Jack Abramoff left Washington to serve his prison sentence as a primary perpetrator and beneficiary of its culture of corruption. While his fall from influence prompted many reforms that we were eager to see, there is still a system riddled with loopholes and lacking the transparency we desperately need. Now, he's back. Shilling a book to pay off legal debts and line his pockets, Abramoff now wears the fresh cloak of a reformer who calls to clean the pigsty where he once rolled. We welcome him to the good fight, but honestly, it's hard to believe he's serious.

The master of rhetoric will be speaking at Public Citizen later today - we'll be in the audience and watching online. He frequently boasts he had "100 congressmen in his pocket" yet he has not released the documents or named the names.

After my questioning him on this point, Abramoff responded "Having been to prison personally -- hopefully, Ms. Miller hasn't been to prison and most of your readers haven't been and never will go -- but having been to prison, it's very hard for me to put anybody in harm's way, even people I don't like. And that's besides the point anyway. The point is to change the system." Just five days before his refusal to put anybody in harm's way he told TPM “The only thing I’m doing is trying to make available what I know from my experience so that we can fix this.” Unfortunately we continue to see hollow rhetoric. Instead of waiting until your book stops giving milk, why don't you spill some of those magic beans from the files you still have?

The Sunlight Foundation is committed to lobbying reform and exposure of the full system of influence. That's why we have an outstanding FOIA to see who visited Abramoff in prison, hold public meetings discussing the issue and, of course, encourage public markup of our recommendations for lobbying reform.

Today's event at Public Citizen is an opportunity for Abramoff to convince reformers that he's really serious; helping to fix the system by revealing more substantive information about those who participated in his activities. I don't care whether what he reveals is technically legal or not - decades of exposing K Street continues to prove that it's not always what is illegal that is most troubling, but rather what is completely legal.

Unless Abramoff starts answering these tough questions and open up his treasure trove of information anyone who calls themselves a reformer should be very skeptical of this reformer road show.

Make Abramoff prove himself as a reformer rather than just calling himself one.

Image via C-SPAN.

The political scientist E.E. Schattschneider once called politics “the mobilization of bias.” By this, he meant something both simple and profound. All political battles are fights between competing interests, he noted, but political outcomes are almost always determined by the bias of those paying attention to the conflict. The trick is to make sure you mobilize the crowd that will cheer for you.

The recent extraordinary turn of events in the ongoing debate over regulating internet piracy made for a perfect illustration of Schattschneider's theory. By expanding what he called the “scope of conflict” (i.e., by engaging a public that suddenly seemed to care very much about the issue),  forces arrayed against proposed legislation fundamentally changed the political battle.

Prior to the Wednesday when Wikipedia went dark, most Americans had never heard of legislation known as SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) in the House, and PIPA (the Protect Intellectual property Act) in the Senate.

For months the audience around the issue was dominated by a small group of Washington insiders, tilted in favor of the representatives of Hollywood, who had reason to believe they were on the verge of passing legislation to reduce trafficking in pirated movies, music, and goods. The lobbyists for the movie and music producers had diligently worked the Hill for months to make their arguments (the wheels of friendship and sympathy greased by campaign donations), and everything seemed ready to go.

But then Facebook, Google, Wikipedia and tens of thousands of others changed the scope of conflict in a flash. Harnessing the unique megaphone they had built as content providers, the online companies generated as many as 3 million e-mails to Congress, 7 million signatures and 3.9 million tweets. It was enough to cause many in Congress to wonder whether they had unwittingly kicked a hive.

To many in the Washington commentariat, this supposed David vs. Goliath story presaged a revolution in the way Washington influence would work from now on.  “SOPA protests by Google and Facebook upend traditional lobbying,” wrote Bloomberg News’ Eric Englemen, quoting experts explaining how the tech lobbying effort was “unprecedented” and “trying to reinvent how we carry out democratic politics.”; “Fights are no longer just about which side has the most – or best – lobbyists” wrote Politico’s Anna Palmer under the breathless headline: “K Street’s boom goes bust.”

