Everybody Wants to Be a Director

Publication: Roll Call

Ben Pershing
June 4, 2007

If you see random tourists, or perhaps even seasoned (but notoriously low-paid) reporters, chasing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) with their camera phones in hand, it may be less about the Iraq War and more because they're a bit cash-strapped.

The Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting government transparency, is offering $500 for the first video capturing McConnell "on record, answering (or refusing to answer)" who has a super-secret "anonymous hold" on a bill that would require Senators to file their campaign finance reports electronically, rather than the current practice of filing only on paper, according to Sunlight's new Web site, WhatsMcConnellHiding.com.

"Show up at his office in Kentucky or in DC, catch him as he's boarding a plane to or from Louisville, try to flag him at an event. Capture him on video telling you who is behind the block on S. 223," the site entreats. The winner's video will be posted on YouTube.

The Sunlight Foundation also ponied up for a billboard - asking "What's McConnell Hiding?" - strategically located in McConnell's hometown of Louisville, on Interstate 65 near the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center.

McConnell spokesman Don Stewart dismissed the stunt, saying, "A billboard in Kentucky won't encourage the Majority Leader from Nevada to bring the bill to the floor."

True, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could schedule the bill for floor consideration and jump through all the time-consuming procedural hoops that anonymous holds require. Twice this year, Democratic bill sponsors have attempted to bring up and pass the bill without amendment or debate, only to be thwarted by a dastardly - we assume - "anonymous" Republican Senator (or Senators).

Stewart points out, however, "As Sen. McConnell told Roll Call earlier, the objection wasn't to the bill. It wasn't to ‘sunlight.' ... The objection was raised so that there would be a debate in the sunshine of the Senate floor, in front of the C-SPAN cameras."

Indeed, McConnell did talk to Roll Call weeks ago about the hold. The reporter he spoke with now feels cheated by this Sunlight Foundation contest, having neglected to catch the momentous brush-off on camera.