I recently made a mistake that turned into an object lesson on the limits of technology but also – and more importantly – on the limits of government openness. Earlier this year, in trying to figure out how many House staffers had gone on to become lobbyists over a two-year period, I naively relied on the ability of computers to match names. We have some sophisticated matching software, but it is not perfect. As a result, my recent post, “Almost 400 House staffers registered to lobby in last two years” improperly identified a number of staffers as lobbyists because they had the same name or almost the same as a registered lobbyist when, in fact, these were two different people.

The good folks at Legistorm noticed this for us, and so we decided to do an internal Sunlight audit, and our capable intern Breanna Edwards, under the supervision of our reporting team, provided it, using the Center for Responsive Politics’ Revolving Door website, LinkedIn, and official lobbying reports.

Of the 377 House staffers we originally identified as having gone on to lobby, Breanna was able to be certain or almost certain that 219 (58%) were indeed matches. She also identified 21 (6%) as almost certainly false positives (that is, the name match was correct, but it was clearly a case of two people with the same name). The remaining 137 matches our computers identified (36%) could not be confirmed definitively either way, at least just based on those three sources.

Breanna explains the challenges:

We decided to go about this project in a simple and straightforward way, using three tools: the Center for Responsive Politics' “Revolving Door”, LinkedIn and lobbying reports. I put all of the names through these three tools in almost all instances to be thoroughly sure of my results, though sometimes two out of the three tools, or at the very least one of the tools did not necessarily yield any results.

Center for Responsive Politics' Revolving Door is a neat tool that records which federal employees have become lobbyists, consultants and strategists, usually providing information on where they worked, the positions they have held for their employers and how long they were there. It's a really easy tool to use. One simply has to enter in the subject’s name into the given field and see if there is a record. If they did have a detailed record, that made my job easier. However, this database isn't completely foolproof. Sometimes the information Sunlight had did not match what CRP had, sometimes they only had parts of the information I was given, sometimes they didn't have any information on the subject at all. If the Center for Responsive Politics' information didn't exactly match what I had, or if there was something in the information that I was unclear about, my next step was to double-check LinkedIn.

The great thing about LinkedIn is that people self-advertise a lot there (of course, that is how it was meant to be used) and so there was little doubt that the individuals I was looking for would definitely put most, if not all of their employment history on there.  The trouble of course, is actually finding them and being sure that it was exactly the same person. I found some individuals with ease and, as expected, they gave the information I needed which was a green light. Among other individuals there were multiple people to choose from, all with some part of the employment history I was looking for, but none with the exact sequence I was looking for. I either took that to mean that we were looking at completely different people, or, if it was so blurred I could not tell, marked it as uncertain. In other cases, I just simply could not find the individual. That was when I turned to the lobbying reports.

 Though they sometimes gave some great results, the lobbying reports were the absolute last resort, Only people who make a certain salary are even listed on lobbying reports, which severely limits the number of individuals who even turned up in the search. Another issue: Even when these individuals were listed, a good number of them either did not know how to fill out the form correctly or chose not to fill it out correctly. So while I did manage to procure a few confirmations using this method, the reports really did not help that much.

The main problem was names. The funny thing about names is that there are only so many of them. There are few unique names, as names are not identification numbers. The fact that many individuals with the same or similar names seem to have worked in the same or extremely similar offices did not help our effort. It was nearly impossible to distinguish these people. Other times they simply did not appear, but of course, just because they were not in any databases, didn't mean that the information we had was false. All these factors made us unable to confirm  some of our findings.

 

The takeaway lesson ought to be clear: it’s much more difficult than it should be to match congressional staff names with lobbyist names. To do this kind of research, we are at the mercy of what individuals choose to report, especially when they have relatively common names.

This makes it very difficult to have a good understanding of how the revolving door works. There are good reasons the public might want to know which lobbyists have insider connections, and who they are using those connections to help. There are also good reasons the public might want to know which offices have former staff working for various outside groups that are trying to influence legislation.

