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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This Week in Transparency – August 7, 2009
Here are some of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies over the past week:
Alan Fram with the Associated Press wrote about how the health insurance industry is fighting to prevent the Congress from passing a health care overhaul that includes a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. Fram cites data from the Center for Responsive Politics to show how health insurers have made $41 million in campaign contributions to current congressional lawmakers since 1989, “with more than half going to lawmakers on the five House and Senate panels writing this year’s health bills.” Since the beginning of 2008, insurers have spent $145 million on lobbying.
The New York Times‘ Jack Rosenthal, in writing the paper’s “On Language” column, mentioned how Andrew Raseij, Sunlight’s senior technology advisor and co-director of Personal Democracy Forum, is pushing for a federal law that redefines “public” to mean searchable and readable online. U.S. Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.) is drafting just such legislation. Rosenthal also noted how the Senate does not disclose campaign-contribution information to the Federal Election Commission in an electronic form. “That means it must be digitized by the commission, by which time the next election may well have come and gone. Transparent? Yes, but also emasculated,” Rosenthal wrote.
Federal Computer Week’s Ben Bain wrote about how the Obama administration is asking federal agencies to gear their spending plans for science and technology in fiscal 2011 toward projects designed to drive economic growth, create energy independence, improve health, and bolster security, according to recently issued general guidance. Peter Orszag, Obama’s OMB director, outlined the new emphasis in an August 4th memo (PDF). Craig Jennings, a senior federal fiscal policy analyst with OMB Watch, said the memo is an indication that science and technology will be high priorities for the administration. (Continue reading…)
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Two House Health Care Committees Excel in Disclosure
Two of the key House committees that have passed health care reform legislation are disclosing significant information from the committee markups on their web sites. The Energy & Commerce Committee and the Education & Labor Committee both provide links to all amendments offered and all recorded votes taken during the markup hearings.
This is a regular practice of both committees, but not in most other congressional committees. The Energy & Commerce and Education & Labor Committees are two of five committees in the House of Representatives that regularly post links to both amendments offered in markups and the recorded votes on each individual amendment. The other three committees are Agriculture, Financial Services and Judiciary.
We, at the Sunlight Foundation, have been advocating for a rule requiring all bills be posted online for 72 hours prior to consideration. We also care about the transparency in other areas of the legislative process, particularly at the committee level where a lot the actual work takes place. The advancement in committee web site disclosure over the past couple of years has been both phenomenal and frustrating. The level of transparency offered by these five committees is emblematic of what committee transparency should look like — even if we feel that it could be even better — and did not exist just a few years ago. There is no reason, however, that the other thirteen committees with regular legislative activities (this excludes Rules, Standards of Official Conduct and other joint or special committees with no role in reporting legislation) could not provide the same level of transparency.
Some of these other committees do provide some level of disclosure in the markup process. The Natural Resources Committee posts links to the votes on amendments, but not the amendments themselves. The Science & Technology Committee only posts amendments that have been accepted by the committee and does not include vote information. On the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee site, I noticed only one linked amendment and no vote information.
Those following the health care debate should be thankful that two of the three committees that marked up the bill in the House are exceeding their peers in online disclosure. The ability to have all the information on the legislative path of such important legislation is vital and it’s great to see the efforts of a few years of advocating for better committee transparency pay off.
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E&C Web Site Goes Down, Bill Still Posted
It appears that the demand for information about today’s deal between Energy and Commerce Chair Henry Waxman and committee Blue Dogs has led to the committee’s web site crashing. Congress often has bandwidth problems and pages regularly crash. If I remember correctly, it was near impossible to access a congressional web page during the stimulus debate. What’s interesting in this instance is that the committee has posted a short disclaimer along with links to the health care bill text and a summary. Just another example of Congress coming around to understand that people want to read the bills and are using the web to find legislative information. Very cool.
Here’s a screencap of the currently downed Energy and Commerce Committee site, in case it’s back to normal:
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Lawmakers Actually Sit Down to Read the Bill
In light of Rep. John Conyers’ statement that I posted about yesterday, I’m glad to see that other lawmakers are actually reading the bill and studying its various sections:
They were all House Democrats, boning up on the historic and controversial health-care reform legislation that’s gradually emerging from their chamber. The rough draft of the bill (“America’s Health Choices Act”) runs more than 1,000 pages, with amendments yet to come. Last week the Democrats decided that they needed to know more about the legislation before they go back to their constituents for the August recess. Hence the teach-in, an unusual basement seminar that lasted five hours with one break for procedural votes on the House floor.
Staffers led the members through the bill section by section — from Division A, Title I, Subtitle A, Section 101 all the way through Division C, Title V, Subtitle D, Section 2531.
“No one’s going to say we haven’t read the bill,” said Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, a Maryland Democrat, as he took a break from the closed-door gathering.
Now, we just to need to make sure that the final version is available for everyone else to read in time. Go to ReadTheBill.org to show your support.
