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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Massa, Maf54 and the Ethics Committee
And now to totally contradict my previous post stating why no one needs to talk about tickle-monster Eric Massa.
The House voted today 404-2 to recommend that the House Ethics Committee reopen their probe into Massa’s misconduct and examine whether House leaders were aware of his misdeeds and whether they failed act quickly enough. This follows on the heels of reports that an aide in Speaker Pelosi’s office was informed in October that Massa was living with aides, hired too many aides, cursed around staff and appeared to be going on dates with openly-gay male staffers from other congressional offices.
On first blush these don’t exactly rise to the level of ethics investigation material — congressmen have been known to live with aides in the past and if he wants to cheat on his wife with adult men, that’s his prerogative. Either way, the Ethics Committee should look into whether there was any more information relayed to leadership prior to the reported receipt of complaints about harassment in February and whether they responded properly or not.
Already, this case is being compared to the 2006 Mark Foley scandal. I’m not really sure that it rises to that level for a number of reasons. That being said, let’s take a look at what made the Foley scandal toxic for the congressional leadership who covered it up. (Continue reading…)
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Introducing Sunlight Live
As the Open Government Directive was announced in a live webcast back in December, Sunlight tried something a little different by covering the event live in a variety of formats at once.As is a norm around here, we basically just got a lot of people in a room, tried a bunch of stuff and paid attention to what seemed to work. At the end of the announcement we simultaneously had a tweet stream from across the open government community going, a live blog, and a Google Wave. We threw the obligatory word cloud at it, sent email blasts, and followed up with blog posts about the Directive’s many components.
It was fun and seemed to be pretty effective. And it also got us thinking…
What if we were able to “cover” live events in a new way using government data that we’re able to compile and connect it to political events and personas of the day?
Today we’re going to take this idea to the next step by beginning to connect government data such as campaign contributions or lobbyist meetings to a political event in real-time. As Republican and Democratic leaders come together to debate health care in a public forum, Sunlight is going to provide an alternative to the mainstream media’s coverage. In a replicable pilot we are calling Sunlight Live, our team will connect data such as the aforementioned lobbying contributions or “revolving door”connections the meeting’s participants may have, and put them right next to the video feed, as any particular politician is speaking.
http://sunlightfoundation.com/live
We think Sunlight can offer a unique live perspective on the debate in the midst of the media frenzy, by focusing not on the merits of health care reform, but on the money, connections, and influence data to which we have created access. In addition to displaying data from Sunlight and its grantees’ projects, our staff will once again be live blogging, facilitating online conversation via Twitter, and engaging the open government community in research as the debate unfolds. We don’t yet know exactly what we’ll need or what will work best …but that’s the point.
We’ll be getting things started at 10am with the beginning of the meeting. Hope you’ll join us!
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Boehner Asks for More Committee Transparency
Republican Minority Leader John Boehner is planning on introducing a resolution that would require House committees to post “within 24 hours the actions taken” by the committees. While vague, this would be a positive transparency provision to adopt.
Already we are seeing committees move in this direction. The House Committee on Energy & Commerce and the House Committee on Education & Labor did an excellent job of posting committee votes on amendments during the health care bill mark up in July. Almost all of the House’s debate over the health care bill has been done in a transparent fashion, so far.
Codifying these advances into the House rules would be a very positive step. Seeing as how some committees are already moving in this direction I would hope that the majority will not see Boehner’s introduction of this resolution as simply a partisan move, but rather take a serious look at this proposal.
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Capitol Words: Pelosi v. Boehner
An analysis using Capitol Words comparing the words spoken by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Republican Minority Leader John Boehner in 2008 shows that the two issues receiving the most discussion by both parties in the 110th Congress were the debate over climate change legislation and off-shore drilling and the debate over the collapse of the financial sector and the ensuing recession.
Of the top fifty words spoken by both party leaders, there is overlap for only eighteen words. These eighteen words include five of the top thirty words spoken during the entire 110th Congress: Energy, Security, Country, Tax, and Oil. All of these words featured prominently in the debate over energy legislation during the summer months in 2008. Other words that overlapped include Economy, Budget, Jobs, Million and Billion, all words spoken during the September-October debate over the federal bailout of the financial services industry.