 

A simple solution Here is a simple proposal to improve transparency and disclosure around the revolving door:

1. Lobbyist registration forms list the names of lobbyists working on a particular issue.  In order to be able to determine whether they have spun through the revolving door, each lobbyist should be identified by a publicly accessible unique identification number.

2. Upon registering, each lobbyist should also be required to list every position that he or she has held as a federal, state, or city employee. Currently, registrants are required to list all “covered” legislative and executive branch positions their lobbyists have held for the last 20  years only when the registrant begins representing a new client, but not on subsequent forms.

Doing this would create a simple, searchable, and centralized way to identify which lobbyists formerly served in government, and which didn’t. There is no reason why it should be as difficult as it currently is to verify whether individual public employees have gone on to become lobbyists.

Of course, there is much more to do on the issue of lobbying reform. We support the Lobbyist Disclosure Enhancement Act, introduced by Rep. Mike Quigley as well as the Real-Time Online Lobbying Disclosure Act. For a full list of our lobbying reform proposals, click here.

   

NEWS ROUNDUP

RELEVANT BILLS INTRODUCED

• None.

HAPPENING TODAY 5/16

• FCC Oversight. Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation. 2:30 pm. 253 RSOB. Full Committee Hearing.
• Hatch Act: Options for Reform. House Oversight and Government Reform. 9:30 am. 2247 RHOB. Federal Workforce, US Postal Service, and Labor Policy Subcommittee hearing.
• Tax Exempt Organizations Oversight. House Ways and Means. 10:00 am. 1100 LHOB. Oversight Subcommittee Hearing.
• Knowledge and Innovation: Understanding Public Access to Research. Brookings. 2:00-3:30 pm. Brookings Institution, 1775 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036.

SCHEDULED FOR TOMORROW 5/17

• Homeland Security Department Ethical Standards. House Homeland Security. 9:30 am. 311 CHOB. Oversight, Investigations, and Management Subcommittee hearing.
• Digital Diplomacy: A New Era of Advancing Policy. CEIP. Thurs. 9:00-10:30 am. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036.
• Does Electronic Reporting of Emissions Information Generate Environmental Benefits? Resources for the Future. Thurs. 12:00-1:30 pm. 1616 P Street NW, Washington, DC 20036.
• Webinar: All Points of the Compass - Global Legal Collections, Research, and Reference Services at the Law Library of Congress. FedLink/LoC. 2:00-3:00 pm.

Do you want to track transparency news? You can add our feed to your Google Reader, or view it on our Netvibes page. You can also get 2Day in #OpenGov sent directly to your reader!

If the early campaign-season barrage of negative advertising is any indicator, the 2012 election is going to be a decidedly uncivil one. According to the Wesleyan Media Project, 70% of advertising in the current presidential campaign has been negative – as compared to just 9% at this stage four years ago.

But just how well do these negative ads work? Historically, political science research has had a hard time uncovering much evidence for their effectiveness. But recent research is more and more finding that they do indeed move voters.

A recent survey by Arizona State professors Kim L. Fridkin and Patrick J. Kenney finds that the more “uncivil” advertisements voters see about a candidate, the more negatively they evaluate that candidate, as long as the ads are also seen as relevant.

Additionally, the researchers find that some voters are more sensitive to attack ads than others, and that attack ads are generally more effective in deflating challengers than incumbents. Their article, “Variability in Citizens’ Reactions to Different Types of Negative Campaigns,” was published last year in the American Journal of Political Science and makes for some fascinating reading.

To assess the impact of negative advertising, the scholars surveyed 1,045 citizens across 21 different 2006 Senate races both before and after the election.

They also had a team of researchers code the ads in those races on two dimensions: civility and relevance. They found that overall, 47% of the ads were “uncivil” and 12% were “irrelevant.” They defined civility as “an explicit use of harsh, shrill, or pejorative adjectives.” (e.g. “After all these years, can’t he offer more than smears and distortions?”) Relevance described whether the ads focused on the candidate’s record (e.g., “The Senator voted to give tax breaks for companies that move overseas”) or not (e.g. “My opponent parties with Playboy playmates”).