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Rep. Conyers: Don’t Read the Bill
“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill,’” said Rep. John Conyers. “What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”
That’s an elected member of Congress explaining why lawmakers shouldn’t bother themselves with reading bills. It’s just too gosh-darned difficult. And who’s ever heard of lawyers working in congressional offices? Not me, no way.
Seriously, as a representative of a district, congressmen should know what they are voting on and, if they need help, they employ people who can help them read the bills and inform their decision-making process on behalf of their constituents.
Rep. Conyers appears to have disdain for this notion. It makes me wonder about two things. When the Democrats won back control of Congress in 2006 their proposed ethics reform package included a Read the Bill section. The committee with jurisdiction over the reform process was headed by Conyers. Did his disregard for bill reading leave this section on the cutting room floor? Also, this video from Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11″ has a completely different context now:
Go to ReadTheBill.org and tell your congressman that you don’t agree with Rep. Conyers. Tell them that they should support a 72 hour rule for placing all bills online.
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Guess What? It’s Working.
After one week of markups on the health care reform bill, we are already seeing that pressure on Congress does bear fruit. Unlike the cap and trade bill negotiations, all three committees held open markups, streamed online with some, but not all, documents disclosed to the public. While nothing we have seen is ideal — leaving aside the Energy & Commerce Committee markups, which I’ll get to momentarily — the movement is towards greater disclosure at the committee level, where input can be most important. The Education & Labor Committee’s tweeting of votes on amendments and the availability of two discussion drafts from different committees allows the public with greater knowledge of the bill’s ever changing status. Overall, we are seeing earlier attempts at transparency in the legislative process.
The Energy & Commerce Committee, led by Henry Waxman, should come out for special praise. This committee is providing greater access during the bill formulation process than any other. The committee web site contains streaming video of the markups, archived video of past markups, a discussion draft for proposed changes to the bill, PDFs of every amendment and vote information on each amendment. The committee is also holding markups over a four day period, rather than holding one or two days of markups, allowing the public a greater ability to have a voice in the process. This isn’t a one-off for Energy & Commerce either. During their markup of cap and trade legislation, the committee posted all amendments to the web site along with votes. The other committees with jurisdiction over the cap and trade bill didn’t even hold hearings. Other committees should look to Energy & Commerce as a great example in committee transparency.
The one committee left to look out for is the Senate Finance Committee. As noted earlier, Senate Finance Chair Max Baucus plans to announce his plans for health care reform this week. Senate Finance is considered the crucial broker on any health care bill and should be watched with a close eye. (We’ve taken it upon ourselves to look at committee member connections to lobbyists.) The same transparency that we ask of the relevant House committees should be asked of the Senate Finance Committee.
Right now, Congress isn’t where we want them to be, but we are seeing progress. Bills are still being rushed through Congress and committees do not disclose nearly enough information to allow citizens to have a meaningful impact on the sausage-making in Congress. That being said, the pressure that you are putting on Congress to read their bills and provide full disclosure of legislative material to the public is having a real impact. Keep the pressure up at ReadTheBill.org and demand real transparency along the full legislative path of each and every bill.
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This Week in Transparency – July 17, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies from the week:
Jeff Jacoby, columnist for The Boston Globe, mentioned ReadTheBill.org in a piece he wrote calling on congressional lawmakers read legislation before they vote on it. Glenn Reynolds, at his Instapundit blog, linked to Jacoby’s column. Andrew Sullivan’s blog, The Daily Dish, followed by linking to Reynolds.
In Washington Monthly’s July/August edition, Charles Homans wrote about the Obama administration’s “experiments with data-driven democracy.” The article centers on the work of Vivek Kundra, the White House’s chief information officer, and mentions both the District of Columbia’s Apps for Democracy contest and Sunlight’s Apps for America contest. Homans quotes Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs’ director, saying Kundra has his work cut out for him. “I have nothing but respect for what he’s trying to do. But it’s a hard job, and it’s going to take some time for this to actually happen right. I mean years.” While discussing Kundra’s launch of Data.gov, Homans again quotes Clay, “The top data source is on the world’s copper smelters, which isn’t going to tell us very much about what’s going on inside of our government.”
As Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s director, wrote earlier this week, “When it comes to following the money that’s flowing to power on Capitol Hill, no one does it better than the Center for Responsive Politics.” For instance, MAPLight.org used CRP data to show how money watered down the energy bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (HR 2454). With Congress debating health care reform, Forbes used CRP data to show how America’s Health Insurance Plans, the political advocacy and trade group for the health insurance industry, has spent nearly $10 million on lobbying Congress in the past two years. Robert J. S. Ross, writing at The Huffington Post, quotes CRP about how the insurance industry has contributed $568 million to political campaigns since 1998. CNN’s Jonathan Mann used CRP data in noting how doctors have spent roughly two-thirds of a billion dollars lobbying lawmakers in the last 10 years.
