Clearly OpenCongress lags behind in reporting bill cosponsors. I see through THOMAS that you cosponsored H.Res. 504 last month. Being the most recent cosponsor, I hope that you are successful in getting your colleagues to sign on.

In terms of cost analysis reporting, I’d look at WashingtonWatch.org, which is run by Jim Harper of the Cato Institute. Washington Watch is a Sunlight grantee.

Paul

For instance, VECO Corporation voted with dollars for Sen. Ted Stevens: $102,500 worth, according to OpenSecrets.org.

VECO Corporation also supported Sen. Ted Stevens’ work as a free market Republican so much, that they voted for him with more than just dollars: a new Land Rover, and more than $250,000 worth of renovations to Sen. Stevens’ home in Alaska, according to a Federal Indictment.

Who would have thought a Congressman could be indicted, just because an oil company voted for him with a wraparound deck and a Viking gas grill.

I have co-authored HR 504 to require all bills to be posted on the Internet and available to the public for a minimum of 72 hours before the bill could be voted on by the House. I have already been actively promoting it among my Republican colleagues and will work hard to get it adopted – but with one change – that it cannot be waived except by a 4/5 vote of the House due to a national emergency.

I am determined to do my small part to restore the public’s lost trust in Congress by using these new media tools to shine sunlight in every dark corner of Congress, and by trying my best to live up to the standards set out by Sunlight in your evaluation of members of Congress.

Please expand your scrutiny and your scorecard to BILLS and not just Members.

Start with the bills on the floor. The scorecard is easy to design.

How much money does the bill spend or raise in taxes or fees? How many pages is it? Was it considered in a committee hearing? Were amendments permitted, considered or adopted, in committee or on the floor? How many? By who? How much time was provided for the public and Members to read and debate the bill on the House floor or in committee?

With over $56 trillion in unfunded liabilities, and the GAO predicting that US Treasury Bonds will be graded as “junk bonds” by 2020, these are immensely important questions that won’t wait for HR 504 to become law.

Sunlight Foundation ought to be issuing a Sunlight/Transparancy Report Card grade right now on every bill voted on by the US House. It would be easy to do and your scrutiny alone would be a big deterrent to the abuses we have seen.

I voted against the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill and most of the other major spending initiatives proposed over the last seven years because I am committed to balancing the budget.

My good name and my independent good judgment are not for rent or sale, and I welcome support from people who agree with my work as a free market Jeffersonian republican, whether they work for an oil company or a high tech firm. They support me because they agree with me and want to help me win re-election.

People vote with dollars before election day and with their vote on election day, and Congress is filled with good people doing the best they can to make good decisions based on their own view of the world.

Thanks for letting me comment here, and I sincerely hope you will start issuing a report card on House bills.

John Culberson
Member of Congress, Texas

http://www.followtheoilmoney.org

Sunlight does shine in all directions; you can check our record if you doubt us.

We also support all the forms of transparency that you are questioning us on.

If you want to help stop the ridiculous process of bringing bills to the floor with little time to read them – something not unique to this Congress, it was done not only with this mortgage bailout bill, but with the Medicare bill of 2003, and the PATRIOT Act – you could cosponsor H. Res. 504, which would require bills to be available on the Internet for 72 hours prior to consideration on the floor.

Thank you for coming and commenting here, your openness, candor, and use of online media are rare in a member of Congress and we certainly appreciate that here at the Sunlight Foundation.

Paul

Yes, Culberson is representing both his core beliefs and his base (of which I am a vocal, mostly dissenting minority), and last time I checked Houston is still a giant hub of the petrochemical industry.

I am skeptical of the antics pulled by the GOP in the House on Friday, especially due the ridiculous behavior reported here
—
“Rep Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) just pretended to be a Democrat. He stood on the other side of the chamber and listed all of the GOP bills that the Dems killed.

