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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Ranking Occupations by Ideology
This is a really clever infographic by Adam Bonica showing the ideological placement of occupations through an examination of their campaign contributions:
This covers only the 2008 election cycle and shows that, by and large, most occupations fall into the Democratic category aside from the obviously traditionally conservative oil and gas and auto dealer industries. What I would love to see here is what this graphic would look like over time. How would this look in the 2006 cycle or, better yet, the 2002 cycle? I’m pretty sure that you would find major fluctuations in the ideological placement of these industries depending on which party is in charge of Congress. Even more so, the size of the party’s majority would matter too.
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The Blanche Lincoln Energy & Climate Complex
Sen. Blanche Lincoln has put herself front and center in opposing efforts by her party’s leadership to pass or implement comprehensive caps on carbon emissions in the United States. She opposes the proposed cap and trade legislation that passed the House of Representatives and has been touted by President Barack Obama and senators John Kerry, Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman. Similarly, she has signed on to legislation that would block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from implementing their own regulations to cap carbon emissions should cap and trade legislation fail to pass Congress. In this effort she is aided by a coterie of former staffers who currently lobby for a variety of interests seeking to weaken or derail carbon capping whether through legislation or the EPA’s rule-making authority.
Six of Lincoln’s former staffers currently lobby for interests invested in influencing carbon capping legislation. These interests include oil & gas trade groups, agriculutural companies, the airplane industry and biofuel and bioenergy firms. As chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Lincoln holds a powerful position to influence carbon capping legislation and she has made no secret of her desire to block the legislation.(For a full visualization of Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s former staffers lobbying for the energy and climate industries click here or the image to the right.) (Continue reading…)
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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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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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Another Court, Another Blow to Campaign Finance Limits (and Disclosure?)
The Colorado Supreme Court rejected a referendum to stem the flow of money in politics by banning holders of large, no-bid government contracts from making campaign contributions. It also threw out the baby with the bathwater, rejecting a public database of no-bid contracts.
First, on the campaign contribution front: The decision, while troubling, may not toll the death knell for all efforts to limit corporate money in politics. The referendum, passed by Colorado voters in 2008, was overbroad and apparently so poorly drafted that it could not pass constitutional muster. The underlying referendum, however, demonstrates that outside the halls of justice, citizens recognize the corrupting and coercive influence of corporate money in elections and want to do something to limit it.
Next, on the transparency front: While undoing the will of the voters on the campaign finance issues, the court also threw out provision that would have required the state compile a public database of all no-bid state or local contracts greater than $100,000. Pulling the plug on a simple transparency measure, one that would not only inform the public but also likely lead to more competition for state contracts, sets a dangerous precedent.
It’s possible, even likely, that the database was an innocent victim of the court’s broader decision. Hopefully the Colorado legislature will quickly pass a bill to clarify the situation and give the state the go-ahead to complete the database project.
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Schumer and Van Hollen Embrace Transparency Measures to Combat Citizens United
The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC opened the door to a torrent of new political spending that, with the legislative framework they announced today, Senator Schumer and Representative Van Hollen are trying to stem. Sunlight released its own “legislative framework” in response to Citizens United some weeks ago, and we are pleased that many of our disclosure-related recommendations appear to have been embraced by Sen. Schumer and Rep. Van Hollen.
The “stand by your ad” provisions that will require corporate CEOs to approve of the ads they run in the same way candidates do is clearly necessary to increase accountability. The disclaimers on ads run by shell organizations should also shine some light on the generally shadowy practices of many of these groups and is welcome and vitally important in light of Citizens United.
Disclaimers on ads run by third party groups, however, only get part of the way to full transparency. To be meaningful, disclaimers must be coupled with real disclosure of who is funding the ads. The Schumer/Van Hollen framework addresses this concern with the new reporting of “political broadcast spending” for all corporations, labor unions, nonprofits and 527s. Disclosures outlined seem to cover most of the relevant bases including who controls the political broadcast spending account, the name of donors to the account, and amounts and purposes of expenditures from the account.
We would respectfully offer two words of advice to the legislative drafters as they flesh out these provisions. First, the framework released today does not specify the how or when these disclosures must be made. To be effective, the legislation must provide that disclosures be electronically filed and publicly available online within 24 hours. It’s too easy to game the system and hide expenditures from public view if there is not a hard and fast requirement for real-time online disclosure. Second, the framework suggests reliance on the FEC to make the information publicly available. If the FEC’s cumbersome, clunky, complicated campaign finance disclosures are any indication, the FEC needs a clear mandate to make sure its new disclosures of political broadcast spending are searchable, sortable, and meaningful to the general public.
Sunlight strongly supports the requirement that political expenditures made by a corporation be disclosed within 24 hours on the corporate Web site. We think the framework shortchanges shareholders, however, by requiring only quarterly reporting. It is, after all, their money being spent – they should be alerted immediately to any political spending on the SEC Web site and through the SEC’s comprehensive disclosure database.
