Those of you with long memories or wonky fixations will recall our years-long push to force Senate candidates to file their FEC disclosure reports electronically and bring them into the 21st century.  It's beyond ridiculous that we haven't eliminated this convoluted mess, as I explained last September:

Let's remember what it's all about: it costs taxpayers about $250,000 a year for a private Virginia contractor to convert the Senate paper filings -- which are created by the campaigns using computers and software -- back into electronic format for the FEC to post on its Web site. The conversions take anywhere from 18 to 27 days to complete, which means that most of the last campaign filings for the Senate do not become electronically available on the FEC website until after the election.

So the Republican Leader in the Senate and the head of the Senate Republicans' campaign committee are conspiring to not only block more timely disclosure in campaign finance, but also to try and stymie the ethics woes that they face.  Indeed, as Dennis Green said, they are who we thought they were.

Sen. Feingold has more to say.  

As mentioned above, it's NRSC chairman Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) who was gumming the works with procedural nonsense.  It's time to route around him.

Our friends at the Sunlight Foundation, Change Congress, Public Campaign and other pro-technology, pro-transparency reform organizations have launched a new wikified tool to make it happen: Pass223.com.

The website is simple -- it tells you where your Senators stand on the bill and on Sen. Ensign's opposition, and how many calls have been made to each Senator.  Click on your Senators' names, and it will pull up a phone script tailored to where s/he stands on both the underlying bill and Sen. Ensign's attempts to derail it.  Make the call, report the response on the website, repeat with your other Senator.

It should just take a few hours for the readers of this site to steamroll through this electronic whip sheet and obtain the information needed on all 100 Senators.  Then, we can start applying pressure where needed.

Can you make two calls today to bring greater transparency to the Senate?

It seems all too often some issue will flare up around here, then it will just disappear a couple of weeks later, never to be heard of again. As much as we decry the media for its minute attention span, we in the blogs are only a little better. I don't know the best way to remedy this, but an improved and more sophisticated search would go a long way, not to mention improved tagging by diarists and integration of the tags with the search. For instance, it would be nice to be able to look for entries that have both tag A and tag B, A or B, A but not B, or even just search for diaries on "similar topics" that searches ranks diaries by how similar the tags are. Then give the user the ability to put searches into their hotlist with, say, updates once per day or per week (defined by a user setting) so that people can maintain their own list of topics to keep an eye on. That list would naturally serve as a reminder to look into things if a topic has gone stale here at DKos.

I digress. Improvements to this site would be fantastic, but they are not the topic of this post. Follow me below the fold for the more immediate topics hinted at in the title

When last we visited the issue of Sen. Russ Feingold's bill requiring Senate candidates to file their FEC reports electronically the same way that presidential and House candidates, parties and political committees have done for years, the problem was an anonymous Republican Senator putting a hold on the legislation.

Thanks to the Democrats' ethics bill now signed into law, that Republican could no longer lurk in the shadows holding the bill for ransom.  That Senator now has a name, and it is NRSC chairman John Ensign (R-NV).

[Well, Ensign's not sure it was him back then, only that he's the problem now: "When asked by reporters whether he placed the holds, Ensign said Tuesday, "I don't remember. To be honest with you. I don't remember."]

While claiming he has "no objection" to the bill, Ensign still wants to hold it hostage.  And for what?  A poison pill that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) handed Sen. Diane Feinstein last week, which directly targets groups like CREW, Public Citizen, Common Cause, and the League of Women Voters, which attempt to hold Senators accountable for their ethical transgressions:

Ensign nevertheless opposed its passage unless it were coupled on the floor with a vote on an unrelated amendment that requires nonprofit organizations to disclose all of their $5,000+ donors when filing ethics complaints against Senators.

