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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Disclose Lobbying Contacts to Reduce Distrust
It’s time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my Administration or Congress. — President Obama in his State of the Union speech.
Today, there are over 13,000 registered lobbyists working in Washington to influence our elected officials and government employees. These 13,000-plus lobbyists spent $2.5 billion on lobbying in the first three quarters of last year (fourth quarter totals are still being tallied). All of this monied influence and we have no idea who they meet with or what they discuss. Sunlight has called for the disclosure of lobbyist contacts for quite some time now. It’s both heartening and surprising to see the President call for the same thing.
Why should lobbyists disclose their contacts to the public?
President Obama explained it very well in his State of the Union last night, “We face a deficit of trust – deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years.” These “deep and corrosive doubts” stem, not only from fears of quid pro quo deals struck behind closed doors, but from the belief that there is associational bias in the lobbyist-lawmaker relationship. In a legal essay on lobbying disclosure, Anita Krishnkumar, a law professor at St. John’s University, writes, “…[T]he public perceives that lobbyists receive special face time with elected officials. Irrespective of where that face time occurs — in scheduled meetings, on a train ride, over a game of power, or on the golf course — it creates opportunities for lobbyists to persuade elected officials of their clients’ positions, opportunities that ordinary citizens do not have. In other words, the public’s concern is not just that elected officials will engage in blatant vote-selling to lobbyists, but, more subtly, that they will be partial to the causes of lobbyists’ clients because they spend a lot of time in lobbyists’ company.”
The fears that people have about the relationship between lawmakers and lobbyists can begin to be reduced by the simple disclosure of lobbyist contacts. This disclosure would allow us all to see lobbyists requesting earmarks, writing bills and distributing information. We’d also be able to track lobbyist meetings in the run-up to congressional hearings and floor votes. This would allow for the full story of the legislative process to be put into the public record.
There is no doubt that lobbying is protected by the First Amendment right to petition the government. The massive growth in the lobbying sector, however, has raised serious concerns about policy capture by monied interest groups. It’s time that Congress enact real lobbying reform by requiring the disclosure of lobbying contacts. In a post last night, Ellen Miller explained what real lobbying reform would look like, “Sunlight believes strongly that such disclosures should be made electronically, published promptly and maintained online in a downloadable, searchable, sortable format. We believe that disclosure should include all legislation and regulations discussed and all requests for specific services or government funding. Legislative contacts should be reported within 24 hours of any meeting. In addition, the requirement that contributions by registered lobbyists be reported semiannually should be amended to require contributions be reported within 24 hours of being made.”
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President Obama on Influence Peddling
President Obama’s weekly address explained on his administration’s efforts to combat influence peddling, and the steps it is considering taking in response to the Citizens United decision. It will be interesting to see to what extent these themes are reflected in the State of the Union speech this Wednesday, and how they translate into policy. The Sunlight Foundation will, of course, remain focused on the transparency implications.
Some highlights from the weekly address are after the jump. (Continue reading…)
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Extent of Lobbyist Contributions Remains Unknown
The National Journal recently launched a new “lobbyist and advocacy” blog, which gathers together 60 experts from some of Washington’s top lobbying firms and advocacy organizations focused on campaign finance, government transparency and public accountability. Here’s our take on this week’s question: should lobbyists be banned from giving campaign contributions?
While many a lobbyist might be happy to have an excuse to stop writing checks, a ban on lobbyist campaign contributions wouldn’t really give them one. A lobbyist’s clout is measured not just in how many dollars are forked over personally but how much he or she can bundle. Unfortunately, how many dollars lobbyists actually control remains a murky mystery.
Consider this: so far in the 2010 elections, lobbyists have contributed $10.7 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s only a tiny fraction of what most PACs and executives associated with industries contribute. For example, the health care sector alone has given $38.4 million; the financial sector, $78.2 million; and the communications sector, $23.3 million.
When you start digging into the data, you find some interesting patterns. A recent joint investigation by the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics found Sen. Max Baucus had collected campaign cash from 11 major health and insurance firms–and their outside lobbyists as well. (You can see a visualization of this here.) The same investigation showed that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., collected lobbyist “bundles” from 14 major health care organizations. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., actually led the list, with 22 organizations–though much of that money was directed at his presidential campaign last year. (see the full list.)
