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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This Week in Transparency – August 28, 2009
Here are some of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies over the past week:
CQ Politics‘ Richard Rubin reports how House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (N.Y.), already beset by a series of ethics investigations, recently disclosed more than $500,000 in previously unreported assets. Rubin notes that earlier this year, Bill Allison, Sunlight’s senior fellow, found similar problems with Rangel’s previous disclosure reports. According to Bill’s analysis, Rangel failed to report purchases, sales or his ownership of assets at least 28 times since 1978 on his personal financial disclosure forms. Assets worth between $239,026 and $831,000 appeared and disappeared with no disclosure of when they were acquired, how long they were held or when they were sold, as House rules require. “I understand being sloppy, missing an asset once or twice,” Bill said. “But what this shows is he doesn’t take financial disclosure seriously. How else can you year after year have these inaccuracies? It doesn’t look like there is a lot of care put it into compared to other members. It makes people suspicious when all of a sudden you double your wealth. Without knowing how a member accumulated that wealth, people are going to ask questions.” The New York Times‘ David Kocieniewski reported on Rangel’s discrepancies and quotes Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, saying the New York lawmaker’s haphazard approach to his finances had undermined his credibility in Congress. “Sloppy bookkeeping is not a valid excuse for a sophisticated member of Congress who is chairman of the committee that handles complex financial issues like the tax code,” she said. Glenn Reynolds, at his popular “Instapundit” blog, has followed the various Rangel stories and picks up on Bill’s Real Time Investigations post responding to the CQ Politics report.
Halimah Abdullah, with McClatchy Newspapers, reported on a study conducted by the Center for Public Integrity that found more than half the $1.1 million in campaign contributions the Democratic Party’s Blue Dog Coalition received so far this year came from the pharmaceutical, health care and health insurance industries. The report cites Center for Responsive Politics data to show how, on average, Blue Dog Democrats net $62,650 more from the health sector than other Democrats, while hospitals and nursing homes also favor them, giving, respectively, $5,680 and $5,550 more. Abdullah used Party Time data to show how coalition members are raising campaign cash at fundraisers. McClatchy papers across the country ran the story.
Wired’s “Epicenter” blog highlighted the Apps for America 2 contest finalists. Government Computer News quotes Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs’ director, discussing the finalists. (Continue reading…)
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Weekly Media Roundup – May 1, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:David Herbert with the National Journal (subscription required) wrote about the grades new media experts from across the political spectrum gave the Obama administration’s Web presence. The experts gave WhiteHouse.gov an average grade of C+. Although they mostly see it as an improvement from the previous administration’s site, many noted that it remained a one-way forum and suggested it be opened to allow comments and other interactive features. Herbert quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, “This occasional use of interactive tools” is impressive, but “90 percent of the time the site is pretty straightforward, as it was under [George W.] Bush.” Recovery.gov, the administration’s site where citizens can monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds, fared even worse in the Journal’s poll, averaging a C. The most common gripe about the site, Herbert writes, is that it’s “the view from 30,000 feet,” as Micah Sifry, senior technology advisor for Sunlight and Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) co-founder, told him. Without providing on-the-the ground details, Recovery.gov offers taxpayers few tools for staying on top of where their money is going, reviewers said. Recovery.gov has competition in the form of privately-operated Recovery.org, which has “more granular data and a real search tool, which one assumes we’ll eventually see on Recovery.gov,” Micah explains. “I don’t think it’s fair to compare this site to other Web sites yet, as it’s just weeks old,” Micah added. “Let’s take another look in three to six months, OK?”
Chris Lefkow with Agence France-Presse gained a different take by interviewing academics, technology analysts and nonpartisan groups on the administration’s technology efforts. Lefkow writes that they all said the first “tech president” is off to a good start. Lefkow quotes John Wonderlich, Sunlight’s policy director, “their first pronouncements are very encouraging,” and added that the challenge, however, is going to be the implementation. Andrew Resiej, Sunlight’s other senior technology advisor and PDF co-founder, said the administration been doing as much as it can to fulfill its promises in regards to transparency and technological innovation. “However they’ve been constrained by decades of industrial-age rules and regulations and procurement protocols that are handicapping the speed at which they can implement that vision,” he said.
