Sunlight has long called for all bills to be posted online for 3 days before they're considered on the floor. So our disappointment with recent failures to post bills online for 3 days should be no surprise.

Today Sunlight and a number of other groups are sending a letter (below) to Speaker Boehner, calling on him to renew his commitment to posting all bills online for 3 days before their consideration.

The groups signing the letter are:

• Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest
• Demand Progress
• Government Accountability Project
• iSolon.org
• National Taxpayers Union
• Participatory Politics Foundation
• The Sunlight Foundation
• United Republic

Orgs Call on Speaker Boehner to Uphold "Read the Bill" 3 Day Pledge

Throughout the last year, we've repeatedly pointed out that Speaker Boehner repeatedly pledged to put all bills online for 72 hours before they're voted on, reflecting Sunlight's call and the ReadtheBill.org campaign.

Boehner's pledge was unambiguous and repeated often -- all non emergency bills for 72 hours.  Unfortuantely, this has become a pledge that has been broken often, most recently last week with the bills rushed through the House.

For easier reference, here are the commitments on video, edited into one shorter clip.

These commitments matter. Remember when Republicans derided Pelosi for the healthcare bill, and claimed that bills were being "rammed down" their throats? Similarly, remember when (mostly) Democrats were outraged that the PATRIOT Act wasn't read before it was passed?

When we're pushing for important transparency reforms, like having all bills online for 72 hours before floor consideration, the minority party is often a natural ally. Each time the majority changes hands, there's usually a rush to reform processes, and promises to run a more accountable ship. Of course, many of these promises are kept, and we make progress.

But the toughest promises to keep are often the most important, and this Congress has a very poor track record on legislative secrecy. When the most important bills are written by a tiny number of negotiators, and then foisted on the rest of Congress at the eleventh hour, we can expect dismal approval ratings and mistrust to rule the day.

While such discord in Congress is more likely under divided government like we've got now, perhaps Boehner (and Obama) should revisit the visions they set for their current roles before they began -- Obama on Change.gov, and Boehner in the Pledge to America.

They should remember that when they run up to the last possible second to negotiate deals between party leaders, it's not a zero sum competition. It's not whether Republicans or Democrats gain ground, or are seen as taking the more reasonable position. When the 72 hour expectation is flaunted, our trust in government suffers, as does our sense of merit in policymaking, and our sense of self governance.

Leaders from both parties have largely turned their backs on transparency in policymaking. Whether it's the perceived necessity of SuperPACS, or the acceptance of the ridiculous secrecy of the SuperCommittee, neither party has found solid ground to discuss transparent process.

Let's hope they revisit their past rhetoric, because without solid footing, we'll just keep sliding downhill.

Having legislation that is meaningfully public isn't a luxury, it's a requirement. A closed Congress is an abused process. Our leaders should remind themselves of the times they've agreed with that sentiment.

A bipartisan assembly of groups representing a variety of interests—from a conservative government watchdog to a supporter of women’s rights to social security advocates—today sent a letter to the twelve members of the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction asking them to post their recommendations for trimming at least $1.2 trillion from the federal budget online for 72 hours prior to a committee vote.

The breadth of groups that joined the letter demonstrates that Super Committee transparency is an issue that matters to every American. Anyone with an interest in any federal program should have the opportunity to read the bill and determine its impact on the programs they care about. Likewise, the members of Congress who will be called on to vote on the Super Committee’s recommendations without amendment should have more than hours or minutes to determine how to cast their vote. They should, too, have a chance to weigh in with Super Committee members before the bill is finalized, if their constituents feel strongly that the bill should be changed.

Yes, time is running out. But that is no excuse for the Super Committee to claim they can’t allow the public to read the bill. They have known since August that the public and members of Congress have been calling for the committee’s recommendations to be made public before a committee vote. They can’t be surprised if there is outrage should they decide to ram a bill through at the 11th hour. Members of Congress are procrastinators. They will wait until a deadline to come to any conclusion. It won’t matter if the deadline is 72-hours earlier than they had hoped.

We strongly urge the Super Committee to heed the call of those urging them to complete their work and post the bill online 72 hours before they vote. In what has been an entirely secretive and undemocratic process so far, it is the least that can be done to attempt to restore the public’s faith in the deficit cutting process.

72 Hour Sign on Super Committee Letter

Today’s New York Times reports that Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are concerned about the super secrecy of the Super Committee. It’s refreshing to know we are not alone in our concern that the Super Committee’s work is taking place entirely behind closed doors, but it is frustrating that those with the power to address the secret nature of the proceedings have failed to do so. Congress can legislate transparency. If Members of Congress want a “window” into the Super Committee’s work, as the Times' headline suggests, they must demand it by enacting a bill that would ensure that the recommendations of the Deficit Committee are made public for at least 72 hours before a committee vote.