Also important are the many words that do not overlap. These show the Speaker’s support for the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and the preview of congressional Republicans 2009 complaints about deficits and spending. The natural oppositional nature of being in the minority is also evident in the kinds of words used by Leader Boehner.
Speaker Pelosi used many words that imitated the language of Barack Obama: Future, Hope, and Leadership. These were staples of the Democratic presidential candidate’s campaign. Leader Boehner was, at the same time, showing the combative nature of being in the minority, particularly during a difficult election year. Boehner’s words included Democrat, Washington, and Ethics. These are clearly words used to attack the majority. Speaker Pelosi did not use the word Republican in her top fifty words.
The Republican Leader was also focused on traditional Republican policies of low spending with the words Spending, Prices, Cost and Growth. This definitely previewed the lines of argument coming from the minority in the current Congress.
One other interesting tidbit is the use of words that seem to stress similar ideas but from different angles. For example, Speaker Pelosi uses the word Opportunity while Leader Boehner uses the word Unemployment.
These infographics were created by Kerry Mitchell using data from the CapitolWords.org API and were visualized in Nodebox http://nodebox.net using the “graph” library.
Tell me what you see here in the comments.
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The 72-Hour Rule Gets a High Profile Endorsement
Today House Minority Leader John Boehner endorsed the idea of a mandatory 72-hour review period for all major spending legislation. He noted the Sunlight Foundation’s advocacy for such a rule. (see video below)
The 8000 individuals who have signed our Read the Bill petition and the dozens of high profile endorsements we have garnered for the concept speak to the growing support for the commonsense solution.
ReadTheBill.org
To us, it is axiomatic that if all non-emergency legislation were posted online in a searchable format at least 72 hours before consideration, the legislative process would be transformed because members of Congress would know what they were voting on before they voted. A 72-hour rule would give those outside the Capitol and K Street a chance to understand legislation and voice ways to improve it. Reporters would have meaningful opportunities to explain legislation to the public. Membership organizations, trade associations and nonprofits would be better able to serve their members by being able to review, analyze and explain legislative proposals. Corporations, small business owners and labor leaders would know how legislation might impact workers or their bottom line. Individuals would read bills on issues that are important to them and become more active participants in our democracy.We appreciate that this commonsense idea is finally getting some high profile attention. We aren’t so naïve as to think that congressional Republicans aren’t engaging in a little partisan gamesmanship with their sudden embrace of an idea that has been around for some time. They weren’t exactly carrying the banner for the cause when, for example, they were in the majority and Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001. Debate on that bill, which dramatically expanded the
federal government’s ability to spy on its citizens and altered long-held constitutional protections, began as soon as the bill was introduced. Translation: Members voted for (or less often against) the bill without having any idea of its breadth, depth or impact.And the list goes on—omnibus spending bills with billions of dollars in spending, a bill that deregulated the financial sector and gave rise to the risky behavior that has shaken our economy, and of course the economic stimulus package were all debated without members of Congress or the public having had the chance to read them. These critical pieces of legislation and their sometimes dire results demonstrate all too convincingly that the issue of putting bills online for 72 hours is too important to become a victim of partisan sniping and finger pointing. Let’s all just admit that both parties slip controversial provisions and wasteful spending for pet projects into legislation when they hope no one is looking.
Putting bills online for 72 hours is not a panacea. But allowing for a few days for everyone to read vital legislation it is a crucial step in improving the legislative process. And if the process is better, the resulting legislation will be better too.
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Wall Street Comes to Washington
Politico seems to be suggesting that Wall Street has just discovered Washington. They’ve been here a long time.
“Wall Street Comes to Washington” is the title of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association event convening Thursday. Attendees will be entertained by media celeb Tucker Carlson and will hear from House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). They’ll have dinner with Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), and they’ll participate in panel discussions about the ongoing credit crunch and the regulatory future for their industry.
