Yesterday, we announced a campaign to pass S. 482, the Senate electronic filing bill. There are two tacks to this campaign: one involves calling your senators and seeking support for the bill and opposition to a potential poison pill amendment, the other involves “tweeting” to the 17 senators on Twitter to try and secure their support for the bill or thank them for cosponsoring. After one day, we have already received positive responses from both Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Claire McCaskill. Both stated their support for the bill over Twitter:

clairecmc: I’ve supported electronic filing of campaign reports for a long time. It’s embarrassing that we are not required to file electronically.#482

Barbara_Boxer: Thanks to all who tweeted me about e-filing of campaign finance reports. I was a cosponsor of S. 482 before and will do so again.

In less than 24 hours, 2 out of 15 of the senators on Twitter who had not cosponsored are now cosponsors. (UPDATE: Sen. McCaskill has not yet officially cosponsored the bill and simply stated her support, Sen. Boxer officially cosponsored the bill yesterday. We hope that McCaskill turns her support into being an actual cosponsor soon.) In terms of grassroots outreach that is an amazing turn around. (See also, Clay’s post at Sunlight Labs.) In both the Boxer and McCaskill responses we can see that Twitter is a great way to communicate with constituents. Thanks to everyone who helped “tweet” these senators.

We still your help in making telephone calls to Senate offices. So far, 67 calls have been made. We need to keep the pressure on to make sure that this bill finally passes. Go to the Pass 482 site and follow the instructions to call your senators. It’s very easy.