The Open Government Act was actually passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee and did not come before the full Senate for a vote because of the secret hold.

OK, so if I could have only one guess at Senator Secrecy’s identity, I’d go with Jon Kyl. He appears determined to criminalize the leaking and publishing of classified information. His efforts amount to a backdoor approach to an official secrets act — but I digress. Still, it’s an educated guess that might help SPJers quickly unmask the senator who put a hold on this proposed legislation, which has bipartisan support and the backing of more than 100 organizations. There’s just one wrinkle: word on the street is that there may be more than one “Senator Secrecy” … We need to work the phones aggressively.

The options given sound in-correct for a market, since after Wednesday, also means after Tuesday. In that case, will all of these be worth 100 inklings ?

The options should be “between Tuesday and Wednesday” and so on..

Actually, some1inkling, I think the structure of the market is just fine. The market doesn’t say “after”, it says “on.”

Therefore, for example, “Tues 5/29 before noon” can only be satisfied if it occurs ON 5/29 and BEFORE noon (that day).

The way you set up the market could involve lots of typing if you aren’t careful and thus as the other reply noted, I used the word “on” to specify a particular section of a particular day. I may need to add days, as I am not sure it will be resolved by the end date I originally included.
biverson (market creator)

Yes, would be great to keep this rolling with amended options. Am sure our market creater can handle this.

As of Wed 5/30/07 before noon (8:08 am CST) there are 44 confirmed “no’s” (these senators did not put the hold on.) I tried calling my senator’s office (Obama) and was surprised that I couldn’t get a quick “yes” or “no” from the Chicago office. DC office phone was busy. So I am sitting on email. I wonder if anyone else had trouble get a quick turnaround on the response.

Okay, as of Thursday 5/31 after noon (CST), the crowd sourcing indicates that while several senators have not yet replied, that Richard Shelby (R-AL) put a secret hold on the Open Government Act in the U.S. Senate. That concludes our experiment. What I found very interesting, was in this age of instant communication, it took my senator’s (Obama)staff 2 days to get the answer to the question, did he put the hold on?

We can call them and email them, but our elected reps don’t seem to have their own in-house data organized for optimal retrieval.

Hiya! No, Sen. Shelby is not our man. His office has a policy that it won’t comment on holds — which we noted on SPJ.org. However, I know, for a fact, that Sen. Shelby did NOT place this hold. This market should remain open for now! Thanks for keeping the heat on.

The market maker apologies for being careless about noting whether Sen. Shelby won’t say whether he is the secret holder or whether he actually put the hold on. It is the former — he just won’t say. The market is open again, and I admit to being an academic, not a market shark and again, apologize for messing up. Barbara i

hey there, biverson. Thanks for a wonderful market—it opened my eyes up to an interesting issue.

Now that the SPJ.org efforts has found Kyl as the culprit, do you plan to close the market?

The market is closed now. I kind of missed the excitement by going to sleep and not monitoring my event horizon more closely. When I do another market, I will have to set up e-lerts to my phone so I can be closer to real-time in reacting to events.

This experiment opened my eyes to a couple of things. The exceedingly deliberate, slow communication between senators and constituents, even in this age of information, probably shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. I couldn’t trade in the market (no insider trading is allowed) but I would have bet that as soon as the ’Net was pointed at this question, the answer would have been quick.

I would appreciate any comments or suggestions now that the market is closed and I will be setting up another one in the future.

Now that the market is closed you need to cash it out please.