for a vote. But – here we go again – another single Republican senator has indicated his intention to offer a controversial, unrelated “poison pill” amendment that will kill the bill if it is approved.

We are getting tired of that same old story. To avoid yet another retelling in the 112th Congress, nine organizations have joined us as we launched a new campaign, to make it easy for you to help make sure the Senate finally passes this no-brainer legislation.

It’s long past time for senators to join their counterparts in the House, presidential candidates and PACs, and file their campaign finance reports electronically so that the public can have timely, online access to important information about who is funding their campaigns. Senators have for too long held fast to an archaic system of filing their quarterly reports with the Secretary of the Senate, who then prints them out and delivers them to the Federal Election Commission. The agency then inputs the information into its computer databases so it can be publicly viewed online, all at annual cost of about a quarter-million dollars of taxpayer money. Eliminating this duplicative exercise won’t balance the budget, but the outmoded process is worse than simply wasteful. Re-entering the data delays public access to crucial information about who is funding Senate campaigns until well after the election takes place.

The bill has no public opposition, and 28 senators have joined Feingold as cosponsors. But, unless an amendment likely to be offered by Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) is defeated, the bill will go down again. The Roberts amendment would force nonprofit and religious organizations to disclose the names of anyone who gives $5,000 or more to the organization any time the group exercises its right to file a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee. This irrelevant amendment has no place in the bill, and we need you to call your senators, and ask them to oppose it.

This is a story that does not need to be repeated. Help us make sure we don’t have to tell it all over again.

The New York Times editorialized today in support of the Senate passing the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, S. 482, which would require senators to file their campaign finance reports electronically. The Times gets it. Hopefully, Congress will get it this year and pass this commonsense bill:

Timely electronic filing of donations is required of all House and presidential candidates. But not in the Senate. There, members apparently find it too onerous to hit the send button. Instead, their own computerized information is first printed out onto paper, which is then sent in sheaves to clerks to be re-entered ever so slowly into a different computer system.

It is a Dickensian act of redundancy that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. By the time the full money trail is published, Election Day has often come and gone.

A bill to end the foolscap evasion is ready for the Senate floor. The measure from Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, has considerable support from Democrats. But the last time the electronic filing measure came up, Republicans — still smarting from the Jack Abramoff scandal — pushed a poison pill amendment requiring that any good government group that dares to file complaints about members with the Senate Ethics Committee disclose its donors to the Senate.

These groups are already required to file that information with the I.R.S., but not to any other agency under protections dating back to the civil rights era when segregationist lawmakers tried to obtain the N.A.A.C.P.’s membership lists. It’s time for the Senate to get past such pettiness. Hit the enter key; step into the sunshine.

National Journal's Eliza Krigman reminds us all of the United States Senate's failure to catch up with modern times and file their campaign finance reports in electronic format. Sunlight's spent the past three years trying to get this legislation passed. The 110th Congress finally let the bill out of committee, only to see Republican senator after Republican senator hold, block, and delay the bill. Here's what Krigman has to say:

Believe it or not, the Senate is dragging its feet into the modern era of information-sharing and is still using a hard copy system for filing campaign finance reports. With paper filing, final disclosure reports of senatorial candidates are not available to the public until after the election due to the time it takes the Federal Election Commission to process the paperwork.

What's stopping senators from e-filing when campaigns have all the information available electronically? That's exactly the question Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., has been asking. He is the author of the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, which would require reports filed with the Secretary of the Senate to be filed electronically and forwarded to the FEC within 24 hours. In the past, Feingold has signed up 47 cosponsors from both sides of the aisle; his bill failed to pass in the last Congress but his office tells National Journal the senator plans to re-introduce the legislation in the 111th Congress.

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But Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., effectively put the kibosh on the e-filing legislation by insisting on an unrelated and controversial amendment to require groups that file ethics complaints to disclose their donors. Contrary to his past legislative position, Ensign went on the record this past October saying that he is "100 percent for electronic filing."

In regards to Sen. Ensign, I'll believe it when I see it. We'll keep you informed as to when Sen. Feingold introduces a new version of the e-filing legislation for the 11th Congress.

Conservative bloggers Soren Dayton and Mark Tapscott have been discussing possible ethics and transparency reforms that minority Republicans could push in Congress next year. The issues that they propose are as follows. From Dayton:

First, in both bodies, allow individuals to submit ethics complaints and require the various ethics committees to officially reject complaints.

Second, faster and more complete campaign finance proposals. All contributions down to $5, or even just all contributions, should be disclosed. Electronic contributions should be disclosed within 72 hours, and checks should be disclosed within 72 hours of deposit. These would be real-time disclosed on the FEC website. This would solve the problem that the Sunlight Foundation and others have tried to address with S. 223.

