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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Two House Health Care Committees Excel in Disclosure
Two of the key House committees that have passed health care reform legislation are disclosing significant information from the committee markups on their web sites. The Energy & Commerce Committee and the Education & Labor Committee both provide links to all amendments offered and all recorded votes taken during the markup hearings.
This is a regular practice of both committees, but not in most other congressional committees. The Energy & Commerce and Education & Labor Committees are two of five committees in the House of Representatives that regularly post links to both amendments offered in markups and the recorded votes on each individual amendment. The other three committees are Agriculture, Financial Services and Judiciary.
We, at the Sunlight Foundation, have been advocating for a rule requiring all bills be posted online for 72 hours prior to consideration. We also care about the transparency in other areas of the legislative process, particularly at the committee level where a lot the actual work takes place. The advancement in committee web site disclosure over the past couple of years has been both phenomenal and frustrating. The level of transparency offered by these five committees is emblematic of what committee transparency should look like — even if we feel that it could be even better — and did not exist just a few years ago. There is no reason, however, that the other thirteen committees with regular legislative activities (this excludes Rules, Standards of Official Conduct and other joint or special committees with no role in reporting legislation) could not provide the same level of transparency.
Some of these other committees do provide some level of disclosure in the markup process. The Natural Resources Committee posts links to the votes on amendments, but not the amendments themselves. The Science & Technology Committee only posts amendments that have been accepted by the committee and does not include vote information. On the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee site, I noticed only one linked amendment and no vote information.
Those following the health care debate should be thankful that two of the three committees that marked up the bill in the House are exceeding their peers in online disclosure. The ability to have all the information on the legislative path of such important legislation is vital and it’s great to see the efforts of a few years of advocating for better committee transparency pay off.
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Guess What? It’s Working.
After one week of markups on the health care reform bill, we are already seeing that pressure on Congress does bear fruit. Unlike the cap and trade bill negotiations, all three committees held open markups, streamed online with some, but not all, documents disclosed to the public. While nothing we have seen is ideal — leaving aside the Energy & Commerce Committee markups, which I’ll get to momentarily — the movement is towards greater disclosure at the committee level, where input can be most important. The Education & Labor Committee’s tweeting of votes on amendments and the availability of two discussion drafts from different committees allows the public with greater knowledge of the bill’s ever changing status. Overall, we are seeing earlier attempts at transparency in the legislative process.
The Energy & Commerce Committee, led by Henry Waxman, should come out for special praise. This committee is providing greater access during the bill formulation process than any other. The committee web site contains streaming video of the markups, archived video of past markups, a discussion draft for proposed changes to the bill, PDFs of every amendment and vote information on each amendment. The committee is also holding markups over a four day period, rather than holding one or two days of markups, allowing the public a greater ability to have a voice in the process. This isn’t a one-off for Energy & Commerce either. During their markup of cap and trade legislation, the committee posted all amendments to the web site along with votes. The other committees with jurisdiction over the cap and trade bill didn’t even hold hearings. Other committees should look to Energy & Commerce as a great example in committee transparency.
The one committee left to look out for is the Senate Finance Committee. As noted earlier, Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus plans to announce his plans for health care reform this week. Senate Finance is considered the crucial broker on any health care bill and should be watched with a close eye. (We’ve taken it upon ourselves to look at committee member connections to lobbyists.) The same transparency that we ask of the relevant House committees should be asked of the Senate Finance Committee.
Right now, Congress isn’t where we want them to be, but we are seeing progress. Bills are still being rushed through Congress and committees do not disclose nearly enough information to allow citizens to have a meaningful impact on the sausage-making in Congress. That being said, the pressure that you are putting on Congress to read their bills and provide full disclosure of legislative material to the public is having a real impact. Keep the pressure up at ReadTheBill.org and demand real transparency along the full legislative path of each and every bill.
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House Health Care Markups
This is a quick update on what the committees in the House have done with the health care bill since the tri-committee markups began. Both the Education & Labor Committee and the Ways & Means Committee passed the bill out of committee, while the Energy & Commerce Committee continues to hold hearings.
