As of midnight last night, candidates for federal office were to have filed their campaign finance disclosure reports with the Federal Election Commission. These reports contain crucial information that lets voters know which special interests, big-money lobbyists or out-of-state donors may be funding a candidate’s campaign. The reports are supposed to be public, but if you try to find Senate candidates’ reports today, you will be out of luck. Why? Because the Senate has exempted itself from filing directly with the FEC, instead using the Secretary of the Senate as an intermediary. And instead of filing their reports electronically, like House candidates and presidential candidates have been doing for years, Senators and Senate candidates mail or hand-deliver paper printouts of their electronically generated reports.

After receiving the reports, the Secretary of the Senate must scan, page by painstaking page, thousands of pages of campaign finance reports before transmitting them to the FEC. It may be days or weeks before the FEC receives the reports—longer for the ones that are mailed rather than hand delivered, as the mailed reports don’t even arrive at the Secretary of the Senate’s office until they have been processed off site.

But wait, there’s more. After it receives the scanned documents, the FEC must then spend about $450,000 in taxpayer dollars and untold hours having the records typed in, line-by-line, to the FEC’s databases. It will take at least three weeks before the information is publicly available—longer in the middle of a busy election season. The process isn’t just inefficient. It denies citizens timely access to information that can help shape and inform their opinions about their candidates and elected officials.

Senator Tester and Cochran have repeatedly introduced legislation to streamline the process and make electronic filing mandatory. This Congress, a bipartisan group of 30 senators have cosponsored S. 375, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, with many others voicing support for the measure.

Despite its overwhelming support, the bill has not become law because some in the Senate have chosen to make it a political pawn. That is why we urge every Senator who supports transparency and government efficiency, as well as every one who opposes government waste, to cosponsor the bill. Overwhelming, demonstrated support may be the best chance this common sense piece of legislation to pass.

President Obama's 2014 budget includes a Sunlight priority that won't erase the deficit, but will streamline the way that important campaign finance information becomes public. Last year, we noted that Obama had included a provision in his FY13 budget proposal that would require Senate Campaign Committees to file their campaign finance reports electronically and it appears that he's pushing the idea again this year.

Specific language can be found in a document outlining spending for "Other Independent Agencies." It is very similar to the provisions included in the FY13 request and reads:

The Budget proposes that Senate Campaign Committees be required to file campaign finance reports electronically with the Federal Election Commission, which is consistent with the reporting requirements for all other Federal political committees. This measure will save at least $430,000 annually by reducing costs for manual data entry and will also promote transparency by expediting the process by which the reports are made available to the public.

The Senate has been hesitant to take this step into the 21st century, although the idea has a champion in Senator Jon Tester who introduced the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act in the 112th Congress and again earlier this year.

Requiring the Senate to file their campaign finance reports electronically with the FEC is a simple and cost effective way to increase transparency and efficiency. Hopefully this provision will make its way into whatever budget plan successfully passes Congress.

Today, Senator Tester announced that once again he has introduced the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, (not yet online) a bill that would bring the Senate into the 21^st Century by requiring senators and Senate candidates to electronically file their campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission.

The current filing system in place in the Senate would laughable if it weren’t so destructive to disclosure.  Senate candidates file their quarterly campaign finance reports with the Secretary of the Senate, who prints them out on reams of paper to be delivered to the Federal Election Commission. The FEC then inputs the information contained in those reports into its computer databases. Transparency delayed is transparency denied. The Senate system is anathema to anyone who supports meaningful disclosure.

House candidates and presidential candidates, by contrast, have been electronically filing their campaign finance reports for over a decade—streamlining the process and saving taxpayer money. It is estimated that the duplicative paper filing system in place in the Senate costs up to a half a million dollars annually.

Versions of the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act have been introduced with significant bipartisan support in multiple prior congresses. No Senator that we know of has ever publicly opposed the legislation. The only reason the bill is not law is because it has been used for partisan political squabbles.  As the Senate struggles with massive challenges facing the country, from sequestration to guns to immigration, perhaps this year Senators can finally agree to enact a bill that no one can disagree with.