In general, the more voters were exposed to ads that were both uncivil and relevant, the more their evaluation of the candidates declined.

“What is impressive,” Fridkin and Kenney write, “is that the relevance and civility of advertising exert a strong impact on candidate evaluations, even controlling for party and ideological proximity.”

The researchers also found that negative press coverage independently reduced the favorability for incumbents, though not as clearly for challengers (presumably because challengers don’t get as much press coverage).

Unsurprisingly, the majority of respondents said they do not like negative ads. Overall, 82% of respondents either agreed somewhat (35%) or strongly (47%) that “some negative advertisements are so nasty that I stop paying attention.”

But some were less bothered by attack ads than others. In particular, the researchers found that the following traits were all independently associated with a higher tolerance for negative political advertisements:

• strong partisanship (both parties)
• following campaigns closely
• conservative political beliefs
• being a man
• being young
• a lack of political sophistication (i.e. inability to adequately place both parties on an ideological scale)

Interestingly, the voters who dislike the ads the most are also the most likely to be swayed by them, while those less bothered are also less likely to be affected. Those who have more tolerance are also less likely to see the ads as irrelevant and uncivil in the first place.

One encouraging sign, however, is that the research did find some support for a backlash effect. “When incumbents stray away from relevant messages and produce and disseminate irrelevant and uncivil messages,” Fridkin and Kenny wrote, “citizens react by lowering their evaluations of these incumbents.” In other words, voters get mad when incumbents unleash irrelevant attacks. So enough may be enough. But then again, they don’t punish challengers as harshly, according to the research.

Then again, with super PACs now around to run negative ads, candidates can worry less about the backlash. Research by Deborah Jordan Brooks and Michael Murov of Dartmouth (which I wrote about last week) finds that attack ads are much more effective when done by independent groups, precisely because they shield candidates from the backlash

If Fridkin and Kenny are correct, then there is one antidote to the effectiveness of attack ads: a bunch of highly partisan, active voters without much political sophistication, especially young conservative males. These individuals appear to have built up a resistance to attack ads. But then again, imagine an electorate filled with them.

Yesterday, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals demonstrated that it gets the need for greater transparency of money in politics. In a victory for transparency advocates, the court denied a motion to stay a lower court ruling that requires comprehensive disclosure of “electioneering communications.” In non-lawyer language, that means that nonprofit groups like the Chamber of Commerce, Crossroads GPS and Priorities USA that want to run political ads right before an election will have to disclose their donors.

The case is Van Hollen v. FEC and the issue is whether the FEC properly narrowed its own disclosure rules, leaving donors in the dark about who is funding campaign ads. Under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, (also known as the McCain-Feingold law) certain disclosure requirements applied to organizations making “electioneering communications”—ads that refer to a candidate and run within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general. Under the law, the group running the ad must identify any person, corporation or labor union that contributed $1000 to the organization. (It should be noted that the old rule also permits the group to set up a separate segregated bank account to make electioneering communications. If it does that, only donors to that account need to be disclosed. This is not unlike provisions in the DISCLOSE Act.)

The FEC gutted the old rule, limiting disclosure to only those contributions made “for the purpose of furthering electioneering communications.” In other words, the Commission created a gaping disclosure loophole that meant donors behind some of the nastiest political ads that flood the airwaves would remain secret. Van Hollen sued, and the lower court agreed with him that the original rule should remain in place. By that time, however, two other groups joined the case as “intervenors” and urged the court to “stay”—or hold off—enforcing the decision that would require immediate disclosure.

The panel of D.C. Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court and refused to grant the stay, recognizing the importance of disclosure. The lower court judge based her decision in part on the Supreme Court’s observation that, “the disclosure requirements serve an important public function because they ‘provide the electorate with information about the sources of election-related spending’ and help citizens ‘make informed choices in the political marketplace.’ (Citations omitted) The result of the ruling is that the original, broad disclosure requirement is in effect and groups should be on notice that they are required to disclose their donors if they plan to run electioneering communications.