Third, put video of all publicly accessible business meetings online. I am sure that C-SPAN and Google would be happy to help. I know that many committees keep video of markups, but release neither the video nor transcripts.

Fourth, I am sure that there are things that are specific to disclosure of financial interests that we have learned out of the Rangel affair. Throw that in.

And from Tapscott:

First, apply the Freedom of Information Act to Congress. Most Americans resent that Congress passes laws it expects the rest of us to abide by but exempts itself. Ending the 42-year-old congressional FOIA exemption would be a major step in the right direction and one that would call the Democrats bluff on the transparency issue.

Second, require Members and their key personal and committee staff members (chiefs of staff, legislative directors, committee staff directors, legal counsels, possibly others) to maintain online daily calendars recording names and titles of all participants in meetings concerning any proposed legislation or expenditure of federal funds.

Third, abolish the absurd categorical values in the annual financial disclosures required of Members. Show us the money, the shares, the property, the consideration, Congressman. Require the same level of disclosure for key staff members included in the second suggestion.

I'm not going to get into the weeds of Dayton's campaign finance proposal (there are equally persuasive arguments to be made about whether or not the extent of disclosure proposed by Dayton would fit into the reasoning behind Buckley v. Valeo's upholding of campaign finance disclosure), but I will make a quick point about S. 223:

The whole crux behind S. 223 and the filing of Senate campaign finance reports is that Senators do not file with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Instead, senators file with the Senate Office of Public Records, which then sends the reports to the FEC. The law requiring electronic filing of campaign finance reports mandates e-filing only for those filing directly with the FEC. S. 223 does one thing: requires senators to file directly with the FEC, thus putting them under the same e-filing mandate as the House. Because of this issue, Dayton's proposal, if it intends to fix the e-filing problem, would have to include the S. 223 language.

As regards the other proposals, these are my general thoughts:

1. Ethics committee: The whole process is a total mess, completely devasted by partisan tit-for-tat ethics complaints of the past. The Senate committee works far better than the House committee (as in it actually works) and is even required to submit annual disclosures about their activity (see last year's here). The House committee should accept outside complaints and figure out a fair way to sort them. I don't know if they need to publicly reject complaints.

2. Video online: A simple yes will do here. See The Open House Project for more.

3. Disclosure of financial interests: Tapscott's proposal to eliminate the categorical values on personal financial disclosures is spot on. Sunlight has pushed for this and other changes to financial disclosure forms for a few years now. You see the legislative language of our proposal at PublicMarkup.org.

4. Schedules: Some lawmakers do post their daily schedule online. It's a great way to increase accountability. Also, lobbyists should be required to disclose their meetings with the offices of covered officials as well.

I'm going to leave the application of FOIA to Congress alone for right now.

ComputerWorld interviewed James Allen, the IT manager at the Federal Election Commission (FEC), a month ago and reposted it yesterday. One line in the interview really stood out to me:

We have a T1 line to the Senate so they can file their reports securely and quickly.

After the data has been cleared by our analysts -- and we have a 48-hour turnaround time -- we post it on the public Web site.

Emphasis added. The Senate does not require the electronic filing of campaign finance reports and most reports, including ours, show that the lack of electronic filing causes gaps in disclosure. Since every office uses the software necessary to file electronically (the last office to use noncompliant software was that of retired Sen. Paul Sarbanes) and the Senate maintains a T1 line directly connected to the FEC, how many Senate offices actually file electronically?

Voluntary filing is allowed, even encouraged. FEC rules also state that, "Once a committee begins to file its reports electronically, on a voluntary basis, it must continue to file electronically for the remainder of the calendar year unless the Commission determines that extraordinary and unforeseeable circumstances make continued electronic filing impractical."

You can read the rest of the interview here.

Today, NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon filed an ethics complaint against Sen. Gordon Smith for using Senate property to make a political message. That adds NARAL Pro-Choice and their donors to Sen. John Ensign's enemy list. So far as I can figure it out, these are the groups that Sen. Ensign wants to unconstitutionally force (see: NAACP v. Alabama) to disclose their donors:

NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon Judicial Watch Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington U.S. Justice Foundation National Law and Policy Center

Watch out, if you want accountability for your senator Sen. Ensign might add you to his enemies list. (Rumors have it that Sen. Ensign's list is written on a beverage napkin with crayons.)

For background and action check out Ellen's post from yesterday and Pass223.com.

Knowing we had a great opportunity to corner Sen. Ensign, who's blocking a bill requiring electronic reporting for senators' campaign contributions, we sent our intrepid staff to the National Press Club today, where he was holding forth on other matters. We asked Sen. Ensign why he continues to hold up S. 223.