Education & Labor Democrats tweeted all votes on amendments, but the web site did not carry actual text of amendments or descriptions. The Education & Labor Committee also does not address how they changed the bill through the mark-up process and there is no chairman’s amendment.
Ways & Means didn’t release any votes on amendments. The site does carry a chairman’s amendment, in the nature of a substitute, to the bill, along with a summary description (you can see all documents here). So, at least we have a draft of what Ways & Means is looking to change when the chairmen reconcile their different versions.
Energy & Commerce is still holding markups sessions, but that hasn’t stopped chair Henry Waxman from posting a chairman’s amendment and a few other documents, including a number of amendments, to the committee web site.
While the process isn’t ideal, I think we’re seeing the committees make some real headway in releasing more information in a timely fashion, particularly considering the speed with which these markups occurred.
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Increasing Legislative Transparency: Read the Bill and Beyond
On Friday, the House of Representatives passed the cap and trade bill after an incredibly messy process left little time for congressmen and the public to digest the final version of the bill. I think that process taught us a lot about how Congress mangles procedure, but also, in some ways, how Congress is trying to be more transparent, but not quite getting it right.
Looking back at what happened with cap and trade, we see that Congress, inexplicably, released a new version of the bill on a Monday evening before a Friday vote, with an explanation that this would not be the final version. This bill, the printed version, did not have a bill number written into the header, instead it look like this: H.R. ____.
This what we’d call a discussion draft, and it’s something that we’ve been seeing Congress release a lot more lately — likely due to pressure to make their operations more transparent. The managers of the cap and trade bill could have easily not released this discussion draft and dropped the whole new bill on Thursday or Friday. Instead, they released part of the bill on Monday and then 300 more pages on Thursday night. It’s great that Congress is releasing discussion drafts. They increase the ability of the public to peek inside to internal debates as they occur and hopefully have a say in the process. However, the time to publish discussion drafts is not the week a bill is being voted on, it’s when the bill is still being formed in a location with necessary transparency rules, like a committee hearing.
So this brings up an important point: when is the best time to read the bill? In many respects there needs to be a rule requiring bills to be posted online 72 hours prior to consideration for lawmakers and the public to know what is in the bill. But that isn’t the best period for citizen engagement in the legislative process outside of telling your congressman to vote “yea” or “nay”. The real sausage making happens in committees and we are seeing efforts by committees to release discussion drafts and versions of bills that they are working on. This is where discussion drafts are useful — not in final moments before consideration occurs.
Let’s run down areas in the legislative process where citizen engagement can have an impact and what Congress ought to be doing to increase transparency and provide a window for engagement:
1) Committee process – Where the real work gets done. Release of discussion drafts, manager’s statements, chairman’s mark would allow for much greater engagement by citizens in the process and would help other lawmakers and their staff familiarize themselves with the process that created legislation.
2) Prior to consideration – Pass a 72 hour rule so that all bills must be made publicly available online for 72 hours before consideration. While there is less chance for direct input by citizens this allows for organization in favor or in opposition of both the bill and proposed amendments to the bill. This also provides time for lawmakers and their staff to read the bill.
3) Post passage – This would be the area covered by President Obama’s five day bill posting pledge. I don’t think there is too much value here as the President likely already knows whether he will sign or veto a given piece of legislation. More transparency theater than anything else.
The next big debate in Congress will be around health care. Hopefully, Congress doesn’t only provide adequate time prior to consideration for the public to read the bill, but also continues to make efforts to provide drafts to the public during the committee process.
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House Judiciary Committee Updates Web Site
The new look web site for the House Judiciary Committee is looking pretty darn good. The site features a nicer layout, a full schedule with live streaming coverage of committee hearings, background documents, executive branch correspondence, and, most importantly, text of markup sessions including roll call votes on bills and amendments. All committees should do this. One thing that’s missing is an archive of old committee hearing videos. Check out the new site and what else could be added and what other committees can learn form this.
