On Monday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) asked Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to help her pass S.223, the Senate campaign finance electronic filing bill. McConnell has been abetting a Republican objection to the bill by refusing to reveal information about who in his party does not approve of this no-brainer legislation. While McConnell states that Republican Senators want to offer amendments to the bill he also refuses to identify and describe these amendments. Feinstein is committed to passing this bill and McConnell has said that he supports it. McConnell must meet with Sen. Feinstein to work together to pass this bill without poison pill amendments. Feinstein’s letter asks for McConnell to identify to her the amendments that Republican Senators wish to offer. If they have the kind of support that S.223 has than they could be added. If they are controversial, they should go through the regular committee process. This is very simple and fair. Read the letter:

The Honorable Mitch McConnell

The Republican Leader

United States Senate

Washington, DC 20510

Dear Mitch:

I write to ask for your assistance in getting S. 223, the “Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act,” adopted by the Senate. I am willing and eager to work with you and our Senate colleagues to get this legislation passed.

As the Republican Leader and also a member of the Rules Committee, you are well aware of hurdles Senators Feingold and I have faced in having this bill brought up for consideration and passed on the Senate Floor.

To date, the Member or Members on your side who objected to taking up and adopting the bill have not come forward to say why the bill is being held up.

This is a simple, straight-forward bill that brings transparency to campaign report filing procedures. There is no public opposition. Most important, S. 223 has broad bipartisan support — currently, 38 of our colleagues have signed on as cosponsors, including 15 Republicans.

Your press spokesman has suggested that the bill was held up because some members of your party may wish to offer amendments. I am ready to meet with those Senators to discuss their amendments and try to address their concerns.

If they insist on remaining anonymous, I would ask you to identify those amendments yourself.

If those amendments, like this bill, have broad bipartisan support and no one opposes them on the merits, we may be able to reach agreement to have them considered.

If, on the other hand, they are controversial proposals and would threaten the ultimate enactment of this bill, I would ask that you allow the Rules Committee to consider them in the normal course and permit this bill to go through without amendment.

I look forward to working with you and my Senate colleagues to make S. 223 law.

With warm personal regards,

Dianne Feinstein

Chairman

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Don't forget to keep calling your Senators and ask if they registered an objection to S.223. Use this comment form to let us know what you find or leave them in the comment thread. Meanwhile, why don't you watch Sens. Feinstein and Feingold denounce the last week's objection right before Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) registers yet another anonymous objection.

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The former chief of staff to Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) – now a lobbyist – is a master at greasing the wheels to get earmarks, for her clients from the Chairman, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Letitia White’s lobbying firm and their clients have contributed 37 percent of the $1.3 million raised by Lewis’ political action committee over the past six years while she has obtained numerous earmarks for her clients, defense contractors and California municipalities. Congress is eyeing reform of this practice as the federal budget deficit swells to unheard of proportions. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Trent Lott (R-CA); John McCain (R-AZ) and Tom Coburn (R-OK); and Barack Obama (D-IL) all have varying proposals to reform the process. Meanwhile, The Hill newspaper reports that some lawmakers receive earmark requests via e-mail, making the process easier for both parties.

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Earmarks in Appropriations bills have ballooned from 4,000 a decade ago to over 14,000 today. Legislators from both parties are taking aim at these projects and are proposing various degrees of reforms. In a Bloomberg article conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is “threatening to slow the Senate’s business to a crawl by forcing his colleagues to vote on each of the thousands of obscure, sometimes unusual pork-barrel projects.” He asks, “Should we be spending money in ways that are other than in the vital interest of the country?” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is joining Coburn in threatening to bring each earmark to a vote. According to the New York Times, Trent Lott (R-MS) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) have proposed a reform that “would allow senators to object to any earmarks added in the final stages of negotiations and force sponsors to win at least 60 votes to retain them … [and] require that the final version of legislation be available for at least 24 hours before a floor vote and that the sponsor of each earmark be included along with a justification.”

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Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Trent Lott (R-MS) offered their proposal to reform the process of earmarking in appropriations bills, according to Roll Call. The reform would allow Senators to challenge individual items in a conference report and require that 60 votes be required for the item to survive. The reform would also shine much needed “sunlight” onto the process by requiring that the conference report list the lawmaker that has proposed each earmark along with a justification for the item and by requiring that all conference reports be available 24 hours in advance on the Internet so that members may study and read them. The Washington Post and the New York Times both devoted space to earmarks today, the Post giving a primer on the process and the Times talking about the strains that earmarks place on the Energy Department.

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