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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Citizens United Part 2 – Lobbyist Disclosure
Sunlight recently developed a seven-point plan for a comprehensive and meaningful disclosure regime in a post-Citizens United political world.
John blogged about the first piece of the platform, Independent Expenditures, and today I’ll be focusing lobbying disclosure, which, even before Citizens United, needed to be updated to address the who, what, when, and why a lobbying contact took place. In the wake of Citizens United, real time, online, substantive disclosure becomes even more critical to demonstrate that corporate expenditures are indeed independent and to shed light on whether there is even the appearance of coercion.
Require Substantive, Timely Disclosure by Lobbyists
Imagine the following: Fat Cat Lobbyist meets Senator Spineless to ask for help with a controversial bill. Soon after, the airwaves in Senator Spineless’ state are blanketed with ads paid for by Fat Cat’s corporate (or union) client, supporting the senator in an upcoming election. The fundamental question is whether, when the senator met with the lobbyist, he felt threatened that he would face a barrage of negative attacks if he did not support the lobbyist’s position. As it stands now, nowhere is it disclosed that the meeting between the senator and the lobbyist even took place. There is simply no way for the public to decipher the senator’s motivation or whether he is acting in the public interest.
To shed light on such possible conflicts of interests, it is critical that within 24 hours of contacting a government official to request a specific government action, 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.
Part and parcel to the requirement that lobbyists disclose the names of the officials they meet with is the requirement that all influence peddlers be required to report their meetings. The current 20 percent exemption for lobbyist reporting must be eliminated so that all significant contacts in which a request is made for a government action are fully disclosed. Corporate and union heads along with anyone who bundles campaign contributions must be required to report their meetings with government officials so that a gaping disclosure loophole can be closed.
The Citizens United decision gave corporations and unions a new and forceful method to twist the arms of elected officials in the form of threatened independent expenditures. This is a powerful weapon in the arsenal of organizations with very deep pockets. Only by exposing when and how that coercive weapon may be being used can the public understand its impact and have at least a chance of combating it.
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Lobbyists Help Write Senator’s Amendment
Further dispatches from the Fifth Branch of government provided by the Washington Post:
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is likely to postpone offering an amendment (pdf) next week that would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, according to sources familiar with the matter.
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The maneuvering comes as The Washington Post has confirmed that two Washington lobbyists, Jeffrey R. Holmstead and Roger R. Martella, Jr., helped craft the original amendment Murkowski planned to offer on the floor last fall. Both Holmstead, who heads the Environmental Strategies Group and Bracewell & Guiliani, and Martella, a partner at Sidley Austin LLP, held senior posts at EPA under the Bush administration and represents multiple clients with an interest in climate legislation pending before Congress.
As reported in McClatchy, the lobbyists are very honest about the whole thing:
“This is what lawyers in Washington do every day of the week, is to take a look,” Holmstead said. “It happens all the time on almost every piece of legislation. Before language is introduced, it is almost always shared with people on all sides of the issue.”
All the more reason for even more transparency in the interaction of lobbyists with our elected officials.
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This Week In Transparency – June 26, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies from the week:
CNN interviewed Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, in an article on lobbyists and the need for disclosure of their interactions with congressional lawmakers and other federal officials.
Katharine Q. Seelye at The New York Times reported on the fact that, five months into his administration, President Obama has signed two dozen bills, but he has almost never waited the five days, as he promised during his election campaign. She noted how open government and other watchdog groups have criticized the president for not living up to his pledge. Seelye quotes Ellen as saying it’s less important for the president to wait before signing a bill than it is for the Congress to wait 72 hours before voting on it. “There isn’t anybody in this town who doesn’t know that commenting after a bill has been passed is meaningless.” The article also has an accompanying video.
Politico’s Victoria McGrane reported on how the Senate is considering putting all their office expenses — including staff salaries — online, as well as requiring campaign fundraising reports to be published on the Web. The mere fact that the Senate leadership has conducted a whip count is an encouraging sign for the reforms’ passage, McGrane writes. And she quotes Lisa Rosenberg, Sunlight’s , “They wouldn’t be talking about bringing it up for a vote if it wasn’t pretty solid.”