What can we say about this proposal?  Of course it's not germane to this innocuous, bipartisan legislation, but what's more is that it's pretty blatantly unconstitutional.  In a series of cases from the civil rights era including NAACP v Alabama and Bates v. City of Little Rock, the Supreme Court has made clear that such compelled disclosure – or "outing" – of supporters of a political organization is anathema to democracy, as it subjects members to potential harassment or retaliation and infringes on their constitutional rights of association, and must be supported by a compelling state interest.  There is no such interest here, only Republicans' desire to muzzle those who seek to hold them accountable.  CREW, for example, has requested for ethics committee investigations of Ted Stevens, Pete Domenici, Larry Craig, and David Vitter.  Here's what Sen. Russ Feingold has to say about it:

Sen. Feinstein has made Sen. Ensign the same offer she previously made to Sen. Bennett, when he was the one blocking S. 223: withdraw the poison pill, and let's have a prompt hearing to consider your language separate, and not vote on it until it's fully considered.

Let's remember what it's all about: it costs taxpayers about $250,000 a year for a private Virginia contractor to convert the Senate paper filings -- which are created by the campaigns using computers and software -- back into electronic format for the FEC to post on its Web site. The conversions take anywhere from 18 to 27 days to complete, which means that most of the last campaign filings for the Senate do not become electronically available on the FEC website until after the election.

So the Republican Leader in the Senate and the head of the Senate Republicans' campaign committee are conspiring to not only block more timely disclosure in campaign finance, but also to try and stymie the ethics woes that they face.  Indeed, as Dennis Green said, they are who we thought they were.

Here's what you can do today: if you live in a state with a Republican Senator, call his or her DC office today and demand that S. 223, Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, receive a clean up-or-down vote.  If he or she is not a cosponsor yet, get them on board.  It's time to move the Senate into the 21st Century.

You know we've been all over the fight to bring the Senate into the 21st Century by mandating electronic filing of their FEC disclosure reports, a bill with wide bipartisan support currently being blocked by one man, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who is maintaining an anonymous hold on behalf of an unknown Republican colleague, every one of whom has denied being the culprit.

After Sens. Feingold and Feinstein pushed for unanimous consent for passage of the bill in April, Sen. Bunning announced that there was a Republican still objecting to such consent.  Sen. Mitch McConnell, as the Minority Leader, knows who the objector is, and knows what amendments s/he wants to offer. He could release this information but refuses to help move a bill forwards that he claims to support.  This is nonsense.

Well, our friends at the Sunlight Foundation are kicking up the pressure more than a notch today with the unveiling of a new website, What'sMcConnellHiding.com, which is chock full of action items and background on his protection of an anonymous hold here, and includes something I haven't seen before: a contest.  If you're the first to get Sen. McConnell on video answering questions about this bill, and upload it to YouTube, you can win $500.  (Read the Rules to learn more.)

In addition, the Sunlight Foundation is putting up a billboard outside of Louisville on a busy highway targeting McConnell.  The local media pressure is real, and it will only increase.  

Sen. Russ Feingold, the bill's chief sponsor, posted a diary about a month ago explaining why removing McConnell's hold is crucial:

Several of you have asked about whether the Senate can get around a hold.  The answer is yes, but it can be very time-consuming and could result in the bill being weighed down with unrelated or "poison pill" amendments.  Basically, the way to get around an objection to action by unanimous consent is for the Majority Leader to bring up the bill and schedule a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to it.  That vote takes place two days after a cloture vote is filed.  I have no doubt we would win such a vote handily, maybe even unanimously.  But then the bill would be subject to amendment and there are many controversial and contentious campaign finance amendments, or even amendments on other topics that might be offered.  And the only way to limit those amendments would be to schedule another cloture vote to limit debate.  So the process could take several days under the best of circumstances.

All of that could be done, but there are many other worthy bills competing for floor time.  This bill is not controversial.  No one has given a single reason to oppose it, or even debate it.  It is exactly the kind of good, non-controversial bill that should pass the Senate by unanimous consent, and with your help, I hope it will.

Let's help him out.  If you live in Kentucky, call Sen. McConnell and demand that he remove the hold.  If not, call your own Senators -- especially the Republicans -- and demand that McConnell make public the name of the anonymous objector.

Sunlight, Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote, is the best disinfectant.  Let's bring Sen. Mitch McConnell into the light.

As you may remember, yesterday we were trying to figure out who was the Republican Senator responsible for blocking unanimous consent to S. 223, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, a simple bill to force Senate candidates to file their FEC reports electronically, just as House and Presidential candidates do right now.

