Robert Byrd’s passing throws a lot of potential short-term votes into disarray, but one of them looks to have already ripened and been rendered useless in its purpose, at least for the next election. The Hill reports that the DISCLOSE Act, the campaign finance bill that passed the House last week, will basically be ineffective for the midterms if it doesn’t get signed into law before the July 4 recess.

Advocates of the Disclose Act have long pointed to July 4 as a deadline for enacting the law so that its provisions could be implemented and enforceable during the hotly-contested midterm congressional campaign. But with the Senate bogged down in fights over tax legislation, a Supreme Court nomination and energy proposals, that marker will almost surely pass without action on campaign finance.

“Every week we go past the July 4 recess is going to spill into the campaign season,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, a backer of the Disclose Act.

Other good government types are claiming that passage before the August recess is sufficient, and presumably West Virginia will have a new Senator by that time. But the Senate has done no work on the bill as of yet, and given how long it typically takes to move things, expecting the process to somehow reverse itself and speed through the three-week legislative session in July, particularly with all the potential competing measures out there (energy and climate, Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation, perhaps a couple other jobs or appropriations bills, etc). The Senate hasn’t even found 60 votes for the DISCLOSE Act yet, with some gun control-minded Senators angered by the special carve-out from donor disclosure for the NRA.

So far, corporate actors have generally laid low after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. But if the 2010 elections become a corporate free-fire zone, all bets are off. One would think that corporations would welcome the opportunity to impact the midterms if the restrictions, transparency and disclosure didn’t affect it.