As of yet, Members of Congress have shown little appetite for mandating Super Committee transparency. HR 2860, the Deficit Committee Transparency Act, would, among other things, require final committee recommendations to be made publicly available, online, for at least 72 hours before a committee vote. Unfortunately, the bill has only five cosponsors in the House and has not been introduced in the Senate. Other Super Committee transparency bills, generally requiring less in terms of transparency than HR 2860, have likewise garnered only token support.

It is not too late for Members who feel shut out of the process to legislate a fix. Quick passage of the Deficit Committee Transparency Act would ensure that the final Super Committee agreement is not shoved down the throats of Members of Congress and the public. Importantly, it would also require disclosure of campaign contributions to and special interest lobbying meetings with Super Committee members. A stand-alone 72-hour bill, while still leaving a lot of information in the dark, would at least ensure the end result of the Committee's secretive work would have a public airing before a final up or down vote.

In the House, rules adopted earlier this Congress require legislation to be made available for three calendar days prior to a vote. Although the rule has been waived or ignored, its passage indicates that Members should have no objection to a 72-hour Super Committee rule. Because Members of Congress have no right to amend the Super Committee’s recommendations to make at least $1.2 trillion in cuts to the federal budget, they should demand the opportunity to weigh in on the cuts while the bill can still be modified.

It was a bill negotiated in secret that brought us the super secret Super Committee in the first place. It’s not too late. Members who are wringing their hands and bemoaning the secrecy of the Committee’s negotiations can still demand transparency.

Two weeks ago the House of Representatives violated a pledge made by Speaker John Boehner to provide a 72 hour window for all legislation to be viewed by the public before it is brought to the floor for debate by voting on a bill to defund National Public Radio. Today, the House majority is again violating that pledge by voting on the Government Shutdown Prevention Act.

The Government Shutdown Prevention Act, a bill that deems the budget cutting bill passed by the House earlier this year to have passed Congress without the Senate's assent, was introduced on March 30 at 1:13 pm. At the present moment, this bill has not been available for even 48 hours.

The House majority sent the bill to be approved for floor debate by the House Rules Committee under emergency rules. The NPR defunding bill was also considered by the House Rules Committee in an emergency session.

In a post detailing the 72 hour pledge breaking promise on the NPR vote I noted how the Republican majority circumvented their pledge by following a "Read the Bill" rule that they instituted at the opening of this Congress:

Earlier this year the House Republicans changed the House Rules to implement a Read the Bill rule that stating that bills must be available on three calendar days prior to consideration. Sunlight was very pleased to see the new House Rules incorporate language that strengthens the public's ability to see legislation online before votes. We've also recognized that this rule might be artfully evaded through a variety of means, one of which is the "calendar day" definition.

...

This "calendar day" issue was previously pointed out by Sunlight's Lisa Rosenberg, "the “third calendar day” yardstick for determining whether a bill is ripe for consideration could result in a bill being available for less than 72 hours. Sunlight has advocated using a “72 hour” time frame instead of three calendar days to prevent possible gamesmanship."

There still remain many other potential ways in which the current Rule and previous pledges could be subverted. Sunlight Policy Director John Wonderlich pointed these out in a post earlier this year.

This rule is clearly meant to fudge the previous promise by Speaker Boehner to provide 72 hours of public, online exposure for each bill before it is debated. In case you are wondering if Boehner made a 3 day, as opposed to a 72 hours, pledge, please watch below: There's more video here.

It's worrying that the majority would repeatedly evade a pledge that they made to the American people to make the House a more transparent body. It is especially worrying that the majority would do this on two votes that are clearly not emergencies.

How was the defunding of National Public Radio an emergency requiring the circumvention of normal Rules Committee procedures and the 72 hour pledge? The current Continuing Resolution to fund the government expires on April 8. Why can't the majority wait until Monday to vote on this bill?

The 72 hour rule is needed to give the public not only a chance to read the bills, but a chance to voice their opinion. This is especially important when bills are crafted and pushed forwards for political purposes. The public needs to be involved, but the majority is blocking that involvement for nothing other than the pursuit of quick political wins and message control. This is very disturbing.

Here is the original bill copy with time stamp in the lower left hand corner: XML_362-POST_xml

In the post below I noted that it's a bit surprising that the Read the Bill pledge was subverted by the majority not providing 72 hours of online, public review of the NPR defunding bill because of Speaker John Boehner's many public pledges that specify that 72 hour time frame.

Here's a selection of the many, many times that Speaker Boehner pledged 72 hours of public review for all bills.

Why not wait the extra 20 hours?

Yesterday the House Republicans voted on a bill to defund National Public Radio without providing 72 hours for the public to review the bill. This violates a pledge that Speaker John Boehner made repeatedly that he would require every bill to be made available for at least 72 hours online and in public.

