Sunlight Foundation

Crossposted from Sunlight Foundation

Reps. Baird and Culberson introduced legislation today that would shine more sunlight on the most fundamental work of Congress. Their bill, H. Res. 554, would require that all non-emergency legislation be posted online, in its final form, 72 hours before consideration. The bill is not a panacea for all that ails Congress, but if enacted, it will stave off many congressionally created debacles before they become law.

Most citizens, for example, would have supported amending the economic stimulus bill to remove the provision allowing AIG executives to receive retroactive bonuses. The average person probably would have preferred to let the judicial system work rather than have Congress give immunity from lawsuits to telecommunications companies that participated in a controversial wiretapping scheme. Workers hoping to retire on their 401(k) investments might have liked to have some serious analysis of whether credit default swaps ought to be regulated. And just about everyone benefit from a check on questionable and wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars.

Back in December, I wrote about the need for the Right to use an "agenda of equal opportunity" to look beyond simple proposals involving government transparency and start thinking about wide-scale proposals for earmark, budget, bureaucratic and tax reform. Well, it looks like simple transparency proposals are something some Republicans on Capitol Hill should start with.

Big kudos today to Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska (yes, I am giving praise to a Democrat) who has decided to post his daily schedule on his new Senate website, as he promised during his campaign. Beginning with this month, Begich is archiving his schedule on his site and is making it searchable. The Sunlight Foundation encouraged other lawmakers to follow Begich's lead and "provide a similar archive of daily meetings." Throughout his terms as mayor of Anchorage, Begich would post responses to comments under his own name on the Anchorage Daily News's Alaska Politics Blog. I'm sure some on his staff went nuts over it, but it shows that he's willing and disciplined enough to communicate with his constituents, one-on-one, in new ways.

Unfortunately, some aren't so open, even to meeting those that want to support the conservative cause. A couple months ago, through a senior staffer, I invited a Republican senator (who shall go unnamed at this point) to the Heritage Foundation's Conservative Bloggers Briefing. What was the answer I received? I was told that it wouldn't be a good idea for the Senator to meet with bloggers in an open setting, out of the fear that he/she might get attacked. I was disappointed, but not surprised. Many on Capitol Hill, and other lawmakers, out of an abundance of caution refuse to communicate early and often, and make themselves, and their actions, more transparent.

In a world where online reputation management is now an enormously large part of reputation management, taking a few risks by being more open is both necessary and reaps large rewards. The proof? It's working at the state level. Pennsylvania House Republican leader Sam Smith recently released a 12-point government reform plan, which includes dollar one reporting of campaign contributions, a searchable database for all state spending, and limiting state contractors from using non-public information for their own gain.

I know it's a message that has been repeated by many who blog here, but it's worth repeating: while we're in the minority, the Right needs to hold Democrats accountable while we come up with new solutions to reform government. We can kill those two birds with one stone: more transparency initiatives.

We welcome the Sunlight Foundation for a post on S. 482, which would end the antiquated practice of Senators submitting their campaign finance forms to the Secretary of the Senate, and escaping the kind of easily searchable electronic disclosure required of House and Presidential candidates. -Patrick 

The Senate is not required to file their campaign finance reports with the FEC electronically.  The Sunlight Foundation believes these reports should be online in a as soon as possible so people can see who is contributing to candidates’ coffers before Election Day.  Earlier this year Sen. Feingold introduced Senate Bill 482, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act would require the Senate to file their campaign donation forms electronically. To build support for this bill we launched the Pass 482 campaign to get senators to understand how important it is for them to file their reports electronically so we the people can see them in a timely manner.  Right now the Senate can file on paper, which has to be sent to the FEC, and then the paper copies are sent to a company to be entered into a computer.  This is a waste of time and money.  The House, presidential candidates, and PACs have had to file electronically for 10 years the Senate should not be an exception.

This bill has no public opposition, and has 28 cosponsors. However, we want to build support for the bill because Sen. Pat Roberts from Kansas is rumored to want to add an amendment to this bill that would require organizations filing ethics complaints against senators to disclose their donors. This amendment has nothing to do with electronic filing and should be a stand alone bill and would block that passage of this non controversial bill.

Please call your senators and ask them to support S. 482. It’s time transparency is taken seriously by the Senate. This is a concrete step that can make it easier for everyone to get important information to voters.

 *Full Disclosure

I’m the online organizer for the Sunlight Foundation.

