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
-
Lobbyists and Republicans Huddle As Financial Reform Ball Moves Down Field
Roll Call reports that House Republican leadership met with approximately 100 lobbyists to hash out strategy to defeat financial regulatory reform:
In a call to arms, House Republican leaders met with more than 100 lobbyists at the Capitol Visitors Center on Tuesday afternoon to try to fight back against financial regulatory overhaul legislation.
…
“The message was [House Financial Services Chairman Barney] Frank and the Democratic majority are ruining America, ruining capitalism, and stand up for yourselves,” said a lobbyist who attended the meeting. “They said, ‘Look, you all oppose this bill, but only a few of you have come out publicly.’”
Does anyone on Capitol Hill have any interest in releasing these types of visitor logs? Over 100 lobbyists go to meet with House Republicans. House Republicans number one-hundred ninety-eight. Not all of them were likely in this meeting, so in all likelihood we had a 1:1 or greater ratio of lobbyists to lawmakers. Who knows who these lobbyists are?
Of course, this doesn’t just apply to this particular meeting between Republicans and their allies, but also to Democratic lawmakers and their lobbyist sit-downs. The White House has a policy of releasing their visitor logs to the public. Congress should consider letting the public know what lobbyists and industry executives they are sitting down with when they discuss legislation.
-
Health Care Visitors Not Big Obama Donors
In case anyone was wondering, the health care lobbyists and executives listed as having visited the White House to discuss health care reform are not big donors to President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Of the fourteen visitors, only one, Jay Gellert, CEO of Health Net, contributed money to the President’s 2008 campaign. Gellert contributed a small amount, $500, in 2008. The only other notable contribution from visitors to the White House include Wellpoint CEO Angela Braly’s $2,300 contribution to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign.
-
White House Releases List of Health Care Lobbyists, Execs
The White House made public a list of health care lobbyists and executives who have visited the White House one day after it was reported that requests had been denied for the visitor logs. Those listed as attending include PhRMA lobbyist Billy Tauzin, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) CEO Karen Ignani and American Hospital Association (AHA) CEO Richard Umbdenstock. This is pretty good turnaround after the hit the White House took yesterday on their initial refusal to release the visitor logs.
For the full list of health care visitors, see here.
-
Obama Blocks Visitor Log Disclosure
This is pretty disheartening. The Obama administration is continuing to use the same arguments the Bush administration used to block disclosure of visitor logs, even in limited cases. Both msnbc.com and, in a more limited request, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) were denied access to the logs by the Secret Service. The Service claimed that the logs are presidential and not agency records, thus not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This continues the policy implemented by the Bush White House as they tried to block disclosure of visits to the White House by leaders of the Religious Right and, later, corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Despite court rulings requiring the disclosure of the logs, the Bush administration continued to stonewall and appeal the decisions. The Obama adminsitration has continued those appeals, while also saying the policy is “under review.” This looks like another example of the Executive Branch refusing to reliquinsh unnecessary secrecy that it seized in the face of a court order. This is also far more harmful to Executive Branch transparency than the failure to post bills on WhiteHouse.gov for five days. Hopefully, when the administration says that the policy is “under review” they actually mean it and this isn’t like the Supreme Leader of Iran saying that he will investigate election fraud.
