Senate compaign finance Bill blocker identified

New York Times Editorial
Let the Sunshine In
Published: September 27, 2007

Of all the secretive games of Washington, none was cheesier than the Senate's honored device of the "secret hold" ?- the power of a lawmaker to anonymously block a bill from reaching a floor vote without stating rhyme or reason or identity. Thus, it was a bit of history Monday night when the Senate discovered the name of the mystery man who for months has been obstructing a long overdue step toward campaign finance reform. This is the simple requirement that senators file fund-raising reports electronically, as House and presidential candidates long have done, rather than through the hoary, paper-intensive route that has let senators obscure their benefactors and beholdings.

The secret holder turned out to be Senator John Ensign, a Nevada Republican. He was smoked out by a new rule, enacted under the Democratic majority, that mandated an end to secret holds. The senator happens to run the Republican campaign fund-raising effort which, along with the Democratic kitty, would prove far more transparent with electronic reporting. Mr. Ensign insists that he only wanted time to strengthen, not obstruct, disclosure ethics. Time is up. Now the Senate can celebrate the outing of parliamentary pimpernels by venturing at last into the world of electronic communication.

Over in the House, new disclosure rules are shedding light on costly "earmarks" ?- the customized chunks of budget pork that members jam into spending bills for favored constituents and donors. This new corrective doesn't stop abusers, but it might make them squint when voters find them caught in the sunshine.

One early analysis of House appropriations and federal elections records found that every private beneficiary of Representative John Murtha's recent earmarks, dished by way of his powerful defense appropriations seat, has requited with campaign cash. That's 26 separate earmarks in three years costing scores of millions, with $413,250 eventually flowing into the Murtha coffers, according to the newspaper Roll Call and the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Did someone say quid pro quo? Mr. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, declined to comment to Roll Call. The disclosure rules confirm him to be hardly alone. Campaign donations are aptly described as the "cover charge" for contractors hungry for privileged access into the federal casino. The truths of disclosure can't come fast enough for taxpayers.