Campaign funding watchdogs suspicious as Ensign steps in

Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007 | 7:53 a.m.

WASHINGTON - In the final days before elections, out of nowhere some candidates get infusions of cash. They blast ads, tar their opponents and go on to win.

Voters want to know where the last-minute money came from, and in every federal race except those for U.S. Senate, the public can find out whether the source was, say, Big Tobacco, a powerful union or the candidates themselves.

Senators, however, have avoided the disclosure by exempting themselves from filing campaign disclosure information electronically. Instead, the reports are sent by snail mail to the Federal Election Commission, which can take weeks. By the time they become public, Election Day has come and gone.

Campaign finance watchdog groups thought their chance at reform was at hand this year. But twice, the Senate has tried unsuccessfully to pass legislation with strong bipartisan support that would require electronic filing of returns.

On a third try this week, Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign stepped in to halt the process. He announced on the Senate floor that he would block a vote, as Senate rules allow, unless the bill's author agreed to a vote on an amendment he wants to add that is unrelated to election campaign disclosures.

The bill's author, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, thinks Ensign's amendment would doom her bill and declined to accept it.

Ensign refused to back down, essentially throwing himself into the middle of a years long battle over campaign reform.

Campaign finance watchdog groups now see their chance slipping away because of Ensign. They do not accept his explanation about the amendment.

They note that Republican senators anonymously blocked the bill twice this year, as was allowed under Senate rules until recently. The campaign reformers think that because senators can no longer block the bill secretly, Ensign is carrying water for a Republican leadership that doesn't want the new rules.

Fred Wertheimer of the campaign finance reform group Democracy 21 said that after years of attempts to change the rules "the only way to look at this is as one more effort to block this piece of legislation. "

"Everyone supports the Feinstein bill, but we haven't been able to pass it in four years - what does that tell you? The bottom line is not what Sen. Ensign says but what Sen. Ensign does."

Ensign said Wednesday that he supports the Feinstein bill and the transparency the electronic filings would provide. "It's ridiculous, we've done paper," he said.

But, he said, he saw the opening to address another issue and seized it. His amendment would require nonprofit groups that file ethics committee complaints against senators to disclose their financial backers.

"This other problem is becoming more and more of a problem," he said in a brief interview, explaining that the groups should not be allowed to lodge politically motivated complaints without disclosing their supporters.

Although some watchdog groups think the disclosure rules for nonprofit groups could be considered, they said the proposal is bound to create vast opposition. It would surely hold up the Feinstein bill.

They add that Ensign's amendment would reverse decades of protections that allow private citizens and corporations to donate anonymously to non profit groups dating to the civil rights campaigns of the 1960s.

"This doesn't strike me as being a well-thought-out or serious approach," said Bill Allison, senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, an open-government group.

Feinstein has offered to hold a hearing in her committee on Ensign's proposal, but Ensign said the Senate instead should hold a vote on his amendment.

"She's blocking her own bill by not offering our amendment," he said. Ensign also said he was not one of the senators who had blocked the bill anonymously.

Because Ensign is not known for being involved in these issues, campaign finance watchdog groups suspect he is acting on the behalf of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

A spokesman for McConnell said he supports the Feinstein bill.

If the bill passed now, watchdog groups say , the new procedures would be in place by the first quarter of next year, in time for the elections.

Ensign is chairman of a Republican committee responsible for helping elect senators in 2008. Although his committee already is required to file electronically, individual senators up for reelection are not.

"I hope and the public should hope the senators don't have something they're hiding," said Massie Ritsch, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, which compiles campaign finance data. "But I suppose if there's something in your campaign finance reports you want to keep hidden, this would be one way to do it."