Time for Devil in the Details to Go Digital

These days almost everything can be done electronically: paying bills, buying music, watching movies . . . the IRS even allows tax returns to be submitted online.

But not in the Senate. There, they prefer to waste taxpayer dollars on paper and keep voters in the dark about campaign dollars.

The current system for senators to submit campaign finance reports to the Federal Election Commission is a maze of back-and-forth between agencies that requires printing and re-typing the same information repeatedly.  The result is an annual $250,000.00 bill to taxpayers and the delayed release of information to the public.

Right now, it can take months before the public sees campaign disclosures. This means senators can reach out to special interests for extra cash in the final weeks of their campaigns and we won't know about it until well after the election.

This may help explain why Sen. John Ensign - chairman and fundraiser-in-chief for the National Republican Senatorial Committee - is blocking the "Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act" (S. 223) with a poison-pill amendment.  The bill would finally bring senators into the digital era by providing for more voter-friendly electronic disclosures, like the ones used by presidential and House candidates. Information on donor identities and contribution amounts would be available online immediately.

Help us get your senators on the record in support of the "Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act" without the unconstitutional Ensign Amendment.

Comments

[Charles S. Draper]

I have tried to track the caomaign donations. It should be a crime for donations to be diaplayed as on the goverment websites. It is impossible to follow the trail a donation is traveling.

What happened to a simple accounting log? A simple checkbook log is better than what they currently use.