Ensign Continues to Block Electronic Filing Bill
by Amanda Adams*, 9/28/2007
The Hill reports that Senator John Ensign (R-NV) is holding firm in stalling S.223, insisting that there is first a vote on an amendment that would force groups that file ethics complaints to disclose their donors.
TPMMuckraker.com has a clear explanation of events. "His bill would require all non-profits that file ethics complaints against senators to disclose all donors who gave $5,000 or more. His bill, he said on the floor, was designed to 'protect individual Senators from purely politically motivated ethics complaints that come against us that sometimes we will have to run up legal bills and all kinds of other things.' Without any evident irony he added: 'transparency is the best way to do it.'"
However, if Ensign is very concerned about disclosing the contributors to nonprofits that run politically motivated ethics complaints perhaps, he should not have voted to remove the grassroots lobbying disclosure provision from S.1 in January.