But, don’t expect to see a database of donors pop up on the FEC’s website tomorrow. Groups will try to avoid disclosure and have already begun to craft ads they think won’t trigger disclosure requirements. (Think ads that say “Congress” instead of “Congressman Smith.”) The groups will also ask the FEC to provide “Advisory Opinions” (AOs) as to whether disclosure rules apply in particular circumstances. How the FEC responds to these requests for AOs may signal how serious the commission is about enforcing the new, old rule. The FEC, with its even split between Democrats and Republicans may well deadlock rather than move forward on disclosure and enforcement.

The judicial system is likely not done with the case either. It is possible that the decision denying the stay will be appealed, in which case we would hope the judicial system continues to favor disclosure over secrecy. Yesterday's decision gives us reason to believe that the judicial branch will continue to trend toward greater transparency.

NEWS ROUNDUP

RELEVANT BILLS INTRODUCED

• H.R. 5651. The Food and Drug Administration Reform Act of 2012. Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
• H.R. 5709. To Amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for the public disclosure of charges for certain hospital and ambulatory surgical center treatment episodes. Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
• H.R. 5730. To amend title XVII of the Social Security Act to make publicly available on the official Medicare Internet site medicare payment rates for frequently reimbursed hospital inpatient procedures, hospital outpatient procedures, and physicians' services. Referred to the House Committees on Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce.

HAPPENING TODAY 5/15 Do you want to track transparency news? You can add our feed to your Google Reader, or view it on our Netvibes page. You can also get 2Day in #OpenGov sent directly to your reader!

A Connecticut bill has been making the rounds in transparency circles recently: HB 5556, a toothy, bipartisan approach to corporate and union campaign financial disclosure, introduced as the state’s response to Citizens United. It quickly passed the CT House 94 - 57 and the Senate 20 - 15 on May 8th, and now all eyes are on Governor Dan Malloy to see whether he’ll veto the bill or sign it into law this week. Although Malloy authored the original text, the bill has been significantly beefed up since it left his office and entered the Government Administration and Elections Committee -- so much so that Malloy’s office has been resistant to showing their support.

But they should get over themselves. It’s refreshing to see a state legislature take such a dedicated approach to campaign finance disclosure reform, especially in an election year. Here’s a round-up of some of the bolder transparency-related measures CT legislators are trying to pass with HB 5556:

• Super PACs and other 501(c)s engaged in campaign-related activity would have to...
• Report all donations over $1000 and publish the names and addresses of these donors on the organization’s website.
• Report any transfer of funds marked for political activity, including the full name and addresses of all individuals involved in making the donation and transfer -- even when the receiving end is another organization. (Translation: Say goodbye to shadowy front groups and intermediaries...)
• Corporations, unions, and other legally organized bodies would have to have their boards pre-authorize each and every campaign-related disbursement over $4000 through a vote. Votes of individual members and the resulting expenditures would then need to be published on the organization’s website within 48 hours of voting.
• All political ads would be required to not only list the top five donors at the end of the ad (strengthening current “Stand by Your Ad” provisions), but to also include a URL pointing to a website where people can see all the organization’s donors -- including the names and addresses of every donor who gave more than $1000.

This isn’t an exhaustive list of HB 5556’s provisions, but these requirements speak to the boldness of Connecticut’s approach. In fact, many of the measures listed above are kin to those in the DISCLOSE Act, a Sunlight-supported federal campaign finance bill currently languishing in Congress.

HB 5556 isn’t a perfect bill (note the strange rider about military voting and the potential "chilling" of grassroots/citizen lobbying near election day), but as far as its approach to transparency measures are concerned, it should be commended and seriously considered as a (constitutional) solution to a problem faced by states everywhere, at time when reform is needed most.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Sunlight Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest blog.

Florida has been known to have some of the most impressive open government practices. But a few recent changes threatened to shake the people’s foundation of their right to know. Our guest blogger Barbara Petersen is here today to share the Sunshine State’s new initiatives on opening up their government. Barbara is the President of the First Amendment Foundation  a private not-for profit in Tallahassee Florida which acts as an advocate for the public’s right to oversee it’s government.

