(crossposted at BlueGrassRoots)

With John McCain surging in the polls, Mitch McConnell has to be sweating bullets. McCain and McConnell have butted heads repeatedly over the years, specifically on campaign finance and pork barrel spending.

McCain comes from the rational school of thought that big money interests shouldn't be able to buy and sell politicians, and we shouldn't sneak earmarks into legislation that run up our deficit. McConnell, however, believes that corporate interests' ability to bribe politicians and ensure their election is "free speech". A LOT of fat cats have "spoken" to Mitch over the years, of course. Mitch also believes that earmarks and pork barrel spending, which bankrupt our government and burdens the next generation of Americans, is a great way to buy votes and "reward" his campaign contributors.

Needless to say, McCain wouldn't be the most enthusiastic partner on the Republican ticket in Kentucky. Especially when running against a fiscally resonsible, ethical, 27-year Marine vet with a distinguished military record.

And look at this quote that the Romney campaign pulled out of the archives lately, in it's Top 10 list of McCain "attacking" fellow Republicans:

6. Sen. McCain Accused Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Of The "Most Egregious Incident" Of Corruption He Had Seen In The Senate. "It escalated when McCain reiterated the charges Oct. 10 in a cross-examination, calling McConnell's actions the 'most egregious incident' demonstrating the appearance of corruption he has ever seen in his Senate career." (Amy Keller, "Attacks Escalate In Depositions," Roll Call, 10/21/02) 

I'm not sure how you call that an "attack" when he's simply stating the obvious, but thanks for the quote anyway, Mitt.

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The Courier-Journal’s James R. Carroll reports that the government agency in charge of enforcing campaign spending laws is unable to do so, thanks in no small part to Sen. Mitch McConnell’s well-documented obstructionism:

With only two commissioners in place since the start of the new year, the FEC is unable to issue finance rulings, file suits or levy penalties for violations of the campaign laws. Four votes are required for any decision.

McConnell insisted last month that the Senate vote on all four nominees together, including one who has drawn criticism for his previous work in the Department of Justice’s civil-rights division.

That nominee, Hans von Spakovsky, came under fire from Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a presidential hopeful, and others for advocating policies in Texas and Georgia that critics said undermined voting rights.

…

[Fred] Wertheimer said McConnell has effectively shut down the commission.

“It leaves us appearing to be a banana republic,” Wertheimer said. “It is simply irresponsible for this commission to be shut down when we are on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, to be followed shortly by the New Hampshire primary and in a month by Super Tuesday.”

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(crossposted at BlueGrassRoots and DailyKos)

Put yourself in Mitch McConnell's shoes. One of your chief concerns, besides your lack of lips, are those snooping citizens, bloggers and journalists who look up who your donors are that fill up your campaign war chest. That really screws up everything. Once they find this out, they're able to trace connections between this and those juicy federal earmarks that you give out. (screw the Club for Growth, you LOVE big gov't pork).

So when popular bipartisan legislation comes up that allows more efficient government transparency on campaign financing, you do everything within your power to obstruct, delay and block that legislation from coming up for a vote.

And this is exactly what Mitch McConnell has done, with Sen. John Ensign being his willing accomplice. From the Sunlight Foundation:

Sen. John Ensign continues to block the campaign finance electronic filing bill that Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Russ Feingold have been attempting to pass all year. The bill, which the Sunlight Foundation has fought hard to get passed, has 41 cosponsors including 16 Republicans (including Sens. Bob Bennett, Lamar Alexander, and John Cornyn among others). Despite this not being a partisan issue, Ensign insists on blocking consideration of the bill by offering an irrelevant and controversial amendment, which initially came from the offices of Sen. Mitch McConnell,? to require outisde groups filing ethics complaints to disclose their funding sources. This has been noted as unconstitutional law and is an absurd requirement to demand.

Is the Senate Ethics Committee truly overburdened with cases? Sen. Ensign says that complaints in the Senate can be written "on a beverage napkin or written in crayon." I'm not sure what number of ethics complaints are submitted by drunks and children (or some combination of the two) but it can't be that high. In fact, the only known ongoing Senate Ethics Committee investigation was started by the Senate Republicans when they filed a complaint against Sen. Larry Craig? for pleading guilty to possibly, maybe, perhaps being gay. Ellen just linked to a list of potential ethical issues facing a number of Republican Senators that could be investigated. If outside groups can file these complaints so easily - in crayon and on a beverage napkin - why isn't the Ethics Committee investigating anything?

Sen. Ensign's implacable resolve to deny easy public access to campaign finance information appears to be working to keep the public in the dark about the money he and other Senators, like Sen. Mitch McConnell, will be raising this election season. Thanks to Sen. Ensign the public will have less access to vital information about who is funding Senate campaigns. I'm sure those contributors will raise a toast at the next fundraiser Ensign hosts.

If only submitting earmarks were as easy as Ensign claims it is to submit an ethics complaint. I'd get my set of Crayolas and sit down with a bar napkin to set aside some funds to study gas capture technology in the U.S. Senate. They do it for cows.

When you have no ideas, ethics or morals, blatant obstructionism is the only thing you can fall back on. How sad. 

(and speaking of campaign finance, be sure to give to our ActBlue page to Ditch Mitch! we're trying to get to $1000.)

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From the Sunlight Foundation:

Last April the Campaign Disclosure Parity Act of 2007, which would require Senators to file their campaign disclosure forms electronically, was blocked by a Republican Senator. The Sunlight Foundation launched a campaign called What’s McConnell Hiding? to find out who that Senator was and why they would object.

