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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Gillibrand Touts Transparency
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said today that the final version of health care legislation will be available for at least 72 hours before debate. She also spoke out strongly in favor of transparency for congressional schedules, earmarks, and legislation in today’s conference call with bloggers organized by Blogher, which I moderated on behalf of the Sunlight Foundation.
Sen. Gillibrand has been a longtime advocate for transparency, which Paul Blumenthal has blogged about here, here, and here.
The call was part of a series sponsored by Blogher to connect bloggers directly with legislators. Other lawmakers who have participated are Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Sen. Amy Klochubar, Rep. George Miller, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Jeff Merkely, and Rep. Cynthia Lummis. Many have spoken out about transparency.
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Weekly Media Roundup – April 17, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:Various media outlets and bloggers, including the likes of CNET.com, the Associated Press, the National Journal, Lawrence Lessig and Craig Newmark, have covered and congratulated the Center for Responsive Politics’ (CRP) for making its data records from OpenSecrets.org free for anyone to download. The Journal’s “Tech Daily Dose” column reported that more than 120 people had downloaded bulk data within the first 24 hours of CRP opening up its archives.
The Washington Post’s “The Reliable Source” column highlighted Capitol Words, which “slices and dices the entirety of the Congressional Record for your searching pleasure,” they write. McClatchy’s David Lightman reported that, in light of the financial crisis, words you would expect to be used by congressional lawmakers often, such as recession, bailout, stimulus and deficit do not crack the top 30 most frequently uttered terms so far this year. And Daphne Ritter with the New York Post looks at the top words used by several lawmakers from the Empire State’s congressional delegation.
Alice Lipowicz with Federal Computer Week used OpenCongress data in writing about how only 10 congressional lawmakers (four senators and six reps) post their daily schedules on their official Web sites. New York Newsday editorialized about how Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) is blazing a trail in her congressional career by posting her schedule and personal financial disclosure reports online. “While (congressional lawmakers are) at it, they should make sure that information is easy to locate, archived and searchable, so that watchful voters can track, over time, the lobbyists and interest groups bending an official’s ear,” the editors wrote.
Last week, Ryan Singel at Wired’s “Epicenter” blog wrote about Sunlight Labs‘ contest Apps for America, and asked his readers to vote for their favorites. This week, he reported back on the response he received, and issued what he terms the “Epicenter Reader’s Choice award.”
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Gillibrand’s Sunlight Report Pulls Back the Curtain
Back when Kirsten Gillibrand was elected to the House of Representatives in 2006, she promised to post her daily schedule of meetings and events. This was an unprecendented action for a member of the House and Gillibrand kept up her promise for all of 2007-2008. Now that she has ascended to the Senate–chosen as a replacement for now-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton–Gillibrand is continuing to post her schedule, this time in a much more detailed and impressive way.
Yesterday was the first day of Sen. Gillibrand’s new schedule and it looks like this:
Sunlight Report for Wednesday, April 1, 2009
- Hosted Congressional HIV/AIDS Briefing
- Meeting with Ed Malloy, President of the NYS Building and Construction Trades Council and Ed Smith, President of Union Labor Life Insurance Company to discuss ARRA funds for job creation in New York State
- Gave speech to the United Jewish Communities organization on health care reform, the federal budget and foreign policy
- Floor votes (see Congressional Record)
- Meeting with Charles Myers to discuss frozen credit markets
- Meeting with Eli Feldman, President of Metropolitan Jewish Health
- Meeting with Mayor Brian Stratton to discuss appropriations requests for Schenectady
The noteworthy parts of her schedule are found in the meetings with interests and individuals who are clearly lobbying. In this case, as opposed to many of the other six lawmakers posting their schedules, she provides clear information on the employment of those she meets with and what they are discussing. The latter piece of information is crucial and is rarely seen in other schedules.
This meeting, for instance, provides us with a decent amount of information regarding who is lobbying her office and for what: “Meeting with Ed Malloy, President of the NYS Building and Construction Trades Council and Ed Smith, President of Union Labor Life Insurance Company to discuss ARRA funds for job creation in New York State.” (Emphasis mine.) This kind of transparency allows her constituents to be able to track who is lobbying her office and what for.
While this isn’t what ideal, legally binding disclosure would look like, it is impressive from a position of voluntary disclosure. Hopefully, this kind of information will be a regular feature of her schedule.
When Gillibrand ascended to the Senate, I wrote that, as a senator, she should aim to improve her schedule:
In [continuing her spirit of transparency], she should aim to improve the content of her official schedule. One thing we’ve noticed is that her schedule has grown sparse, only notes official events, and does not list meetings with anyone from outside of government. In moving to the Senate, Gillibrand should aim for a higher standard of transparency in her schedule.