I explained this in a post yesterday:

Earlier this year the House Republicans changed the House Rules to implement a Read the Bill rule that stating that bills must be available on three calendar days prior to consideration. Sunlight was very pleased to see the new House Rules incorporate language that strengthens the public's ability to see legislation online before votes. We've also recognized that this rule might be artfully evaded through a variety of means, one of which is the "calendar day" definition.

In the case of today's vote, the bill technically meets the House Rules as passed in January, but could, if voted on prior to a 72 hour period expiring (approximately 8 AM on Friday), violate the numerous pledges made by Speaker Boehner and other Republican leaders to provide a public, 72 hour window for all legislation.

The bill was voted on yesterday afternoon and, thus, violated Boehner's pledge. To be more accurate, the pledge was violated even before the vote as the 72 hours of public review should end at the beginning of debate, which, on the NPR defunding bill, began yesterday morning.

Sunlight has previously stated our concerns about ways that the majority could circumvent this pledge and the rule, which does not mirror the pledge, implemented earlier this year. It is a bit surprising that the pledge was initially broken in this unnecessary manner, especially after Boehner being so emphatic and specific about the 72 hour time frame.

While we're still waiting to see the draft copy of the House Rules from the incoming majority today, we're now hearing some of the provisions that will be included in the draft.

Many of these provisions are just what Sunlight has asked for in our proposed Rules reforms.

First and foremost, it looks like a 72 Hour Rule will be included in the House Rules. "In Electronic form" will be the way the online requirement is phrased, and all bills will need to be available to the public "in electronic form" for three calendar days before a vote. This will be a huge victory for the ReadtheBill movement, and for transparency in the way the House considers legislation.

Also, committees are going to be posting far more information online. It's going to become much easier to follow along as committees pursue their work, and to know what's going to happen, online, before it happens. Committees will be required to post notice of markups three days in advance, post committee votes online, post amendments online, post disclosures about witnesses who testify, and webcast hearings and markups.

Again, many, many of these changes are contained within our Rules recommendations, and we're elated to see so many of them included in this Rules draft. While the devil is always in the details, and implementation of these kinds of changes can be tricky, these are the kinds of changes that can change the way citizens relate to the legislative process online.

Update: Also worth reiterating: the Office of Congressional Ethics will continue its operations in the 112th Congress. Even though Boehner opposed its initial creation when it was first formed, the independent Ethics watchdog will continue its vital work. This is fantastic news.

Update 2: Here is Speaker-Designate Boehner's tweet about the 72 Hour Rule: http://twitter.com/#!/GOPLeader/statuses/17584517178986496

As House Republican leaders examine their options for House reforms, the 72 Hour Rule, or ReadTheBill, is always near the top of the list.

The form this reform will take, though, is far from clear.

Daniel recently gave details on the technical limitations a 72 Hour rule will face, noting that bills need to be shared better -- on THOMAS, in a machine-readable format, and available in bulk -- in order to maximize reuse online.

In addition to those technological hurdles, procedural hurdles also stand in the way of an effective 72 Hour Rule.

Presumptive Speaker Boehner has already taken one step past Speaker Pelosi on the ReadtheBill front, by committing to putting all non-emergency legislation online for 72 hours. The form this reform takes, however, will determine its strength and reliability.

Here are some procedural complications that could weaken a 72 Hour Rule.

Is it a rules change? It's unclear, so far, whether the 72 Hour Rule will be codified as a change to the House rules. Most focused advocacy for the ReadtheBill effort has focused on a particular proposal, H.Res 554 in the 111th Congress, which is primarily a rules change. If Republicans don't pass a rules change, then the rule will continue as an informal commitment from the Speaker of the House, with an uncertain future. A future Speaker wouldn't have to undo anything to walk away from it, and neither would Boehner, should he choose to.

What about amendments? H.Res. 554 punts on amendments. The bill actually contains Sense of the House language, basically asserting that major amendments should be online for an appropriate period of time. While this may seem like an oversight, further reflection reveals that requirements for amendments to be online can be tricky. Imagine if all bills were online for 72 hours before floor consideration, and all amendments were online for 72 hours before the same floor consideration. If that's the case, then no one can amend the bill they're reading, since the deadline for amendments would have already passed. The solution here may be to require bills to be online for 72 hours and amendments online for 24, but there's no clear consensus that that's the right solution. And that brings us to the second problem relating to amendments.

What about manager's amendments? Even if all amendments were online for one day before floor consideration, it's likely that large, contentious bills would get enormous managers amendments introduced at the last possible moment (whenever that moment may be). If it's just a day, that may still be a very short period of time to read and evaluate what may be an enormous and complex pile of compromises. Worse, these last minute changes are often the most contentious features of the bill -- they're the things being negotiated, after all. A strong, reliable 72 hour rule will eventually need to address managers amendments, and the complex negotiations they inevitably contain.

