Thursday, January 08, 2009

McCain/Feingold II

Not a bad list of co-sponsors, folks, and some reasonable ideas, too.

Joining the old reformers are young guns Claire McCaskill, Tom Coburn, and Lindsey Graham. CongressDaily (subscription required) details what the reform package will look like:

[T]he measure would allow individual senators to raise points of order against unauthorized earmarks in appropriations bills. Earmark backers would need 60 votes to overcome the objection and the cost of the bill would be reduced by the amount of the earmark.

The measure also requires appropriations and authorizing conference reports to be electronically searchable for 48 hours before the Senate considers the conference reports and requires that recipients of federal funds disclose payments to registered lobbyists.

This is a big improvement over the current earmark process

HT: Sunlight Foundation

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