Ensign: Mystery senator not me

Friday, Sept. 28, 2007 | 7:29 a.m.

WASHINGTON - Sen. John Ensign not only threw himself into a long-running battle over campaign finance this week, he also has taken a star role in a whodunnit Washington mystery.

For months campaign finance watchdogs have been trying to sniff out which Republican senator anonymously blocked a bipartisan campaign finance bill that would require senators to file their campaign donation forms electronically.

Twice this spring some unnamed Republican senator blocked the bill, using a procedure that had been allowed under Senate rules until just recently.

Furious watchdogs at the Sunlight Foundation launched an Internet campaign urging the public to dial up their senators, ask if they were the culprit and report back to the organization's blog.

After running down the list of 100 senators , Sunlight announced its findings: Essentially, no senator ' fessed up.

Undeterred, the group then offered a $500 reward for anyone who could get video of the Senate Republican leader , Mitch McConnell, explaining which senator from his party was holding up the process.

When Ensign stepped forward Monday, offering an unexpected amendment that he could use to block the bill a third time, Washington sighed with the satisfaction that comes with turning the last page in a mystery novel: Ensign must have been Mr. Anonymous.

But the Nevada senator muddied that theory, telling reporters that he didn't know whether he was the culprit.

"I honestly don't remember," he told The Hill, a Washington newspaper.

By Wednesday, Ensign gave the Sun an unequivocal answer. It wasn't him. His staff checked, and he was in the clear.

That came as no surprise to Bill Allison, a senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation, who never pegged Ensign, whose office had denied he was the mystery man when Sunlight activists called.

Which raises the question - why is Ensign now the point man?

As the head of the Republican committee responsible for electing senators in 2008, Ensign could directly benefit if the campaign finance bill is blocked. The bill would require senators and his committee to report instantly where they get their money, instead of using snail mail , which prevents voters from knowing who has given big money to candidates in the final weeks of an election.

Ensign insists he supports e-filing, and reiterated that Thursday on the Senate floor and after in a briefing with reporters.

But watchdogs remain skeptical.

The Republican election committee Ensign leads "is going to be able to hide its contributions," said Steve Weissman at the Campaign Finance Institute.

Weissman, Sunlight and others think that it's not Ensign but Minority Leader McConnell who is running the show. Democratic Senate staff said when they first learned of the Ensign amendment, it was known as the McConnell amendment. Sunlight presents as Exhibit A internal Senate staff communications in which McConnell refers to the amendment as his.

Ensign said that he and McConnell "have been talking about several amendments" and when staff presented this option, "I felt it was a good idea for me to do it."

The amendment is unrelated to electronic filing of campaign finance reports. Rather, it would require any group filing an ethics complaint against senators to disclose its financial backers.

McConnell's office said the leader's name on the early drafts was just standard procedure. Yes, the amendment came from the leadership office. But until the bill gets filed, it essentially has no sponsor. Thus when it was filed on Monday, it truly belonged to Ensign.

Democrats say his amendment would open the door to weighing the bill down with a range of unrelated issues, stalling the underlying bill so that e-filing might not be in place before the 2008 election.