[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 104 (Wednesday, July 27, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9182-S9183]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. FEINGOLD (for himself, Mr. McCain, and Mr. Cochran):
  S. 1508. A bill to require Senate candidates to file designations, 
statements, and reports in electronic form; to the Committee on Rules 
and Administration.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, today I will once again introduce with 
the Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, a bill to bring Senate campaigns 
into the 21st century by requiring that Senate candidates file their 
campaign finance disclosure reports electronically and that those 
reports be promptly made available to the public. We are very pleased 
to be joined in our effort in this Congress by the distinguished senior 
Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran. This step is long overdue, and I 
hope the Senate will act quickly on this legislation.
  A series of reports by the Campaign Finance Institute have 
highlighted the anomaly in the election laws that makes it nearly 
impossible for the public to get access to Senate campaign finance 
reports while most other reports are available on the Internet within 
24 hours of their filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). 
The Campaign Finance Institute asks a rhetorical question: ``What makes 
the Senate so special that it exempts itself from a key requirement of 
campaign finance disclosure that applies to everyone else, including 
candidates for the House of Representatives and Political Action 
Committees?''
  The answer, of course, is nothing. The United States Senate is 
special in many ways. I am proud to serve here. But there is no 
justification for not making our campaign finance information as 
readily accessible to the public as the information filed by House 
candidates or others.
  My bill amends the section of the election laws dealing with 
electronic filing to require reports filed with the Secretary of the 
Senate to be filed electronically and forwarded to the FEC within 24 
hours. The FEC is required to make available on the Internet within 24 
hours any filing it receives electronically. So if this bill is 
enacted, electronic versions of Senate reports should be available to 
the public within 48 hours of their filing. That will be a vast 
improvement over the current situation, which, according to CFI, 
requires journalists and interested members of the public to review 
computer images of paper-filed copies of reports, and involves a 
completely wasteful expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars to 
re-enter information into databases that almost every campaign has 
available in electronic format.
  The current filing system also means that the detailed coding that 
the FEC does, which allows for more sophisticated searches and 
analysis, is completed over a week later for Senate reports than for 
House reports. This means that the final disclosure reports covering 
the first two weeks of October are often not susceptible to detailed 
scrutiny before the election.
  It is time for the Senate to relinquish its backward attitude toward 
campaign finance disclosure. I urge the enactment of this simple bill 
that will make

[[Page S9183]]

our reports subject to the same prompt, public scrutiny as those filed 
by PACs and candidates for the other body.
  I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the 
Record.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today I am pleased to submit a resolution 
expressing the sense of the Congress that a commemorative United States 
postage stamp should be issued to promote public awareness of Down 
syndrome and the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee should recommend to 
the Postmaster General that such a stamp be issued. I am honored to be 
joined by Senator Cornyn in this effort.
  Down syndrome is a genetic condition usually caused by an error in 
cell division called non-disjunction. Regardless of the type of Down 
syndrome a person may have, all people with Down syndrome have an 
extra, critical portion of the number 21 chromosome present in all, or 
some, of their cells. This additional genetic material alters the 
course of development and causes the characteristics associated with 
the syndrome.
  Down syndrome affects people of all races and economic levels. It is 
the most frequently occurring chromosomal abnormality, occurring once 
out of every 800 to 1,000 births. In the United States, more than 
350,000 people have Down syndrome. Nearly 5,000 children with Down 
syndrome are born each year. Because the mortality rate connected with 
Down syndrome is decreasing, the number of individuals with Down 
syndrome in our society is increasing. Some experts predict that the 
prevalence of individuals with Down syndrome will double in the next 10 
years, further increasing the need for public acceptance and education 
about this genetic condition.
  I encourage my colleagues to co-sponsor this meaningful resolution 
and assist our efforts to convince the Citizens' Stamp Advisory 
Committee to recommend the issuance of a postage stamp promoting public 
awareness of Down syndrome.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 1508

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Senate Campaign Disclosure 
     Parity Act''.

     SEC. 2. SENATE CANDIDATES REQUIRED TO FILE ELECTION REPORTS 
                   IN ELECTRONIC FORM.

