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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House Expenditures to go Online
The US House is expected today to release the quarterly Statement of Disbursements online for the first time.
Sunlight has long called for electronic disclosure of the accounts of Members and other offices within the House, and last June Speaker Pelosi announced this new policy. The US Senate quickly followed, announcing a new policy set to take effect in 2011.
We expect today to be the first time the public will be able to see how their representatives spend their office budgets online, adding a new layer of accountability and trust to the process of representation. As Paul Blumenthal has detailed before, past decades have seen scandal around Members’ expenditures, and the House of Commons in the United Kingdom was recently rocked by a similar scandal, when the public learned how Members of Parliament were spending official funds.
Today’s release will mark a proactive stance from the US House, voluntarily creating more effective disclosure, and responding to new expectations that information be available online for it to be truly public.
(Continue reading…)
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Pelosi Addresses e-Parliament Conference
Speaker Pelosi yesterday spoke on a panel to kick off the World eParliament Conference 2009, in the US House of Representatives.
Her prepared remarks are available here, and include the following:
“In the history of American democracy, there was a time when a message could travel only as fast as a horse could gallop or a ship could sail. Today, a message from the American people to their representatives in Congress travels as fast as a citizen can twitter, blog, or post to Facebook…
Led by the innovation and enthusiasm of young people, Americans and Members of Congress are holding a running conversation – in real time. There is no greater tool to increase transparency than the internet. Now, Americans can watch committee hearings, check votes, read bills, and review financial disclosures–all online. Next month, they will be able to see exactly how Members of Congress are spending their office funds, and at the start of next year, they will be able to watch and search our House floor proceedings in real time.
Clearly, Sunlight agrees that “there is no greater tools to increase transparency than the Internet.”
Also, “watch[ing] and search[ing] floor proceedings in real time” will be a welcome addition to the current real-time web presence of the House.
Speaker Pelosi also engaged in a long aside during her delivered remarks yesterday, invoking the distinction between disclosure through office-hours-basement-binder-public-inspection and disclosure in real time, online, expressing an explicit preference for the latter.
Ellen is presenting this morning, and I’ll also be tweeting from much of the event.
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72 Hours is Now
September 24th, Speaker Pelosi said that the healthcare bill would be online for 72 hours.
That 72 hours is now. The bill is online.
We should recognize this as a milestone. Has it now become unpalatable for House leadership for either party, from now on, to schedule a vote on major legislation before 72 hours of public availability (and that means online) has elapsed? That’s unclear.
Even if Speaker Pelosi hadn’t committed to posting the final healthcare bill for 72 hours, though, it’s pretty hard to imagine such a rushed vote in this case. It invites too significant a political liability. It would empower process-based criticism. Not only would it be a bad idea, it would be a bad idea politically. Minority Leader Boehner would have a field day.
Has something changed?
In January, I made a similar point about the Recovery.gov website. Congress shifted directly from ignoring the Web to struggling with how to create accountability through public disclosure online. From ignoring the utility of the Internet to struggling with how to best harness it.
Something similar is happening here. Public outcry, partisan pressure, and rising expectations are forcing Congress’s hand, and it’s now (apparently) taken as a matter of course that this bill is online for a long weekend before its final consideration.
Pelosi’s initial commitment to a 72 hour period saw far greater coverage than that commitment’s fulfillment. That’s to be expected — controversy is more compelling than compliance.
What’s important here, though, is what we make of this move.
If having bills exposed for the public, Members of Congress, and their staff really is important, then we need to be sure that the raised bar stays raised.
Will the new standard applied to this version of the healthcare bill apply to more minor legislation? Will future controversial initiatives all be available for inspection in the same way this bill is?
Only if that’s our expectation.
Ultimately, even H.Res. 554 depends on expectations. House Rules can be waived, and if no one cares, then there are no consequences.
If public demand is high enough however, H.Res 554 can become moot, and all bills will be available for at least a minimum of scrutiny.
That so many take Speaker Pelosi’s commitment as granted, when it was news a month ago implies that such expectations and results are possible.
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No PDFs!