The Washington Examiner reports on Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington calling on the Obama administration to release the names of health care executives who have visited the White House. “If you are going to criticize other people for secrecy, you better have an open door,” said Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director. “They talk about transparency more than they exhibit it.”
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A Treasure Trove of Information Left Unopen
Sometimes important information about the way Washington works is easily accessible online, but those “in the know” don’t know how to use it. Take this story from the New York Times. Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture held a hearing on derivatives legislation. Washington lobbyist Ed Rosen testified on behalf of the 650 organizations that make up the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. According to the story, Rep. Peterson was unaware that Rosen lobbied for CDS Dealers Consortium, a group of nine Wall Street leviathans including JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup. CDS Dealers Consortium is a much narrower group that has potentially conflicting interests in derivatives legislation than SIFMA. Had Rep. Peterson known that Rosen represented CDS, “it would have guided his questioning and interpretation of Mr. Rosen’s testimony.” The Times infers that the information was unknown because “those testifying at such hearings are not required to disclose their affiliations.” This is misleading, as the Times reporters themselves noted earlier in the article that lobbying records clearly show that Mr. Rosen was hired to represent CDS.
Had Rep. Peterson or his staff simply typed Ed Rosen’s name into the LDA disclosure search form on the House Clerk’s web site, the information he needed would have popped up in seconds. He would have had a relatively short time frame before the hearing to discover the information, so we will cut him a little slack and use the example to point out the need for real time online disclosure of lobbyist information. According to the lobbyist registration form, CDS Dealers Consortium hired Mr. Rosen on November 13, 2008. Mr. Rosen delayed filing the registration form until Thursday, January 29, 2009, and he filed his lobbying disclosure report the next day. According to the House Clerk’s office, both documents would have been accessible within one day of filing—a day or two before the February 4th hearing. But the tight timeline points out how the current quarterly reporting regime combined with registration requirements that allow 45 days or more to pass before registration forms need to be filed can be used to game the system, delaying disclosure until after it is useful or relevant. Still, even the best, most timely filing system doesn’t do anyone any good if the people who are in the best position to use the data fail to look for it. In this case, the derivatives hearing and any resulting legislation could have taken an entirely different tone if anyone had done his homework.
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GAO: Small Number of Lobbying Disclosures Are Wrong
The GAO is bound by law under the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 to file an annual review of compliance with lobbying disclosure requirements. A review of last year’s disclosure compliance was released yesterday. For the review, the GAO randomly audited 100 lobby shops to determine their level of compliance. The contains statistics on those 100 lobby shops and estimations for the statistical level of disclosure across all lobby shops. Here are some of the noteworthy estimated statistics:
- 6 percent of all lobbyist disclosures “erroneously report the amount of income or expenses for lobbying activity.”
- 7 percent, at minimum, of all lobbyist disclosures “list lobbying activity that did not actually happen.”
- 3 percent, at minimum, of all lobbyist disclosures “fail to fully disclose whether the individual lobbyists for a specific client held an official covered position.”
- 4 percent, at minimum, of all lobbyist contribution disclosures “omit donations that should have been reported.”
And these are statistics based on the 100 randomly audited lobby shops:
- 14 percent of lobbyist disclosures were contradicted by documentation provided by lobbyists.
- 65 percent of lobbyist contribution disclosures “could be supported by FEC data or documentation provided by lobbyists.”
- 16 percent of lobbyist contribution disclosures (LD-203) “contained erroneous entries or failed to disclose required contributions.”
- 13 percent of registrants could not be linked to “a corresponding report… likely because either a report was not filed or reports that were filed contained information, such as client names, that did not match.”
You can read the full report here.
