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August 20, 2006BELTWAY BLOGROLL
The Days Of Senate Reckoning
Bloggers from right to left are working to hold senators accountable for actions both political and legislative, whether it's seeking disclosure about who is blocking a bill designed to combat budgetary "pork" or demanding loyalty to Ned Lamont after his victory in Connecticut's Democratic Senate primary.
Mark Tapscott, the editorial-page editor of The Washington Examiner, is the brains behind the effort to reveal which senator or senators have put a procedural "hold" on the anti-pork bill. The measure would create a public, searchable Web site of all federal grants and contracts, exposing the kind of federal spending that now stays buried in bureaucracy and that some senators apparently want to keep there.
Senate rules allow lawmakers to put anonymous holds on bills, and that's what happened to the database bill last week, according to a blog post by Tapscott. But rather than admit defeat on the bill, he invited bloggers to expose something else: the senators who don't want the bill to go to a vote.
"Whoever it might actually be," Tapscott wrote, "the blogosphere could be instrumental in uncovering the offending senator or senators identity by calling every Senate office and asking if the boss is the one. Let's keep a tally of the responses."
N.Z. Bear liked the idea so much that he created a Porkbusters page dedicated to the mission. Bloggers have been calling Senate offices to ask if their lawmakers are responsible for the hold, and Bear has been posting the results. So far, only nine senators, including the bill's sponsors, are in the clear.
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds added this thought: "I think I agree with the commenter who observes: 'While we're at it, maybe we should try to force an end to this 'secret hold' crap.'"
Bob Geiger, a blogger at The Huffington Post, is doing something similar but with a political goal in mind. He is holding Democratic senators accountable about whether they support Lamont or Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who launched an independent bid for re-election after Lamont defeated him in the primary.
By Geiger's count, 27 of 43 Democratic senators have said they support Lamont. He divided the others into categories of "undecided" (10) and "Rogue's gallery of the total sell-outs" (6). "So there's 16 of them who are going to have a hard time looking Senator Lamont in the face when he shows up in the halls of Congress in January," Geiger wrote. He encouraged readers to call their senators and apply some pressure.
Posted by Danny | 08:26 PM
