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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Transparency Around the World
(Note: this post has been updated since it was first published—see below)
It’s Sunshine Week again, and in that spirit I want to share a recent story about open government. Two weeks ago, a government professional from the Republic of Korea looked over at me and, through an interpreter, said he was going to tell me why their political system is better than America’s.
It was an interesting moment for me. At the meeting were three additional South Korean professionals, and I listened attentively as their interpreter related the gist of the argument:
- Corporations in South Korea are prohibited from spending money on political activity.
- Individuals can spend up to $5,000 per year on National Assembly races, and they can only give to four candidates per year.
- Any spending above $3,000 must be disclosed.
How did I find myself in this situation? For starters, it wasn’t the first time! One of the many pleasant aspects about working at the Sunlight Foundation is the simple act of talking about open government with other interested parties. In this case, it was a delegation of professionals from Korea. The trip was arranged by World Learning, as part of the International Visitor Leadership Program administered by the U.S. State Department. Yesterday’s was the fifth such meeting I’ve participated in since I started at Sunlight—previously, my colleagues and I discussed transparency with a delegation of Dutch officials, an activist/videographer from Australia, a political science professor from Colombia, and officials from Latin America.
I was a little playful in that last paragraph, but the meetings are more than just “pleasant.” (Continue reading…)
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White House Visitor Logs Show Large Lobbyist Presence For Head of White House Health Office
Upon assuming the presidency Barack Obama set about creating an office within the White House to spearhead his effort to pass health care reform legislation. The White House Office of Health Reform was to be headed by a long-time health reform player in both the public and private sectors, Nancy-Ann DeParle. According to White House visitor logs, seventeen lobbyists for key interests working on health care reform held eleven meetings with DeParle through 2009.
These lobbyists represented a cross section of interests from those who would ultimately oppose legislation to the outwardly supportive. The majority came from health industry groups that were, if not hostile, trying to protect their interests.
The organization most present in DeParle’s schedule is the American Medical Association (AMA). After years of opposing health care reform efforts the AMA backed health reform efforts in 2009 and, in November, stated their support for the House health care reform bill. Representatives from the AMA met with DeParle three times from August to October. The lobbyists present at the meetings were Richard Deem, the senior vice president for advocacy at the AMA, and Richard Tarplin, a lobbyist from Tarplin Strategies.
Both Deem and Tarplin have connections to past health reform efforts. Deem was the AMA’s director of federal affairs during the effort by President Bill Clinton to pass comprehensive health care reform. Tarplin was working in the Clinton White House at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) at the time. Tarplin likely worked with DeParle during the Clinton health care effort as DeParle was in charge of health reform issues at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and later worked at HHS.
Other lobbyists appearing on DeParle’s schedule include Karen Ignagni, the President and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and another AHIP lobbyist, Gary Bacher. The White House tried for months to bring AHIP to table on health care reform, but ultimately found that they could not reach on agreement to obtain their support for reform. Later reports revealed that AHIP was paying for anti-health care reform advertisements through the US Chamber of Commerce.
DeParle also met with lobbyists from AARP, AFL-CIO, Alliance of Community Health Plans, Business Roundtable, Blue Cross/Blue Shield and the National Federation of Independent Businesses. The full list of meetings can be viewed below:
Health Industry Meetings With Nancy-Ann DeParle Date Lobbyist Name Client May 28, 2009 Jack Ebeler Alliance of Community Health Plans July 23, 2009 Nancy Taylor Business Roundtable July 23, 2009 Stephen Ciccone Eastman Kodak July 23, 2009 John Castellani Business Roundtable July 23, 2009 Maria Ghazal Business Roundtable August 11, 2009 Richard Trachtman American College of Physicians August 11, 2009 Rosemarie Sweeney American Academy of Family Physicians August 11, 2009 Richard Deem American Medical Association September 16, 2009 Donald Danner National Federation of Independent Businesses September 16, 2009 Susan Eckerly National Federation of Independent Businesses October 6, 2009 Richard Tarplin American Medical Association October 6, 2009 Richard Deem American Medical Association October 7, 2009 Karen Ignagni America’s Health Insurance Plans October 7, 2009 Gary Bacher America’s Health Insurance Plans October 9, 2009 John Castellani Business Roundtable October 14, 2009 Scott Serota Blue Cross/Blue Shield October 14, 2009 Alissa Fox Blue Cross/Blue Shield October 19, 2009 Nancy Leamond AARP October 21, 2009 Richard Deem American Medical Association October 21, 2009 Richard Tarplin American Medical Association October 28, 2009 Gerald Shea AFL-CIO
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The Legacy of Billy Tauzin: The White House-PhRMA Deal
More than a million spectators gathered before the Capitol on a frosty January afternoon to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama, who promised in his campaign to change Washington’s mercenary culture of lobbyists, special interest influence and backroom deals. But within a few months of being sworn in, the President and his top aides were sitting down with leaders from the pharmaceutical industry to hash out a deal that they thought would make health care reform possible.
