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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Budget and Deficit Transparency
Earlier this week, the Senate passed an amendment to the unemployment extenders bill that would require the Secretary of the Senate to post information related to the debt effect of each bill that passes the Senate. The vote was 100-0. Unaminous votes are pretty rare in the Senate. This one highlights both the significance that the debt is playing in lawmaker’s minds and the general support for transparency as an idea in Congress.
The bill itself has some issues, which I’ll address here.
First, what does the amendment do? This is the legislative language (which, unlike most legislative language, is pretty straightforward):
(a) In General.–The Secretary of the Senate shall post prominently on the front page of the public website of the Senate (http://www.senate.gov/) the following information:
(1) The total amount of discretionary and direct spending passed by the Senate that has not been paid for, including emergency designated spending or spending otherwise exempted from PAYGO requirements.
(2) The total amount of net spending authorized in legislation passed by the Senate, as scored by CBO.
(3) The number of new government programs created in legislation passed by the Senate.
(4) The totals for paragraphs (1) through (3) as passed by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by the President.
(b) Display.–The information tallies required by subsection (a) shall be itemized by bill and date, updated weekly, and archived by calendar year.
(c) Effective Date.–The PAYGO tally required by subsection (a)(1) shall begin with the date of enactment of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 and the authorization tally required by subsection (a)(2) shall apply to all legislation passed beginning January 1, 2010.
Okay, now the criticism:
1) The items that are to be disclosed in (a)(2) and (a)(3) are either not specific or only tell one side of the coin. For example, the net spending in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), is $871 billion from 2010-2019. However, the net cost is listed at $614 billion from 2010-2019. Furthermore, the CBO projects that the bill would result in a net reduction in deficits of $132 billion from 2010-2019. So, the CBO projects that the bill will reduce the deficit, but this amendment would only disclose the “total amount of net spending.” That seems a bit like cherry-picking if you ask me. Same goes for disclosing new government programs created in a bill. First, the amendment does not define a government program. Definition is really important in disclosure legislation. Second, what if a bill reduces the number of government programs? Why would we not want to disclose that?
2) Is there a database for this? It doesn’t look like it. And why is it updated weekly instead of in real-time? Also, why not post the deficit impact of legislation before it is passed by the Senate or both chambers? Posting information on legislation prior to enactment or passage would probably help achieve the transparency bill’s goal of making it more difficult for lawmaker’s to approve deficit spending.
3) The whole thing seems like a piecemeal effort. What the government really needs is something like the Budget.gov web site that my colleague Daniel Schuman discussed in this post. Additionally, Congress should give citizens access to all the same legislative resources that Congress is provided through the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the Legislative Information Service (LIS).
I’m all in favor of more transparency around the budget, the deficit and the debt. Rather than an ad hoc requirement placed on the Secretary of the Senate, there may be a more broad and sustained approach to budgetary and deficit transparency that could be more informative to the public’s needs.
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The future of libraries
This article in the New Republic by Lisbet Rausing takes a look at the future of libraries and knowledge and the obstacles preventing scholarly knowledge and research from reaching the wider public over the web. I’ll just selectively quote below. The whole article is worth the read.
Look at JSTOR (if you can). There you find the evidence-based, source-critical foundations of sociology, anthropology, geography, history, philosophy, classics, Oriental studies, theology, musicology, history of science and so on. They are all closed to the public. It is wonderful, of course, that high-energy physics and string theory are open to all. But is it not ironic that we have opened the gates only to that scholarship which few professors, let alone members of the public, have the cognitive capacity and appropriate training to grasp?
The opportunity costs for society are self-evident. But what about the opportunity cost for scholars? For example, the public has set itself the task to rewrite knowledge for the public domain through Wikipedia and the like. Should not these sites be hyperlinked with JSTOR? By excluding the public from their scholarly literature, academics make it impossible for amateurs to use sound research methodologies, critically examining evidence by cross-referencing and source analysis. Scholars then critique the public’s output for not being sufficiently academic. Academics commonly refer to the occasionally wobbly scholarly standards of Wikipedia as proof the public does not wish to pursue scholarship. Might it not instead prove that they do not let them? (Continue reading…)
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Another Court, Another Blow to Campaign Finance Limits (and Disclosure?)
The Colorado Supreme Court rejected a referendum to stem the flow of money in politics by banning holders of large, no-bid government contracts from making campaign contributions. It also threw out the baby with the bathwater, rejecting a public database of no-bid contracts.
