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
-
Transparency in Presidential Signing Statements
Over the weekend, Charles Savage at The New York Times had an important article on how President Obama’s use of signing statements – written pronouncements sometimes issued by presidents when they sign bills into law –has begun to mirror his predecessor’s, creating similar criticism and controversy. (The last president was prolific in the use of signing statements.)
Here’s a list along with links to of all of President Obama’s signing statements so far. But I didn’t find this list on WhiteHouse.gov where I thought it would be…And where it should be! If you go the White House you won’t find an explicit listing of the statements. They might be there…they could be in the 97-page list of “Statements and Releases.” And the site’s search function was of no help. Not good. Not good at all.
We found them however at a site maintained by Joyce Green, a private attorney, who maintains a Web site that lists all the presidential signing statements since 2001. Green built the website for two reasons: (1) to provide free, convenient public access to the signing statements; and (2) to provide an objective, nonpartisan, and reliable research tool for reporters, scholars, lawyers, and anyone who is interested in signing statements. Green’s site is mirrored by Pace University Law School, with her permission, and it will eventually take over the materials and Green’s Web site soon disappear.
The practice of signing statements has created lots of controversy, such as when a statement proclaims some part of the legislation is unconstitutional and the administration intends to ignore it. President George W. Bush created controversy by issuing numerous signing statements that declared sections of bills unconstitutional. In July 2006, the American Bar Administration declared that using signing statements to modify the meaning of passed legislation undermined “the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers”.
While running for president, now President Obama was critical of Bush’s use of the statements and called them an “abuse,” promising to show greater restraint. As Savage wrote at The Times, the Obama administration says the signing statements the president has signed so far, challenging portions of five bills, have been based on mainstream interpretations of the Constitution and echo reservations routinely expressed by presidents of both parties.
That may be all well and good, but our concern is less about the constitutional law issues involved, but on the need for transparency in the process. If the president is refusing to enforce legislation passed by Congress then we have a right to know about it. And the administration should make it easy to find on its Web site. This is a problem easily solved.
-
Transparency 2.0
Nick Troiano at SocialGovernment.com has an interesting and important post about government transparency, the 2.0 version. Nick was reflecting from a discussion featured by the National Conference on Citizenship titled “In Transparency, We Trust?
-
Top 10 Measurements for Transparency
Weekend before this most recent one, Government 2.0 Camp took place here in Washington and by all accounts it was a huge success. Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Forum and Sunlight’s senior technology advisor, led a panel discussion about what the meaning of transparency is in the Obama administration. During the discussion, Andrew and the participants came up with “Top 10 Measurements for Transparency.” And it’s quite a comprehensive list.
Here’s a photo of the board they were taking notes on:
Here’s a short video of Andrew quickly running through the measurements:
Ten Measures for Transparency Success from Gov 2.0 on Vimeo.Here’s a quick outline of the 10 measurements:
1. Open data: The federal government should make all data searchable, findable and accessible.
2. Disclose spending data: The government should disclose how it is spending taxpayer dollars, who is spending it and how it’s being spent.
3. Procurement data: How does the government decide where the money is getting spent, who gets it, how they are spending it and how can we measure success.
4. Open portal for public request for information: There should be a central repository for all Freedom of Information Act requests that are public to that people can see in real time when the requests come in, how fast the government responds to them.
5. Distributed data: The government should make sure it builds redundancy in their system so that data is not held in just one location, but held in multiple places in case of a disaster, terrorist attack or some other reason where the data is damaged. Redundancy would guarantee government could rebuild the data for future use.
6. Open meetings: Government meetings should be open to the public so that citizens can tell who is trying to influence government. All schedules should be published as soon as they happen so that people can see who is meeting with whom and who is trying to influence whom.
7. Open government research: Currently, when government conducts research, it usually does not report the data it collects until the project is finished. Government should report its research data while its being collected in beta form. This would be a measure of transparency and would change the relationship that people have to government research as it is being collected.
8. Collection transparency: Government should disclose how it is collecting information, for whom are they collecting the data, and why is it relevant. The public should have the ability to judge whether or not it valuable to them, and giving them the ability to comment on it.
9. Allowing the public to speak directly to the president: Recently, we saw the president participate in something called “Open for Questions,” where he gave the public access to ask questions. This allowed him to burst his bubble and be in touch with the American public directly is another measure of transparency.
10. Searchable, crawl able and accessible data: If the government were to make all data searchable, crawl able and accessible we would go along way in realizing all the goals presented at the Gov 2.0 Camp.I wanted to note all this for posterity. We’d love to hear you comments and thoughts about it.
