Today, President Bush finally signed the Coburn-Obama database bill into law. A handful of large blogs from across the political spectrum, aided by hundreds of readers, banded together to push for the bill's passage, which will create a searchable website of federal grants, loans and contracts.

But when the bill arrived on the President's desk, he saw fit to invite bloggers who are reliably conservative.

Somehow our invitation got lost in the mail. I think that means only one side of that inspriring blog union got to meet the President. Unless Wonkette... no.

It was an oversight, no doubt.

What do Sens. Conrad Burns (R-MT), Bill Frist (R-TN) and Rick Santorum (R-PA) have in common? (Hint: they're frequent subjects on TPMmuckraker.)

The three men are the most corrupt senators in Congress, according to a new list of the most corrupt lawmakers in Washington.

It's the second year now that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has released its list of 20 muckiest senators and congresspeople.

Although the group names the trio as "most corrupt," it doesn't rank the 17 House members they finger.

The group also identified five "members to watch" -- that is, folks with muck in their past that could be a harbinger of muck to come.

The list, in no particular order, is after the jump.

Read more »

Someone please explain this to me. The Washington Post has a front page story this morning headlined, "Corruption That Shook Capitol Isn't Rattling Elections" with the subhead, "Abramoff Case and Others Not Necessarily a Key Issue."

As an example of one of those races where corruption isn't "rattling" the election, the author, Blaine Harden, cites Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT), who's been hammered for his close dealings with Jack Abramoff:

In an interview, the senator said his polling shows that most voters regard the "Abramoff deal" as merely a political liability and not a damning verdict on his character. Several pollsters and observers of politics in this state agreed with that assessment. The controversy is almost certainly the main reason Burns is in a competitive race this year, but by no means is it a guaranteed career-ender.

Yet Burns, an 18-year veteran of the Senate, is in a fight for his political life largely because of the Abramoff scandal. Somehow the Post's story and other "Corruption's Not The Issue It's Cracked Up To Be" pieces that I've seen over the past month make the argument that this is a disappointment for Democrats.

Is it just me, or is there a double standard here?

When you're reading the piece, notice how Harden breezes past the fact that the Abramoff scandal has already ended two prominent careers -- those of Reps. Bob Ney (R-OH) and Tom DeLay (R-TX). If any other issue were so potent as to foreclose two such political careers, I doubt its failure to automatically end other careers would be cast as a disappointment.

C'mon, people! Give muck the respect it deserves.

Update: Ha. New Rasmussen poll shows Burns trailing by nine.

Muckrakers, rejoice! The Coburn-Obama database bill passed the House by voice vote this evening and will likely soon become law.

By next year, the public should have a public, searchable website that in one place tracks the approximately $300 billion in grants that the federal government doles out to roughly 30,000 different organizations each year, in addition to the roughly one million contracts that exceed the $25,000 reporting threshold.

The bill now simply needs the President's siganture. That seems likely, as Bush applauded the bill's passage in a statement this evening.

That was fast. The Coburn-Obama database bill will be introduced in the House tomorrow, according to Majority Whip Roy Blunt's office, and is expected to easily pass. From there, it will head to the President's desk. Then, it's up to him.

The bill slightly amends the Coburn-Obama bill, which passed the Senate last Thursday by unanimous consent, with "minor" compromises, according to Coburn's office -- the end product will be a public, searchable website listing all recipients of federal financial assistance such as loans and grants as well as all contracts over the $25,000 reporting threshold.

After clearing the Senate last night, the Coburn-Obama pork database bill will soon be up for a vote in the House.

House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has agreed to bring the bill to the floor next week, according to a press release. He has strong Republican support, which is essential for its passage.

Coburn credited "the army of bloggers and concerned citizens" who pressured Congress for moving the bill forward.

The bill's made speedy progress since last week, when blogs and their readers smoked out the two anonymous Senators who were holding up the bill.

Congressional Quarterly's Martin Kady II reports:

The Senate passed legislation Thursday night that would create a massive, Google-like searchable database to track federal spending.

The legislation (S 2590), which aims to create more transparency in exactly who gets how much federal money, passed by a voice vote after both Republican and Democratic senators dropped their objections to it.

The bill had widespread support in the Senate and became something of a cause célèbre in the “blogosphere,” where liberal and conservative bloggers united in trying to figure out which senator had placed an anonymous “hold” blocking the legislation for the past month.

An unknown Democrat is still holding the Coburn-Obama bill to create a searchable database of federal grants and contracts, The Hill reports. And that Senator is now the only one holding up the bill, since Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), who had reinstated his earlier hold, has since changed his mind dropped it.

So who's that unknown Senator? We don't know. And neither do we know what concern the Senator has -- whether it's about the bill's cost, as the Pork King claimed, or whether it's the speed with which the bill's been moving forward, as the pork-inclined senior senator from West Virginia asserted. Sure would be good to know, wouldn't it?

You thought it was over.

Yet just days after bloggers conducted a nationwide hunt for one -- then two -- senators responsible for placing "secret" holds on a porkbusting database bill, an unnamed Democratic senator has placed a third secret hold on the porkbusting database bill, Cox News reports.

It's not clear if this is a new hold, or if a Democratic senator lied earlier when denying he was responsible for holding up the bill.

A spokesman for Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), who along with Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) had fessed up to an earlier hold, wasn't immediately available, but a woman in Byrd's office assured TPMmuckraker he's not responsible for the current hold.

There are no holds from any Republicans, according to sources from the office of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who introduced the bill along with Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). So who is it?

Update: Majority Leader Bill Frist writes on his PAC's blog:

I can confirm that Senator Stevens has lifted his hold and that no Republican Senator will stand in the way of the up or down vote that this legislation deserves.

My Democrat colleagues have not yet cleared this legislation ... but I'm confident that they will do so promptly or pay the consequences of continued obstruction.

Later Update: Whoops! No sooner had Frist posted than he received word that there was again a Republican hold on the bill. Whispers from the Republican side of the aisle is that the culprit is Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) again; Stevens' spokesperson was not immediately available for comment. Nevertheless, Frist vows "I will bring this legislation to the floor for a vote in September."

Latest Update: Spokesman for Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) confirms that Stevens is the one with the hold and called the move "unexpected." "We met with his staff last week," he said, "and provided a detailed cost-benefit analysis of our bill. Senator Stevens then lifted his hold. Only Senator Stevens can explain why he reversed his position and reinstated his hold."

I'll believe it when I see it, but The Hill reports that conservatives are so spooked by the anti-pork crusade that they may try to end the era of the anonymous earmark in the House. The paper says they're mulling a rule change that would require members to attach their names to each of their precious projects -- a rule that won't necessarily prevent future Duke Cunninghams, but should make them easier to spot.

Of course, the House passed a similar, weaker measure as part of their lobbying reform bill back in April -- but the bill seems fated to die in conference, since the GOP is convinced that in the absence of any recent criminal indictments, no one cares about reform any more. So a rule change -- which would apply in the House, but not the Senate -- may be the only reform Americans could get before Election Day.