FEC: Finally! Twenty-three years after the House began requiring campaigns to file fundraising reports with the FEC electronically, the Senate will at long last follow suit. Absurdly, Senate candidates still file their reports on paper, requiring the FEC to manually scan in all filings. The process is not only expensive but time-consuming: While House reports show up online as soon as they're submitted, Senate reports can take up to 10 days to appear, and when they do, they're in a crummy, unsearchable format, like so.
Activists have pressured the Senate to change its way for a very long time: A campaign to bring the Senate into the 20th century was spearheaded by Daily Kos (and led by contributing editor Adam Bonin) starting in 2006. But senators resisted, for the terrible reason that they benefited from the lack of transparency, particularly because the delay put their final fundraising reports submitted just before an election essentially beyond scrutiny.
Now, they've relented, passing an appropriations bill that includes an amendment creating an "e-file" system for Senate candidates. The bill has also passed the House by an overwhelming margin, meaning it will soon become law. In a time when Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans are shredding the very notion of transparency, this is an important victory for better government.