The Senate majority blocked a proposal today that would shine light on anonymous political campaign contributions that currently go unreported.

Shortly afterward, debate was cut short on a proposal that would have set a stricter standard for proving citizenship when registering to vote.

At issue are two amendments to an elections procedure bill by Sen. Ron Tupa, D-Boulder, slowly working its way through the Senate. The first proposed amendment would end the practice of allowing unitemized political contributions.

Currently, contributions that are small enough are not recorded individually, and are reported in one lump sum. Last year, for example, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) PAC received – and spent – over $750,000 in these contributions without any record of where the money came from.

The law allows this to happen when the money is given in limited denominations to a “small donor committee.” A small donor committee is also allowed to contribute ten times as much money to candidates as a regular citizen. In 2006, small donor committees collected and spent around $2.5 million; in the previous election, the total was $1.5 million.

The proposed reform, by Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, was blocked on the grounds that it didn’t fit under the bill’s title.

“I knew the sponsor was trying to hide behind the title, but a million here, a million there, and pretty soon, you're talking influential money,” said Mitchell.

Republicans have repeatedly decried what they see as “abuse of the small-donor loophole” by Democrat-leaning labor unions and accuse Democrats of turning a blind eye because it helps them politically.

“It’s no mystery why the Democrats in control of the Senate didn’t want to bring this issue up,” said Mitchell. “They get 90 percent of this special-interest money, and they refuse to turn off the spigot.”

Not long after that proposal was blocked, Republican Sen. Ted Harvey, of Highlands Ranch, offered another change that would have set a high standard of proof for ensuring that only legal citizens of the United States are registered to vote.

“With the illegal aliens coming here in droves, one would hope we could take some responsible steps toward protecting the integrity of our voting system,” said Harvey.

Democrats appeared to have been caught off guard by Harvey’s proposal and moved to postpone debate until later in the week.

“The Dems couldn’t believe their own chairman ruled that it fit under the title, so they laid it over,” explained Harvey.