Today, we are launching a new Web site, Party Time, a project to track parties thrown at the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions as well as fund raising activities by all lawmakers running for Congress that happen all year round in Washington, D.C. and beyond.

The count of parties and events we’ve heard about scheduled for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions is now above 400-and counting. As we noted the other week, here, these convention parties are often sponsored by corporate interests such as Citi, Eli Lilly and Qwest, as well as powerhouse lobbying firms such as Patton Boggs. They continue despite new ethics reforms intended to rein in excesses of special interest bashes for members of Congress. Many of these party hosts are also sponsors of the conventions’ host committees, major donors to federal candidates and party committees and are also big spenders on federal lobbying.

So, for example:

AT&T is hosting more than a dozen parties at both conventions, most of them parties for different state delegations. The company is also underwriting both the Democratic and GOP Convention committees, and happens to be the #2 top donor to federal and candidates and parties since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. AT&T has spent more than $3 million on federal campaign contributions and lobbying combined in 2008 alone, 60% of which is directed to the GOP. It has also spent another $3.2 million on federal lobbying.

Qwest’s CEO, Ed Mueller, is hosting an event at the Denver Art Museum on Monday, August 25. The company is also giving the Democratic and GOP Convention host committees a total of some $12 million in direct and in-kind contributions. Qwest has given $682,000 to federal candidates and parties so far this election cycle, and spent $1.7 million on lobbying.

A long list of financial service powerhouses are sponsoring a “financial literacy brunch” at the Democratic National Convention, including Allstate, AEGON, Bank of America, Capitol One, Charles Schwab, Edward Jones, Fidelity, Genworth, MasterCard, Mutual of Omaha, Nationwide, Principal Financial Group, State Farm, NASDAQ, US Bank, Visa, Wachovia and Wells Fargo. These companies are major campaign contributors and lobbying forces in Washington.

(more…)

0 Comments

Lobbying disclosure reports will finally get reviewed by an oversight body as a result of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA). The Government Accountability Office (GAO) began auditing the first quarter lobbying reports to determine compliance and noncompliance to the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 and subsequent amendments included in HLOGA. The GAO may ask for time sheets and restaurant and travel records to check to see if employees are meeting the lobbyist threshold. The audit results should be released around Sept. 30, 2008, six months after the initial quarterly report filing date. Michael Stern at Point of Order points out some issues that may prevent the GAO from requiring audited firms to turn over documents:

According to this article in Roll Call, the failure to comply with a GAO request could then be referred to the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House, which are responsible under the LDA for notifying any lobbyist or lobbying firm that “may be in noncompliance” with the law. This in turn could lead to a referral to the U.S. Attorney for potential civil or even criminal enforcement.

This, I think, must be wrong. HLOGA gives GAO the authority to request information from certain individuals and organizations, but it does not require that the information be provided.If Congress had intended that registrants and lobbyists be required to provide information requested, it surely would have said so explicitly. To imply such a duty would seem particularly inappropriate given the possibility that requests might infringe on First Amendment rights or other privileges.

A more likely interpretation is that Congress intended that the GAO’s notification would be referred to the committees of jurisdiction, which could then choose to use their subpoena power to obtain the needed information.

0 Comments

Governor Bobby Jindal swept into Louisiana’s top job with a pledge to clean up the notoriously corrupt state and has made good by spending his political capital on the passage of sweeping ethics reforms set to permanently change the culture of the Bayou State. Jindal’s arguments for the need for rapid ethics changes centered on the need to encourage businesses to invest in the state without requiring them to stuff the right person’s pockets. But the part that most sticks out for us at Sunlight is this:

“This is huge,” said D. W. Hunt, a veteran lobbyist at the Capitol. “This is a sea change. This will seriously, dramatically change things. The meta-theme is the transparency.”

Barry Erwin, president of the Council for a Better Louisiana, a good-government watchdog group, described the new bills as “a major change in the culture.”

“It’s a world of difference, particularly on the disclosure side, and the same thing with conflict-of-interest,” he said.

The new requirements will force all state legislators, as well as most other elected and appointed officials around the state, to disclose all sources of income, real estate holdings and debts over $10,000. (Judges are exempted.) Lawmakers and executive branch officials will no longer be able to get contracts for state-financed or disaster-related work. Lobbyists will also have to disclose their sources of income and will be limited to spending no more than $50 per elected official, per meal; splitting the tab, say among other lobbyists or legislators, will also be prohibited.

The new income disclosure requirements for legislators are comparable to those of Washington State, ranked first in the country by the Center for Public Integrity.

Gov. Jindal explained how Hurricanes Katrina and Rita influenced his decision to tackle ethics reforms stating that the destruction opened a window that "caused people to rethink how they wanted their social institutions to be designed, how they wanted services to be delivered, what kind of state they wanted to call home.”

0 Comments

We here at Sunlight take Justice Brandeis’ quote to heart, "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." The idea is to give the public a clear picture of what is going on with their government. We believe providing more information by expanding disclosure and transparency on Capitol Hill will cure much of what has been called the culture of corruption in Washington. At a minimum openness will help to keep the players, both members of Congress and their staff and the lobbyists, honest even if only out the fear of embarrassment.

That alone can be a powerful incentive…But likely not as viscerally poignant as the fear of legal sanctions. Evidenced by a post Friday on the Legal Times’ Influence blog titled "To File or Not to File?" that highlighted how lobbyists are reacting to the recently passed Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007:

When Congress passed lobbying and ethics reform legislation last year, several experts said the harsher criminal penalties in the new law could encourage some lawyers and lobbyists to avoid registering until they absolutely had to do so under the law.

But it appears that in some cases, it’s having the opposite effect, with some lobbyists bending over backward to be careful. Patrick Raher, director of Hogan & Hartson’s environmental group, filed a registration this week on behalf of The Clorox Company. Raher says the company has had meetings at the Environmental Protection Agency to comment on regulations that will govern the labeling of antimicrobial products, such as a hand disinfectant that Clorox manufactures for hospitals. A political appointee at EPA was included in the meetings, Raher says, so he registered - just in case - even though he viewed the meetings as relatively routine.

"It’s better to be safe than sorry," he says. "This law is so new and no one knows how it will be interpreted in the future and I don’t want to be the person who is involved in the interpretation."

The more information citizens have about their government and those attempting to influence its decisions the better.

0 Comments