This week, Speaker Pelosi asked House administrators to post House members’ expenses on the Web, for the first time. We are quite excited about Speaker Pelosi’s action , as it demonstrates a strong commitment toward increasing transparency and accountability. (Hard as this might be to imagine but currently, the House collects and publishes members’ expenses in a bound paper book on a quarterly basis.)
So now we hear that the first batch of expenditure reports will be posted before Aug. 31 in the PDF format. PDFs are notoriously challenging because they are difficult for computers to index and people to search .Now we are not so happy.
Congress needs to be urged to provide these reports in a format that is structured, searchable, downloadable and mashable. This will enable the reuse of information to improve public scrutiny. Assurances should be given to the public that these records will be permanently archived and the House should be encouraged to make these reports happen in as close to real-time disclosure as feasible.
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Radical Earmark Transparency?
Roll Call is reporting that Inouye and Obey, the Chairs of the House and Senate appropriations committees, are implementing what look to be sweeping new earmark disclosure requirements:
The chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations committees on Tuesday jointly vowed to slice the level of earmarks while providing unprecedented disclosure of Member requests.
House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) and Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) said that starting with the fiscal 2010 appropriations bills, when Members make their earmark requests, they will be required to post the requests on their Web sites explaining the purpose of the earmark and why it is a valuable use of taxpayer funds.
In our experience, the idea of disclosing earmark requests has been rather unpopular with Members and staff, who often fear unintended consequences and uncertainty over such unprecedented disclosure.
Here’s Minority Leader Boehner summarizing some of that concern:
“He has all of the earmarks. He ought to disclose them,” Boehner said. But the minority leader also noted that part of the problem with disclosures is that lawmakers occasionally do not request certain earmarks requested of them, and that can get them in trouble with constituents back home.
“You know, apparently a lot of these members get a lot of requests for all kinds of projects in their districts. And they submit some of them, and apparently some of them they don’t submit. And I think the bigger problem is the ones that they don’t submit on behalf of their constituents,” he said.
This is something we’ve heard a lot, from Members of both parties, and part of why today’s announcement is such a surprise. It seems to be either a significant reversal on the part of Obey and many other Members, or perhaps just a deepening of the reforms begun in the 110th Congress, or even an attempt to inure the Democrats’ legislative agenda from procedural criticisms.
Whether one views process reform cynically or not, however, the real requirement to disclose all earmark requests should go a long way toward ending the real or perceived quid pro quos of the earmarking process, but only if it’s given real teeth, taken seriously, and not able to be sidestepped by the procedural evasion that is commonplace, especially in the appropriations process.
Given the history of earmark reform, we’re genuinely surprised to see such sweeping reforms proposed by the Appropriations Committee Chairs. I think cautious praise is in order.
For more detail, here’s Pelosi’s page with much more detail on the reforms.
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Web-Use Reform Happy Ending
(Cross-Posted from the Open House Project)
Yesterday, after months of negotiations and proposals, the House joined the Senate in updating the arcane guidelines that govern how Members of Congress use the Internet.
In May of 2007, the Sunlight Foundation released the Open House Project report, which included an entire chapter on the issue of Franking Reform. That chapter, prepared by David All and Paul Blumental, has guided our advocacy and discussions of web use restrictions since then.
Those discussions simmered until earlier this summer, when tensions between Members of the Franking Commission briefly escalated (the part of the Committee on House Administration that handles Web restrictions). This summer’s discussion caught some media attention, and unsettled some web-savvy Representatives, and ultimately engaged both parties’ leaders in the House.
The Sunlight Foundation capitalized on the chaos, creating the first twitter-based petition in the site, Let Our Congress Tweet, which amassed twitter-based signatures, and displayed vigorous support for updated rules from online communities across the political spectrum.
While House officials maneuvered publicly, the Senate passed similar reforms with a bit less fanfare. As recently as last week, agreement looked unlikely from the House committee, with Roll Call reporting that an attempt at negotiations ended in “an emotionally charged hearing and a breakdown in negotiations.”
That’s why we were suprised and delighted to get word from the Committee on House Administration that a new agreement had been reached. This measure wasn’t just a slight rewrite, however. The new guidelines represent an enormous change, one which has new media staff from both parties glowing.
