Common Cause Blog

Use the Internet!

This Senate this week is considering a simple, 4-page Administration proposal to fix Wall Street and the nation's finances.� Here's another simple proposal - file campaign finance reports electronically.� As a NY Times editorial says, "Just Click Send":

As hard as it is to believe, the Senate is still cynically mired in the dark age of paper filings. Candidates submit required reports on political money and donors via paper sheaves that wend through slow-mo typing, re-typing and mailing, ensuring that full disclosure only occurs sometime after Election Day.

We'll save transparency for next year

The Washington Independent takes a look at the absurdity that is the U.S. Senate's continuing to file paper campaign finance reports, largely thanks to Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) blocking the bill that would make report filing electronic.

It doesn't have to be this way. The House moved to mandatory electronic filing at the start of 2001. The Senate was exempt at the time (and remains so) because that law applied only to those filing directly with the FEC. (The Senate, recall, files first to the Sec. of the Senate.) Searchable House records are available online almost immediately after members file.

Some people just really liked the 20th century and don't want it to end, I guess.

FEC mess

After months without a functioning FEC, as we called on Senate leadership to find suitable nominees and re-constitute the important -- if often ineffectual -- commission in time for the peak of election season, this week it looked like we might have caught a break. Sen. Harry Reid's office spoke with the White House, and the White House sent six FEC nominations (three D, three R) to the Senate.

How quickly hopes can crumble.

We've recently heard that Sen. Mitch McConnell is poised to insist on a package deal -- all or none -- rather than allowing each nominee to get an up or down vote.

This is an unworkable proposal, not unexpected from McConnell, a bitter opponent to all campaign finance regulation. First, the choice of nominees reflects a remarkably partisan and subversive intention towards the FEC, in particular the selection of Hans von Spakovsky and Donald McGhan and the removal of current chairman David Mason from the list. CC Prez Bob Edgar sent this letter to the entire U.S. Senate on Wednesday. Here's part of his beef:

We continue to oppose the White House's choice of Hans von Spakovsky to the FEC and urge Senators to vote against his confirmation.

We also oppose the nomination of Donald McGhan to the FEC. McGhan served as counsel to former Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX) on matters of campaign finance reform and ethics. As you know, Mr. Delay was indicted on campaign finance violations by the U.S. Attorney's office in Texas and was admonished repeatedly by the House Commission of Official Standards of Conduct. It would be difficult to find a more ill-suited candidate.

The subject of stripping Mason's name off the list brought back memories of a similar purge in Common Cause's early days, however, and is in some ways the most egregious piece of this whole maneuver.

Senator Ensign -- Show Us the Money!

I was in Reno, Nevada yesterday with former Nevada Common Cause Board Chair Jim Hulse and a group of activists who were calling on Senator Jim Ensign to explain his obstruction of a bill to require U.S. Senators to tell us who they are taking money from -- now.

Watch a video of our event:

Currently, Senators file campaign finance disclosure reports on paper. The paper reports are scanned into a computer, printed out, and then retyped to be placed on the Federal Election Commission website. This process takes about four months and costs about $250,000 in taxpayer dollars.

Top Ten: DC Voting Rights Act

Huffington Post recently named the top ten public policies of the year -- the DC Voting Rights Act was among them. Congress can pass the bill this year and add some much-needed lustre to the 110th's thin record of achievement. Here's the post:

6. D.C. in the House! Forget the tacky mottos on the typical state license plate, Washington D.C.'s slogan, "Taxation Without Representation", is a stinging indictment of the District's lack of even one federal representative empowered to vote in Congress. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C's indomitable delegate, can debate with the best of them, but without the D.C. Voting Rights Act, neither she nor anyone else D.C. residents elect to Congress can cast a binding vote. No matter that the District's population is greater than, say, Wyoming's (two senators and a representative, thank you very much) or that its residents pay taxes and serve on juries, or even that the U.S. is a signatory to international treaties guaranteeing full voting rights. The D.C. Voting Rights Act passed the House this year for the first time in decades. Supporters even had a plan to win over GOP Senators spooked by what would likely be a new Democratic seat: balancing it with another seat for the heavily Republican state of Utah. Alas, the deal still failed to overcome a partisan filibuster. We cast our ballot for the D.C. Voting Rights Act, an affirmation of America's deepest democratic values, as one of the best policies of 2007.

What the Justice Department Doesn't Need

Cross-posted on The Hill Blog.

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) said it best today as the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey as attorney general

"He will, in fact, enforce the laws that we pass in the future?" Kennedy said, mocking the assurances Mukasey gave to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) that he would enforce an anti-torture law if Congress were to pass one. "Can our standards have really sunk so low? Enforcing the law is the job of the attorney general. It's a prerequisite, not a virtue."

Enforcing the law is even more important in a Justice Department that has been badly damaged by an attorney general who put partisan loyalty above the rule of law. The nation cannot afford to have that happen again. Yet by refusing to be clear in his answers on whether he considers waterboarding illegal, Mukasey gives no assurance that he would do anything differently than his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales.

Common Cause is urging the full Senate to vote AGAINST Murkasey's confirmation, and the organization is far from alone.

Four retired Judge Advocates General (JAGs), the legal arm of the U.S. military, declared unequivocally in a letter to Sen Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that "waterboarding is inhumane, it is torture, and it is illegal." Twenty-four retired US intelligence officers have also weighed in, asking that the Senate Judiciary Committee hold the nomination until Mukasey clarifies his remarks. Four retired generals have also written to Leahy, agreeing that water boarding is illegal torture in all circumstances.

Judge Mukasey's disingenuous responses about torture show a contempt for Congress and a disturbing willingness to turn his back on the law when the alternative - acknowledging illegal torture - could have troubling implications for the President who nominated him.

The Senate should do the right thing for the country and for the beleaguered Justice Department and reject Mukasey and continue searching for a suitable nominee.

Born & Raised in DC

When the Senate failed to end the filibuster on the DC Voting Rights Act, there was a lot of talk by opponents about the Constitution.� But behind the rhetoric there is a lot of ignorance about the District - even with Senators who live and work in DC.

One myth is that DC is full of transients, who come here to work in politics for a few years and then leave.� Marc Fisher, in the WaPo, has some stats disputing that myth.� And one of his readers succintly put down this notion:

I think the problem is as follows:

1) There is a certain subpopulation in D.C. that is from another area and is here specifically to represent that area
2) They are very visible to the media
3) They all complain bitterly about the city

This creates a distorting effect.

And here's Fisher's list of cities and % of people who were born in the city and still live there:� -- read more --