Making Government Transparent and Accountable
The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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Some links
1) Nancy Scola presents a very important view of lobbyist influence in Congress. She writes about lawmakers, “They’re not crooks, they’re idiots! So many members of Congress — too many of them — outsource their thinking, and voting, on all but the matters most central to their own affairs, to the think tanks and lobbyists who are paid, well, to produce articulate and generally verifiable (though, naturally, quite biased) talking points, background memoranda, and opening statements on whichever topics matter most to their interests.”
2) Another good statement of fact that gets overlooked, particularly in the “Washington-is-broken” themed moment, Ezra Klein writes, “I continue to think the degree to which Americans hate watching the legislative process is a bigger issue than either side realizes.”
3) Poli-Sci visual designer Edward Tuffte was nominated to the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel to advise the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which oversees the disclosure and accountability of stimulus data.
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Morning Links
4) Following on the heels of our reconciliation infographic, the New York Times features an Op-Chart showing reconciliation info going back to 1981. Really awesome stuff.
Oscars aside: My favorite movie of last year, In The Loop, wasn’t nominated for best picture. I thought it was the best movie about politics I’ve ever seen. If you have a favorite movie about politics, leave it in the comments (unless it’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, that movie is not allowed).
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Heckuva Job, Ethics Committee!
Wondering why the House Ethics Committee exonerated every single lawmaker touched by the PMA Group campaign contributions-for-earmarks scandal? They didn’t interview anyone:
The Feb. 26 ethics committee report concluding that no House Members colluded with the PMA Group lobbying firm to exchange earmarks for campaign contributions indicated that the committee had been investigating the matter since the spring of 2009.
But Roll Call has been unable to locate a single Member of Congress or company that was interviewed or asked for documents by the ethics committee, and a variety of sources said they believe that the committee did virtually no additional investigation beyond the draft reports on seven Members that were produced by the independent Office of Congressional Ethics.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that the line was thin between earmarking and fundraising in these member offices:
In detailing how the lawmakers approached their earmarking, however, the ethics report and accompanying reports by the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) made clear that the wall between grants and donations in their offices was in many instances very thin. Key individuals in their offices played at least some role in both activities, starting with the lawmakers and typically including staff members responsible for reviewing and making preliminary earmark decisions.
Heckuva job!
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Apples and Oranges: Campaign Finance Transparency Laws Should Remain Untouched By The Supreme Court
Should a court case on whether Washington state must disclose the identities of people calling for a referendum affect the kinds of disclosure required under campaign finance law? We say no. The explanation of our answer is the focus of an amicus brief filed before the U.S. Supreme Court by the Sunlight Foundation, the Brennan Center, and the Center for Responsive Politics in Doe v. Reed.
We believe that, regardless of whether the names of people who signed a petition calling for a referendum must be disclosed, the question of money in politics is different from other election regulation issues, and must be treated differently. “Where money is spent to influence the outcome of elections, vigilance is required to ensure that influence-peddling does not corrupt our democracy and that voters are empowered to make informed decisions about how such spending may have influenced their candidates and laws.”
As a matter of procedure, the Court should never reach the question of how transparency and campaign finance laws intersect. But if it does, the Court should conclude “the curtain of privacy that is appropriate to the voting booth should not be drawn to hide the workings of money in politics from public scrutiny and from political accountability.”
Read the brief below.
Doe v Reed Amicus Brief before Supreme Court joined by Sunlight Foundation
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Following the Money: New House Expenditure Reports Available Online
For the second time ever, the House of Representatives released an online update to its “House Expenditure Reports“ — a compendium of how the lower chamber spends money. For years, these reports were published only in book format, but Speaker Pelosi has taken a significant stride towards improving House transparency by publishing them online.
The online publication isn’t perfect, however, as the document is published in PDF format. That’s where Sunlight comes in. Our technology gurus have yet again reshaped the information into a usable database.
This data is immensely useful. We’ve had some fun with it in the past, and will be interested to see what other nuggets may be buried in the data.
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A Brief History of Senate Reconciliation Votes
As Democrats move forward to pass health care reform attention has focused on a key piece of Senate rules known as budget reconciliation. This post takes Senate vote records covering 13 key reconciliation votes from 1990 to 2007 to show how senators in both parties voted–and how sitting senators voted in the past–on a variety of reconciliation bills.(Click on the image to the right for a full visualization of these reconciliation votes.)
Reconciliation is a legislative process in the Senate commonly used to pass legislation concerning spending, revenues or the debt-limit. The process has been used 22 times since 1974. More often than not, these bills have been vehicles for large reforms in the tax code, health care and other social programs from education to welfare. One key reason that reconciliation is used for major reforms is that the process is subject to different rules than other bills. Most importantly, reconciliation bills are not subject to cloture votes–the 60 vote supermajority procedure to overcome a filibuster–and thus only require a 50 vote majority to pass.