Speaker Pelosi’s statement calls the revisions a “significant step forward toward bringing the House rules into the multimedia age and allowing for members to effectively communicate with their constituents online… I also thank citizen initiatives such as the Open House Project for their thoughtful recommendations and continued efforts to encourage Members to engage their constituents through internet technologies.”
Ranking Member Vern Ehlers was similarly laudatory of the new rules, and of Chairman Brady’s leadership: “Mr. Brady recognized the need to allow enhanced constituent communication, and demonstrated outstanding leadership that enabled this Committee to adopt a long-overdue change,” Ehlers stated. “It is imperative that Members have the ability to use whichever web services they feel will best inform their constituents about the important issues facing this country.”
The new rules, as written, make a very important distinction, and one we’re delighted to see considered: Member web use will be evaluated based on the “official content,” and not the venue in which the materials are posted. This puts new media communications on similar footing to traditional media, where Op-Eds and TV interviews are proximal to commercials without causing a conflict of interest.
The revisions should cause a renaissance in official political Web-use, with eager new media staff and savvy Members now able to confidently engage with their constituents. We can’t wait to see what they come up with, and can only hope that all government reform arguments have such happy endings.
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On Bailout Transparency
Congress took a real step today toward legislative transparency, proactively posting the proposed bailout legislation in public, online, in advance of floorconsideration.
To give citizens a chance to fully digest and comment on the proposed legislation, we’ve posted the text of the legislation to PublicMarkup.org for public review.
On Friday Ellen blogged a request for legislative transparency, calling on Congress to release the bailout draft as early as possible:
The Sunlight Foundation is calling on Congress to publish the proposed bailout legislation as soon as possible, to give constituents and lawmakers themselves as much time as possible to examine the specifics of the proposal before it’s voted on. We will post the draft legislation to PublicMarkup.org as soon as possible, to give citizens a chance to weigh in on the proposal’s specifics.
Any lack of transparency in consideration of this legislation would be especially ironic since lawmakers have blamed the current crisis on financial malfeasance that was hidden from public view.
Before the bailout proposal is considered by lawmakers, it must undergo an even more important test: evaluation and assessment by the public.
Today, Congress responded, and Speaker Pelosi and the House Financial Services Committee posted the bill they’ve designated as the final version.
From remarks Speaker Pelosi delivered at a press conference today:
Before I yield to Senator Reid, I just want to tell everyone that I am now informed that at this moment, you can find the plan on financialservices.house.gov, and then if not there, on speaker.gov. It’s there for all Americans to see, for our Members to read so they can make the important decision they have to make tomorrow in the House.
I also want to say that later when this bill passes and is implemented, all of the transactions related to this legislation will be on the Internet within 48 hours and that represents change. That transparency, that oversight, will be very important to the health of our economy.
In the midst of rare political urgency, as congressional leaders are pushed well beyond their comfort zones, facing the Bush Administration, unclear political consequences, a skeptical public, and posturing from the presidential candidates, Pelosi chose to assert the role of an empowered public.
Ellen identified two shortfalls in transparency; one real, helping cause the finance situation, and one potential, as Congress responds with legislation. Speaker Pelosi’s statement addresses both.
First, on finance data, Pelosi says “all of the transactions related to this legislation will be on the Internet within 48 hours…” While I don’t know finance well enough to speak to the details of publishing such data, I can say that this is the same sort of transaction tracking transparency that has made FedSpending.org (and USASpending.gov ) immensely successful — the same transparency that the individual US states are experimenting with (as Grover Norquist recently noted on The Next Right ).
On the second point, Speaker Pelosi points the public to the two sites where the legislation had just been posted. Now, putting legislation online is nothing new. THOMAS has been around since the mid 1990s. Referencing online access to legislation in the midst of intense negotiations, whipping, and public pressure, however, is.
The expectations here, of course, are much higher than with most legislation. The dollar amounts are enormous, the legislative process has slipped into urgency-mode, and rank-and-file lawmakers are scrambling to establish a position.
