Yesterday my
Diary was an attempt to find out who was blocking Obama's government transparency bill.
Just before the August recess the Senate was ready to vote on a bill introduced by Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) that would create a public, Google-like website with a searchable database of the name and amount of every federal grant, contract or award of $25,000 or more. It would provide free and immediate access the information that is normally quite difficult to obtain.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously passed the measure July 27th and it was on its way to full Senate passage when an unknown Senator placed a "secret hold" on the bill. According to Senate rules, the bill will never come to a vote as long as the hold continues.
Holds are an unofficial part of Senate parliamentary tradition that allow a single senator to block a measure anonymously.
Well it turns out that all the phone calls to Senators asking if they blocked the bill, was not necessary. (Though it does show what a bi-partisan effort in the blogosphere can accomplish).
The Arkansas Times Record published the following on August 18th:
One of the senators most criticized for his personal projects, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has a hold of his own on Coburn's bill to make public the spending patterns of the government. Called the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, the legislation calls for the creation of a database open to the public where citizens can track government spending.
"He's the only senator blocking it," Coburn said of Stevens.
Now why would Steven's want to block a bill that would allow citizens to hold politicians accountable?
Coburn and Stevens sparred earlier this year when Coburn attempted to block the so-called "bridge to nowhere," a transportation project in Alaska to build a bridge that less then 60 people a day would use that would have received $223 million from the federal government.
Steven's is putting personal revenge before the publics right to know where their money goes.Well that and a public record of Steven's pork projects would probably be rather embarassing for him. Hell even the GOP'ers are tired of him.
UPDATE:
TPMmucraker is reporting that:
A spokesman for Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) just confirmed his boss was the man behind the secret hold on the Coburn/Obama spending database bill, which has captivated a segment of the political blogging community in recent days.
"Sen. Stevens does have a hold on the bill," said the spokesman, who would only speak on the condition he not be named. He added that Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-OK) office was notified of the hold after it was placed. So Coburn's comments two weeks ago may have been duly informed.