The enhanced disclosures of lobbyists’ campaign expenditures is a good start, though again we would note that to be meaningful, the disclosures must be in real time, online and publicly available and a user-friendly, searchable database. But, in order to address the real threat to the balance of political power that is a result of Citizens United, lobbying disclosure should go much further. As I wrote here, the Citizens United case opened the door to coordination and possible coercion by putting in the hands of corporations, unions and their lobbyists the ability to threaten or imply that if a member of Congress doesn’t support their agenda, he will be faced with a barrage of ads opposing him (or supporting his opponent) in the next election. And, while the Schumer/Van Hollen framework rightly strengthens the ban on coordination to prevent such anti-democratic behavior, without a new disclosure requirement mandating that lobbyists report who they met with, there is no effective way to discern the possibility that such coordination took place.
We hope that when the legislation comes to the House or Senate floor, someone will offer an amendment that requires that within 24 hours of a lobbying contact, lobbyists be required to electronically report the name of the official being lobbied, a summary of the action requested, and the name of the lobbyist’s client or employer. (We’d also like to see the 20 percent exemption for lobbyist reporting eliminated so that all corporate and union heads along with anyone who bundles campaign contributions be required to report their meetings with government officials.) This is a vital way to demonstrate that the new expenditures now permitted because of Citizens United are truly independent.
A “legislative framework” is, of course, just the beginning. As the Members of Congress draft the actual legislation, we hope our suggestions will be incorporated so that the strongest possible disclosures will be in place to help shine a light on who is funding our elections.
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NFL Owners, Executives Contribute In Run-Up to Labor Dispute
The Super Bowl may have been the most watched television program of all time, but many inside the National Football League and in Congress will be paying more attention to the league’s upcoming labor dispute with the NFL Player’s Association. Both the NFL and the union have stepped up their Washington lobbying presence over the past few years as Congress may get involved in the dispute. When it comes to campaign contributions, however, the team owners and executives are dominating the playing field.
Since 2007, NFL employees, executives, players and coaches have contributed a total of $1,285,940 to candidates for federal political office and the official NFL political action committee. According to data acquired from the Center for Responsive Politics, team owners, executives and top employees made 79% of those contributions ($1,021,436). Players make up only 9% of the contributions ($114,764).
(Continue reading…)
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A New Regime Required For Disclosure
As most of you know I have a long history in the campaign finance field as a founder of two organizations – one which is the nation’s première money and politics data crunching organization and a nonprofit that pioneered the concept of a system of full public financing. So it was with some substantial interest that I reviewed (and yes, I admit with horror) the results of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, which opened the floodgate for corporate and union spending in elections. If the sheer size of corporate bank accounts is any indicator, we will soon see just how much money can buy in the political arena.
Or will we? That is the critical question that must be addressed. Without an immediate update to the disclosure laws — covering everything from who has to disclose, what is required to be disclosed, how often, and in what form — the public will be unable to see this new spending as it occurs, nor how corporations and unions pour money into the many other pockets of a politician’s coat. Without vastly improved disclosure, we won’t be able to understand the new play of forces in Washington. Lobbyists, as well as top officials for corporations and unions, will have a new kind of leverage over politicians. The only deterrent to widespread arm-twisting of public representatives by private interests—short of a constitutional amendment reversing the Court’s ruling, or major changes in how campaigns are financed—may well be the requirement that such arm-twisting be disclosed in a timely manner. Clearly, now more than ever, our entire system of public disclosure of election-related contributions and expenditures needs to be upgraded to keep pace with the influences it is designed to track. And in the 21st century this means that everything must be filed online, in real time.
(Continue reading…)
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Citizens United and Transparency: A Look Ahead
The Supreme Court has issued its long-awaited decision in the election law case Citizens United [PDF], to which Ellen has posted her thoughtful response and initial reactions. I’m going to look at the decision’s implications for legal challenges to transparency over the long haul. These are first impressions of a 180+ page opinion and dissents, so thinking on this will likely evolve over the upcoming days and weeks.
To briefly recap, the Supreme Court examined whether the long-standing laws prohibiting corporations and unions from spending money on issue advertisements or express advocacy ads (that support a particular presidential or congressional candidate) violate the First Amendment; and also whether laws that require reporting of these expenditures are constitutional.
Justice Kennedy, writing for the narrow 5-4 majority, held that corporations and unions can spend unlimited amounts of money on issue advertisements or express advocacy right up until election day. Justice Stevens, writing for the dissent (joined by 3 other justices), criticized that decision on many grounds, including practical ones: “The unparalleled resources, professional lobbyists, and single minded focus they bring to this effort, I believed, make quid pro quo corruption and its appearance inherently more likely when they (or their conduits or trade groups) spend unrestricted sums on elections.” (Many argue, like election-law expert Rick Hasen, that the Court shouldn’t have reached these issues in the first place.)
What is clear is that corporations and unions will be able to dump tons more money into an already groaning political system. (We’ll shortly see who has more resources to draw upon.) The decision did not address whether unions and corporations may contribute directly to candidates (up until today they could not) , and left a number of other open questions.
Looking to transparency — disclosure of who funded the ads — only Justice Thomas (who dissents in part) would strike down measures requiring disclosure of donors. But the majority and minority have very different views on the usefulness of transparency in addressing money-related problems. They also leave open a big loophole to knock down transparency laws in the future. (Continue reading…)