It is great to see her schedule, not only return to listing all meetings, as it did when it began, but increasing the breadth of information disclosed to the public.
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Sen.-Designee Gillibrand’s Transparency Record
Today, New York Governor David Paterson appointed Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to fill Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat. Gillibrand has, from day one of her congressional career, worked to make her office one of the more transparent in the Congress.
Entering Congress in 2007, Gillibrand was at the vanguard of transparency innovation in Congress. She was the first congressional candidate to sign Sunlight’s Punch Clock pledge, a promise to post her daily schedule once she had taken office, and to post her schedule (which has been archived at Congresspedia). She was also one of the first to post her earmarks, earmark requests, and personal financial disclosures to her official web site without a requirement to do so. Gillibrand was also a chief proponent of requiring Inspector General reports to be posted online. We truly hope that she carries this spirit of transparency with her to the Senate.
In doing so, she should aim to improve the content of her official schedule. One thing we’ve noticed is that her schedule has grown sparse, only notes official events, and does not list meetings with anyone from outside of government. In moving to the Senate, Gillibrand should aim for a higher standard of transparency in her schedule.
A shining example for congressional schedules can be found in the schedules of the Montana delegation, Sens. Max Baucus, Jon Tester, and Rep. Denny Rehberg. All three of these lawmakers post detailed schedules that note many meetings with lobbyists, home state residents, industry executives, union members, and others who come to Washington to talk and lobby their elected officials. That is what a truly transparent schedule looks like. Hopefully, as she moves up to the Senate, Rep. Gillibrand will continue to advance transparency and improve her efforts at maintaining a transparent office.
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Transparent Lawmakers Win
In January of 2007, freshman Democratic congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand became the first member of the House of Representatives to post her daily schedule on her official web site, a historic step for transparency in Congress. At the time, many feared that this level of transparency would harm her reelection prospects in a mostly Republican district. Those fears turned out to be wrong. Last night, every non-retiring candidate posting their daily schedule online was reelected to Congress, proving that transparency does not harm electoral prospects.
Since Rep. Gillibrand’s daily schedule went online, eight other lawmakers (including Sen. Jon Tester, the first senator to post a daily schedule) began posting daily schedules – you can view a map of their meetings here. They include Reps. John Doolittle, Dennis Rehberg, Kathy Castor, Jan Schakowsky, and John Yarmuth and Sens. Tester, Max Baucus, and Bill Nelson. Of these lawmakers, Rep. Doolittle retired and Sens. Tester and Nelson were not up for reelection. Reps. Rehberg, Castor, Schakowsky, and Yarmuth and Sen. Baucus all joined Rep. Gillibrand in winning reelection.
From her first day, Rep. Gillibrand has been a leader on operating a unilaterally transparent congressional office. Aside from posting her daily schedule, she was among the first lawmakers to post on her web site a list of her earmark requests and her personal financial disclosure. Since then, unilateral transparency (the disclosure of information not required by laws or congressional rules) has become much more prevalent throughout the House and Senate.
Today, over forty lawmakers disclose their earmark requests to some degree, while dozens more provide some lesser form of earmark disclosure. Others post their personal financial disclosures and travel reports.
The movement towards transparency continues unabated. The proven ability of transparent lawmakers to win reelection provides further space for more lawmakers to operate in an open and transparent manner.
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Gillibrand: Put IG Work Online
The House of Representatives voted on a bill to improve the way Inspectors General perform their work monitoring spending in executive branch agencies. Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand thought the bill might be improved by adding a provision on transparency. Sunlight helped her find an amendment—already part of a bill Senator McCaskill has introduced—that would require that each agency provide a link on its homepage to its IG’s homepage. The amendment also requires that IG reports are posted in a searchable, sortable, downloadable format and be available online no more than one day after the reports are made public. Another piece of the amendment provides that the IG’s website have a method by which the public can report waste, fraud or abuse in an agency.
This amendment shines light on the important work of Inspectors General and it has the potential to save taxpayer money by allowing the taxpayers themselves to report when they think an agency is engaged in wasteful or improper spending. By offering this common sense amendment, Rep. Gillibrand, who already posts her schedule, her personal financial disclosures, and her earmark requests online, can put another notch in her transparency belt. The amendment passed by voice vote, which means that her colleagues also recognized how important and non-controversial greater transparency is. Hopefully more Members of Congress will follow Ms. Gillibrand’s lead when it comes to making their own work more transparent. Ms. Gillibrand and a handful of other Members know that greater transparency builds trust with their constituents, fosters accountability, and simply improves the way our democratic institutions work.
