« previous | MUCK HOME | next »
Ensign: No Transparency for You
It's a minor victory, one that won't be recorded in the history books. But it looks like the Senate Republican leadership's strategy to keep Senate campaign disclosure reports from being easily searchable is on its way to success.
As we laid out before, they've long been fighting a bill to require the disclosure reports to be filed electronically, something the House did six years ago. The latest coup was a move by Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) to add a poison pill to the simple and thoroughly uncontroversial bill (it's got 41 co-sponsors, including 16 Republicans). Ensign said that bill is going nowhere unless it has his amendment, which would require non-profits that file ethics complaints against senators to disclose all donors who gave $5,000 or more, a measure that would effectively discourage ethics complaints against senators.
Last month, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) asked pretty please if Ensign might offer the amendment separately, since it has nothing to do with the underlying bill. Today, his answer came: no (sub. req.). And that means that senators will most likely not be required to electronically file in the run-up to the 2008 election -- definitely good news for candidates who will be receiving contributions they'd rather not have to explain.
Comments (9)
Anonymous wrote on December 4, 2007 2:10 PM:Don't amendments require a vote? Vote it down and move on.
jawbone wrote on December 4, 2007 2:19 PM:Is Ensign essentially filibustering the bill unless it has this ammendment included? McConnell?
And, again, what about voting on it? Is it a ReThug pet project to get this kind of thing into law?
We need more and better Democrats!
For Truth wrote on December 4, 2007 2:42 PM:Here's Ensign's Washington office #:
Anonymous wrote on December 4, 2007 3:01 PM:202-224-6244; I just called and voiced my displeasure. The message was received cordially and politely.
Perhaps we can all call and express our opinion.
Yes, someone please explain the mechanics of this. Is it a threatened filibuster (a.k.a. "hold")?
P J Evans wrote on December 4, 2007 3:25 PM:I thought that stuff not related to the purpose of the bill wasn't supposed to be put in it. Clearly Congress doesn't believe in rules ....
Brianm0122 wrote on December 4, 2007 4:49 PM:A democrat needs to take his amendment, introduce it as the "Ensign Ethics-reductions bill", and get a vote on it. Maybe the Senator wouldn't like to have his name associated with such a thing.
The Skeptical Cynic wrote on December 4, 2007 8:45 PM:P.J. Evans
House rules require that amendments be germane, i.e., related to the purpose of the bill. Senate rules differ substantially in that unrelated amendments can be added to any bill.
not completely useless wrote on December 4, 2007 10:57 PM:I don't get it at all. How can a single Senator block passage of a bill by proposing a single unrelated amendment, when multiple Dems can't block funding for the Iraq war? Why does it take 41 Senators to do something this guy does on his own?
Vadranor wrote on December 5, 2007 1:48 PM:Not completely useless asks how a single senator can block passage of legislation. What is happening is this. The Senate handles much of its routine business by a procedure known as "Unanimous Consent" (UC); ergo, by definition, if anyone objects, this procedure cannot be used. A "hold" is simply a promise to object if a bill is brought up under UC. What this means is not that the bill is dead, only that the bill must be considered under regular order, subject to amendment, filibusters, what have you.
If he wanted to, Reid could bring up for debate all bills subject to a hold. It would take time, but the overwhelming majority would pass. Let the Republicans actually filibuster popular bills rather than merely threaten to do so.