The day of gadget envy reckoning is upon us as Apple unveils their latest iPad and it seems only natural that the Sunlight Foundation watch this media frenzy in regards to our policy proposals. One particularly confounding (and floundering) situation is that the Senate refuses to use the internet and file their campaign finance reports electronically, though a few Senate offices nobly do.

The current process of filing goes something like this: a senator's campaign staff fills out campaign financial disclosure forms as required every quarter, submits those forms to the Secretary of the Senate who prints them out and sends it over to the Federal Election Commission. The FEC then takes this pile of paper and pays an army of data-entry folks to put those forms back into electronic format and then the FEC posts it online. We might be laughing at this scene set to Yakety Sax if it weren't costing taxpayers an estimated $430,000 every single year! This is stupid.

We tried appealing to their environmental concerns. We tried appealing to their government efficiency concerns. We tried appealing to their debt concerns. Turns out those concerns aren't so strong. Now, we appeal to their gadget envy concerns.

The iPad Proposal:

• Most recently cited cost of not filing electronically: $430,000
• Cost of a brand new 16 gb iPad with WiFi and AppleCare Warranty with taxes: $612.68
• Number of iPads that could be purchased with savings: 701
• Every Senate office gets 7 iPads and the extra goes to the Secretary of the Senate.

Maybe this will bait McConnell out from his cave of baffling obstruction?

Note: This proposal is tongue-in-cheek and we think it's much better for senators to just use their existing computers to file, like the House has been doing for years. Maybe they could put the money they would save towards funding other e-government programs?!

A lot of people, including us, are talking about the disgraceful way a huge amount of hidden money is influencing the midterm elections through secret shell organizations. But what is also disgraceful is the way candidates for the U.S. Senate—challengers and incumbents alike—are hiding their own campaign finance information from the public. By failing to file their campaign finance reports electronically, candidates for the Senate delay by weeks the time before the public can access searchable information about who is contributing to their election.

Equally disturbing is the three- to four-day delay before information from FEC’s “48-Hour Notices” can be searched and sorted on the FEC’s website. These are notices that disclose really large contributions of $1000 or more that are made in the last days before an election. Think about it, candidates are required to file reports within 48 hours of receiving the contribution so that voters can judge, before they go to the polls, who the candidate might be beholden to if elected. But because the reports are not electronically filed, the information about these large contributions may not be available until after the election.

Presidential candidates as well as candidates for the House have been electronically filing their campaign finance reports for a decade. So why the delay for Senate reports? Because despite years of attempting to pass the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, a bill that would mandate electronic filing of Senate campaign finance reports, time and time again, the effort has been blocked. The blame lies mostly with Republicans, who insist that an unrelated poison pill amendment be voted on along with the bill. But the Democratic leadership has been unwilling to spend days of floor time that would be required to force a vote on the issue—a vote that would likely result in defeat of the poison pill and easy passage of the electronic filing measure.

The result is that rather than hitting “send” to deliver electronic reports to the FEC, Senate candidates either hand deliver or mail their reports to the Senate office of Public Records. (When they are mailed, they are delayed even longer because of requirements that all mail be irradiated before going into the Capitol offices.) After that, the reports are printed and delivered to the FEC, which must spend countless hours to key the information into its databases at a cost of $250,000 per year.

A legal mandate is not necessary, of course. If they were willing, Senate candidates could voluntarily file electronically with the FEC, but only a few, like Senators Feingold and Feinstein consistently do.

Since voluntary electronic filing is apparently something we cannot rely on Senate candidates to undertake, the law must be changed. Until then, we can expect more elections like this one, where hidden money from all sides is the norm.

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:

Sunday evening, BlogTalkRadio posted an episode of “Talking Gov2.0,” where Clay Johnson, Sunlight Lab’s director, discussed Sunlight, Sunlight Labs and the Apps for America contest. Speaking of Apps for America, Clay announced the winners on Monday. And Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb wrote about the contest, and included a screencast of the winners.

Victoria McGrane with the Politico wrote about the lack of online disclosure of campaign finance data by candidates for the U.S. Senate, and the efforts to rectify this through S. 482, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act. She mention’s Sunlight’s Pass S. 482, and extensively quotes Lisa Ronsenberg, Sunlight’s government affairs consultant, about the need for the Senate to join the 21st Century.

