U.S. Senate: Reform Groups Urge Senators to Support Bill Requiring Electronic Filing of Their Campaign Finance Disclosure Reports

In a letter sent today to the Senate, reform groups urged Senators to support S.375, the “Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act,” which would require electronic filing of campaign finance disclosure reports by Senate candidates under federal campaign finance laws.  

Candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and for the office of President, and nearly all federal political committees, currently file their campaign finance disclosure reports electronically with the FEC.  This data is typically uploaded onto the FEC website for public access within 24 hours.  By contrast Senate filings generally take weeks to become publicly available and the cost of converting them for FEC purposes costs taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. 

The reform groups sending the letter include Americans for Campaign Reform, Campaign Finance Institute, the Campaign Legal Center, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, Democracy 21, Demos, the League of Women Voters, Public Citizen, Sunlight Foundation and U.S. PIRG.

S. 375 is bipartisan legislation introduced by Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) and Sen. Thad Cochran’s (R-MS) and cosponsored by 33 Senators.

To read the full letter, click here.