The voting record shows that reconciliation is often used as a way to pass otherwise contentious legislation that could not receive sufficient bipartisan support to reach the 60 vote supermajority necessary to clear a cloture vote. Seven of the thirteen reconciliation measures examined here passed between 1990 and 2007 were almost universally opposed by the minority party while gaining almost total unity in support from the majority using the reconciliation process.
These seven reconciliation bills include the following: (Continue reading…)
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Potential House Health Care Vote Switchers Reliant on Party Campaign Money
Seven key Democrats seen as potential vote-flippers on the health care reform bill are heavily reliant on campaign funds from party leadership and online progressive activists.
According to campaign finance data at the Center for Responsive Politics, all seven Democrats–Reps. Jason Altmire, Suzanne Kosmas, Frank Kratovil, Scott Murphy, Glenn Nye, Michael McMahon and Betsy Markey–list Leadership PACs (political action committees) in the top three career industry donors. Three of the seven members are also heavily reliant on money from Democratic campaign committees or outside progressive fundraising through the web site Actblue.
The seven Democrats were identified in an Associated Press survey of members who previously voted “No” on the House health care reform bill. With pressure mounting to pass the Senate’s health care reform bill and the resignation of key members along with the death of Rep. John Murtha, Speaker Nancy Pelosi must round-up lawmakers like these seven to vote “Yes” after a previous “No” vote.
The upper Democratic leadership is particularly active in contributing to these lawmakers. Five of the seven lawmakers–Kosmas, Kratovil, Murphy, Nye and Markey–count the PACs of Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Majority Whip James Clyburn in their top twenty career individual donors. Rep. McMahon counts two of the three Democratic leadership PACs (Hoyer and Clyburn) in his top twenty.
All of these seven lawmakers are either freshmen or, in Rep. Altmire’s case, a sophomore. Freshmen and sophomore lawmakers are often in greater danger of losing their next election and, therefore, more reliant on party and leadership funds to finance their victories. This puts them in a situation where the leadership has significantly more sway over their floor votes than other members.
Similarly, outside activists can push a lawmaker towards a certain vote by contributing or withholding funds. Rep. Scott Murphy, who won a special election in New York to replace appointed-Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, is the top recipient among the seven lawmakers of money from ActBlue, the online progressive clearinghouse for campaign contributions. Murphy received $315,807 in individual contributions through the ActBlue site making ActBlue his number one career individual donor. Rep. Betsy Markey also received a significant amount of campaign money through ActBlue with $124,090 coming in from the site.
See below for totals: (Continue reading…)
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Rangel Out: The Particulars
Rep. Charlie Rangel temporarily resigned his chairmanship of the House Ways & Means Committee pending the completion of various ethics probes into his personal finances and other activities. (For a previous Sunlight Foundation exposé on Rangel’s financial disclosures see here.) Aside from the political repercussions that are being discussed there are a variety of other lines of inquiry that Rangel’s troubles have exposed. One of the most important is who will succeed him as chair of the House’s tax-writing panel.
Next in line in seniority is Rep. Pete Stark of California. Stark was recently subjected to an Ethics Committee investigation and, while cleared by the committee of charges that he inappropriately received a tax break on his Maryland home, the congressman does not come across nearly as well according to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), an independent ethics body that recommends investigations to the Ethics Committee.
When the Office of Congressional Ethics staff came to Stark’s second-floor Cannon office in July 2009, investigators noticed a video camera recording — but Stark had not informed the interviewers that he had the camera running. (Continue reading…)
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White House-PhRMA Update
Last we left off in the story of the White House-PhRMA deal the White House had made new cost cutting proposals that would affect the pharmaceutical industry. PhRMA has since put out a press release that doesn’t really answer many questions about where they stand. This was before last week’s health care summit:“We remain committed to health care reform done in a fair and smart way. We continue to believe that all Americans should have access to high-quality, affordable health care coverage and services.
“Throughout the health reform debate, America’s pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies have supported proposals aimed at encouraging critically important medical research and innovation to improve the lives of patients and foster a successful life sciences sector, which supports millions of American jobs.
“We will be carefully reviewing the proposal and look forward to hearing the discussions at Thursday’s White House summit on health care reform.”
The Washington Post reports that their lobbyists are working to block the additional $10 billion in cost cutting proposed by the administration, while still remaining supportive of the Senate bill:
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the powerful drugmaker lobbying group, is holding back on ads for now but will continue to work closely with lawmakers and the White House on specific issues, one senior industry official said. PhRMA, which agreed to $80 billion in cuts in exchange for protection from other steps, has concerns about Obama’s proposal to add another $10 billion to that amount, the official said.
Of course, the major key is the cessation of advertising by the group. PhRMA just isn’t willing to put any more money on the line with so much ambiguity regarding the outcome.