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Read the Bill: The (Long) Short Story
In case you needed the short version of the full history of Congress and Read the Bill, please read below. Just to fit this into a blog post, I’m starting in 1965 and not 1789. I thought that after the rushed cap and trade vote and the upcoming health care reform vote it would be important to provide some background on Congress’ habit of not reading bills:
In the mid-1960s, a movement was afoot among young, liberal members of Congress to reform the way the legislative branch operated. Opacity and centralized power were their enemies. Openness and diffusion of power were the solutions. In a 1965 report issued by the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, one such area where openness was ascribed as a means to diffuse power was the time allowed to study bills prior to consideration:
A bill that cannot survive a 3-day scrutiny of its provisions is a bill that should not be enacted. Proper consideration must be given to important legislation, even in the closing days of a session. The world’s most powerful legislature cannot in good conscience deprive its membership of a brief study of a committee report prior to final action.
Prior to the issuance of this report, Congress had mandated a 1-day layover for bills in the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. Soon Congress would pass a new reogranization bill. The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 contained a provision requiring a 3-day (calendar day, not legislative day) layover for all bills and committee reports prior to a bill being considered.
This change was made within the House and Senate rules, which are maleable, shifting guidelines, not strict laws of the land. The rule did not require any type of majority to waive the 3-day layover requirement and soon the rule would be waived repeatedly to pass large pieces of legislation that the majority wanted passed in a hurry.
(Continue reading…)
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Sweeten it, but don’t read it
After passing the cap and trade bill in rush, we are beginning to see what was included in the last hours prior to the vote. According to the Washington Times, the final 300 page amendment to the 1,200 page bill appears to have been filled with sweeteners for wavering congressmen.
The Washington Times reported on the actual contents of the cap and trade manager’s amendment — those 300 pages that dropped at the last second — and found a sweetener for one lawmaker likely aimed at enticing her to vote for the bill. The bill contained a nearly unintelligable section creating a federally authorized power administration with $3.5 billion in funds to distribute to renewable energy and development projects in Ohio. The power administration was championed by Rep. Marcy Kaptur and its last minute inclusion likely helped obtain her vote and other wavering lawmakers from Ohio.
We have little idea how many sweeteners were added into the 300 page manager’s amendment and it is very difficult to determine due to the obscure language used in the amendment. Take, for example, the language of the Kaptur power administration:
SEC. 199. DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION FOR RENEWABLE
POWER BORROWING AUTHORITY.
(a) DETERMINATION.—No later than 6 months after
the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Energy,
in coordination with the Secretary of Commerce, shall—(1) determine any geographic area within the
contiguous United States that lacks a Federal power
marketing agency;
(2) develop a plan or criteria for the geographic
areas identified in paragraph (1) regarding invest-
ment in renewable energy and associated infrastruc-
ture within an area identified in paragraph (1); and
(3) identify any Federal agency within an area
in paragraph (1) that has, or could develop, the abil-
ity to facilitate the investment in paragraph (2).(b) REPORT.—The Secretary of Energy, in coordina-
tion with the Secretary of Commerce, shall provide the de-
terminations made under subsection (a) to the Committee
on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representa-
tives.
(c) ESTABLISHMENT.—Based upon the determina-
tions made pursuant to subsection (a), the Secretary of
Energy, in coordination with the Secretary of Commerce,
shall recommend to the Committee on Energy and Com-
merce of the House of Representatives the establishment
of any new Federal lending authority, including authoriza-
tion of additional lending authority for existing Federal
agencies, not to exceed $3,500,000,000 per geographic
area identified in subsection (a)(1).(d) AUTHORIZATION.—$25,000,000 is authorized to
be appropriated for fiscal year 2010 to carry out the provi-
sions of this section.Now for those looking to see how the last minute changes affect voting behavior, this kind of language isn’t helpful at all. There are even more obscure sections of the bill that could contain vote-getting sweeteners. Not that I’m advocating for plain language bills or anything (laws are written in legal language for a reason), but the language in this amendment is particularly — and likely intentionally — obtuse.
Of course, one of the biggest problems is that we were given under 24 hours to read these 300 pages of obscure language. So, we are brought reporting after the bill is passed teasing out the actual contents, which appear to include vote-attracting sweeteners. No one could have realistically known what was in the bill, and inserted for whom, before the vote took place.
If you want to see if you can find these sweeteners, please have at it. I spent a good amount of time reading the bill last week (what a concept) and wouldn’t mind some help pulling out the choice sections that were inserted to gain specific votes. Here’s the pdf. Let me know what you find in the comments. And don’t forget to tell your congressman to Read the Bill in the future.
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Discussion Draft Follow-up
After yesterday’s discussion about discussion drafts, the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions released a draft of their version of the public option — but only the Politico received a leaked version. This would be one of those things that should just be directly posted to the Committee web site. It would help the public understand the ongoing legislative process and provide context to the eventual bill that we hope would be read by lawmakers.