So, after every Republican issued some form of denial by yesterday, Sens. Feinstein and Feingold took to the Senate floor at about 1:30 this afternoon to seek unanimous consent again that S. 223 be voted on today.  

On behalf of his caucus, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) announced there was a Republican objecting to unanimous consent.  Responded Sen. Feinstein, "We will be back, and back, and back again."

Watch democracy and accountability screech to a halt here on YouTube.

(As far as why unanimous consent matters on passing this bill, Russ Feingold diaried the topic here.)

Who's up for a series of Start Snitchin' phone calls?  Some Republican Senator hasn't been telling the truth, and the Sunlight Foundation's Paul Blumenthal has a plan to reveal it:

Let's clarify the language and call every single Republican Senator and ask them if they registered an objection to S.223. Don't ask about secret holds or whether they support the bill. Just ask if the Senator registered an objection to the bill. Get the Senator on the record. Don't take the word of a Staff Assistant. Get the Senator to issue a statement and talk to someone who handles the issue. And don't just call your Senators, - call Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) too. He knows who the liar is and covering them up.

A list of all Republican Senators and their phone numbers is over here.  If you don't have a Republican Senator (this offer good in AR, CA, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MI, MT, NJ, NY, ND, RI, VT, WA, WV, WI, and, yes, CT for these purposes), pick someone else's.  

I called my one Republican Senator, Arlen Specter, and spoke to a staffer who said, "If it was Senator Specter, he's perfectly capable of making the objection himself," and that Sen. Specter hadn't mentioned the bill to anyone on his staff, and that he had given them no reason to believe he'd be objecting here.  Which isn't exactly a "no," and I've left a message with the staffer there who should know for sure.

That leaves 48 for the rest of you.  Make your calls, and then come back here and tell us exactly what they say.  They can't keep using their secrecy to defend their secrecy for much longer.

So who is responsible for the secret hold on Russ Feingold's bipartisan electronic disclosure bill?  Our process of elimination whittled it down to Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Judd Gregg (R-NH), so when Kyl firmly denied it yesterday, it was over, right?

Wrong!, says the Washington Post:

Before dawn, the [Sunlight Foundation] group sent an e-mail blast to 200 members who live in New Hampshire and Arizona and they started dialing. "Kyl said, 'It's not me,' about an hour after that," said Ellen S. Miller, the executive director.

But from Gregg, there was silence.

At 5 p.m., his spokeswoman, Erin Rath, replied to a reporter's inquiry by e-mail: "As a matter of practice, Senator Gregg does not use secret holds."

But in this instance? "No," she replied.

So, whodunit?

"Is it possible that someone lied to one of their constituents saying they were not the person who placed a hold on the bill? That is always possible," Miller said. "But I'd be astounded by it."

We are faced with two options in this detour, each with its own pros and cons.  In Call Everyone, we can call every Republican Senator again and repeat this work from scratch to make sure each has firmly, concretely and unmistakably denied being the Senator who requested the hold.  This option may take a lot of time, but it eventually will lead to the correct answer, assuming each office is telling the truth.

Our second option is Operation Bluegrass.  Because, as it turns out, there is one Republican Senator who absolutely knows who's responsible for this hold, and it's Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has never been a fan of campaign finance regulation of any kind, though he has claimed to support this bill.  Both Sens. Lamar! Alexander (R-TN) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) have confirmed that McConnell knows who's responsible for the hold.

So in Operation Bluegrass, you just call Sen. McConnell's office at (202) 224-2541 and ask them: which one of your Senators is responsible for the anonymous hold?  are you responsible for the denial of unanimous consent?  Be civil, but be firm, and let us know what they tell you.  

Sen. McConnell is up for reelection next year and already knows he's vulnerable, and your calls can influence him to do the right thing.  One anonymous Senator can't be allowed the ability to hold up this simple, bipartisan legislation.  Make the call.

edited to add:  If you're going to call other Senators' offices, two tips:

• The best way to phrase the question may be "Does Senator X oppose taking up and passing the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act?", because that avoids the whole "it's not really a hold" question.
• In the interests of conservation of resources, skip the 13 Republicans who are co-sponsoring the legislation.  