Depending on one's ideological relationship to any legislation in question, those negotiations can represent anything from valuable bipartisan compromise and careful deliberation all the way to vote-buying and backroom deals. One's feelings about the 72 hour rule also follow a similar pattern. How else do Michael Moore's meditation on the USA PATRIOT Act and the Republican opposition to the health care bill end up on the same script?

The Rules Committee Can Waive the Rules. Most bills are passed in the House under special rules, which govern debate, and can waive any House rule. Even rules about the Rules Committee can be waived by a rule reported out of the Rules committee and passed on the floor. Republican leadership, especially Eric Cantor, have been vocal about what they term a return to "regular order," but the Rules Committee is an extension of the prerogatives of the Speaker, one of the defining characteristics of the House. If the Senate is deliberative and slow, the House is decisive and authoritative, and the authority is the Speaker's, often expressed through the majority party's disproportionate control of the Rules Committee.

Self Executing Rules can change bills. Similarly, the special Rules from the Rules Committee can contain language that changes bills, essentially functioning as an amendment. Both parties have objected strongly to the other party's use of such rules, but, to our knowledge, no one has suggested a viable mechanism for reigning in this prerogative of the Rules Committee.

Conference Reports may be tricky. Most legislation will need to pass both chambers of Congress and go through a Conference Committee before heading to the President's desk. 72 hours for the initial House version would be nice, but without a chance to see what comes out of Conference, we won't know what's in the final law until too late. This can be tough, because each chamber can make changes to what comes out of the conference committee, and send the legislation back and forth. Should every iteration, if there are several, be subjected to 72 hours anew? We faced this difficulty before, and hedged, saying that conference reports and any major changes that follow should be online for 72 hours.

Is the Rule powerful? In addition to the fact that House Rules are waivable, some House Rules are simply ignored. A powerful 72 Hour Rule (like H.Res. 554) will change what is in order, effectively empowering the minority to raise a point of order against an offending motion. Without such an appeal to procedure, the requirement would be far weaker. Changes to the Congressional Record, for example, are supposed to only be typographical or grammatical, but Members regularly make far more substantive changes to their remarks as they appear. This is against the Rules, but essentially, no one cares. Even the best rule will need popular expectations to back it up.

This is actually true for all of the complications we've identified. Even the most well meaning 72 Hour Rule will be a seductive sacrifice for any Speaker who is faced with a potential legislative achievement. These are probably only some of the ways a public posting requirement could be evaded. Congressional floor procedures are incredibly complicated, and governed not just by Rules, but by complex precedents. The real arbiter of acceptable congressional procedure will ultimately always be the electorate. No one else can, or even should, have that kind of power of Congress.

Even so, we're hoping Speaker Boehner and Republican leaders choose to codify a strong, effective 72 Hour rule, and lives up to his promise, even when it's inconvenient, as he has readily acknowledged it will be.

On the eve of the midterm elections and with the 111^th Congress all but wrapped up with its business, Sunlight has been brainstorming a list of bipartisan, “low-hanging fruit” of transparency ideas that the House and Senate can hit the ground running with as soon as they come back into session next year. One of those proposals is to make all amendments filed in the Senate immediately available to the public online.

The American public has the right to know what their elected officials are debating and voting on in Congress. However, as the current process stands, Senators and their staff are granted privileged access to information about some amendments while the general public is kept locked out.

Amendments are often filed to bills during debate on the Senate floor. While these amendments are available for immediate internal Senate review, the public often must wait until the amendments are published in The Congressional Record the next day to see just what they do to the legislation. In a lot of cases, the Senate may have already voted on one of these amendments the day before -- in a way, sidestepping public scrutiny. Whether the change is an addition of a single word or a sweeping manager's amendment that rewrites large sections of a bill, this presents a missed opportunity for constituents to review the amendment language and contact their representatives with any concerns.

Conversely, the Senate may also end up voting on an amendment that was filed and printed days earlier in The Congressional Record, which makes the language of the amendment difficult to find.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) introduced a resolution to address this very issue in June of this year without much fanfare or attention from the press. But quiet as its introduction was, the resolution's impact is significant in that it would bring the Senate in line with policies already long in place in the House.

Senator Grassley’s resolution mirrors larger reform efforts to ensure underlying legislation is made available to Congress and the public for a reasonable amount of time before it is voted on. It stands to reason that the amendment process should be made as transparent as possible as well. And, like the 72 hour rule that Sunlight has continually pushed for, the Senate could act proactively on revising its amendment process by enshrining this change in any new rules package it adopts for the 112th Congress. Whether as a stand-alone bill or incorporated as a rule, Senator Grassley's proposal is an easy step in the direction of a more transparent and accountable Senate.