Two weeks ago, Florida’s Governor Rick Scott held a press conference, announcing the launch of an ambitious project that will allow online access to much of his email correspondence and that of 11 members of his leadership team.  Project Sunburst.

According to a press release from the Governor’s Press Office, the emails will be available with search capabilities.  Project Sunburst requires that all emails sent or received by the Governor and the designated staffers be posted to the Sunburst website within seven days.  The goal, however, is posting within 24 hours of receipt or transmission, and the Governor has plans to expand the program to include other agencies within the executive branch. The launch of Project Sunburst is one of a number of Governor Scott’s transparency initiatives – a second website, FloridahasARightToKnow  launched last year, provides access to state employee salary information and state pensions of $100,000 per year or more.  The state employee information is extremely useful, providing the name of the employee, the name of the employing agency, and the employee’s annual salary and number of years employed.  The pension information is relatively worthless in comparison – the database lists each state agency and the number of employees with pensions of more than $100,000 but provides little information that would help identify the employee.

 

Many of the Scott’s detractors claim that his transparency initiatives have more to do with the Governor’s political agenda – reducing the state work force and driving down the cost of government pensions – than a desire to be held accountable.  Regardless, the transparency website, like Project Sunburst, allows for easy and free access to information that is regularly requested through routine public record requests and sets a very positive example for other state agencies and local governments – if the governor can provide online access to regularly requested records, then why can’t a school board or county commission? In the first months of the Scott administration, his Office of Open Government reported a steep increase in the number of public record requests, particularly requests from the media for the email correspondence of the governor’s top staff.  In an attempt to alleviate the workload and improve access, the First Amendment Foundation, worked with the Capitol press corps and OOG staff to devise a plan under which FAF would make weekly requests for the email correspondence of five members of the Governor’s staff; once obtained by FAF, the email records would be dumped in a DropBox, and everyone given the key. Had it only been so simple.

 

FAF dutifully made the first request on March 7, 2011, requesting all email correspondence sent or received by the Governor, his chief of staff, and the five staffers. At about the same time FAF started making its public records requests, the governor’s office announced a “cost recovery” policy for public records. Under the new policy, OOG staff would respond to each public record request with an invoice estimating the cost of providing the records; once the invoice was paid (by cash or check, credit cards not accepted), the requested records would be produced.  There would be no charge for records requests costing less than $5.  What seemed like a reasonable policy at first blush turned into the public access nightmare from hell, and because of the time it took to track requests – nearly all were provided in pieces, a few one week, the remainder months later – and the costs associated with obtaining access, FAF was forced to abandon its project after only two months.

 

We received most of the records requested that first week within a fairly reasonable period of time and at no cost.  There was one glaring example, however: it took two months and cost $788.84 to obtain about 1,100 emails from the Governor’s communications director.  According to the invoice, the staffer took an hour to review 100 emails at an hourly rate of $70.87/hour – the communications director made $147,400 per year, and FAF was charged for the 11 hours it took him to retrieve and review his emails, many of which were on his personal email account.  (In another instance, we were charged the hourly rate for a top staffer who made just over $200,000 a year or $96.64 an hour.) FAF made eight requests in all, paid about $4,000 to obtain the requested emails, and received the last batch of the records in December – ten months after the final request was made.  Ultimately, the Governor agreed to refund the costs charged for those records it took longer than 60 days to obtain and, most importantly, made important revisions to his original cost recovery policy. Project Sunburst alleviates many of the problems FAF encountered and is, in all respects, a huge step forward for the Sunshine State.  The devil, of course, is in the details.  According to the May 3 press release, emails containing exempt information will not be posted, but will be provided pursuant to a public record request (with the exempt information redacted).  It seems, then, that we will need to continue to make regular public record requests for those emails and, of course, for the email correspondence of those staffers not included in Project Sunburst. Regardless, Governor Rick Scott deserves to be commended and hopefully, others in government, both in Florida and around the country, will follow his example.

