Yesterday, Bill Frist surprised everyone by seizing a propitious moment to demand a floor vote on S. 2590, the Coburn-Obama bill creating a searchable online database for all federal spending. Taken aback, no senator present objected to a call for unanimous consent to the vote, and the bill passed by acclamation. Senators Tom Coburn and Barack Obama released a statement crediting the energy of American citizens for pressing Washington to adopt the measure to increase openness and accountability in government:

“This bill is a small but significant step toward changing the culture in Washington. Only by fostering a culture of openness, transparency and accountability will Congress come together to address the mounting fiscal challenges that threaten our future prosperity.”

“The group that deserves credit for passing this bill, however, is not Congress, but the army of bloggers and concerned citizens who told Congress that transparency is a just demand for all citizens, not a special privilege for political insiders. Their remarkable effort demonstrates that our system of government does work when the people take the reins of government and demand change,” Dr. Coburn said.

“By helping to lift the veil of secrecy in Washington, this database will help make us better legislators, reporters better journalists, and voters more active citizens,” Obama said. “It’s both unusual and encouraging to see interest groups and bloggers on the left and the right come together to achieve results. This powerful grassroots alliance shows that at the end of the day, Americans want to see Congress work together to get something done and not continue to engage in the partisan gridlock that so often brings Capitol Hill to a grinding halt.”

The effect of the combined power of common-citizen activism and cross-spectrum partnerships of newspapers and think tanks has been nothing short of amazing. Perhaps the most gratifying part of the experience has been to see politicians who attempted to engage in old-school procedural obstruction get publicly shamed into changing their ways. In a way, we just saw a million Mr. Smiths go to Washington—and Washington recognized it.

However, the effort is far from complete. The House passed a different version of the legislation last June. H.R. 5090, sponsored by Rep. Tom Davis, excluded government contracts from the database, which is a mistake given the nature of earmarks. Normally, when the two chambers pass significantly different legislation, they form a conference committee to reconcile the two bills and resubmit the modified bill to both houses for approval. This process takes quite a bit of time, however, and the session has precious little of that left.

And so some are now pressing for House Speaker Dennis Hastert to submit S. 2590 for a vote in the House and drop H.R. 5090 altogether. This would eliminate the need for a conference committee, especially since Rep. Davis, the House bill’s sponsor, has agreed to include contracts in any case. Minor issues, such as separating contracts and grants, could be quickly resolved, so long as the final version retains the core of S 2590: downloadable and complete federal budget data.

Whatever the two chambers’ leaders choose as their legislative strategy to make it happen, they should work quickly and not allow a handful of politicians to use procedural obstacles in order to keep the federal government’s expenditures under wraps. This job is not finished, and citizens should remain focused on ensuring that Congress acts on fiscal transparency this session.