First, on the campaign contribution front: The decision, while troubling, may not toll the death knell for all efforts to limit corporate money in politics. The referendum, passed by Colorado voters in 2008, was overbroad and apparently so poorly drafted that it could not pass constitutional muster. The underlying referendum, however, demonstrates that outside the halls of justice, citizens recognize the corrupting and coercive influence of corporate money in elections and want to do something to limit it.
Next, on the transparency front: While undoing the will of the voters on the campaign finance issues, the court also threw out provision that would have required the state compile a public database of all no-bid state or local contracts greater than $100,000. Pulling the plug on a simple transparency measure, one that would not only inform the public but also likely lead to more competition for state contracts, sets a dangerous precedent.
It’s possible, even likely, that the database was an innocent victim of the court’s broader decision. Hopefully the Colorado legislature will quickly pass a bill to clarify the situation and give the state the go-ahead to complete the database project.
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Schumer and Van Hollen Embrace Transparency Measures to Combat Citizens United
The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC opened the door to a torrent of new political spending that, with the legislative framework they announced today, Senator Schumer and Representative Van Hollen are trying to stem. Sunlight released its own “legislative framework” in response to Citizens United some weeks ago, and we are pleased that many of our disclosure-related recommendations appear to have been embraced by Sen. Schumer and Rep. Van Hollen.
The “stand by your ad” provisions that will require corporate CEOs to approve of the ads they run in the same way candidates do is clearly necessary to increase accountability. The disclaimers on ads run by shell organizations should also shine some light on the generally shadowy practices of many of these groups and is welcome and vitally important in light of Citizens United.
Disclaimers on ads run by third party groups, however, only get part of the way to full transparency. To be meaningful, disclaimers must be coupled with real disclosure of who is funding the ads. The Schumer/Van Hollen framework addresses this concern with the new reporting of “political broadcast spending” for all corporations, labor unions, nonprofits and 527s. Disclosures outlined seem to cover most of the relevant bases including who controls the political broadcast spending account, the name of donors to the account, and amounts and purposes of expenditures from the account.
We would respectfully offer two words of advice to the legislative drafters as they flesh out these provisions. First, the framework released today does not specify the how or when these disclosures must be made. To be effective, the legislation must provide that disclosures be electronically filed and publicly available online within 24 hours. It’s too easy to game the system and hide expenditures from public view if there is not a hard and fast requirement for real-time online disclosure. Second, the framework suggests reliance on the FEC to make the information publicly available. If the FEC’s cumbersome, clunky, complicated campaign finance disclosures are any indication, the FEC needs a clear mandate to make sure its new disclosures of political broadcast spending are searchable, sortable, and meaningful to the general public.
Sunlight strongly supports the requirement that political expenditures made by a corporation be disclosed within 24 hours on the corporate Web site. We think the framework shortchanges shareholders, however, by requiring only quarterly reporting. It is, after all, their money being spent – they should be alerted immediately to any political spending on the SEC Web site and through the SEC’s comprehensive disclosure database.
The enhanced disclosures of lobbyists’ campaign expenditures is a good start, though again we would note that to be meaningful, the disclosures must be in real time, online and publicly available and a user-friendly, searchable database. But, in order to address the real threat to the balance of political power that is a result of Citizens United, lobbying disclosure should go much further. As I wrote here, the Citizens United case opened the door to coordination and possible coercion by putting in the hands of corporations, unions and their lobbyists the ability to threaten or imply that if a member of Congress doesn’t support their agenda, he will be faced with a barrage of ads opposing him (or supporting his opponent) in the next election. And, while the Schumer/Van Hollen framework rightly strengthens the ban on coordination to prevent such anti-democratic behavior, without a new disclosure requirement mandating that lobbyists report who they met with, there is no effective way to discern the possibility that such coordination took place.
We hope that when the legislation comes to the House or Senate floor, someone will offer an amendment that requires that within 24 hours of a lobbying contact, lobbyists be required to electronically report the name of the official being lobbied, a summary of the action requested, and the name of the lobbyist’s client or employer. (We’d also like to see the 20 percent exemption for lobbyist reporting eliminated so that all corporate and union heads along with anyone who bundles campaign contributions be required to report their meetings with government officials.) This is a vital way to demonstrate that the new expenditures now permitted because of Citizens United are truly independent.