(Below are the First Amendment public records request timeline)

A timeline of Public Records Requests by the First Amendment Foundation to the Governor of Florida's Office

NEWS ROUNDUP

RELEVANT BILLS INTRODUCED

• H.R. 5691. To amend the Truth in Lending Act to establish fair and transparent practices related to the marketing and provision of overdraft coverage programs at depository institutions, and for other purposes.

HAPPENING THIS WEEK 5/14-5/18

Hearings:

• FCC Oversight. Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Wed. 5/16. 2:30 pm. 253 RSOB. Full Committee Hearing.
• Hatch Act: Options for Reform. House Oversight and Government Reform. Wed. 5/16. 9:30 am. 2247 RHOB. Federal Workforce, US Postal Service, and Labor Policy Subcommittee hearing.
• Tax Exempt Organizations Oversight. House Ways and Means. Wed. 5/16. 10:00 am. 1100 LHOB. Oversight Subcommittee Hearing.
• Homeland Security Department Ethical Standards. House Homeland Security. Thurs. 5/17. 9:30 am. 311 CHOB. Oversight, Investigations, and Management Subcommittee hearing.
• Legislative Branch Appropriations. House Appropriations. Fri. 5/18. 9:30 am. HT-2, Capitol, 9:30 am. Legislative Branch Subcommittee Markup.

Policy Fellow Matt Rumsey wrote this post.

Do you want to track transparency news? You can add our feed to your Google Reader, or view it on our Netvibes page. You can also get 2Day in #OpenGov sent directly to your reader!

NEWS ROUNDUP

RELEVANT BILLS INTRODUCED

• None.

HAPPENING TODAY 5/11

• None.

SCHEDULED THIS WEEKEND

• None. 

Policy Fellow Matt Rumsey wrote this post.

Do you want to track transparency news? You can add our feed to your Google Reader, or view it on our Netvibes page. You can also get 2Day in #OpenGov sent directly to your reader!

News Without Transparency: House Passes Bridge Bill After an Earmark Debate

Matt Rumsey and Melanie Buck wrote this post. 

Earlier this spring, the New York Times reported that the House approved bipartisan legislation allowing construction of a new bridge crossing Minnesota and Wisconsin. At the price of $700 million the bridge will connect two towns, each with 4,000 residents.

Much of the information included in the article can be accessed via Congress’ online legislative information system, THOMAS. THOMAS was launched as part of Newt Gingrich’s efforts to modernize House technology following the 1994 elections and continues to provide an outlet for increasing public access to government information. Using THOMAS you can access the text of the legislation as well as information on votes, sponsors, and related bills.

The article states that “the vote was 339 to 80, with 16 Republicans and 64 Democrats voting against the measure.” Roll call votes are recorded by the Clerk of the House and can be accessed through either the Clerk’s website or in a centralized THOMAS location. House rules mandate that most votes are recorded electronic device. Vote information is then published in the Congressional record and posted online.

Critics of the bill claimed that the legislation effectively served as an earmark, approving a specific project in its sponsors’ congressional district and including $8 million that had previously been earmarked for the project. Since Congress decided to ban earmarks in late fall 2010, it has frequently been reported that similar projects are still being funded through various loopholes. Prior to the earmark ban, both the House and Senate required that earmark requests be reported to the Office of Management and Budget. It is still possible to search for earmarks between FY 2005 and FY 2010 using the OMB database.

The new bridge is intended to replace The Stillwater Lift Bridge, originally built in 1931. The article states that while the bridge was initially intended for light traffic, it now carries 16,000 cars per day. This information can be confirmed by  accessing a public website maintained by the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

---

"The News Without Transparency" shows you what the news would look like without public access to information. Laws and regulations that force the government to make the data it has publicly available are absolutely vital, along with services that take that raw data and make it easy for reporters to write sentences like the ones we've redacted in the piece above. If you have an article you'd like us to put through the redaction machine, please send us an email at mbuck@sunlightfoundation.com.