The National Journal reported on data from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) that shows last year’s top 20 Political Action Committee contributors to federal candidates poured a combined $22 million into lobbying efforts from January through March -- an increase of nearly 20 percent over the same period in 2008.

Anne C. Mulkern with Greenwire (subscription required) used Capitol Words to look at the use of energy- and environment-related words by congressional lawmakers. The New York Times re-posted Mulkern's piece.

CongressDaily’s Carrie Dann reported (subscription required) on a new study conducted by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) that shows short-term lenders have dramatically increased their spending on lobbying and campaign contributions since 2004. The industry is trying to defeat a bill that would cap annual interest rates on consumer loans at 36 percent. The Los Angeles Times used CRP data in reporting that Sen. Christopher Dodd (Conn.), the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, has received over $44,000 from the industry in the first quarter of this year. The Times quoted Sheila Krumholz, CRP’s director, saying that it’s hardly surprising that payday lenders would be contributing heavy to Dodd now.

The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel reported on a recently-updated Federal Contractor Misconduct Database by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) that shows Lockheed Martin Corp., the nation’s largest defense contractor, is the number one offender. The group found Lockheed linked to 50 cases of civil, criminal or administrative misconduct since 1995.

Steve Coll at The New Yorker wrote about following the stimulus funding. “Like ornithology, it turns out that stimulus watching involves a larger, more passionate subculture than might initially be expected,” Coll wrote. He highlighted OMB Watch’s budget-and-tax-policy section that “often produces wonky stimulus-related tracking.”

The May edition of the Washingtonian magazine will include a feature on the Washington, D.C., region’s technology leaders, dubbing them “Tech Titans.” The feature will include Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, as one of the region’s tech leaders. The magazine’s Web site includes a video with several short statements by the tech leaders featured, including Ellen discussing her favorite gadgets and using technology to bring government transparency.

Bara Vaida at National Journal's "Under the Influence" highlighted a blog post by Nancy Watzman, Sunlight's Denver-based consultant, about the 170 fundraising invitations for 2009 events the Party Time campaign has collected so far.

National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" aired the first of a two-part story by Andrea Seabrook on the federal government's data being opened up via technology. The first part aired Thursday, and it centered on Recovery.gov, the Obama administration's site that's tracking spending by the economic stimulus plan. For the piece, Seabrook interviewed Ellen, Clay, Greg Elan, Sunlight evangelist, and Andrew Rasiej, Sunlight technology advisor. Seabrook has lead us to believe the second installment, which is scheduled to air during this afternoon’s edition of “All Things Considered,” will center more on the work of Sunlight. The program begins at 4:00 pm (Eastern Time).

Update: Seabrook's second installment can be seen and listened to here.

Thanks, and see you next week!

Some people will say that Senate Bill 482, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, which would require the Senate to electronically file their campaign disclosure forms, is not something that can capture the imagination and get people talking. However, Sunlight's efforts to get this simple, non-controversial bill passed has, in fact, stirred quite a few people into conversation.

We started Pass 482 with a bang by introducing the Twitter Lobby. There are 17 senators on Twitter and we wanted to make sure they heard about this bill and from their constituents who use Twitter. We asked people to tweet to senators "Need your support for Senate e-filing of campaign finance reports. Please cosponsor S. 482!" This novel way of using Twitter sparked some controversy. Smart People I Know thought it could be a good way for elected officials to get feedback if they handle it well. Advocacy 2.0 wonders if we will get a response from the 17 senators. A. Fine Blog has a very thoughtful response to the criticism the Tweet Lobby. By the end, we had Sen. McCaskill support electronic filing and a new cosponsor in Sen. Barbara Boxer. This didn't stop people from spreading the word that they need to see campaign disclosure forms before Election Day. Blogs from Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire and others have been asking their readers to call their senators and ask them to support S. 482.

The real appeal of this legislation is that it is such a no-brainer that it hits you on the head. Why isn't the Senate filing their campaign disclosure forms electronically? Won't this save money and time for them as well?

This bill needs to pass because it is a real concrete step towards real time transparency. Call you senator today and ask them to cosponsor S. 482 and ask your friends and neighbors to call as well. This is a noncontroversial, commonsense bill. If they can't pass a measure beneficial to them and to their constituents what can they pass?

We can get S 482 passed, together.

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.