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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Earmarks Crash Computer, Chairman Accepts Less Transparency
I don’t know what amuses me most, that this happens at all or that this happens every year. The computer system designed to handle earmark requests at the House Transportation Committee crashed after lawmakers uploaded their earmarks to it. Seriously, this happens every year. I’m beginning to think it’s those Apple IIE’s that Congress is still typing away on rather than the sheer volume of earmarks. How about an earmark for new computers?
Despite the computer-crashing weight of this year’s earmarks, Committee chair James Oberstar has decided to pursue a path of lesser transparency, as compared to the House Appropriations Committee. The Appropriations Committee requires all earmark requests be disclosed at the time they are made. According to Roll Call, “Oberstar set a May 14 deadline for Members to submit requests and encouraged them to post the requests on their Web sites, but he stopped short of setting a mandatory deadline.”
It doesn’t seem quite right for the committee that brought us the “Bridge to Nowhere” and “Coconut Road” (not the Mario Kart level) to provide a lesser level of transparency than other authorizing committees.
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Transparency Week Thoughts as Published in USA Today
I’m delighted to have had an OpEd piece published in USA Today today:
How powerful is the Internet in getting crucial safety information out to the public? In one case, that information went out 707 times per minute. That’s how often, on average, people seeking information about salmonella-tainted peanut butter clicked on a website and widget sponsored by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over a six-week period a total of nearly 44 million hits.
This was exponentially more than the number of people who called agency hotline numbers. By typing the brand or bar code of a product into the search engine, parents everywhere could find out if the peanut butter sandwich they were putting in their kids’ lunch bags that day might contain salmonella.
Yet, the peanut butter problem also shows how far we have to go to prod government to make information available to the public. This week — Sunshine Week — news organizations shed light on how the public benefits from knowing what the government is doing, and why. And the Internet increasingly can play a role in providing more information to expose crises such as the salmonella story.
Recently, the story has unfolded about how one peanut-processing company, Peanut Corp. of America, could operate in filth with poorly trained employees and ignore its own tests showing salmonella infestation. We also found out that the only way the FDA could obtain copies of those testing records was to invoke terrorism laws. If the public had access to those records online, perhaps the illnesses of 19,000 people in 43 states and nine deaths could have been avoided.
Online resources also can help explain why the FDA can’t get inspection records more easily. Through OpenSecrets.org, which tracks campaign contributions and lobbying expenses, we can find out that food processing and sales companies have contributed nearly $95 million to federal candidates and parties over a decade. Those companies also spent more than $29 million last year on lobbying. The industry has often blocked efforts to strengthen FDA’s authority.
The salmonella story shows the many ways we are on the cusp of pushing for a government that is truly transparent. We now have the technological tools not only to get information out to the public, but also to help expose why there’s a problem in the first place.
It’s no accident that President Obama has made transparency a major part of his stimulus plan. He recognizes that conveying information to the public about how their money is being spent will enhance accountability. If done well, this approach can turn passive citizens into activists who help ensure that government works. With more newspapers laying off reporters and closing their doors, the Internet is allowing others to augment the press’ function in watchdogging government.
There’s a mighty appetite for this information. Last September, when the House took up the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill, House servers crashed after Speaker Nancy Pelosi posted the text on her Web site. When people did get their eyes on the text, they read it eagerly. Over the course of about two weeks, nearly 1,000 comments were posted on PublicMarkup.org, a site enabling the public to examine and debate legislation. Thousands of bloggers pored over the bill to find examples of earmarks, such as a reduction in taxes for wooden-arrow manufacturers.
A few years ago, bloggers known as the “Porkbusters” helped expose Alaska’s “bridge to nowhere.” This project to connect the tiny town of Ketchikan (population 8,900) to the even tinier Island of Gravina (population 50) cost some $320 million and was funded through three separate earmarks in a highway bill. Exposure created a huge furor and essentially stopped that earmark.
To take advantage of the full power of the Internet, there are some simple things every agency should do. All data should be made available in formats that are open, searchable and “mashable.” That way, creative programmers can more easily create new ways of looking at things. For example, the EarmarkWatch.org map shows thousands of earmarks in the fiscal 2008 defense-appropriations bill layered over a map of the country.
There is also much Congress should do. For years, the Senate has refused to require members to file their campaign finance records electronically. Instead, they submit their records in paper form to the Federal Election Commission, which must then go through the laborious process of re-converting them back into electronic records at the cost of about $250,000 a year. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., recently introduced a bill that would require electronic filing. The House of Representatives has done it this way for years.
And while Congress has strengthened lobbying disclosure laws, they still don’t go far enough. Lobbyists are required only to file quarterly, and then in very general terms. So ferreting out who lobbied on what and why is an exercise in “who done it” long after the fact. Lobbyists should file online daily with whom they meet and what they talk about.
A fundamental shift is beginning. Government is starting to recognize how the Internet can play a transformational role in restoring trust to its institutions and officials. And we, the people, are just beginning to imagine the ways we can use this transparency to demand more accountability.
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Bill Allison on the Bridge to Nowhere
Sunlight’s Bill Allison was on Anderson Cooper 360° on CNN last night discussing the Bridge to Nowhere and the votes cast for the Bridge by Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Watch the video:
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States leading the Way on Transparency Reforms
Fascinating piece on the Wall Street Journal opinion pages today. (Even more interesting because it's not hidden behind their firewall…). It points out numeous examples of how the states are taking the lead in creating greater transparency for how they spend their money. They report that 19 states have passed, or are now working on, legislative or administrative reforms that would hand the public tools to examine government spending.
Even as Washington has fiddled on earmarks–delaying, obfuscating and basically doing all it can to avoid enacting real reform–a transparency movement has been sweeping the nation. Angry over Alaskan Bridges to Nowhere, and frustrated by the lack of willpower in the nation's capital, small-government activists have turned their attention to the states. If ever Washington lagged behind a movement, this is it….That hope is rooted in the idea that the best way to get Americans actively engaged in the debate over the size and efficiency of government is by giving them examples of government gone wrong. Reformers point to the current furor over Washington earmarks as proof. Tell Americans that the size of the federal government increased to a whopping $3 trillion, and their eyes glaze over. Tell them that the Alaska delegation was trying to appropriate some $300 million of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars to build a bridge for 50 people, and they go berserk. Much as they went berserk decades ago at the news the Pentagon had spent $640 on a toilet seat.
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, says: "Transparency is the next big thing."
Mr. Norquist argues that the very existence of transparency laws "gets rid of half the problem," since politicians are on uncomfortable notice that their spending habits are being watched. If a politician knows that Joe Public can find out that he helped award a huge grant or government contract to a big campaign donor, he might think twice about pushing the grant in the first place…At the state level, transparency has been an easy political sell. Voters have made clear they are willing to turn spending abuse into a top issue in local elections. And while big-government politicians may not fear arguing against budget caps or spending limitations, few are stupid enough to argue against better information. If anything, state Republicans and Democrats are racing to sponsor transparency bills. The question is if any of this translates back to Washington. National politicians understand the anger, which is why Democrats ran on greater earmark transparency last year, and why we had last year's successful legislation from Sens. Tom Coburn and Barack Obama to set up a public Web site detailing all federal contracts and grants.