A “legislative framework” is, of course, just the beginning. As the Members of Congress draft the actual legislation, we hope our suggestions will be incorporated so that the strongest possible disclosures will be in place to help shine a light on who is funding our elections.
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New Batch of White House Visitor Logs Released
Last Friday, the White House released a new batch of visitor logs covering last October, fulfilling a pledge they made last month. Over here at the Sunlight Labs, we took the logs and added them to the handy online, searchable database we created last month, so that you can see for yourself who is coming to the White House and why.
This is the first full month that has been release by the administration and adds almost 100,000 new records for October. As we mentioned back in January, this is a positive step by the Obama administration, and we are happy to see that they are committed to releasing this data in a timely basis.
We still don’t know how many records are being withheld, and for what purposes. It would be nice for the White House to release at least a number, and ultimately a justification (read: national security) for why those names have been redacted. None the less, this is still part of a much larger, unprecedented level of transparency on behalf of the administration.
One of the other problems with the White House visitor logs is that there is no real accurate way to ensure that if you see a “Samuel L. Jackson” in the logs, it’s actually the actor. It could just be another Sam. That’s why we caution you, when you are reading through the records and doing your own independent research not to jump to conclusions. Otherwise, happy hunting!
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A New Regime Required For Disclosure
As most of you know I have a long history in the campaign finance field as a founder of two organizations – one which is the nation’s première money and politics data crunching organization and a nonprofit that pioneered the concept of a system of full public financing. So it was with some substantial interest that I reviewed (and yes, I admit with horror) the results of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, which opened the floodgate for corporate and union spending in elections. If the sheer size of corporate bank accounts is any indicator, we will soon see just how much money can buy in the political arena.
Or will we? That is the critical question that must be addressed. Without an immediate update to the disclosure laws — covering everything from who has to disclose, what is required to be disclosed, how often, and in what form — the public will be unable to see this new spending as it occurs, nor how corporations and unions pour money into the many other pockets of a politician’s coat. Without vastly improved disclosure, we won’t be able to understand the new play of forces in Washington. Lobbyists, as well as top officials for corporations and unions, will have a new kind of leverage over politicians. The only deterrent to widespread arm-twisting of public representatives by private interests—short of a constitutional amendment reversing the Court’s ruling, or major changes in how campaigns are financed—may well be the requirement that such arm-twisting be disclosed in a timely manner. Clearly, now more than ever, our entire system of public disclosure of election-related contributions and expenditures needs to be upgraded to keep pace with the influences it is designed to track. And in the 21st century this means that everything must be filed online, in real time.
(Continue reading…)
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Justice Thomas Says No to Disclosure, Blames Internet
Noted without response. From Justice Thomas’ dissent wherein he states that the court should eliminate all campaign finance disclosure requirements:
…Disclaimer and disclosure requirements enable private citizens and elected officials to implement political strategies specifically calculated to curtail campaign-related activity and prevent the lawful, peaceful exercise of First Amendment rights.
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Now more than ever, §§201 and 311 will chill protected speech because—as California voters can attest—“the advent of the Internet” enables “prompt disclosure of expenditures,” which “provide[s]” political opponents “with the information needed” to intimidate and retaliate against their foes. Ante , at 55. Thus, “disclosure permits citizens … to react to the speech of [their political opponents] in a proper”—or undeniably improper —“way” long before a plaintiff could prevail on an as-applied challenge.
Please let Justice Thomas know what you think about his opinion on disclosure, transparency and the Internet in the comments.
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How the Citizens United Case Affects Money & Politics and Transparency As We Know it
The ramifications of today’s Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC are breathtaking – opening the floodgates of political money such as we have never seen before. If you thought Congress was ‘for sale’ to the highest bidder, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Nothing less than a fundamental rethinking of our campaign finance laws is demanded as a result of today’s decision.
But one thing becomes immediately clear: Transparency about the flow of campaign cash – online and in real time – became more important. While we do not think that transparency is a panacea for the horrific consequences of today’s decision, it is critically important as the shredded system is rebuilt.
Today’s decision underscores the necessity of creating comprehensive real-time disclosure for all election spending – across the board — from when and how often candidates, individuals and PACs report their contributions and expenditures to those involved in independent expenditures, issue ads or direct election advocacy.
Others will opine about what the Court wrote about lifting the limits and other related matters that were at the heart of this case, but we want to focus on the disclosure aspects of this case.
The Majority wrote:
With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters. Shareholders can determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests…This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.
