Before he leaves the Senate Alaska's Mark Begich would like to do something about those SuperPAC robo-calls.

Courtesy of The Hill:

Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) is taking a departing shot at super-PACs following his defeat in the Alaska Senate race. 

 Begich introduced legislation Thursday that would add super-PACs and other outside groups to the list of groups that must comply with the National Do Not Call Registry. 

His legislation, titled The Do Not Disturb Act, would also keep people on the list from receiving robocalls and "push polls," which are surveys that attempt to get a desired result with leading questions. 

"I have long been an advocate for protecting Alaskans’ privacy and for limiting the ability of outside groups to spend endless amounts of money on our elections,” said Begich, a member of the Commerce Committee. 

“I heard from Alaskans all across the state during the campaign, and enough is enough. My bill will allow individuals to opt out of receiving these sorts of pestering phone calls from super-PACs and similar groups,” he added. 

If Begich is successful this may be the most impactful, and welcome, legislation that he has ever introduced.

As I have mentioned before the number of calls I received from pollsters, recorded campaign messages, and other interested parties, was completely overwhelming.

I quite literally hated the sound of my phone ringing. It seemed like it was never a call that I wanted to take.

Personally I think this is a good step, but I would also like to see something done about the advertisements that pop up on every YouTube video that I tried to watch this last few months, and the avalanche of television advertising that seemed to use up every second of commercial airtime since August.

And it is no wonder that Begich is the one to spearhead this effort.

I think it is pretty clear that he lost this race solely due to the efforts of outside groups, and that without the interference of the folks like Karl Rove and the Koch brothers he would have almost certainly retained his Senate seat.

Instead we are stuck with a political whore bought and paid for with corporate money, who has little interest in anything that Alaskans need or want, and is solely focused on pleasing his masters.

Dark money in politics and the honesty of Senator Mark Begich.

Courtesy of TPM:

Republican dark money groups are outspending their Democratic counterparts by an incredible margin, according to data from the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation. 

During this cycle, conservative groups that do not disclose their donors have spent more than $94 million, while liberal dark money groups have spent more than $28 million.

The data this cycle confirms Republican dominance of dark money spending. In the 2012 election cycle, about 80 percent of dark money spending backed Republican candidates.

Of course as we know there has been untold millions spent up here in Alaska in support of Dan Sullivan, hell anybody trying to watch a You Tube video, listen to the radio, or watch television can tell you that. 

And when asked about that Dan Sullivan ran away like somebody was trying to take his lunch money.

Now undoubtedly Mark Begich has received some money from outside groups, and some of those are certainly from shady PACs that don't want to disclose their donor list.

However Begich is not one to shy away from scrutiny as evidenced by the fact that he has voluntarily provided documentation as to how his campaign money is spent.

This from ABC News:  

Senate campaigns aren't required to tell us by Election Day--they submit spending reports to the Federal Election Commission on paper, a seemingly antiquated system that prevents reporters and the public from being able to dig effectively through their latest receipts and expenses. For most campaigns, sortable expense data is only available through June. Weeks or months later, we'll get a fuller picture. 

But Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, apparently out of the goodness of his heart, has been filing his disclosures electronically since October 2013, giving us a window into how Senate campaigns are spending their millions of dollars these days. 

Since Oct. 1, 2013, Begich has spent $7.3 million, a middling total for campaigns. Alaska isn't the most expensive state in which a candidate can run, and it's outside the top 10 this election cycle for candidate spending, although, including outside money, it's the sixth most expensive of all 2014 Senate races, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Can anybody imagine Dan Sullivan being this transparent? Nope me either.

As if we needed another reason to support the only REAL Alaskan running for the Senate in 2014.

Don't let this be you.

The conservatives expect us to stay home, the pundits expect us to fail our representatives, and Koch brothers have spent a fortune to convince us that we are wasting our time and the election is already lost to us.

I want to prove all of them wrong.

How about you?