We finally know who put that ‘secret’ hold on Russ Feingold’s Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, and I couldn’t be more appalled to say that it was my Senator, Judd Gregg.

The Secret is out, Judd Gregg!  You see, it was a simple matter of hundreds of concerned citizens, led by the Sunlight Foundation calling every Senator and asking them if they put a hold on the bill.  Callers to every other office eventually heard ‘NO’.  Callers to your office, like myself, heard "I’m not sure where the Senator stands on that, I’ll get back to you".

Last week, Sen. Feinstein and I went to the Senate floor to try to get unanimous consent to pass the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, S. 223.  The bill had been reported by the Rules Committee on a voice vote nearly three weeks earlier and has 35 bipartisan cosponsors.  No one expressed opposition to it at either the March 14th Rules Committee hearing on the bill or in the Rules Committee markup when the bill was voted out of committee.  We went to the floor because while Sen. Reid had determined that no Democratic Senator objected to passing the bill, the Republican leadership was not as forthcoming.  As everyone now knows, Sen. Alexander objected "on behalf of a Republican Senator" to our request for unanimous consent to take up and pass the bill.

Yesterday, we reported on the "secret hold" which an anonymous Republican Senator has placed on the Senate electronic disclosure bill, preventing it from being called up for consideration.  (Or "a hold which has been placed secretly but is not a 'secret hold'," if I'm understanding Danny Glover correctly.)

The WaPo editorial page brought down the hammer yesterday:

THE U.S. SENATE hit a pothole on the road to modernity on Tuesday. A request for unanimous consent by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) for a bill that would require candidates for the Senate to file campaign finance reports electronically was blocked by an anonymous Republican senator hiding behind Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who announced the move. Would that this Luddite had the courage of his or her convictions to explain publicly said opposition to 21st-century custom....

What could be the fear? It's not as if senators would be alone in this practice. Filing campaign finance reports electronically is standard for candidates for the House of Representatives and the White House. Political parties, political action committees and "527" groups have to do the same. The point is to make it easier for the public to see who is giving to whom and how the money is being spent. In our up-to-the-minute world, the Senate's insistence on maintaining its cumbersome obstacle course of disclosure procedures, which starts by sending the paper forms to the Senate Office of Public Records, makes no sense.

"This is exactly the type of good-government law that the Senate could adopt as a stand-alone measure," Ms. Feinstein said. She's right. All in favor ought to be given a chance to say yea. All opposed ought to have the guts to come forward and explain their antipathy to sunshine.

I've been working with the Sunlight Foundation on this issue, and we've been trying to uncover the anonymous Republican responsible for blocking this simple, bipartisan legislation.  There are 12 suspects remaining, and here's the Big Ten:

               

Senator	Contact
Jon Kyl (R-Arizona)	(202) 224-4521
Mel Martinez (R-Florida)	(202) 224-3041
Mike Crapo (R-Idaho)	(202) 224-6142
Pat Roberts (R-Kansas)	(202) 224-4774
David Vitter (R-Louisiana)	(202) 224-4623
Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)	(202) 224-5344
Trent Lott (R-Mississippi)	(202) 224-6253
John Ensign (R-Nevada)	(202) 224-6244
Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire)	(202) 224-3324
John Warner (R-Virginia)	(202) 224-2023

In addition, Senators Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi, (202) 224-5054) and Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), (202) 224-4224) haven't denied putting on the hold, but both are cosponsors of the bill, so they're unlikely.

Take a minute.  Give their offices a call, and ask "has the Senator placed a hold on S. 223, the electronic disclosure bill?  Does s/he support passage of the bill?"  And get back to us.  We've done this before, and can succeed on this one with your diligent efforts.

Because once you see how easy it is to work with the Presidential electronic filings, you've got to wonder what some Senators want to hide.

Five items, each of which may be of interest to someone here.

• An anonymous Republican Senator has put a secret hold on the Senate electronic disclosure bill, just like Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Stuck Tubes) did to try to thwart passage of the Coburn-Obama earmark reform.  Sen. Feingold and Sen. Feinstein are pissed.  If you can, call a Republican Senator, ask his/her office if they're responsible for the hold, and demand that the bill be released and voted on.  Let us know if you hear anything.

