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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Supreme Court unveils new website: how does it look?
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- New website
Last year, we made suggestions about how the U.S. Supreme Court should redesign its website. Today, the Court unveiled a new website. The new website is a small but important step towards increased openness and accessibility, although it needs serious work.
Notable improvements include making recent Court decisions available from the homepage, a somewhat more logical design, and an interactive Court calendar that allows you to see what cases are scheduled for argument. According to the Court, additional enhancements include docket files going back to 2000, a new case citation finder, and enhanced search and navigation abilities.
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- Sunlight’s mock-up
There are several areas where important improvements should be made, all of which focus around providing context to the information it provides.
- The webpage needs to provide more information about what the Court is doing, explaining legal terms of art, and grouping relevant information together (such as information pertaining to a particular case).
- It should incorporate a user-friendly advanced search engine.
- Use machine-readable formats (not just PDFs).
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- Old Site
We strongly encourage those redesigning the Supreme Court’s website to talk to members of the user community to get a better feel for the kinds of improvements that would be helpful. Certainly, we would be willing to engage in that conversation.
Additional Resources:
- Blog of the Legal Times (3/18/2010): Supreme Court Unveils New Web Site Design
- SCOTUSBlog (3/18/2010): Changes for Court’s website
- SCOTUSBlog (10/1/2009): A proposed redesign for the Supreme Court
- Sunlight Foundation (8/27/2009): The Supreme Court Website: An Updated Redesign
- Sunlight Foundation (6/2/2009): Redesigning The Government: The U.S. Supreme Court
- A compendium of resources from Sunlight (wiki page)
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Apples and Oranges: Campaign Finance Transparency Laws Should Remain Untouched By The Supreme Court
Should a court case on whether Washington state must disclose the identities of people calling for a referendum affect the kinds of disclosure required under campaign finance law? We say no. The explanation of our answer is the focus of an amicus brief filed before the U.S. Supreme Court by the Sunlight Foundation, the Brennan Center, and the Center for Responsive Politics in Doe v. Reed.
We believe that, regardless of whether the names of people who signed a petition calling for a referendum must be disclosed, the question of money in politics is different from other election regulation issues, and must be treated differently. “Where money is spent to influence the outcome of elections, vigilance is required to ensure that influence-peddling does not corrupt our democracy and that voters are empowered to make informed decisions about how such spending may have influenced their candidates and laws.”
As a matter of procedure, the Court should never reach the question of how transparency and campaign finance laws intersect. But if it does, the Court should conclude “the curtain of privacy that is appropriate to the voting booth should not be drawn to hide the workings of money in politics from public scrutiny and from political accountability.”
Read the brief below.
Doe v Reed Amicus Brief before Supreme Court joined by Sunlight Foundation
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Citizens United and Transparency: A Look Ahead
The Supreme Court has issued its long-awaited decision in the election law case Citizens United [PDF], to which Ellen has posted her thoughtful response and initial reactions. I’m going to look at the decision’s implications for legal challenges to transparency over the long haul. These are first impressions of a 180+ page opinion and dissents, so thinking on this will likely evolve over the upcoming days and weeks.
To briefly recap, the Supreme Court examined whether the long-standing laws prohibiting corporations and unions from spending money on issue advertisements or express advocacy ads (that support a particular presidential or congressional candidate) violate the First Amendment; and also whether laws that require reporting of these expenditures are constitutional.
Justice Kennedy, writing for the narrow 5-4 majority, held that corporations and unions can spend unlimited amounts of money on issue advertisements or express advocacy right up until election day. Justice Stevens, writing for the dissent (joined by 3 other justices), criticized that decision on many grounds, including practical ones: “The unparalleled resources, professional lobbyists, and single minded focus they bring to this effort, I believed, make quid pro quo corruption and its appearance inherently more likely when they (or their conduits or trade groups) spend unrestricted sums on elections.” (Many argue, like election-law expert Rick Hasen, that the Court shouldn’t have reached these issues in the first place.)
What is clear is that corporations and unions will be able to dump tons more money into an already groaning political system. (We’ll shortly see who has more resources to draw upon.) The decision did not address whether unions and corporations may contribute directly to candidates (up until today they could not) , and left a number of other open questions.
Looking to transparency — disclosure of who funded the ads — only Justice Thomas (who dissents in part) would strike down measures requiring disclosure of donors. But the majority and minority have very different views on the usefulness of transparency in addressing money-related problems. They also leave open a big loophole to knock down transparency laws in the future. (Continue reading…)
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How the Citizens United Case Affects Money & Politics and Transparency As We Know it
The ramifications of today’s Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC are breathtaking – opening the floodgates of political money such as we have never seen before. If you thought Congress was ‘for sale’ to the highest bidder, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Nothing less than a fundamental rethinking of our campaign finance laws is demanded as a result of today’s decision.
But one thing becomes immediately clear: Transparency about the flow of campaign cash – online and in real time – became more important. While we do not think that transparency is a panacea for the horrific consequences of today’s decision, it is critically important as the shredded system is rebuilt.
Today’s decision underscores the necessity of creating comprehensive real-time disclosure for all election spending – across the board — from when and how often candidates, individuals and PACs report their contributions and expenditures to those involved in independent expenditures, issue ads or direct election advocacy.
