Stevens lifts hold

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has lifted his hold on a government-transparency bill days after an online grassroots campaign revealed him as the senator raising questions, one of the bill’s chief sponsors said yesterday.

John Hart, spokesman for Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), said Stevens’ office had informed Coburn that the hold was no more. Coburn and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) are the chief sponsors of the measure, which would set up a free and public online database of all contracts and grants given out by the government.

Stevens, through a spokesman, said the hold was never anonymous and it was lifted “now that [Coburn] has ceased blocking several Commerce Committee with his secret holds.”