Reportedly, after being stalled for years, the Senate is likely to soon consider a bill that would require senators to file their campaign finance reports electronically. The Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act was originally introduced in 2003 by Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Thad Cochran (R-MS), and The Hill reports that "Feingold is set to reintroduce the measure in the coming weeks." Last year OMB Watch was part of Pass S.223, a campaign to get the bill passed.

The bill did not move because of Senator John Ensign's (R-NV) hold on the bill. Ensign sought to include an amendment that would have required any organization that filed an ethics complaint against a senator to reveal its donors. OMB Watch along with other nonprofit organizations opposed this "poison pill" amendment.

Currently, Senate campaigns file paper copies of their quarterly disclosure reports with the Secretary of the Senate, which are then submitted to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The current Senate process is time consuming and costly.

According to a blog post from the Center for Competitive Politics; "Ensign has indicated he's dropping his weird poison pill to this legislation." And an editorial in RollCall ($$) calls for the Senate to pass this commonsense measure. "It ought to be processed promptly by the Rules Committee, now chaired by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and pushed to the floor for passage as early in the year as possible so if it’s subject to more shenanigans, they can be exposed and resolved."