• The Senate Rules Committee held a hearing this morning on one of Markos' favorite causes -- removing the ban on party coordinated expenditures on general election candidates.  As you may recall, federal candidates right now have no legal way to force party organizations like the DCCC or RSCC to pull objectionable ads ostensibly run on their behalves, even when the candidate believes the ad goes way off-message.  Allowing explicit coordination may force such ads to be more responsible, and eliminate a barrier than has little reason for being, but there's also some potential costs. Bob Bauer explains what's at stake.  

  Among those with some concern are the CFI's Michael Malbin, who notes such a move "would give party leaders the power to bankroll a favored candidate not only in an open seat primary but also in a primary against a sitting member who was becoming too 'independent'.... The leaders have already become more powerful. Do you really want to take it this far?"

• A clean elections bill is moving forward in Iowa, and New Jersey has selected three legislative districts for a public financing pilot program.  Speaking of which, did you check the box to make a three-dollar contribution to the presidential public financing system when filing your tax returns?  According to USA Today, probably not.
• Remember when I asked you to help me think through some issues dealing with the future of campaign communications?  Well, folks interested in my take on the upcoming FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life argument before the Supreme Court, dealing with electioneering communications by corporations and labor groups, can watch this ACS panel discussion from last week or read these prepared remarks.
• Most obscure of all, but worth noting: the FEC will be ruling tomorrow on an advisory opinion request regarding online fundraising -- if a site like ActBlue were to charge contributors a "convenience fee" for the credit card processing costs, does that fee function as an in-kind contribution to the candidate who benefits from the payment?  Paul Ryan explains from the reform community's perspective.  Isn't being a lawyer groovy?

For those who've been following the push to make Senate candidates file their FEC reports electronically just like everyone else, you'll recall that the March 14 hearing on the Feingold-Cochran bill went really well, with the speakers unanimously in support of this simple reform.  Even the Hon. Robert Byrd, the defender of Senate tradition, is set to become the 32nd co-sponsor of this simple, bipartisan, noncontroversial legislation.  As the National Journal notes:

It's not every day that senators get to vote on a bill that's as simple, sensible and non-controversial as the one now pending before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.

Here's what the so-called Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act would do:

• It would save the federal government hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
• It would polish up the Senate's public image, which remains badly tarnished by recent lobbying scandals.
• It would vastly improve public disclosure, and help voters make better-informed choices on Election Day.

Indeed, the bill makes so much sense that it's hard to fathom why it's gone nowhere since its introduction more than three years ago. Not a single senator has publicly opposed the legislation, and numerous newspapers have endorsed it. As Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., put it during a recent hearing on the legislation: "This bill is as close to a no-brainer as you can get in this area."

Which, of course, means it's time for the Republicans to try to mess it up at tomorrow's scheduled mark-up hearing.

The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting today that Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT) wants to amend the bill by adding a provision to allow candidates and parties to coordinate advertisements.   In other words, take a clean, uncontroversial bill and complicate it with an unrelated matter.

We need to make sure that all Democrats on the Rules Committee show up at tomorrow's hearing to defeat the bill, and to persuade as many Republicans as we can to oppose Sen. Bennett's efforts to gum up the works with a more controversial provision that can be handled separately.  So, if one of these Senators belongs to you:

Dems: Feinstein (CA), Byrd (WV), Inouye (HI), Dodd (CT), Schumer (NY), Durbin (IL), B. Nelson (NE), Reid (NV), Murray (WA), Pryor (AR)
Reps:  Bennett (UT), Stevens (AK), McConnell (KY), Cochran (MS), Lott (MS), Hutchison (TX), Chambliss (GA), Hagel (NE), Lamar! (TN)

Then call the Capitol Switchboard toll-free at 1-800-459-1887, ask to be connected to his or her office, and just say something like:

Hi, I was hoping I could speak with someone about Sen. [Feingold if (D), Cochran if (R)]'s electronic disclosure bill?  [wait]  My name is [X], and I live in [Town], [Your State].  I regularly follow politics online, so I was hoping that the Senator would make sure to support S. 223 at tomorrow's hearing, and to make sure it will be voted out as a clean bill.  Does s/he have a position on it?  Is the Senator a co-sponsor?