Would that it were true. For one, the David and Goliath story is mostly a myth. And K Street is for sure not going bust anytime soon.

Yes, Hollywood does spend a lot of money on politics. But so does tech. The Motion Picture Association of American reported $1.3 million in lobbying expenditures through the first three quarters of 2011, and is now run by former Senator Chris Dodd. But Google spent $7.1 million over the same period, and has hired former House Democratic Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, among the 112 lobbyists registered to lobby for the company.  Google’s PACs and employees have given three times the money as the MPAA.

MORE: Political Party Time tracks pro- and anti-SOPA lobbyists.

And, as the Center for Responsive Politics’ Viveca Novak reported, computer and internet companies hired 246 lobbyists to advocate on SOPA and PIPA issues, as compared to 241 lobbyists hired by the TV, music and movie industry.  Companies lobbying on these issues spent $104.6 million combined on these issues in the fourth quarter of 2011. Yes, Hollywood has been at the influence game longer. But tech has been rapidly catching up the last few years.

Moreover, contrary to the Politico article, political fights have never been solely about which side has the most or best lobbyists. Substantial research in political science shows that, once issues are salient enough that there are coalitions and resources on both sides, victory is much more unpredictable. Not that money doesn’t matter. It’s just that there is often money on both sides, and the American system of government has a strong status quo bias. It’s very hard to get bills into law.

In many ways, what happened is a classic story of sunlight working. By calling public attention to a bill that was by most indications a poorly-drafted blunt-force instrument for combating Internet piracy, SOPA’s opponents put the bill back to the drawing board, where both sides will now have a chance to resolve the issue, hopefully in some sort of compromise fashion.

And yet, the way in which content providers were able to use the Internet to mobilize a response was something different. Never before have the content providers been quite so politically engaged and quite so unified. There is an impressive power in all these websites providing a unified message. It is almost as if traditional newspapers and magazines all devoted their front pages to the same blistering editorial on the same day.

And in this respect there is something sui generis about the anti-SOPA lobbying activity. It’s hard to imagine a similar coordinated effort to advocate, say, for a more progressive tax code that no longer taxed passive investment income at a significantly lower rate than salaried income.  This kind of spontaneous uprising is almost certainly limited to issues that hit the Internet content providers where they live. Take a step back, and it looks a lot like the kind of self-interested advocacy that has always dominated politics, with private interests on both sides miming the familiar symbolic tropes of the people and the public good.

Thus, the MPAA’s Chris Dodd wrapped a legitimate concern inside a hyperbole when he said in a statement that “It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.”  The Internet companies that we depend on for content do have an agenda, and too much power in their hands has its own dangers.

So what are we to make of what happened? Part of the lesson here is an old lesson (per Schattschneider), but one worth repeating. The contours of the audience paying attention to a policy usually determine whether that policy ultimately passes. When a broader public gets wind of a crude bill that would transparently benefit a narrow public, that bill is typically rendered toxic and thus politically finished.

It used to be the case that for this to happen, the mainstream media had to be involved in calling attention to the travesty. Those days are disappearing, and this is generally a good thing. By lowering the barriers to entry, the Internet has the potential to make political activism more democratic than ever before, and the SOPA turnaround is proof that it can work politically to engage a broad crowd in short order.

But two major open questions remain:

Can this new model for policy accountability extend to issues that are less of an existential threat to the Internet content providers, or does it depend on the coordinated leadership of the providers? Can other causes replicate the success?

And if the Googles, Facebooks, Twitters, and Wikipedias are becoming new guardians of political accountability, how accountable are they?

It is tempting to be euphoric and say that the day Wikipedia went dark in protest marks a new turning point in the dynamics of power in Washington. But as is often the case, the reality is both less dramatic and more complicated.

       

Today NPR's Planet Money team aired a story about disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s legal lobbying activities (as few of those as there may have been), highlighting how problematic even currently legal lobbying practices are. Also today, the New York Times pointed out some of the huge loopholes in current lobbying law -- Newt Gingrich, for example, isn’t actually a lobbyist, he just spends lots of his time talking to lawmakers about how policy should be made. Y’know, as a historian.