The Court goes on to note the Internet’s importance when it comes to meaningful disclosure, saying that “modern technology makes disclosures rapid and informative…A campaign finance system that pairs corporate independent expenditures with effective disclosure has not existed before today.”
True enough, but the disclosure system they describe doesn’t yet exist. The current disclosure system is insufficiently “rapid and informative” and does not make effective use of modern technology.
As a result of this decision, there will be tidal wave of corporate campaign expenditures. The systems for disclosure will have to come into the 21st century. Everything has to be reported online. All related campaign expenditures, including the new wave of issue ads, and independent expenditures and direct electioneering must be disclosed within 24 hours, with the names and addresses of anyone who has given more than $200 in support of the ad disclosed online. In fact, there should be 24-hour online reporting of all contributions of more than $200. The quarterly reporting system now in place is outdated and ineffective—ridiculous, in a word.
There is more to this case that deserves analysis, and more will come from Sunlight. We could go on and on about how wrong-headed Justice Thomas’ no-disclosure dissent is. We need to watch out that the court doesn’t use the guise of “protecting donors from harassment” as an excuse to limit disclosure.
But in the meantime, this decision should trigger momentum toward ensuring that all election-related information is available online in real-time. Disclosure remains a crucial antiseptic to the corrupting influence of money in politics. We should ensure our system is as transparent as possible.
We’ll have more to say, later today.
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Why You Need to Download the Real Time Congress App for iPhone now
As a former Capitol Hill Communications Director, I can tell you that access to real-time information on what is happening on the Hill can make or break a successful advocacy campaign. Information is power, and the Sunlight Labs new Real Time Congress App for the iPhone gives users access to instantaneous in-the-know information in the palm of your hand. By pulling together RSS and XML feeds from the party policy committees, leadership offices, news outlets, bill texts and the alphabet soup of analysts (Think CBO, OMB, CRS et al.), the coders at the Labs have created a rich and valuable user experience for anyone who is interested in what is happening in Congress.
Forgive my enthusiasm for this new app, but it really is something special and elegant. Forget the fact that the platform will be expanded and new data sources will be added and the app will be expanded. I know that I am channeling my inner Don Draper here when I say that this new app brings me home again, and by home, I mean the Longworth House Office Building.
The Real Time Congress application for iPhone will keep journalists, Hill staffers, bloggers and interested citizens up to date on what is happening in Congress, in real-time. Its ease of use and sleek design promise that end users will continue to go back to the app for unfiltered information on Congress so they can make their own informed decisions on what is happening in the Capitol.
Our goal at the Sunlight Foundation is to change the way that citizens collect information about their government, and then help them to use that information to change the way they interact with their government. This new app shows how powerful new programs and smart phones can accomplish that goal. I’m just a little jealous of my former colleagues on the hill—I kind of wish I had this when I was working over there.
We’re pretty proud of the app and it’s free to you as the user. It is worth noting, however, that it wasn’t free for us to create. It did take weeks of development, and so any contribution toward this application and all the others we hope to create in the future on your behalf is greatly appreciated.
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So, you want to know who is visiting the White House?
Last week, the White House released another set of visitor logs online and in a format that can be parsed and analyzed. The 25,000 individual records from September 16 through September 30, 2009 can provide valuable insight into how the White House is developing its policies and ultimately, gives us a rare look into who they are consulting as they develop their agenda.
This is yet another positive step by the Obama administration. By providing this data to the public, they once again show that they share Sunlight Foundation’s view that government information needs to be made public, and that in this day and age, that means it must be released online and in a researchable format.
That is where we come in. The minds over at Sunlight Labs under the direction of Clay Johnson, have taken the White House visitor logs and created a new mashup that will allow you to mine this data for information on the individual visitors. The new page links to data from the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute on Money in State Politics in order to show whether visitors have given campaign contributions. It links to Wikipedia pages and Google searches so that you can look deeper into the biographical information on visitors and get a fuller picture of the visitor’s perspectives on their specific issue area. And it links to their profile on LittleSis.org so you can see their relationships with politicians and other influentials.
The White House has promised that they will release this data on a monthly basis, with October’s data to be released sometime this month. One point of concern: The White House announced that they are withholding some records for reasons of national security, political sensitivity, privacy or other concerns. While we understand these concerns, it is unclear how many visitors fall into those categories, which could be used by either this administration or future administrations to scrub the data of meetings that they would like to hide.