Meanwhile, new Federal Election Commission (FEC) regulations requiring disclosure of bunding leave far too much to be desired. This report by the Associated Press used data from the Sunlight Foundation’s Party Time project (politicalpartytime.org) to show that hosts for at least 195 congressional fundraising invitations had yet to be disclosed as fundraisers by the candidates who benefited.
We need better disclosure of how lobbyists raise and contribute campaign cash. A first step would be strengthened bundling rules that capture more activity. Disclosure should also happen in real time, on-line rather than in periodic reports often filed months after bundling activity has taken place.
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Too Little, Too Late
The following appears in the National Journal’s new “lobbying experts” blog launched last week. I will be posting there regularly.
I’m what you might call a connoisseur of lobbying disclosure records. Over the years I’ve perused them when doing investigative research about any number of subjects, from lobbying around reform of the Food and Drug Administration to obscure real estate tax provisions. Instead of getting the who, the what, the why, the where, and the when of what actually happened, I typically end up extremely frustrated. The information available is always too little and comes too late.
First, in the “too little” department: it’s an open secret that the current exemption allowing people to avoid registering as a lobbyist if they spend less than 20 percent of their time involved in lobbying activities for a specific client means that there is a cadre of “stealth lobbyists” out there who are not reporting.
The most infamous example is Tom Daschle, who recently took a job as a senior policy adviser in the government affairs division of DLA Piper. Just as in his previous job at the firm Alston & Bird, Daschle is not expected to register as a lobbyist. Instead, he will simply be giving “advice” to clients. As my colleague Lisa Rosenberg (herself a lobbyist, for the Sunlight Foundation) pointed out recently, Daschle’s “frequent trips to the White House belie his claims that he is not attempting to influence policy on behalf of his clients. His clients, and their lobbyists, benefit from his access to key decision makers as well as his strategic advice on how best to influence lawmakers.” Until this loophole is closed, writes Rosenberg, “Daschle and untold numbers of former elected officials, corporate CEOs, and presidents of labor unions can act as stealth lobbyists–often with greater access and influence than the majority of registered lobbyists, and almost always without leaving a trace of what they are saying, who they are saying it to, and on who is paying them to say it.”
Then there’s the fact that even those who file as lobbyists are required to provide so little information. Consider this form filed by Clark & Associates for the firm’s work on behalf of the American Bankers Association. Here I see that the firm lobbied on the economic bailout bill–but all I can find out is that lobbyists contacted the “U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.” There are, of course, 435 members of the House and 100 members of the Senate, and from this form I don’t have a clue which ones in particular received visits, phone calls, or other communications from these lobbyists. Lobbying disclosure rules must be strengthened to include more detailed information about whom lobbyists contacted.
Now on to the matter of “too late.” Right now lobbyists file their disclosure forms only once a quarter, often months after the lobbying actually happened which means journalists, bloggers, and researchers are suffering from a big disadvantage when trying to track influence on any given issue. Given today’s technology, there’s really no reason for this. As I wrote last week, the Sunlight Foundation’s vision of lobbying disclosure nirvana would be a central website, where lobbyists can file reports on their activities and the public can easily find what they report, at a maximum of 72 hours after a lobbying contact has occurred.
The public needs information about who is lobbying our government about what. But with the state of lobbying disclosure today, we’re not getting anything close to information on-line in real-time, the way it ought to be.
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Wisconsin’s Limited Real Time Lobbying Disclosure
Wisconsin like the federal government and every other state has lobbyists who contact lawmakers about legislation. However, Wisconsin has a different way of having those lobbyists report their activities.
When a lobbyists makes first contact regarding a piece of legislation or rule they have 15 days (pdf) to report that contact through a form on the state’s Government Accountability Board’s Web site. This form is then verified and posted online in real time. Just the first contact is reported this way, lobbyists fill out more detailed reports about the rest of their interactions with lawmakers every 6 months.
Even though this is not nearly what we would like to see in terms of real time lobbying reporting it is a great first step. Wisconsin demonstrates that lobbying disclosure of contacts with lawmakers can be processed and posted online in real time. If lobbyists are already conditioned to report first contacts online relatively quickly then how much harder could it be for them to do it more frequently and with all contacts not just the first one. It would be interesting to see if Wisconsin can actually be pushed to shorten the 15 day grace period and have lobbyists report the rest of their interactions more frequently then 6 months.
