Coburn filibusters for transparency

The AP "reports":

The Senate ground to a halt Wednesday in a display of what an individual senator can do to protest his treatment by some of Capitol Hill's most powerful barons.

Instead of passing a $33.5 billion measure funding energy and water projects and then moving on to other business, the chamber slogged through a 30-hour protest by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who halted further legislative business after one of his pet ideas was dropped from the bill.

Love that spin, depicting Coburn as some kind of diva whose ego is bruised by an imagined insult. There's nothing personal about Coburn's filibuster. Guess what his pet idea was? Transparency and accountability. (Remember before he was elected, Barack Obama pretended it was his pet idea? Turns out, not so much.)

At issue is one of Coburn's top issues — greater transparency in government — as well as his sworn enemy, the powerful Appropriations Committee. Coburn had added to the energy and water bill a provision requiring reports that agencies are required to send to the appropriations panels be made available to other lawmakers and to the public. It's part of his drive for greater transparency in government.

Coburn's amendment won routine Senate approval in July but was dropped during House-Senate talks last month. Under Coburn's plan, reports such as one on the Energy Department's financial balances and a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report on barriers to building new nuclear power plants would have to be posted online right away. He's added similar language to several other bills.

"What is it we don't want the American people to see," Coburn said.

The AP has to work to spin this story in favor of lawmakers who prefer to do their business with the door locked and the shades pulled down.

There's more to the protest, however, than spite. By putting the Senate through this pain, Coburn hopes that other negotiators wouldn't drop comparable Coburn provisions.

"It's the only leverage he has," said Coburn spokesman John Hart.

The situation had the top Senate Democrat steaming.

"It's wasted time," griped Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "We spend hours, days on this floor doing nothing."

We can live with that.

The top House negotiator, Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz., didn't recall why his side insisted that the Senate drop the transparency provision. But a Democratic aide said later that there is concern that making every report public automatically might cause agencies to be less candid in their dealing with the Appropriations Committee. The aide required anonymity to speak candidly.

In other words, they've all got something to hide. So much for draining the swamp.

Needed: more spiteful legislators who share Coburn's pet idea and are willing to play hardball.

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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