Seventeen Democratic senators yesterday filed legislation to stop the IRS’s private debt collection program. From Sen. Byron Dorgan’s (D-ND) press release:

Legislation introduced by U.S. Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Patty Murray (D-WA) and more than a dozen Senate colleagues Thursday would stop the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from using private debt collectors to collect unpaid taxes. The legislation would make law a recommendation from the IRS’s own National Taxpayer Advocate, Nina Olson, who just last week strongly recommended that the practice be halted. …

Joining Dorgan and Murray in sponsoring the bill are: Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Carl Levin (D-MI), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), John Kerry (D-MA), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Ben Cardin (D-MD) , Barbara Boxer (D-CA) Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Joe Lieberman (ID-CT).