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Lawmaker Investments and Disclosure
According to an article in today’s Washington Post, the number of lawmakers owning and trading stocks has nearly tripled since 2001. This brings with it a concern that personal financial conflicts of interest may interfere with the honest legislating the public expects from their representatives or appear to to the general public, lessening trust in an institution that is hardly held in high-regard.
You can read the whole Post article to hear about the various stories of lawmakers owning stocks and taking positions that would support their bottom line. I’m going to focus on the underlying disclosure issues that are brought up from this problem.
As has been reported here and at Real Time Investigations, personal financial disclosures for lawmakers are wholly inadequate, particularly in reference to stock trading. As the Post article notes, “The congressional financial disclosure system, an annual form filled out and policed by members of Congress, is supposed to help keep lawmakers honest and reassure the public by making stock holdings transparent. But the reporting is delayed, information is limited and the paper forms prevent the computer analysis of trading that is commonplace elsewhere.”
Financial disclosure forms are filed annually. There is no way to police a practice when the reporting is this rare. There is also no reason that the reporting could not be in real time. All of this information is reported in real time to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Stock sales, purchases and trades could easily be reported in real time to the Clerk of the House or the Secretary of the Senate and publicly disclosed in a delayed fashion so as not to directly affect the daily trading on the exchanges or futures markets.
Rep. Brian Baird sponsored a bill that would begin to move the disclosure train in the right direction. The Stop Trading on Congress Knowledge Act (H.R. 682) — please forgive the mortifying acronym — would require lawmakers to disclose to either the Clerk of the House or Secretary of the Senate all stock activity within 90 days of taking action. The bill would also require those trading intelligence to lawmakers on financial matters to register and disclose their activities under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995.
Baird’s bill looks like a good vehicle to move disclosure in the right direction, not only on financial disclosure, but also on lobbying disclosure. I’m going to go into the bill and relevant sections to check what it will change and how that could move lobbying disclosure down the road a little more.
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How the Pharmaceutical Industry Bought Its Way Into Congress’ Heart
This Time article by Karen Tumulty and Michael Scherer is a must-read. Some key graphs:
[I]n the first six months of this year alone, drug and biotech companies and their trade associations spent more than $110 million — that’s about $609,000 a day — to influence lawmakers, according to figures compiled by the nonpartisan watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics. The drug industry’s legion of registered lobbyists numbers 1,228, or 2.3 for every member of Congress. And its campaign contributions to current members of Waxman’s committee have totaled $2.6 million over the past three years.
The return on that investment has been considerable, both in the House and in the Senate. “We’ve done very well,” says lobbyist Jim Greenwood, a former Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania who was a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and now heads the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). “We carried a majority of the Democrats and a majority of the Republicans in each of the committees, and by very clear margins.”
Despite promises to reign in lobbyists, Congress and the White House have done little to affect the actual situation on the ground. The Obama administration has laid the ground work for what could be a promising new system for lobbying disclosure in their limited lurches at the lobbyist complex in Washington — requiring disclosure of lobbyist contacts for bailout and stimulus funds. The current lobbyist disclosure system, however, does not seek to help the public or affect K Street, but instead is aimed at providing lawmakers with an up-to-date list of the people who keep calling their offices. Earlier this year, I wrote about the need for lobbyist contact disclosure. Here are some key graphs from that post to think about when you’re reading the Time article on pharmaceutical lobbying:
Debate over previous lobbying regulation bills (the Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act of 1946, the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, and the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007) acknowledged that the disclosure by lobbyists is not only due to the potential for corrupting activity, but because they serve an important role and their existence needs to be revealed, not only to the public, but for lawmakers and officials to better understand with whom they are meeting. In fact, the general thrust of the debate during consideration of the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 surrounded the need for lawmakers to be informed of who they are meeting and discussing policy. While this has served the legislative need to know the bias of a caller, it has not served the public interest nor has it helped the factions and interests that hire lobbyists to better police each other.
…The reason why the disclosure of contacts is important is not because we are worried that lobbyists are engaging in a quid-pro-quo but because of associational bias. In her legal essay, St. John’s University law professor Anita Krishnakumar explains that, “…[T]he public perceives that lobbyists receive special face time with elected officials. Irrespective of where that face time occurs — in scheduled meetings, on a train ride, over a game of power, or on the golf course — it creates opportunities for lobbyists to persuade elected officials of their clients’ positions, opportunities that ordinary citizens do not have. In other words, the public’s concern is not just that elected officials will engage in blatant vote-selling to lobbyists, but, more subtly, that they will be partial to the causes of lobbyists’ clients because they spend a lot of time in lobbyists’ company.”