The Sunlight Foundation is a non-partisan non-profit dedicated to using the power of the Internet to catalyze greater government openness and transparency.

nthompson(at)sunlightfoundation(dot)com

Watch this video from the Sunlight Foundation's Read the Bill project:

Read The Bill from Sunlight Foundation on Vimeo.

It is not an accident that there are so many Republicans -- John Boehner, Jeb Hensarling, and Ted Poe -- in this, and that the Democrats -- Brian Baird and Bobby Scott -- are Democrats who are sometimes gettable on Republican votes.

Transparency is an issue that Republicans will win every time in the war of ideas, and the House Democrats are already uncomfortable.

Just last week, Blue Dogs and liberals like Peter DaFazio asked for more regular order. The Democrats are exposed. The Democrats know it.

Now it is time for Republicans to stand up and win this fight once and for all.

Conversations like this are important to have, because they can help point the way to areas of bi-partisan agreement and cooperation.  Transparency is not a Left/Right issue; the coalition against transparency consists of 536 elected politicians in Washington, DC, and the favor-seekers that orbit them.   Breaking that chokepoint will require Left/Right collaboration.

The Sunlight Foundation's Ellen Miller responds to my post yesterday regarding the routine Congressional bribery that doesn't seem to attract the attention that Gov. Blagojevich's attempted bribery received.  She doesn't think "the horse trading Congress conducts" is "quite the same kettle of fish" as the personal profit of the Blagojevich, Duke Cunningham or Abscam scandals, but says transparency would help deal with both problems...

This is where more transparency is key to combating corruption. Openness is not only the cure for the sickness; it’s a prophylactic that åcould prevent the illness in the first place.

Take Jon’s hobbyhorse  –  earmarks. The practice of earmarks might not be a problem…or the problem just might be the lack of transparency. Suspicions of quid pro quos is all too strong where the process is opaque and there is huge potential for corruption. If the decisions were made in the light of day, I suspect there would be far less abuse.

I think we're mostly in agreement.  Congressional horse-trading - "I'll vote for your pelf if you'll vote for mine" - isn't quite the same as trading votes for personal gain.  However, I don't think it's necessarily a categorical difference, either.  Earmarks often do benefit the politician personally, whether as a de facto campaign contribution or by giving more power and prestige to the politician. That's less overtly outrageous, but still a serious ethical problem.

While negotiation has a place, the implicit extortion that goes on in omnibus bills or in the decisions about what makes out of committee in the first place lead to very sub-optimal decisions.  It's hard to see how that kind of bartering results in good collective decision-making.

This is not representative democracy, it is legislative collusion.

As Ellen Miller wrote, more transparency could help resolve these problems.  Ideally, transparency would improve the decision-making processes.

For instance, each Senator/Representative should be required to vote (even just a simple box-check) on each individual earmark/line item, providing (a) specific legislative approval for each project, and (b) legislator accountability for each vote.  If legislators have to evaluate and make a yes/no decision on each project, you can expect much better oversight of earmarks.  You could also expect many fewer earmarks, as we discover that Iowa rainforests don't turn out to be compelling national projects with overwhelming legislative support.

Procedural transparency and line item budgeting would improve the decision-making process.  Without it, we'll continue to have omnibus bills that act as a trojan horse for corruption and deal-making.

This is the sort of thing we could work together to achieve.  The result would benefit everybody...except, perhaps, those 536 politicians and the favor-seekers surrounding them.

Transparency is one area where the Right an Left should be working together.  Fortunately, it's also something that President-elect Obama has promised to improve.  So far, his transition team has been doing it pretty well.   How well he does it will depend, in large part, on the incentives involved; in particular, the prioritization of transparency will depend on how easy (or hard) the Right makes it for Democrats to improve transparency. 

The Sunlight Foundation's John Wonderlich* notes a couple pieces of very good news from the income administration...

The Obama transition team released two new policies this week, a Creative Commons license and a radical disclosure policy. These changes don’t just signal a new relationship to the public, but also create a paradigm shift in how government manages information, and could lead to much bigger things to come from the administration. Requirements for affirmative disclosure mov

e the onus of dissemination to the government (unlike FOIA, which relies on citizen requests), and might just revolutionize the way our government views its communications. [...]

First, the transition team changed its copyright policy, and is now publishing under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. [...]

Next, the transition team introduced their Seat at the Table feature. At first glance, “Your Seat at the Table” might look like a kitschy PR portal. What is the entire change.gov site supposed to be, if not a seat at the table? A closer look, however, reveals that this specific feature is in fact different from the rest of the site — it’s the result of a significant policy change.

