| Sen. Stevens is 'the secret senator' |
CNN has confirmed that Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has placed a hold on a bill that would require the government to publish online a database of federal spending.
"He does have a hold on the bill," Stevens' spokesperson Aaron Saunders told CNN. "At the time he placed the hold he notified Sen. [Tom] Coburn and his staff and identified several questions we had with the bill. Two weeks ago Sen. Coburn named Stevens as having a hold on the bill, so we don't consider it a secret."
Senate tradition allows any senator to keep a piece of legislation from reaching the Senate floor by placing a hold on the bill.
Coburn's office confirmed that Coburn had revealed Stevens' hold during a town hall meeting in Oklahoma two weeks ago.
The bill has become a cause c¨Śl¨¨bre for both liberal and conservative bloggers as they tried to uncover the "secret senator" who had blocked passage of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590). The bill was introduced earlier this year by Sens. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, and Coburn, R-Oklahoma.
The conservative-leaning, anti-government waste site Porkbusters urged readers to call their senators and ask them to go on the record denying that they placed the hold. TPMmuckraker, under the banner "blogosphere unites in pursuit of masked senator" also got in on the act, posting updates from readers around the country.
The effort prompted Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to weigh in online: Blogging at his political action committee Web site, Sen. Frist, R-Tennessee, called on "all members, when asked by the blog community, to instruct their staff to answer whether or not they have a hold."
Saunders said Stevens did not attempt to keep his hold anonymous.
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