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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Sunlight in Every Corner…
I just sent this out as an email to Sunlight supporters, because it’s really been a whirlwind month – and while it’s important for us all to know what’s going on, it’s also sometimes hard to keep up. I’ve been working in advocacy for years and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen so much happen in so many different arenas in such a short period of time for a cause.
When it comes to Transparency, there hasn’t been a time like the last four weeks since our movement for an open government began. As I write this:
- we’re on the verge of having two government transparency bills to rally behind in the House and Senate.
- the White House is hosting the Open Government Initiative to seek our best ideas in making government more open and participatory.
- thousands of new government data feeds are available through Data.gov (and we’re making sure technologists around the country use it with the Apps for America 2 competition).
- the Speaker of the House has required an unprecedented level of disclosure for House Member expenditures.
- people are checking out the makeover we gave the Supreme Court. (Their website that is.)
Big month! …and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. (Continue reading…)
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Member Expenses Continued
Earlier this week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that lawmaker office expenses would be placed online at the earliest possible time. According to House Chief Administrative Officer Dan Beard, that earliest date will likely be August 31. Beard, according to the Wall Street Journal, also stated intentions to make the disclosure more accessible in the future, “Electronic versions of the ink-and-paper reports will initially be posted in PDF format. The House “is examining ways” to enhance the ability to search the documents when it rolls out a new internal financial-processing system during the 112th Congress.”
While this policy applies only to the House, the Senate may be pushed into taking action as well. The Journal is also reporting that Sen. Tom Coburn will introduce a bill to require the online disclosure of Senate office expenses. Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office states that they will look at the issue:
Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) said Wednesday he would introduce a bill requiring the expense records be posted online in the Senate, as well. Such disclosures are “something that we will take a look at,” said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D., Nev.).
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Congressional Statements of Expenditures, the MP Expense Scandal, and the Case for Transparency
What would happen here in the States if congressmen were revealed to have used their office allowances (Member’s Representational Allowance) on XXX-rated tapes, digging a moat around their McMansion, or paying down a mortgage that had already been paid off? It wouldn’t be too different from how the British are reacting right now. Members of Parliament (MPs) have been discovered using their personal allowances on the above mentioned items and more (in Britain, however, they do not have McMansions, they actually have castles) and the people are wicked angry. The scandal has already claimed the Speaker of the House of Commons and almost a dozen MPs, who have promised not to run for office again.
The Wikipedia page on the MP expense scandal provides a fairly detailed primer to introduce yourself to the peculiar purchasing peccadillos of Members of Parliament. In short, this all began when an intrepid indepedent journalist filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the expense account information. Parliament refused and filed numerous appeals, losing each time. Eventually, Parliament stated that they would release the expense information to the full public in July of 2009, but they would redact certain information — that information turned out to be the juiciest stuff. Before that month could come (we are still in May), the Daily Telegraph obtained a full, unredacted list of MP expenses and began running stories exposing the various outrages that MPs expensed on the government dime. And it has all tumbled out of control from there.
In some ways, we’ve seen similar scandals here in the United States. In the early 1990s, there were two concurrent scandals related to the House Bank and the House Post Office. The House banking scandal involved lawmakers — practically every single one of them — kiting checks and going months with huge overdrafts on their accounts. The House Post Office scandal saw lawmakers purchasing stamps with their Member’s Representational Allowance (MRA) and then trading them back to the Post Office for cash. The House banking scandal led to the conviction of four former lawmakers and a short scolding of 22 lawmakers by the House Ethics Committee. The House Post Office scandal led to the conviction of Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, one of the last of the congressional bulls, for laundering money through stamps, hiring “ghost” employees, and using MRA funds for personal uses.
Rostenkowski may be the most famous of House lawmakers to be taken down, like the MP expense scandal, by misuse of office funds, but he is certainly not the only one. In the 1970s, Rep. Wayne Hays, chairman of the House Adminsitration Committee, was felled after it was revealed that he kept his mistress, Elizabeth Ray, on his congressional payroll as a secretary despite, in her own words, that, “I can’t type, I can’t file, I can’t even answer the phone!” During the Hays scandal coverage, a similar situation was uncovered with Rep. John Young .
Whether it is the MP scandal, Rostenkowski, or Hays, it is obvious the one thing that abets these kinds of abuses is a serious lack of transparency. Had all of these expense funds and allowances been accessible to the public any person would reason that they could not easily get away with abuse or misuse of the funds. Preempting actions by making the item of potential abuse transparent prevents the actions from being made.
Despite this obvious case for transparency in office funds, congressional “Statements of Expenditures” (how the MRA is spent by each individual office) are still no where to be found on the Internet. They are printed up in a series of books (really, a lot of books) and never placed near a computer, scanner, or anything that would allow you to see them, save a trip to the basement of the Longworth House Office Building.
Last year, Sunlight’s Lisa Rosenberg endorsed the idea of online disclosure for the “Statements of Expenditures” writing, “[W]e would like to see the “Statements of Expenditures” required by law to be made public by the House and Senate to be put online by each of the legislative bodies. … Failing to make disbursement reports available online gives them an air of secrecy that is largely unwarranted given the uncontroversial content of the reports.”
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Memo to Congress: Open Your Books
It should go without saying that at Sunlight, we believe that if Congress is required to make a document or report public, it can only satisfy that mandate by putting the information online in a searchable format. That’s why we would like to see the “Statements of Expenditures” required by law to be made public by the House and Senate to be put online by each of the legislative bodies. Only then will citizens have access to a full and detailed accounting of how Members spend the taxpayer funds that they receive to run their offices.These behemoth reports, which weigh in at around four pounds, are published quarterly by the House and semi-annually by the Senate. They are available, “while supplies last,” at the House and Senate document rooms and they can be “viewed” at Federal Depository Libraries. But they are virtually inaccessible to a citizen wondering what her representative pays members of his staff or whether the congressman is purchasing flat screen TVs, magazine subscriptions or potted plants for the office. At a time when most American families and businesses are tightening their belts, citizens should be able to assess for themselves whether their representatives in Congress are spending taxpayer funds wisely.
Failing to make disbursement reports available online gives them an air of secrecy that is largely unwarranted given the uncontroversial content of the reports. As Sunlight advocates in our Transparency in Government Act, a transparent 111th Congress will open up its books for review by the public, and will find that this painless endeavor helps to begin to restore the public’s trust in the accountability of the institution.