       (a) In General.--Section 304(a)(11)(D) of the Federal 
     Election Campaign Act of 1971 (2 U.S.C. 434(a)(11)(D)) is 
     amended to read as follows:
       ``(D) As used in this paragraph, the terms `designation', 
     `statement', or `report' mean a designation, statement or 
     report, respectively, which--
       ``(i) is required by this Act to be filed with the 
     Commission, or
       ``(ii) is required under section 302(g) to be filed with 
     the Secretary of the Senate and forwarded by the Secretary to 
     the Commission.''
       (b) Conforming Amendments.--
       (1) Section 302(g)(2) of such Act (2 U.S.C. 432(g)(2)) is 
     amended by inserting ``or 1 working day in the case of a 
     designation, statement, or report filed electronically'' 
     after ``2 working days''.
       (2) Section 304(a)(11)(B) of such Act (2 U.S.C. 
     434(a)(11)(B)) is amended by inserting ``or filed with the 
     Secretary of the Senate under section 302(g)(1) and forwarded 
     to the Commission'' after ``Act''.
       (c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section 
     shall apply to any designation, statement, or report required 
     to be filed after the date of enactment of this Act.

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, once again, I am proud to join my friend 
Senator Feingold as a co-sponsor of legislation that will require 
Senate candidates to file campaign finance reports in electronic form. 
This bill will finally remove the exemption the Senate has given itself 
from an important requirement of campaign finance disclosure laws that 
apply to everyone else, including candidates for the U.S. House of 
Representatives and Political Action Committees (PACs).
  Political committees active in Federal elections must submit their 
quarterly financial reports for disclosure by the Federal Election 
Commission (FEC). Anyone interested can nearly instantaneously download 
the reports from the FEC website and conduct computer searches to learn 
about the contributions and expenditures of individual candidates for 
the House, non-Senate national party committees and PACs. The current 
problem is that they cannot do the same for Senate candidates and 
parties because of the Senate's insistence on paper rather than 
electronic filing. The FEC must do more processing of Senate paper 
reports than of House electronic ones. This involves printing or 
copying the Senate reports, up to 10,000 pages a day at times, hand-
coding transactions that cannot be automatically processed, the 
keypunching the data into the electronic database. House electronic 
reports do not need the same treatment. The end result is that in 
contrast to the House, information from the Senate paper reports are 
often not available until well after the election has occurred.
  Because of this problem, it is impossible for voters to be well-
informed about the campaign finance information of their Senators and 
Senate candidates. If a voter wants to consider the nature of the 
campaign finance support received by a Senate candidate and compare 
that support to Senate legislative votes as a factor in deciding for 
whom they will cast a vote, they simply cannot do so due to the 
antiquated nature of the reporting system.
  To address this problem, our legislation requires Senate candidates 
to file their campaign finance reports electronically with the 
Secretary of the Senate. Within 24 hours of receipt of those reports, 
the Secretary is required to forward those reports to the FEC. The FEC, 
in turn is required to make those reports available on the Internet 
within 24 hours as they do other reports. Therefore, electronic 
versions of Senate reports will be available to the public within 48 
hours of their filing.
  Electronic reports are not only transmitted instantly but are more 
accurate than paper submissions because software can easily correct 
mistakes. On the other hand, hand entering of data is always prone to 
error. Furthermore, the data in electronic reports can be rapidly 
searched via the Internet for answers to specific questions. Voters 
will no longer have to go through the time consuming process of reading 
pages and pages filed by Senate candidates or Senate party committees 
to figure out the major donors and their employers, and the major 
recipients of campaign spending. Instead, they can downlown a filed 
report from the FEC website onto their personal computers and quickly 
locate the information they need. This creates effective public 
disclosure.
  The Senate's current failure to provide its constituents with 
electronically disclosed, timely information is unconscionable. Senate 
filings should follow the same criteria as other campaign finance 
reports. There must not be a separate standard for the Senate. 
Ironically, while they do not currently file electronically, Senators 
and Senate candidates already use electronic software in compiling 
their paper reports. If Senators and Senate candidates can use 
technology to run their offices and websites, why can't they use it to 
better inform their own constituents about how their campaigns are 
funded? Our constituents have a right to that information.
                                 ______