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The disclosure of lobbying contacts provides not only the public with a better view of which interests and factions are trying to influence outcomes, but it also provides a chance for those same interests and factions to view the actions of their opposition. If union officials are putting a full court press over the Employee Free Choice Act, business groups will be able to see which lawmakers they are targeting and can prepare a better response. Groups can help educate the public on which lawmakers are more supportive of their causes, or if they are in opposition. And some lawmakers, exposed by the sunlight, may find it in their interest to meet with more groups to not only provide a more bipartisan public record, but to also gain insight from a more diverse group of interests.
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The need for a better system of lobbying disclosure, that increases registration and disclosure, is necessary to provide the public, interests and lawmakers with the information that actually matters and to provide the professional legitimacy that the lobbying industry needs.
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The TARP Lobbying Rules: What They Say And What They Mean For Transparency
In September, the Treasury Department released its TARP lobbying disclosure rules, nearly eight months after a press release heralding their creation, and a month after an Inspector General report bluntly urged Treasury to promulgate the rules. The rules require that the Treasury Department document communications through which companies lobby for TARP funds. Commonsense rules that increase transparency regarding lobbying communications can have the beneficial effect of reducing the likelihood and appearance of corruption, fostering better dialog, and enhancing the public’s faith in the political process.
The rules promulgated by the Treasury Department attempt to meet the great challenge of improved transparency, but fall short of their potential. They are hard to understand, difficult to apply, and full of contradictions and omissions that undermine stated policy objectives. The rules should be clarified, rewritten, simplified, and broadened.
My initial review of the rules identified some key differences between the TARP lobbying rules and the stimulus lobbying rules, which were issued over the summer and document lobbying over recovery dollars. In the following sections, I analyze the TARP lobbying rules in considerable detail. Before doing so, here are two measures the Treasury Department should consider.
First, Treasury should implement an online searchable lobbying database of all disclosures required under the rules, which is updated in real-time. The public database should be searchable by date, communicant, subject matter of the conversation, and so on. The burden of collecting that data could be reduced by allowing staff to submit reports online.
Regardless of whether this database is built, all of the documents that the lobbying rules require be disclosed should be available in an easy-to-find place online. So far, I have been unable to find the lobbying communication reports on Treasury’s website. The rules require that those reports be made available online within 3 days of a disclosable communication taking place. A phone call to Treasury seeking assistance with finding the disclosures has not yet been returned.
Second, Treasury (and the administration generally) should reconsider the format it uses to promulgate rules. Short, terse, lawyerly language, such as that contained in the TARP lobbying rules memo, is difficult for most people to follow. Treasury should use straightforward language, and define all key terms. Moreover, linguistic sign posts, such as improved headings and sub-headings, would provide a welcome roadmap. Furthermore, adding charts and decision trees to help explain the rules would provide a welcome complement to dense prose.
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Stimulus Lobbying Rules, Take Two
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget released the administration’s new stimulus lobbying rules on Friday, as John mentioned earlier. In summary, the new rules generally expand who is covered by the ban on agency staff having oral communications regarding Recovery Act grants, although it shrinks the circumstances as to when the ban applies and what it covers. It also closes a loophole pertaining to written communications by lobbyists on policy matters.
The 787 billion dollar question is how does the OMB’s July 24th guidance on stimulus recovery lobbying differ from its April 7th memo? (For a short video explaining the old rules, see this.) Here’s how the rules have changed.
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This Week In Transparency – June 12, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this past week:
Federal law prohibits lobbyists and those that hire them from giving gifts or campaign contributions to congressional lawmakers. No such law exists prohibiting them from spending unlimited amounts to honor lawmakers or contributing to non-profits connected to them. Quite a limitation on the distinction, if you ask me. However, Congress passed ethics rules in 2007 requiring for the first time that lobbyists must report all such payments. On Monday, USA Today’s Fredreka Shouten and Paul Overberg reported on the paper’s comprehensive analysis of lobbying reports that found 2,759 payments, totaling $35.8 million, were made in 2008. They quote Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, “It’s another example of the many pockets of a politician’s coat.” The spending amounts to an “end-run” around campaign-finance laws “that are designed to limit the appearance of undue influence.”
(Continue reading…)
