Controversy Over Secret Hold On Senate Bill To Eliminate Government Secrets

I first saw this article about the secret hold on the Coburn-Obama bill on open federal records a couple days ago on dailykos.com and decided to blog about it then. Since then, the liberal (and conservative) blogosphere has gotten very active on this issue and was able to get denials from 97 members of the United States Senate that they were not the source of the secret hold. Today comes word that Ted Stevens (R-AK), the self-described "King of Pork" is the source of the secret hold on the legislation. The Los Angeles Times reported on the story in today's edition as an example of "an innovative exercise in Internet-based political activism."

But, wait, there's more! It turns out that Robert Byrd (D-WV) also had a secret hold on The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (S. 2590). As Markos Moulitsas Zuniga says:

All other 99 senators are accounted for. It's pretty clear at this point that the other hold is Byrd. Time for him to fess up and try to explain why he thinks accountability is a bad thing.

Incredible. The two longest-serving senators in the Senate seem to have forgotten that they work for the people, and that it's the people's money they're playing with, not their own.

Indeed. November 7 is going to be a huge day for challengers over incumbents.