On September 24th, 2007, Sens. Russ Feingold and Dianne Feinstein offered the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act of 2007 for Unanimous Consent again, however, it was blocked again by an objection from Sen. John Ensign (R-NV). Unlike previous objections to the bill, Sen. Ensign’s objection was not anonymous. This is likely due to the ban on secret holds, imposed by the recently passed Honest Leadership and Accountability Act of 2007.

Sen. Ensign objected to the bill and offered an irrelevant poison pill amendment. Ensign’s amendment would require outside groups filing ethics committee complaints to disclose their funding. Rather than vote on this unrelated amendment Sens. Feingold and Feinstein pulled their Unanimous Consent request. Sen. Ensign has since stated that he is unsure if he was the senator who placed the original anonymous hold on the bill. Staffers in his office claim he wasn’t.

A document circulated among Democratic Senate offices indicates that the efforts to block passage of the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act originate from the office of the Minority Leader Mitch McConnell himself. The document, a Unanimous Consent agreement, labels the amendment offered by Ensign as a “McConnell amendment.” So, McConnell wasn’t hiding the identity of a fellow senator. He was hiding himself!

We still feel this bill is important to create a more transparent Congress. Please call Sen. McConnell and tell him enough is enough pass S.223 and stop hiding.

Washington Office: (202) 224-2541
Western Kentucky Office: (270) 442-4554
South Central Kentucky Office: (270) 781-1673
Louisville Metro Office: (502) 582-6304
Bluegrass Area Office: (859) 224-8286
Northern Kentucky Office: (859) 578-0188
Eastern Kentucky Office: (606) 864-2026

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Between hiring a stealthy campaign strategist for his 2008 reelection campaign, working to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and reluctantly voting for greater transparency in government, how on earth does Sen. Mitch McConnell find the time to draft some b.s. anti-family and anti-children legislation and find the nerve to call it the “Kids First Act”?

Being a literary sort of person, I should probably recognize this whole nonsense of cleverly naming legislation so that Americans will not be outraged at what the legislation really says and does as an ironic device. Fortunately, my low-brow aesthetic most always trumps my literary one, and from here on out I will refer to this practice (system, manner, or condition) as it occurs in politics, as “oppositism.” The noun “oppositicity” will describe the state or quality of being of an “oppositist” mindset. An “oppositist” shall henceforth refer to any politician who insults my intelligence by engaging in oppositism.

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In an editorial today, the Sacramento Bee calls on Senator Mitch McConnell to use his influence — you know, the influence that he says is so important and powerful that it alone is reason enough for us Kentuckians to return him to the U.S. Senate next year — to stop the Republican hold that has been anonymously placed on legislation that would require senators to be more transparent about their campaigns’ finances.

Editorial: Phantom still at large

As noted on this page Friday, a single U.S. senator continues to hold up passage of a bill that would enable quicker disclosure of campaign dollars to Senate candidates. This unnamed senator — whom we’ve dubbed The Phantom — has placed what is known as an “anonymous hold” on the bill. By doing so, this senator hopes to keep voters in the dark by preventing Senate candidates from filing their disclosure reports electronically.

Who is this masked man or woman? On Friday, we suggested that Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee presumably knows The Phantom’s identity. He, after all, was the first senator to “act on behalf” of a fellow Republican senator and place a hold on the bill. But the senator, according to press secretary Scot Montrey, doesn’t know The Phantom, doesn’t want a hold on the bill in question and only acted because of archaic Senate procedures that allow for anonymous holds. Yet there are reasons to believe the good senator from Tennessee has been entangled in The Phantom’s web of deceit. Under the Senate’s convoluted and closeted procedures, a single senator can place a hold on a bill simply by requesting it of the Senate floor staff. Whenever the bill comes up for a vote, the floor staff then randomly picks a senator of the same party to issue the hold. Montrey claims that Alexander was this unlucky senator.

On Monday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein sent a letter to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and asked for his help in removing the hold from the campaign reform bill. Whether or not McConnell knows the identity of The Phantom, he should use his considerable influence to put an end to this obstruction immediately.

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An editorial in today’s Herald-Leader calls out Senators Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning for their roles in preventing increased transparency in campaign financing.

Voters ill-served by stalling electronic filing bill

Kentuckians have had prominent roles in the U.S. Senate’s embarrassing stall of long-delayed financial disclosure legislation.

Republican Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, has not allowed a vote on Senate Bill 223, which requires campaign and other public financial documents to be filed electronically.

It’s the same rule that House lawmakers and candidates and presidential candidates must follow. It’s also a proposal that that has broad bipartisan support. But an anonymous senator has prevented a vote on the issue.

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., served as Senator X’s proxy last week, objecting to a vote on the legislation that makes information more accessible and saves taxpayers the cost of transferring information from paper documents.

It’s difficult to see the blocking strategy as anything but another of those too-clever maneuvers that serve only to undermine public support for Congress.

McConnell says he will give the name of the objecting senator when the Democrats schedule the bill for a full House debate.

Democrats want the bipartisan bill approved without a floor debate to avoid efforts to kill it by attaching “poison pill” amendments.

One likely amendment, which McConnell supports, would allow more coordination between political parties and individual campaigns, which often leads to more negative attack ads.

McConnell has been hostile to campaign finance reform, and as GOP Senate leader, he looks for ways to assert his party’s clout.

Yet, it’s hard to fathom how it helps McConnell, the GOP or Bunning to be seen as unwilling for the Senate to use 21st century tools to provide voters information about those who want to represent us.

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