Kudos to the good folks making this happen, assuming it goes through it's a nice reminder that sometimes our leaders really can be pressured into doing the right thing. Our work here on the political intertubes is made easier when our government cooperates with the open source concepts of governing, and frankly, if I were a Republican I'd want the Democratic data out there just as much as I'm sure the reverse is true. But I'm also impressed with getting credit, I guess the Hill considers blogs are influential as some established public interest groups. That's interesting.

Weissman pointed to the success of the blogger-backed spending database bill as another factor building momentum for electronic filing.

Former FEC Chairman Bradley Smith, who consistently backed the commission’s suggestions for electronic filing, questioned in a recent posting on the Center for Competitive Politics blog whether the bill would actually lead to more engaged voters willing to parse dense campaign-finance reports. But Smith, in an interview, predicted that senators eventually would vote to eliminate the needless paper trail.

“I’m always in favor of the public being informed,” Smith said. “Some of these bloggers get to be pretty big outfits, but for the most part they [better] represent average citizens than the editorial page of The New York Times.”

Indeed. I guess that has something to do with the fact that few bloggers are married to billionaires or have fat trust funds of their own. Dammit, Soros- where's my check? If it doesn't come here soon, I'm just going to have to continue to be a shrill, critical blogger complaining about gay Republican pedophiles and demanding an end to a senseless war.