He then said, “I am a Democrat, and here is my energy plan” and he held up a picture of an old VW Bug with a sail attached to it. He paraded around the House floor with the sign while the crowd cheered.”
—

In my opinion, that should be an embarrassment to everyone involved.

Mainly, I’m seeing lots of rhetoric framed in the terms of “Let’s drill here and now to reduce the cost of oil to consumers!” rather than “Let’s open up oil exploration and on federally protected land and waterways NOW to increase oil production in 10 to 12 years, with a marginal impact on world oil prices.”

I also want more explanation about this, from August 1st:

http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/07/31/speculator-bill-killed/

During yesterday’s vote on the Commodity Markets and Transparency Act (H.R. 6604) to rein in oil profiteers, House Republican leaders pressured 13 of their members to switch their vote from “yes” to “no.” Thanks to these strong arm tactics and weak members, the bill to lower gasoline prices by controlling profiteers failed by a vote of 276-151, falling ten votes shy of the two-thirds majority required for passage under the suspension of the House rules. Once again, the GOP leadership used their power to help keep oil prices and profits high, while hurting the average driver.

That seems to put things in an entirely different and unsympathetic light.

Granted, I twittered this to John Culberson, and got a direct reply with an offer to correspond directly with him regarding this for clarification on the bills in question, and have not had the opportunity to take him up on it. The fact that he made the offer in the first place kicked my esteem for him up another notch.

Additionally, Culberson’s complaint about bills being submitted late and being forced to vote without hearings and discussion definitely seems valid, regarding the Mortgage bail-out, and prior to that the military funding bill which was pushed through with ridiculous haste, so I can understand some of the frustration with the ways our representatives are forced to try to do their jobs.

Also, looks like this is definitely not over:
http://twitter.com/johnculberson/statuses/876895297
@johnculberson I will be back on House floor tomorrow at 10 am with others asking the Speaker to call the House back for a vote to drill here drill now!

Nowhere in my comment is found the words (or even the concept of) “having it both ways, and feeling contributions to Reps you like are ok, but for the other side it equals corruption”: you invent out of your own imagination, things I did not write (or even think), just so that you can win a point of argument (I guess), that I did not even make.

And so as to be certain I am understood (and to maybe dare your imagination to run wild some more), what I essentially wrote was:

Rep. Culberson accepts large amounts of contributions from the oil and gas industries: $301,961, according to the above article.

Rep. Culberson joined in the antics of other House Members, who, after the House had adjourned, made a spectacle of themselves, all for the purpose of advancing the business objectives of the oil and gas industries (and their lobbyists, of whom Rep. Culberson seems little distinguished from), by calling for more and more leases of Federal Lands (despite the millions of acres they presently hold lease on, but refuse to drill, because the profits to be had aren’t “wind-fall” enough).

Rep. Culberson, in his own words above, says: “I proudly represent the US headquarters for oil service companies, drillers, producers, and companies like BP, Exxon Mobil Chemical, Shell, and the world headquarters for ConocoPhilips.”

I conclude from those facts, that Rep. Culberson is a business agent for the oil and gas industries, and does his work in their interests, in our Congress and in making our Laws; and that he is paid handsomely for his efforts by them the oil and gas industries, several times over and above his salary as a U.S. Congressman.

True.

And nowhere in those words and that thought of mine, is anything about “simply accepting contributions automatically makes one corrupt”, or any of the other things you imagined I wrote.

Tim
11,382 days

@GeekMommy – I applaud you’re approach and an ability to separate biases from observations about how technology helped the public see and hear what transpired on Friday.

@JohnCulberson – That you care enough to come here and communicate (along with your use of Twitter and Qik) are extremely refreshing. I think that anyone, whether or not they’re with you politically, should agree on that.

@Dem02020 You make the assertion that by simply accepting contributions automatically makes one corrupt. Money in politics is a topic that certainly should be discussed (particularly here), but simply because Reps have taken contributions doesn’t make their arguments any less or more valid. You can’t have it both ways and feel contributions to Reps you like are ok but for the other side it equals corruption.