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Senate Campaign Disclosure
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Campaign
Finance Reform Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act
Since November 2003, when
I introduced the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act,
I have sought to require the electronic disclosure of Senate
campaign finance reports. This common-sense legislation,
which I re-introduced in January 2007 with Senator Thad
Cochran (R-MS), will finally bring Senate campaigns into
the 21st century by requiring Senate campaign reports to
be filed electronically and forwarded to the Federal Election
Commission (FEC) within 24 hours.
Currently, interested members of the public and the press
have to waste countless hours sifting through computer images
of paper-filed copies of reports. The public deserves quick
and easy access to these reports. The current system also
wastes hundreds of thousands of dollars to re-enter information
from paper copies into databases, even though almost every
campaign already has this information available in electronic
format.
Political parties, political action committees, presidential
candidates, and candidates for the House of Representatives
are already required to file their FEC reports electronically.
Only Senate candidates are not subject to this requirement,
and there is no good reason for that. This legislation will
allow the public to quickly and easily access information
about contributors to Senate campaigns in the weeks leading
up to an election.
Even though my bill was passed unanimously by the Rules
and Administration Committee and has broad bipartisan support,
it is currently being blocked by an anonymous Republican
Senator. Despite this anonymous objection, I will continue
my efforts to pass this legislation.
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