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
-
House Expenditures to go Online
The US House is expected today to release the quarterly Statement of Disbursements online for the first time.
Sunlight has long called for electronic disclosure of the accounts of Members and other offices within the House, and last June Speaker Pelosi announced this new policy. The US Senate quickly followed, announcing a new policy set to take effect in 2011.
We expect today to be the first time the public will be able to see how their representatives spend their office budgets online, adding a new layer of accountability and trust to the process of representation. As Paul Blumenthal has detailed before, past decades have seen scandal around Members’ expenditures, and the House of Commons in the United Kingdom was recently rocked by a similar scandal, when the public learned how Members of Parliament were spending official funds.
Today’s release will mark a proactive stance from the US House, voluntarily creating more effective disclosure, and responding to new expectations that information be available online for it to be truly public.
(Continue reading…)