As we've talked about before, Ensign's insistence that the Senate vote on a controversial and unrelated amendment has jeopardized this straightforward bill that otherwise has broad, bipartisan support. Without that amendment, S. 223 would sail through the Senate with nearly unanimous backing.

During the Press Club event and after, staff from Sunlight and the Center for Responsive Politics asked Sen. Ensign if he would be willing to lift his objection to the bill if he was promised a hearing on his amendment in the Rules Committee (an offer already made by Rules Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein). Sen. Ensign declined, insisting that he wants one hour of debate on the amendment, and would subject his amendment to, as he put it, a "60 vote requirement."

Ensign's amendment has no place in this bill, and we question his motives in insisting that it be part of the debate on the electronic filing measure. It is disingenuous for him to claim that he is "100% for electronic reporting" (subscription required for that link) while single-handedly preventing this bill from passing. But, we are cautiously optimistic that, as Ensign himself pointed out, his amendment would be defeated if it came up for a vote.

We hope Senator Reid will take Senator Ensign up on his offer and bring S. 223 to the floor if the Senate reconvenes after Election Day. We know how the Senate works, though. Senator Reid will want to know Ensign's amendment will fail before he can bring the bill up for a vote.

That's where you can help. Go to Pass223.com and call your senators to urge them to support the bill and also oppose Ensign's amendment. If enough of them agree to oppose Ensign's amendment, this bill will become law and we will finally have timely, online access to who is funding Senate campaigns.

And thanks to all of you who have already called your senators and reported back on our Pass223.com site!

Last week, we launched the web site - Pass223.com - to get support in the Senate for S. 223, a bill to require electronic filing of campaign finance reports. So far, there have been 338 calls to Senate offices asking senators to both support the bill and oppose the poison pill Ensign amendment. The comments coming back from our callers have been very helpful including some information on new support for the bill that we will be double checking soon. We still need your help in identifying supporters of the bill and opponents of the Ensign amendment. Please go to Pass223.com and call your senators.

One comment I'd like to pass on came from multiple callers to the office of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland. According to Mikulski's legislative aide, the senator is opposed to the Ensign amendment and would not vote for S. 223 were the amendment attached. From the comments:

He said she would oppose (vote against) the Ensign amendment, since it is an obvious poison pill effort to derail the bill, and that she would not vote for the bill if the Ensign amendment survived as part of the bill. Better to try again than allow gutted legislation to pass. - Andrew May, 08.06.08 @ 11:29 AM

I pressed and he said she was councerned about the "poison pill" amendment and wouldn't vote for it were that amendment a part of it. - 08.06.08 @ 01:08 PM

These comments clearly show that the Ensign amendment is a poison pill designed to hurt the chances of passing S. 223. We need to identify more senators like Sen. Mikulski.

We still need your help in calling Senate offices. There are over 20 offices for which we have no comments. Please take the time to give your senator a call today. Go to Pass223.com.

Today, the Sunlight Foundation launched a new web site, Pass223.com, to harness the distributed power of the Internet to pressure the Senate into increasing disclosure of campaign contributions by passing a bill - S. 223, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act - requiring senators to file their contribution reports electronically.

We need your help to pass this bill. Please follow the link to Pass223.com and call your senators to find out where they stand on S. 223. The site has full instructions on who your senators are, how to call, what to say, and how to report back to us. For more detail on the bill, keep reading.

Currently, presidential candidates and candidates running for the House of Representatives file their campaign contributions in electronic form. Electronic filing speeds the process by which campaign contribution data reaches the public over the Internet, allowing citizens and journalists to more easily spot a conflict of interest or an inappropriate contribution. Filers in the Senate do not file electronically, delaying disclosure by weeks and possibly months.

Passage of S. 223 appears to be a "no-brainer," and isn't publicly opposed by any senator. However, at every step of the way over the past year and a half the bill has been interrupted and blocked for a variety of reasons.

Right now, Sen. John Ensign (pronounced en-sen) is blocking the bill by insisting on adding a poison pill amendment. This poison pill is meant to protect senators from legitimate ethics complaints filed by outside groups. The amendment would impose an unconstitutional burden on on charities, religious organizations and other nonprofits by forcing them to disclose their donors when they file ethics complaints against sitting senators. Ensign's amendment is opposed by a group of non-profits, religious groups, and charities from the right and the left.

For S. 223 to pass, Ensign's amendment must be defeated. And to do that, we need you help in identifying senators who OPPOSE Ensign and SUPPORT S. 223. This is a great chance to help pass a long overdue bill.

Go to Pass223.com and get started calling your senators (remember, you have two of them). Don't forget to report back so that we know where these senators stand on increasing campaign finance disclosure.

Pass223.com is a joint project of the Sunlight Foundation, Public Citizen, Public Campaign, Center for Responsive Politics, Campaign Finance Institute, Change Congress, and Open the Government.