“There’s probably a lot of issues that Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain disagree on, but there are important things that they agree on and this is one of them,” Carper said. “If there is a contest on who is going to be the king of transparency, that’s a good development.”
Carper, who endorsed Obama Wednesday, gave Obama credit in the short term and McCain his due over the long haul. “Barack probably has an edge for the last five years, and McCain may have a better record over the last 20 years,” he said.
The new bill will increase the transparency of federal contracts by posting them online. Previously, only descriptions of the contracts have been available.
The bill is intended to approve an earlier measure, informally known as the “Google for Government” act, backed by Obama, McCain, Coburn and Carper in 2006. That measure created a website — USASpending.gov – that allows the public to track down details on “all entities and organizations” receiving federal money.
Government watchdog groups across the political spectrum hailed that “sunshine law” and it sailed through Congress.
The new bill would beef up the website by requiring the actual contracts to be posted as well as new details , including whether the contract occurred under competitive bidding or whether it was the product of an earmark.
Coburn said McCain has been one of the measure’s key supporters since the initial bill was written. Other Senate staffers familiar with the earlier bill said the real work on it was done by Coburn’s and Obama’s offices without McCain, but that both sides were happy to have McCain’s support for the new bill.
The strange-bedfellow alliance between Coburn and Obama has continued despite a comment Obama made in an April Democratic debate comparing McCain’s friendship with Coburn to Obama’s relationship with a former member of the Weather Underground, a radical terrorist group in the 1960s.
Coburn said Obama called to apologize the evening of the debate, and said the remark had no impact on their working relationship.
Both Obama’s and McCain’s campaigns did not respond to a request about whether their bosses would issue an executive order making all federal contracts available online if the bill fails to pass before the session ends.
Gerry Bass, the executive director of OMBWatch, one of the 19 watchdog groups backing the measure, said it’s clear that Obama took the lead on the transparency bill this year but McCain should get credit for signing onto it.
“It’s a tribute to both of them,” he said. “Obama walks the words he says on the campaign trail by doing things differently. He didn’t have to have on McCain as a co-sponsor. The same can be said about McCain. McCain deserves credit, even though he may not have been involved in the crafting of the bill, he deserves credit for jumping on board.”
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