Russ Feingold: “I sincerely thank the Senator from California for moving the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act through the Rules…”

“I sincerely thank the Senator from California for moving the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act through the Rules Committee so that we are now in a position to finally pass this legislation. As the Senator from California indicated, at last count, we now have 35 cosponsors for S. 223, 20 Democrats and 15 Republicans, and no known opposition. The bill fixes the anomaly in the election laws that makes it nearly impossible for the public to get timely access to Senate campaign finance reports, even though most other reports are available on the Internet within 24 hours of their filing with the Federal Election Commission, FEC. This bill will finally bring Senate campaigns into the 21st century by amending the section of the election laws dealing with electronic filing to require reports filed with the Secretary of the Senate to be filed electronically and forwarded to the FEC within 24 hours. 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.”