Regardless of the incentives facing congressional leadership, and regardless of the substance of the bill, this episode shows one thing very clearly: the bar for public disclosure has been raised.
Ellen, in her post, also points out the distinction between public dialog and “compromises and deal making — the real stuff of urgent policy-making.” If public dialog is going to remain separated, to some degree, from “the real stuff of urgent policy-making,” as it is sure to in a legislature controlled by centralized party leaders, then the role of the informed public needs to be clearly staked out, asserted, and defended.
Even if many Americans dislike this legislation, and even if much of the legislation was created in informal pre-legislative meetings, public scrutiny and input has been welcomed into that process.
The legislative process, just like finance regulation, depends on public scrutiny for stability and legitimacy. It’s good to see Congress recognize both.
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#dontgo – to Disney World?
As chairman of the House Republican Conference, Rep. Adam Putnam has been busy with the #dontgo protest, in which angry House Republicans have stayed at the Capitol building during August recess, calling on Rep. Nancy Pelosi to schedule a vote on their energy plan that would seek an end to the long-standing moratorium on off shore drilling.
Does that mean Putnam “won’t go” to his scheduled fundraiser in Walt Disney World this weekend?
We have in our possession an invitation to said fundraiser, billed as a “weekend at the Walt Disney Resort,” specifically at the Polynesian Resort, proceeds to benefit “Putnam for Congress.” There’s also a special guest, fellow Republican Florida Rep. Ander Crenshaw. The invitation came to us as part of our preparation for launching Party Time, a new Sunlight project, which will make its debut in the next couple of weeks. (Stay tuned for an announcement soon.)
“We only have 15 rooms, so it’s going to be a small event,” says the email accompanying the invitation.
Putnam isn’t exactly hurting for cash in his reelection bid. He has raised $1.4 million to his opponent’s $50,000. Over the course of his Congressional career, he’s taken about $70,000 from the oil and gas industry.
Supporting off-shore drilling is a new thing for Floridians, where in the past Democrats and Republicans alike have opposed the idea for fear it would hurt tourism. Recently Gov. Charlie Crist, one of many reputed to be on Sen. John McCain’s list for a possible vice presidential pick, reversed his long-standing support for the federal moratorium on offshore drilling.
We don’t know if any oil and gas lobbyists rsvp’ed for Putnam’s Walt Disney getaway, or if the #dontgo protest will end in time for him to catch a plane to Polynesia in Florida. It seems like a good question for his constituents to ask.
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Governmental Blogging
Here’s an interesting new report — The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0. Think of it as a kind of "Blogging for Dummies" without the humor. (No disrespect to the author or to the "…for Dummies" series.)
This report could be very helpful to any Member of Congress, mayor, state legislator, bureaucrat, corporate CEO who is looking to get an understanding of blogging and Web 2.0. In a straightforward and non-threatening manner, the report explains the Web; its history, its now, and its future. It also attempts to encourage decision makers to engage this brave new world. In common language, the author explains everything from how to start a blog, to social networking, to why blog in the first place. And he makes the case that Web 2.0 tools can increase civic engagement and strengthen our democracy.
The author includes many examples of government sponsored blogs such as Sen. Inhofe, Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Miller and even the LAPD. He includs a list of corporate CEOs who blog, such as Dallas Mavareck’s owner Mark Cuban and Sun Microsystem’s Jonathan Schwartz. He lists all the Members of Congress who blog as of April of this year:
Rep. John Boozman (R-Ark.)
Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas)
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.)
Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.)
Rep. Jack Kingman (R-Ga.)
Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.)
Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.)
Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.)
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
Rep. Mike Pense (R-Ind.)
Rep. George Radanovich (R-Calif.)
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)
Blogs are the fastest growing part of Web 2.0, the report says, and are becoming more respected. The benefits to government of blogging are pretty obvious. In addition to allowing government officials to communicate directly with the community, bypassing both internal and news based editorial control and encouraging openness, accountability and transparency, the study notes that Blog readers tend to be better educated, more diverse, more engaged in public decision making than the public at large.
We couldn’t have written the recommendations better ourselves.
