Yesterday I blogged that there was a glimmer of hope for S. 482, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act. The bill had been hotlined which meant that unless a Senator objected, the bill would pass by unanimous consent of the Senate. Our cautious optimism was dashed when we learned that Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) is insisting on a vote on a controversial amendment that would chill nonprofit organizations from filing ethics complaints against sitting senators.

Sen. Roberts is singlehandedly preventing the passage of a straightforward bill that would speed the online availability of campaign finance information and save taxpayers about $250,000 a year that the FEC must spend to manually enter the information into its databases. Is Senator Roberts undertaking this amendment strategy because he is fundamentally opposed to putting public campaign finance information online in a timely manner? Or is his goal to prevent legitimate ethics complaints from being filed by watchdog organizations? Either way, his Senate colleagues should flatly reject his amendment it comes up for a vote in conjunction with the electronic filing bill.  Call your Senators and ask them to reject the Roberts’ amendment. Check out Pass482.com for step by step guidance on sending this important message.