This industry doesn’t have trouble attracting lawmakers to their lobbying-fest. They represent Rep. John Boehner’s fifth largest source of campaign funds; and Sen. Richard Burr’s seventh largest. As for snaring Rep Joseph Crowley’s? No problem. They are his largest contributor.
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Earmark Season Opens
The floodgates are open in Congress as members are ready to begin work on a new season of appropriations bills. That can only mean one thing: more earmarks. This season, being an election year, will be frought with perils and politics for many members of Congress. Today, the House Republican conference released a new Web site to fight for earmark reform, and, of course, to put Democrats in politically precarious districts on the defensive on reform and spending. Many of these Democrats are freshmen, including Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak. In CongressDaily, Sestak explains how earmarks are used to help support these targeted freshmen:
But he acknowledged that his requests for add-ons were not always given the same priority as those of more vulnerable freshmen. "I do know this," Sestak said. "Because I wasn’t on Frontline. I was not on the Tier One list for earmarks."
Indeed, senior appropriators have credited politically vulnerable freshmen for bringing funds for large, defensible projects back to their constituents.
Sestak’s office appears to use a strategy, which we’ve seen with Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, of directing organizations and local government agencies through the grant process and, in Sestak’s case in particular, of heavily vetting any and all earmark requests, especially defense earmarks:
His office put together a "how-to" guide to help local governments and organizations make grant requests in an effort to steer his constituents to use grants rather than earmarks, when appropriate. It also created a seven-page earmark request form.
But the retired three-star admiral also runs a proverbial tight ship. Sestak’s office heavily vets earmark submissions.
In many cases he runs defense earmark requests by the military to make sure the project is a product they want or could use before sending letters to the subcommittee chairmen with a brief argument in support of the add-on and following up with the chairmen and committee staff. If there is an overlap between campaign contribution and earmark requests, he said, he promptly returns the contributions.
Sestak’s military experience gave his defense earmarks credibility with appropriators, and helped him secure $23.4 million in military-related add-ons. Sestak’s earmarks came to $32 million.
Meanwhile, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Henry Waxman is insisting the Democratic leadership freeze earmarks for the year:
"We have a problem in Congress," Waxman said in a statement that seemingly puts him in line with House Republican leaders on the issue. "Congressional spending through earmarks is out of control. I think our best approach would be to suspend all earmarks for the 2009 appropriations cycle while we consider the right reforms for the earmark process. As a result I will not submit any requests to the Appropriation Committee for this fiscal year."
Waxman praised the "real progress" made by Appropriations Chairman David Obey, D-Wisc., in cutting earmarks in fiscal 2008 appropriations bills by 30 percent. But, he added, too many questionable projects were still being funded.
It looks to be another year of bomb throwing over earmarks. Bomb throwing, is only useful, if it results in more reform, as we’ve already seen, rather than simply scoring political points.
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Scandals Continue to Take Toll
If Jack Abramoff were a horror movie monster I would not want to be Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio), AKA Bob Ney. Last night, the former wonderboy of the Right Ralph Reed lost convincingly in the Georgia Lt. Governor Republican primary to Casey Cagle, 54%-46%. Reed saw his stock plummet as the lobbying and grassroots work he did with his buddy Jack Abramoff poured out of Senate hearings and court documents into the newspapers. The former head of the Christian Coalition, his eyes set on the Presidency, felled himself by showing his true colors. Mike Crowley at TNR’s The Plank writes that “Jack Abramoff can so far be officially credited with destroying three careers (Reed, Tom DeLay, and David Safavian).” Despite what some have said the money-in-politics scandals are taking their toll on Washington.
Today, another member of Congress, Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.), denied being a target in the investigation into activities by Duke Cunningham briber Mitchell Wade. As Justin Rood notes, Harris has entered into the fourth stage of scandal-dom:
This puts Harris at Stage IV of the TPMmuckraker Political Scandal Process (TM). Stages I-III include:
- Allegations of wrongdoing appearing in media
– Hiring of expensive lawyer
– News of federal investigation appearing in media.Stage IV is the denial that the lawmaker is, in fact, a target.