Two minutes; in, out, done.  Our sources are telling me that some Democrats may skip tomorrow's hearing because they don't believe this issue is important to constituents.  Just a few calls can change their minds.  Make yours today, and let us know what they say.

More: Sunlight Foundation, Campaign Finance Institute.

When we last visited the Campaign Disclosure Parity Act (S. 223) in early January, the Senate had decided not to include within the opening ethics package this simple bill to bring the Senate into the 21st century by requiring that Senate candidates file their FEC reports electronically, making them easily and quickly searchable.  You remember -- don't you? -- how hard it was to sift through hundreds of pages of handwritten filings to find those troubling "petty cash" entries in that Senate primary.

At the time, Sen. Reid promised that this Feingold-Cochran bill would come up again soon, and as I'm typing this, you can watch a live webcast Sen. Feinstein's Rules Committee hold its hearing on S. 223.  All six witnesses support the bill -- indeed, no one openly opposes it anymore -- and here's some of what Sen. Feingold will be saying:

The FEC is required to make available on the Internet within 24 hours any filing it receives electronically.  So if this bill is enacted, electronic versions of Senate reports should be available to the public within 48 hours of their filing.  That will be a vast improvement over the current situation, which requires journalists and interested members of the public to review computer images of paper-filed copies of reports, and involves a completely wasteful expenditure by the FEC of hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to re-enter information into databases, even though every Senate campaign has the information available in electronic format.

This step is long overdue.  There is no excuse for keeping our own campaign finance information inaccessible to the public when the information filed by House and Presidential candidates, PACs, parties, and even 527 organizations is readily available almost immediately.  The Washington Post has called the outmoded Senate campaign reporting system ``obviously unjustified," and Roll Call has called it "indefensible." I couldn't agree more.  Why has the Senate required electronic filing of everyone else, but refused to get rid of its own exemption?    

The current system means that the FEC’s detailed coding, which allows the press and the public to do more sophisticated searches and analysis, is completed over a week later for Senate reports than for House reports.  It means that the final disclosure reports covering the first two weeks of October are often not available for detailed scrutiny until after the election.  Indeed, according to the Campaign Finance Institute, prior to the 2006 election, "[i]n all ten of the most closely followed Senate races, voters were unable to search through any candidate reports for information on [donations made after September]."  And a September 2006 column by Jeffery Birnbaum in the Washington Post noted that "When the polls opened in November 2004, voters were in the dark about $53 million in individual Senate contributions of $200 or more dating all the way back to July."  That’s scandalous Madam Chairman, and there is no good reason for it.

Madam Chairman, let me just say that I know that the election laws have a big impact on campaigns and all Senators want to scrutinize them very carefully for partisan or personal implications.  I am very familiar with controversial and contested campaign finance legislation.  This isn’t that kind of bill.  This bill is as close to a no-brainer as you can get in this area.

The bill currently has 29 co-sponsors, 18 D and 11 R.  And that's where you come in.

If either of your Senators isn't listed (i.e., unless you live in CA, CO, CT, IL or TX), call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak with his or her office.  And all you have to say is some version of this:

Hi, I was hoping I could speak with someone about Sen. [Feingold if (D), Cochran if (R)]'s electronic disclosure bill?  [wait]  My name is [X], and I live in [Town], [Your State].  I regularly follow politics online, so I was hoping that the Senator would support S. 223, the electronic disclosure bill for campaign finance reports which is in front of the Rules Committee today.  Does s/he have a position on it?  Will the Senator co-sponsor the bill?

Be polite (even to the Republican staffers) and be firm.  You'll be done in two minutes.  Then, come back here and tell us how it went.  Every phone call really does make a difference -- it forces their attention, and moves issues up the internal chain-of-command.

Pressure and attention from online activists has eliminated many of the roadblocks from this bill's passage over the past year.  Now, let's finish the job.

edited to add:  MyDD has more.  Our background is here.

edited one more time:  Video of Sen. Feingold's testimony is now online, as his his full written testimony.