The Sunlight Foundation has much more at their post.   For now, this is a very positive start.  In the past, transparency has sometimes been used as a partisan tool to use against an opponent - or, worse, as a way to hold the activity of community members against the community creator.  If we want to see more of this, though, we should focus on holding the Obama administration accountable for their promises, not for how their community is used by other people. 

* I work with the Sunlight Foundation on their Open Senate Project.

Can you read and comprehend a 451 page bill in under 24 hours? No.Well, then you probably wouldn't want to be a member of Congress right now. The Senate just released their 451-page version of the Wall Street bailout bill and expect members to vote tonight. If our elected representatives are going to be tossing hundreds of billions of dollars around, the least they can do is read what their passing.

If you care about your representatives reading and understanding this legislation before they walk down that aisles of the Senate chamber for their "Yeas" and "Nays" please join the Sunlight Foundation in their petition to urge congressmen to allow a full 72 hours period to pass before a vote is held on the bill. A bill of this magnitude requires 72 hours for the public and their elected representatives to understand, discuss, and debate the myriad proposals squashed into one bill.

You can find and sign the petition here.
 

The Sunlight Foundation has long been a supporter of requiring all legislation to be posted online for at least 72 hours prior to a vote.

In support of this ideal, Sunlight has also posted copies of all of the proposed legislation to PublicMarkup.org, where the legislation is available for public review and comment. The current is Senate bill will be up for comment before the Senate votes today.

The current bailout legislation is only one example in the egregious practice of passing bills that have barely seen the light of day before votes have been cast. Just last week, a 1,000+ page continuing resolution, costing $630 billion, passed the House within a day of its introduction. Earlier this year, the Farm Bill, totaling a whopping 1,700+ pages, slipped through the House in under 24 hours. The Farm Bill was introduced on May 22nd and passed on May 22nd.

At some point the public has to stand up and demand that our lawmakers know what on earth they're voting for. Now seems an appropriate time.

Join in asking your member of Congress to  read this massive bill before they cast their vote. Let the bill be public for 72 hours!
 

(Disclosure- I am the online organizer and outreach coordinator for the Sunlight Foundation)

This story about how Senators, Representatives and Congressional offices can use the internet is very important - and a reflection of the outdated and slow-to-evolve regulatory system that Congress has in place.   Of course, this dynamic is basically true of pretty much every part of Government.

I dealt with some of these frustrating issues during my time on the Hill.  For instance, we wanted to put up a blog.  We spent 3-4 months trying to negotiate the tools we could use (basically, none), after which the problem moved to a technology advisory committee.  That group would taking a vote on the feasibility of implementing blog platforms into the Senate internet infrastructure.   The archaic bureaucracy took the simple matter of creating a blog and regulated the project right out of existence.  (Note: the House and Senate have somewhat different rules)

As Soren Dayton described yesterday, the same thing is happening with Congressional office use of web tools to communicate.

Capuano's proposal is a disaster. It creates a list of sites, maintained by the Committee on House Administration that members are allowed to post material. ... ["content should not be posted on a website or page where it may appear with commercial or political information or any other information not in compliance with the House's content guidelines"] ... This would, for example, not allow members to post information to Facebook, which has ads and, dare I say, political content.

This policy is absurd.  Why should Congressional offices be prohibited from placing content on Facebook, YouTube or Twitter due to the commercial or political content on those sites, but still be able to push content to the Washington Post, The Politico and CNN....all of which are equally commercial and political?

Republicans should demand the rules committees be consistent here.  If they really don't want Members placing content with commercial entities, then let's see how long they want to go without distributing content to commercial media. 

I'm not really sure this is a matter of Democrats fearing trying to suppress Republican speech, though it's certainly a good example of what happens when you make government responsible for making these decisions.

Ultimately, there are two problems here:

1. Where you can place content – e.g., can you put a video on YouTube (thus being adjacent to advertising)?
2. What you can put on your own website – e.g., can you embed a YouTube video (thus, tangentially supporting a commercial entity)?

I can see the value of preventing members from engaging in commercial activity, but it would seem that Problem #1 applies equally to any commercial media outlet, and Problem #2 applies to any branded product the government uses (cars, pens, etc). 

The House Republican solution that Soren Dayton described is simple and correct: "Only the posted content must comply with House rules, not the whole external site."