Require Senators to Electronically File Campaign Finance Disclosure Reports

The Senate must enact legislation, introduced in the 113th Congress as the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act (S.375), requiring Senate candidates to electronically file their campaign finance disclosure reports with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Background

Public access to crucial information about senate campaign contributions and expenditures is delayed, sometimes until after an election has taken place, due to archaic Senate rules. Senators’ counterparts in the House, presidential candidates and PACs all electronically file their campaign finance reports. Senators, on the other hand, remain mired in a system in which they file digital quarterly reports with the Secretary of the Senate, who then prints them out and delivers them to the FEC. That agency then inputs the information into its computer databases so it can be publicly viewed online, at annual cost of $430,000 of taxpayer money.

Electronic filing of Senate campaign finance disclosure reports is a common sense, cost-saving measure that would provide the public with timely, accurate and important campaign finance information.

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