News-Record.com

Call it citizen journalism. Call it distributed journalism. Call it a blogswarm. Call it what you will, but there's one United States senator with legislative blood on his/her hands, and a whole bunch of bloggers and blog readers, from across the country and across the political spectrum, who are trying to identify him/her.

Seems there was this bill, co-sponsored by Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn and Illinois Democrat Barack Obama, that would have let anyone with an Internet connection do some serious scrutiny on federal spending. Just one problem:

The measure had been unanimously passed in a voice vote [in July] by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and had support from heavy hitters such as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. It was on the fast track for floor action before Congress recessed on Aug. 4 when someone put [an anonymous] hold on the measure.

Now the bill is in political limbo. Under senate rules, unless the senator who placed the hold decides to lift it, the bill will not be brought up for a vote.

Who is the senator who is preventing a vote on this legislation? We don't know, but Porkbusters.org, GOPProgress.com and Josh Marshall's TPMMuckrakers.com have been trying to find out. The latter site has asked its readers to contact their senators and get them on the record as to whether they were the senator who placed the hold on the bill and is keeping a running tally of what all the groups involved are finding. (Both North Carolina senators have denied being the culprit.)

UPDATE: Looks like we have a prime suspect (though not a confirmed culprit) in Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska, godfather of the $223 million "bridge to nowhere," who might have been motivated by Coburn's (unsuccessful) attempt to kill the aforementioned boondoggle. Coburn publicly accused Stevens days ago, but because only a small local newspaper in Arkansas reported it, no one knew at first. But Stevens is only the most likely among five senators who have yet to rule themselves out as suspects.

UPDATE: Stevens 'fesses up. Finally.

So: Anybody have ideas on how we can do something like this locally?