Guest Blog: The Sunlight Foundation's Paul Blumenthal on Sen. Mitch McConnell & The Blocked Transparency Legislation

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Managing Editor's note: This is a guest blog by User:Paul Blumenthal, one of SourceWatch's citizen editors and a staffer for the Sunlight Foundation who blogs at In Broad Daylight. It does not necessarily represent the views of the Center for Media and Democracy. We welcome all informative, quality submissions related to Congress and Congresspedia articles, regardless of the point of view. If you'd like to submit a post for publication on the front page, see the guest blog info page.

Today, the Sunlight Foundation launched a new campaign to reveal which senator is blocking passage of the Senate Campaign Disparity Act of 2007 (S. 223). If you’ve been following this story here you know that twice this bill - which would require senators to file their campaign finance reports electronically - has been blocked by an anonymous Republican senator who is being hidden by Sen. Mitch McConnell. In his home state of Kentucky we are launching a billboard and a Web site to force McConnell to reveal the name of the anonymous senator. The Louisville Courier-Journal, The Hill, and the Politico have already picked up the story. Check out What’s McConnell Hiding? for more details or continue reading. There are number of ways for you to get involved:

You can call Mitch McConnell and ask him to release the names, write to an editorial board in Kentucky, take our poll to indicate your position on what McConnell should do, or participate in our contest. Our poll is equipped as a poll widget, which we encourage you to put on your blog, if you have one, so that your readers can vote in the poll as well.

In our contest, the first person to send us a video of McConnell responding to questions about who is blocking S. 223 will receive $500. That’s $500 if you can get McConnell on record responding to questions or refusing to respond about which senators are blocking S. 223. So break out those cameras and start recording.

This campaign is important to end the notion that our elected representatives can hide while they prevent no-brainer legislation from passing. It’s time to let Mitch McConnell know that this practice has got to stop now! No more secret government, no more delayed campaign finance information, and no more anonymous senators. I've added more information on this issue to the Congresspedia page on transparency in the U.S. Congress.