I think we get where this is going. Then we have Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) starring in his very own Duke Cunningham spin-off scandal along side lawmaker-turned-lobbyist Bill Lowery and the model for all corrupt Californians, Brent Wilkes. Now we find out that Lewis received valuable stock from a friend whose wife sat on the board of the Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital Foundation, “a branch of Loma Linda University Medical Center,” which received a $200 million earmark courtesy of Lewis. Looks like members can still beat the market — if they dole out earmarks appropriately.
And of course all of these members falling under the eye of federal investigators means were going to get some reform sometime soon, right? (chirp chirp) Probably not. You see, the House Majority Leader is Rep. John Boehner (R-Lobbyists). The New York Times recently reported on Boehner’s shenanigans with lobbyists and uncovered that the guy who ran on a platform of reform “has raised campaign contributions at a rate of about $10,000 a day since February, surpassing the pace set by former Representative Tom DeLay after he became majority leader in 2002”. Wow, he’s out-DeLaying DeLay! Boehner’s campaign committees “recently hired two people from lobbying groups for the financial and insurance industries” while “[m]ore than 10 of Mr. Boehner’s former staff members have gone to work for lobbying firms”.
Out with the old and in with the…old?
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Daylight AM:
- Yet another city is subpoenaed in the investigation into Appropriations Chairman [sw: Jerry Lewis]‘ (R-Calif.) earmarking practices. The San Bernardino Sun reports that Highland, California has become the eighth city, county, or university to receive a subpoena in the federal investigation. The Sun also notes the debate over earmarks that took place on the floor of the House yesterday as [sw: Jeff Flake] (R-Ariz.) forced members to defend their earmarks. Unfortunately, the House voted by 6 to 1 margins to maintain all of the earmarks, which included a $500,000 earmark placed by Lewis to renovate a swimming pool in Banning, California. The Banning swimming pool had previously received a combined $500,000 in earmarks from Lewis.
- Not only did Majority Leader [sw: John Boehner] (R-Ohio) return to the House leadership in an unexpected victory last year, but he also won $2,700 at the slots. Boehner was waiting for an aide at a "pit stop" in northern Michigan and "decided to play the slots … and won."
- Jeffrey Shockey, revolving door poster boy and central figure to the [sw: Jerry Lewis] scandal, revised his 2004 financial disclosure forms to show that he made $500,000 more from his former lobbying clients while he was working in Lewis’ office.
- Roll Call reports that the Senate’ millionaires club has expanded by one to 46 Senators. [sw: John Kerry] (D-Mass.) and [sw: Jay Rockefeller] (D-W. Va.) still sit atop the list while presidential aspirant Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) reported $19,000 in negative net worth. That makes for a total of $2 million.
- The GOP is trying to find a balance on spending restraint and earmark reform, according to The Hill. Republicans in the Senate are "trying to salvage a spending-reform provision empowering individual senators to strip new earmarks out of conference reports without handing the rank and file unlimited power to wage wars of attrition to defeat bills they do not like."
- The Hill has a run-down on the personal finances of members that were released yesterday.
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GOP In-Fighting Over Earmark Reforms:
The Associated Press is reporting that the House Republicans have not been able to come to an agreement on the earmark reform provisions in the lobbying and ethics “reform” bill (if you want to know why I use quotations marks go here). In one corner is Appropriations Chair Jerry Lewis (R-CA) who is peeved that the earmark reform only targets earmarks originating out of his committee. Lewis declared that a reform that “does not touch on the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ is not really reform.” In the other corner is Mike Pence (R-IN), the spokesman for the most conservative Republicans. He said to CongressDailyPM that Lewis’ argument against limiting earmark reform to the Appropriations Committee alone “feels to many of us like an effort to defeat earmark reform.” Caught in the middle is Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) who is “confident” the bill will be “on the floor tomorrow” despite Republicans having “some work to do on earmark reform”.
In the Senate Tom Coburn (R-OK) is planning to offer amendments to the emergency spending bill directly targeting spending that he wants to cut, including the Gulf Coast railroad sought by Trent Lott, Thad Cochran, and Haley Barbour. (CongressDailyPM)
