Remarks of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold
On the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act
As Delivered from the Senate Floor
September 24, 2007
Mr. President, I want to of course thank the Senator from California
who is of course is the Chair of the key committee on this bill, for
her persistence in trying to get this bill through the Senate.
We came to the floor twice this spring to try to get consent to pass
the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act. Each time, an objection was
made on behalf of an unidentified Republican Senator. Yet no Senator
has come to us to let us know what his or her objection to the bill
is. The source of the objection apparently didn’t want to be identified,
but when the President signed the Honest Leadership and Open Government
Act last week, as Senator Feinstein pointed out, S.1, fortunately secret
holds became a thing of the past. I’m very proud to have been
involved deeply with trying to pass that legislation. If an objection
was lodged today, the objecting Senator would have had to come forward
within six session days. And as far as I know, this was going to be
the first test of the new rule on secret holds and I was looking forward
to learning who the real objector was, as this rule requires, if an
objection was made on an unidentified senator.
But now it appears that the Senator from Nevada has actually identified
himself as the objector of the bill so we know what is going on here.
I believe that the new provision under the new law is the reason that
this individual identified himself. I don’t think that would have
happened had it not been for the positive deterrent effect that this
new legislation has and I think that Senator Feinstein and I can site
this as the first time this was successfully forced in the case of a
secret hold.
This underlying bill about disclosure that I offered along with others
is completely non-controversial. This bill simply puts Senate campaigns
under the same obligation to file their reports electronically that
the House and Presidential campaigns have been forced to do for years.
There is simply no reason that the information in Senate campaign finance
reports should remain less accessible to the public than any other campaign
finance reports.
We are now up to 41 bipartisan cosponsors, and as the Senator from
California pointed out, not a single concern about the bill was heard
in the Rules Committee, the bill passed that committee by voice vote,
and no one has come to us with any concerns about it at all so the time
has come to get it done.
Mr. President, the Senator from Nevada has made an alternative proposal
to bring up the bill but to make an amendment. The amendment that he
wants to offer has nothing to do with this bill. Indeed it is a very
controversial proposal to require groups that file ethics complaints
to disclose their donors. I’m sure that charitable and advocacy
organizations will find this amendment quite controversial. It should
be referred to the appropriate committee and given very searching study
before it is offered on the floor. As the Senator from California said
it would certainly be a poison pill for the underlying bill which thus
far has had no public opposition whatsoever so I am pleased the Senator
from California objected and we are happy to make that objection very
public.
I want to thank the Chairman of the Rules Committee, the Senator from
California. I will say again that it looks like we made a little bit
of progress here. No longer is there a secret hold on the bill. Instead
the Senator from Nevada has made it plain that he is the one holding
up the bill by insisting on offering an unrelated amendment. That is
unfortunate but at least we know what we’re dealing with. I hope
in the days ahead we’ll be able to prevail on him to change his
approach. There are some bills where it is simply not appropriate to
seek to add extraneous and controversial amendments. The amendment he
proposed is surely a poison pill for this bill and we really need to
get this bill in place soon so that these requirements of disclosure
will apply during the 2008 election season.
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