Dark Ages Disclosure

THR EE YEARS AGO we wrote an editorial using the headline above. It decried the senseless and costly loophole under which people running for the Senate -- alone among federal political candidates and committees -- aren't required to file campaign finance reports electronically. In an age when such reports can be filed with the click of a mouse, Senate candidates submit their disclosures on paper, with weeks of delay before they are transferred to a form available and searchable on the Internet. As a result, in the final stretch of campaigns, anyone interested in learning who is bankrolling Senate candidates or how they are spending the cash has to go page by page through voluminous reports. This delay is so obviously unjustified that we expected the legal glitch to be quickly fixed.

Naive us. Three years later, the situation remains unaddressed. According to the Campaign Finance Institute, as late as the week before Election Day, in all 10 of the most closely followed Senate races, no detailed information was available online about contributions between Oct. 1 and Oct. 18, the last filing period before the election. For six candidates in those races -- Democrats Ned Lamont (Conn.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), and Republicans Mike DeWine (Ohio), Rick Santorum (Pa.) and Thomas H. Kean Jr. (N.J.) -- the only financial information available was from before June 30.

It would be easy to change the rule, and the Senate should do so in the final days of the 109th Congress. More than 20 senators, of both parties, have signed on to S.1508, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act. If any senator opposes requiring electronic filing, none is willing to say so. Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who was rumored to be opposed to the change, says he is for it. Senate Rules Committee Chairman Trent Lott (R-Miss.), whose panel has jurisdiction in this area, said three years ago that it was "part of honesty in elections, I think. Make it accessible." Now what's needed is for Mr. Lott to get committee members' approval to speed the matter to the Senate floor.

To put it bluntly: Republicans, why let the new Democratic majority get credit for making this obvious fix? Do it now, while you're still in charge.