Others will opine about what the Court wrote about lifting the limits and other related matters that were at the heart of this case, but we want to focus on the disclosure aspects of this case.
The Majority wrote:
With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters. Shareholders can determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests…This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.
The Court goes on to note the Internet’s importance when it comes to meaningful disclosure, saying that “modern technology makes disclosures rapid and informative…A campaign finance system that pairs corporate independent expenditures with effective disclosure has not existed before today.”
True enough, but the disclosure system they describe doesn’t yet exist. The current disclosure system is insufficiently “rapid and informative” and does not make effective use of modern technology.
As a result of this decision, there will be tidal wave of corporate campaign expenditures. The systems for disclosure will have to come into the 21st century. Everything has to be reported online. All related campaign expenditures, including the new wave of issue ads, and independent expenditures and direct electioneering must be disclosed within 24 hours, with the names and addresses of anyone who has given more than $200 in support of the ad disclosed online. In fact, there should be 24-hour online reporting of all contributions of more than $200. The quarterly reporting system now in place is outdated and ineffective—ridiculous, in a word.
There is more to this case that deserves analysis, and more will come from Sunlight. We could go on and on about how wrong-headed Justice Thomas’ no-disclosure dissent is. We need to watch out that the court doesn’t use the guise of “protecting donors from harassment” as an excuse to limit disclosure.
But in the meantime, this decision should trigger momentum toward ensuring that all election-related information is available online in real-time. Disclosure remains a crucial antiseptic to the corrupting influence of money in politics. We should ensure our system is as transparent as possible.
We’ll have more to say, later today.
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Supreme Court Issues Major Campaign Finance Decision
This morning, the Supreme Court issued an opinion in the major campaign finance and transparency case Citizens United. We are still reviewing the opinion (available here as a PDF) for its transparency implications.
We explained what’s at stake, and our amicus brief, here. While you’re waiting for our analysis, here are three excellent sources of insights:
- SCOTUSBlog: will likely have the opinion online first with instant analysis.
- ElectionLawBlog: will have the best web coverage.
- The Brennan Center for Justice: a non-partisan public policy and law institute that focuses on fundamental issues of democracy and justice.
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Government Transparency and the Supreme Court Case ‘Citizens United’
There is again speculation that the Supreme Court will issue an opinion in a major election and transparency case tomorrow. In one sense, that case, Citizen’s United, concerns whether the FEC can regulate a 90-minute, video-on-demand film, “Hillary: The Movie,” which criticized then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. However, the ruling may affect two Court decisions that recognized the constitutionality of laws that require disclosure of persons who made election-related expenditures. In other words, the public’s ability to follow the money. (Continue reading…)
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SCOTUSBlog Interview about Sunlight’s Supreme Court Website Redesign
SCOTUSblog, a blog about the U.S. Supreme Court, published an interview with me on Sunlight’s proposed website redesign for the Supreme Court. Here are links to our preliminary redesign and final draft.
Judicial appropriations legislation (S. 1432 and H.R. 3170) to “provide new information technology specialist positions and for new hardware and software to support the Court’s website” has passed the House and is pending in the Senate.
Justices Breyer and Thomas testified before the House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee on April 23, 2009, and explained the $1 million in costs for staff, hardware, and software.
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Supreme Court To Release Audio of Arguments in Citizens United To Media And National Archives
In an uncommon move, the U.S. Supreme Court will release audio from today’s argument in Citizens United v. FEC shortly after arguments have concluded. There is no live broadcast. Citizens United is a major campaign finance case; Sunlight filed an amicus brief, available here.
Based upon the Supreme Court’s September 4, 2009 press release, available from SCOTUSBlog but not yet and on the Supreme Court’s website, the audio recording will not be directly made publicly available by the Court on its website. (Audio recordings thus far have never been made available on the Court’s website.) Instead, the recording will be offered to broadcasters via the network pool and made available to press at the House and Senate Radio and Television Galleries. The audio recording will also be made available to the public through the National Archives. I have a phone call in to the National Archives to find out when and in what formats the recording will be made available. Under usual circumstances, it takes several weeks for the Archives to have a copy available for public inspection.
Audio recordings are usually made publicly accessible only after the end of the Term when the Court transfers its recording to the National Archives. The Oyez Project, a multimedia project dedicated to the Supreme Court and unaffiliated with the National Archives, publishes recordings of arguments before the Court online.
Update: Oyez expects to have audio available online later today, 9/9/09.
Update 2: Here’s a transcript [PDF] of the argument, available from the Supreme Court.
Below the fold is the text of the release. (Continue reading…)
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The Supreme Court Website: An Updated Redesign
In June, the Sunlight Foundation released a mock-up redesign of the Supreme Court’s website. Our intent was to provoke discussion about the kinds of information the Court should publish on its site, and how that information should be organized. We succeeded beyond our expectations, hearing from professional court watchers, legal practitioners, programmers, and the general public.Today, we are releasing an updated redesign, narrowing its focus to steps the Court can take right now. The timing could not be better, because the Court is currently considering how to redesign its website. Hopefully the suggestions below can serve as a guide. (Our June blogpost set forth the key ideas we followed when building the redesign.) (Continue reading…)
