June 9, 2011 Dear Senator: The undersigned are writing to urge to you cosponsor S.

219, The Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, introduced by Senators Tester and Cochran. In addition, we urge you to voluntarily file your campaign finance reports electronically with the Federal Election Commission. Voluntary electronic filing is a simple step you can take to make your campaign more transparent and show your support for S. 219, even before the bill is enacted. Senator Boxer, Cochran, Cornyn, Leahy, Lugar, Feinstein, Sanders and Tester filed electronically during the first reporting period of the year. All Senate candidates should follow their lead to make campaign finance information more transparent and accessible to the American people. The current system is archaic. Filing campaign finance reports with the Secretary of the Senate, who then prints them out and delivers them to the FEC, only to be reentered into its own computer databases, wastes hundreds of thousands of dollars each year and denies the public timely access to information. Unfortunately, efforts to mandate electronic filing by Senate candidates have been stymied since the bill was first introduced in 2003. Voluntary filing will never obviate the need for a change in the law. But it is an easy way for you to demonstrate your support for transparency. The information already exists in electronic form, and the FEC makes it easy to file electronically by simply downloading its free filing software and contacting the agency for an ID and password. Other candidates candidates running for the House, presidential candidates and other political committees have filed their campaign finance reports electronically for many years. Many of you filed electronically when you were House members. The next deadline for filing FEC reports is July 15. We hope you will decide to file your reports electronically then and continue to do so for every reporting period thereafter. We also hope you will cosponsor S. 219. Both actions will demonstrate your support for more transparent elections. If you would like to discuss this matter further, please have your staff contact Lisa Rosenberg of the Sunlight Foundation at lrosenberg@sunlightfoundation.com

Sincerely, The Campaign Finance Institute The Campaign Legal Center 1

The Center for Responsive Politics Common Cause Fix Congress First Judicial Watch MAPLight.org OMB Watch OpentheGovernment.org Public Campaign Public Citizen The Sunlight Foundation US PIRG