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In Case You Weren’t Convinced
It’s been nearly two weeks since President Obama announced new rules to cover lobbying for stimulus funds and each passing day provides new examples of why these new disclosure rules are so important. Today, the Washington Post notes the explosion in some sectors of the lobbying sector, particularly around those seeking stimulus funds:
The $787 billion stimulus package — along with an ambitious new federal budget, bank bailouts and the beginning of a regulatory overhaul — has succeeded in stimulating the economy along Washington’s avenue of influence. In the months since the November election, more than 2,000 cities, companies and associations have hired lobbyists to help them push their agendas on Capitol Hill and at the White House, easily outpacing such numbers after the previous two elections, according to disclosure records.
The need for full disclosure of the contacts by this new crop of lobbyists is essential to prevent fraud, waste, and corruption. (Just look at what can happen when lobbyists are grabbing at piles of money.) Hopefully, the administration’s rules come into full relief shortly. For a full run-down on the new rules and how they change the current structure of lobbying disclosure, read this post from last week.
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Lobbyists May Subvert Disclosure Laws to Lobby on Stimulus
The Associated Press reports today that lobbyists engaged on stimulus projects may channel their outrage at the new lobbying rules imposed by President Obama on recovery funds by pull their registrations from the Lobbyist Disclosure Act:
Since the prohibition applies to registered lobbyists, some firms are thinking about having some of their lobbyists rescind their registrations, which could let them pitch stimulus projects to government officials. That, though, would severely limit the time they could spend lobbying each year while undermining disclosure laws requiring registered lobbyists to publicly report their activities.
The administration really touched a nerve by requiring that lobbyist meetings actually be disclosed to the public. It looks like lobbyists are declaring war on any expansion of lobbyist disclosure laws
This action by the lobbying community also provides more grease for the gears to expand the definition of registered lobbyists in Washington. There are far too many non-lobbyist lobbyists in this city.
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Foreign Lobbying Around Bailout?
Recent news stories have shown that the U.S. is increasingly in the business of providing loans and bailout money to foreign banks. A.I.G. recently revealed a list of the counterparties to their bailout, which included many foreign banks. The Federal Reserve has also loaned billions of dollars to the central banks of many foreign nations including the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, and Banco Central do Brasil.
The loans to foreign central banks do raise a political issue: who is chosen for participation in the program and what efforts are they exerting to obtain the loans? When the participating countries file their next Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) disclosures–lobbyist disclosures for foreign nations–we should be able to see if they have been lobbying for Federal Reserve bank loans.
Unlike lobbyist disclosures under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, FARA disclosures require a much greater amount of detail. This allows us to have a greater view of what foreign nations are lobbying for during the economic crisis. Conversely, we have less information about what American banks are lobbying for or against, which is a real disappointment considering their lobbying, along with other financial services and mortgage groups, helped create the economic mess we find ourselves in now. Perhaps we should demand better disclosure from our lobbyists.
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Congress Loosens Lobbyist Disclosure
The Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate are loosening their interpretation of lobbyist disclosure provisions on gifts to lawmakers and staff members and on PAC contributions. The new rules will be put in place after lobbyists and ethics lawyers launched a lobbying campaign to loosen disclosure requirements in the new LD-203 form – a new disclosure document requiring disclosure of campaign contributions and gifts.
The two offices initially ruled that lobbyists must disclose the fee of events where a “covered official” is in attendance. This rule no longer applies:
The new revisions require lobbyists and lobbying organizations to report the fee or contribution for an event if a covered official is honored or receives an award and they are a “sponsor” as defined by the Senate and House gift rules.
The House and Senate’s gift rules take a narrow view of sponsor, requiring that a person or group not only make a financial contribution to an event but have primary responsibility for the event’s organization.
The new ruling also reduce disclosure for lobbyist spending through political action committees (PACs):
The previous guidance stated that lobbyists sitting on a PAC board would have to list all donations of the PAC on their personal LD-203 form. This could require a single lobbyist to list all the donations of several PACs they were involved with.
Under the new guidance, lobbyists are required to list only that they are on the board of the connected PAC, not document the individual contributions made by the PAC.
While certain lobbyists were complaining to force these changes, Sunlight’s John Wonderlich filed his LD-203 and had this to say about it on twitter, “lobbying disclosure was really painless.” Onerous disclosure requirements are in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