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One More Post on Daschle, Revolving Door
This Feb. 2nd Newshour segment is from before Tom Daschle dropped out, but the discussion regarding the revolving door and President Obama’s reliance on Washington insiders between Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s Melanie Sloan and lawyer Kenneth Gross is well worth watching. It starts at around the 5:00 minute mark.
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Let The Good Times (Continue to) Roll
In today’s edition, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reports that the annual Washington Mardi Gras party kicks off tonight at the Washington Hilton, a weekend-long event billed as "one of the most sought-after tickets in any season in Washington." The event’s parties, the paper says, "are arguably the most intimate gatherings of businesspeople, politicians and lobbyists left in Washington" after new congressional ethics rules were adopted. Writing that the parties are"a throwback to the days when politicians and lobbyists socialized regularly outside the glare of the public spotlight," the paper added that they are "largely immune to the new ethics standards."
A secretive, Louisiana-based group headed by a lobbyist and former aide to now lobbyist and former Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) organizes the event. The organization declined to name this year’s corporate sponsors, but in years past they included R.J. Reynolds, BellSouth, and Lockheed Martin, according to the paper.
This weekend’s parties at the Hilton is clear evidence that despite passing new ethics rules last year, Congress has much work to do to realize House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) claim that the link between lobbyist and legislatures has been broken. In its story, The Times-Picayune interviewed Sunlight grantee Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, as asking, "What better occasion than Mardi Gras to demonstrate that the new rules are a farce?" Indeed.
What specifically is at issue here is the section of the new law regarding banning gifts from lobbyists to members of Congress and their staff. Most gifts are banned, but loopholes exist. This weekend’s Mardi Gras parties are considered "widely attended" functions, one of the loopholes allowing lobbyists to purchase tickets and give them as gifts to members and their staff. Also, the numerous receptions held in conjunction with the parties "are allowed under a separate exception because they aren’t sit-down meals: Only hors d’oeuvres are served," the paper writes. Last week, McClatchy Newspapers highlighted this "toothpick rule," where all is fine as long as members of Congress and their staff are not provided with silverware and a table and chair.
Earlier this week, The Hill newspaper spotlighted another problem with the gift ban. The House and Senate interpreted one aspect of the rules differently. It has been a long tradition for lobbyists to buy tickets to ritzy charity events, requesting that the some of the tickets be given to certain members of Congress and/or their staff. These charity events are popular with lawmakers, The Hill writes, by allowing them to socialize and interact with "Hollywood stars, business titans, sports figures and other noted celebrities." Obviously, anyone concerned about good government would have a problem with lobbyists doling out such prized perks to members of Congress and their staff. The Senate has ruled that these gifts are outlawed by the gift ban. The House has decided to allow the practice to continue for its members.
Craig Holman at Public Citizen’s Watchdog Blog wrote how he was not surprised by the decision by the House ethics committee in light of another very recent decision. In December, the committee ruled that lobbyists can throw lavish parties for lawmakers at the national conventions if two or more lawmakers are honored at the party. "It is becoming clear that we have a rogue House ethics committee that has not changed much since Tom DeLay," he writes.
And another beef we have at the Sunlight Foundation is that it’s past time for Congress to set up systems allowing lobbyists to file electronically all reporting requirements. The Lobbyist Disclosure Act of 1995 required this over a decade ago, but the House and Senate have failed to follow through. We agree with at Public Citizen when they called on Congress to require quarterly reports be filed electronically and establish a searchable, sortable and downloadable Web-based database that includes separate electronic fields for each record required to be disclosed, especially bill numbers and issue areas lobbied. In fact, we’d go further. It would be nothing for lobbyists to press the "send button" on their BlackBerrys and post their daily calendars on line.