Over the following months, pharmaceutical industry lobbyists and executives met with top White House aides dozens of times to hammer out a deal that would secure industry support for the administration’s health care reform agenda in exchange for the White House abandoning key elements of the president’s promises to reform the pharmaceutical industry. They flooded Congress with campaign contributions, and hired dozens of former Capitol Hill insiders to push their case. How they did it—pieced together from news accounts, disclosure forms including lobbying reports and Federal Election Commission records, White House visitor logs and the schedule Sen. Max Baucus releases voluntarily—is a testament to how ingrained the grip of special interests remains in Washington.
In the 2008 campaign, Obama declared his intention to include all stakeholders as he sought to reform the nation’s health care system, but also supported key Democratic health reform policies. Among these were several that targeted the pharmaceutical industry: Allowing re-importation of drugs from first world countries with lower drug prices and providing Medicare with negotiating authority over prescription drug prices in the recently enacted Part D program. These weren’t just promises, Obama had already voted for both of them as a senator in 2007. (Roll Call Vote 132 and Roll Call Vote 150.)
Set to carry out this agenda were two Capitol Hill veterans, schooled in the monied Washington culture, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and deputy chief of staff Jim Messina. Emanuel was a former fundraiser, Clinton administration official, investment banker and member of the Democratic leadership in Congress. Messina was the former campaign manager and chief of staff to the powerful Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus. Both were known for their unparalleled legislative abilities.
Because of Obama’s decision to develop a plan operating through the legislative process, members of Congress also played key roles. Early on, the pharmaceutical companies were told to deal directly with Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus. Baucus would be the vehicle for the deal worked out behind the scenes by the White House and PhRMA. (Continue reading…)
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Don’t Give Grades Till the End of the Class
Kenneth Vogel over at Politico wrote this morning about a report put together by a coalition of watchdog organizations praising the White House for its openness by giving it an “A” grade.
The watchdog report speaks to the positive efforts undertaken by the administration to make the executive branch more open and transparent, and the highlighting of those efforts is all well and good.
But giving openness grades to the White House right now is like giving a grade for an entire class after the first few weeks. A professor wouldn’t give a grade for the whole semester because a student turned in quality homework in September and laid out a plan for how hard she is going to work over the next few months until the final. Encouragement, guidance, oversight… sure. But not a grade.
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White House Takes Huge Step Toward Transparency
Early this morning, the White House took a huge step toward a more transparent government by announcing a historic new policy to voluntarily disclose White House visitor access records. Each month, records of visitors from the previous 90-120 days will be made available online.
From the President’s statement:
For the first time in history, records of White House visitors will be made available to the public on an ongoing basis. We will achieve our goal of making this administration the most open and transparent administration in history not only by opening the doors of the White House to more Americans, but by shining a light on the business conducted inside it. Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process.
Aside from a small group of appointments that cannot be disclosed because of national security imperatives or their necessarily confidential nature (such as a visit by a possible Supreme Court nominee), the record of every visitor who comes to the White House for an appointment, a tour, or to conduct business will be released. Read the full policy here.
The Administration has also agreed with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) to settle four pending cases requesting specific White House visitor access records, including those dating from the Bush administration (read the transmittal letter here). We have provided CREW with the records relating to their requests….
You can read all the details of this new policy at Norm Eisen’s blog.
There are a couple of important things to note. First, I understand that the president was personally involved in pushing this new policy forward and that generally around the White House there was not a lot of sympathy for this dramatic change. This is very significant and illustrates a fundamental commitment by this president to the campaign pledges he made toward openness of government.
Second, the White House has given itself wiggle room in that they will exercise discretion in deleting the names of certain visitors — personal friends, national security related meetings, and for some other reasons. We are going to trust them to make the right decisions. (We don’t need to know, don’t want to know the name of Sascha and Malia’s friends as one example.) One misstep and the good will we are offering them right now goes out the window.
Third, there is a substantial delay in making this information available to the public, 90-120 days. This latter point does give me some considerable pause. I understand that it will take at least 60 days for the Secret Service records to make their way to the White House and then some time to clean the data of personal information like social security numbers and phone numbers, but I would also bet it would be pretty darn easy to design a system that could provide that information on a daily basis. (Why shouldn’t the White House have access to the back end database that the Secret Service uses on a daily basis?) Hopefully, the White House will look into technological fixes for what they now assume will be a manual review and cleansing of the records. Real time, online is the standard to which we should hold all government information. That’s what “public” information means in the 21st century.
That critique aside, this is indeed a historic step. This kind of disclosure pioneered by the White House can keep government strong, keep citizens informed, provide an opportunity for all of us to monitor at close hand the work of the White House, providing an insurance policy for our citizens against those who want to keep them in the dark.
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Major Victory for Transparency
This afternoon, our friends at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) got a major victory for all who care for openness and transparency.
A federal judge ruled that the logs kept by the Secret Service of visitors to the White House and the Vice President’s residence are public records and subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. The Bush White House had been fighting the release of the documents in an effort to hide evidence and details of visits from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and prominent religious conservative leaders. The White House insists that the logs are presidential records and should not be public, and wants the Secret Service to destroy its copies of the logs once they are turned over to the White House. They were wrong.
In sum, according to CREW: "As a result of today’s ruling, records of visits to both the White House complex and the residency of the vice president are now publicly available through the FOIA."
