Subject: [EL] Bipartisan Coalition of Sens. introduce "Campaign Disclosure Parity Act" today -- would make senate campaign committees file directly with FEC
From: Daniel Schuman
Date: 1/27/2011, 3:04 PM
To: Election Law

A bipartisan coalition of Senators reintroduced legislation today to speed disclosure of public campaign finance information, ensure the accuracy of that information, improve efficiency and save taxpayers money -- the Campaign Disclosure Parity Act. Sens. Tester and Cochran are the cosponsors, along with a number of others.

Here's an explanation from our blogpost: 

Senators’ counterparts in the House, presidential candidates and PACs all electronically file their campaign finance reports. Senators, on the other hand, remain mired in an archaic system in which they file their quarterly reports with the Secretary of the Senate, who then prints them out and delivers them to the Federal Election Commission.

That 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 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, sometimes until after the election takes place.

Senator Tester's press release is here, and also included below.
  
Daniel

Daniel Schuman
Director | Advisory Committee on Transparency
Policy Counsel | The Sunlight Foundation
o: 202-742-1520 x 273 | c: 202-713-5795 | @danielschuman

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Senator opens another front in effort to boost government accountability using the Internet

Thursday, January 27, 2011  

(U.S. SENATE) – Senator Jon Tester, an outspoken advocate for using the Internet to boost transparency in government, today introduced legislation to require U.S. Senate campaign committees to file financial disclosure reports online.

Senate campaign committees are currently the only federal political committees not required to file their financial disclosure reports directly with the Federal Elections Commission—meaning it can take up to a month for Senate campaign disclosures to be made available online.

Tester’s bipartisan Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act—which is cosponsored by Senator Thad Cochran, R-Miss.—would close that loophole and make those documents available to the public within a matter of days instead of a matter of weeks.

“By law, the public has a right to know who’s funding the political campaigns of their leaders—but it’s not real transparency when folks have to wait up to a month to get that information,” Tester said.  “That’s the idea behind this bill—to shine more sunlight on our campaigns much more quickly, so that Montanans and citizens across the country can hold their leaders accountable in a meaningful way.”

Tester’s legislation was hailed by the government watchdog group, the Sunlight Foundation.

“Senator Tester should be commended for trying to bring the Senate into the 21st century by requiring mandatory electronic filing of campaign contributions,” said Ellen Miller, co-founder and executive director of the non-partisan Sunlight Foundation.  “More than ever, electronic accountability for who finances campaigns is critical to our democracy. In this new era of bipartisan cooperation, we hope this bill will not be used for political gamesmanship as it was in the past two Congresses.”

Tester’s bipartisan Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act is available on his website, HERE.

Tester was the first member of Congress to post his daily public schedule on his website—a move President Obama urged all members of Congress to make in his State of the Union Address on Tuesday.