The powerful (and corrupting, as we saw with Abramoff) influence of special interest money in politics can be extremely hard to follow, but better lobbying laws could change that. Lobbying activity is the most tangible means to measure the money and effort that powerful interests are spending to influence lawmakers.

Closing the loopholes that let “historians” like Newt Gingrich act as stealth lobbyists and creating real-time, online disclosure about just who lobbyists are meeting with and what they’re talking about would be a powerful first step to shining a light on who’s actually influencing our lawmakers.

How do we fix it? A good first step, as Daniel wrote the other day, is the Lobbying Disclosure Enhancement Act, introduced by Rep. Quigley. The bill needs your help to get more support in Congress. You can write to your rep right from OpenCongress.org to ask them to co-sponsor the bill. You can also read more about Sunlight’s lobbying recommendations and sign up to get updates on lobbying reform here.

Bill Clinton famously tried to claim he hadn’t lied about his relationship Monica Lewinsky by saying, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.” Newt Gingrich similarly contorts the English language by claiming “I was never a lobbyist.” Perhaps Gingrich’s claim depends on what the meaning of the word “lobbyist” is. If it is the loophole ridden, easily evaded legal definition in the Lobbying Disclosure Act that allows power brokers to avoid registering as lobbyists if they spend less than 20 percent of their time lobbying, then maybe, maybe, Gingrich can claim with a straight face that he was not a lobbyist. But if common sense and Miriam Webster are applied, to lobby means, “to conduct activities aimed at influencing public officials and especially members of a legislative body on legislation.” Under that definition, there can be no doubt that Gingrich was a lobbyist, even if he didn’t fill out the paperwork.

The New York Times today correctly notes that people of Gingrich’s stature never register as lobbyists. It’s time to change that. Former members of Congress who trade their political connections for paychecks must be required register and report as lobbyists so that the public knows who is paying them and what positions they are advocating. Sunlight has long supported legislation that would strengthen the definition of lobbyist by eliminating the 20 percent loophole. The law should be clear. Former members of Congress should not be able to call themselves “consultants,” “strategic advisors,” or “historians,” while taking money from corporate clients to advance their causes on Capitol Hill. They are lobbyists.

Anti-lobbyist barbs will continue to fly this election season because they win easy political points. But instead of accusations and denials, name calling and obfuscation, it’s time for real reform that will capture all who lobby and impose much needed accountability on the system.

When the House returns to work today, it will be a slightly leaner, slightly less technologically cutting-edge body than it was a year ago.

Last January, the House voted 410-13 to slash its operating budget by 5% (or $35 million). A Sunlight Foundation analysis of House disbursement data shows some immediate effects: a loss almost 1,000 salaried staff positions and major cutbacks in computers and office supplies.

House offices will have to do it all over again this year. The 2012 Legislative Branch Appropriations Act cuts funding for the House by another 6.4%. Since compensation accounts for more than half of all House expenditures, expect cuts in both staff and salaries.

These cuts are part of a longer-term decline in congressional staffing and personnel spending. Already, congressional salaries and benefits lag behind their private sector competitors, meaning that offices often have a hard time retaining and attracting top talent. Instead, they must rely increasingly on special interests to help them to do their work. As Congress continues to curtail its own capacity, there is good reason to expect even greater reliance on the 12,242 registered lobbyists in Washington.

To see how the budget cuts have affected House offices so far, we compared House disbursement data for the third quarters of 2009, 2010 and 2011. Here are some key changes since 2009:

• Overall, House offices have cut the number of salaried staff positions by 7.4%, shedding 948 between 2009 and 2011. (This includes both legislative and non-legislative positions.)
• Overall spending on total personnel compensation is down 1.7%. (In the private sector, total compensation has increased by 4.1% during this same period.)
• Offices have cut spending most steeply on office supplies (down 30.7%), equipment (down 46.4%, particularly computers, which are down 62.5%) and franked mail (down 25.8%).
• One area of growth, however, is in public relations. House offices added 32 new “Communications Director” positions between 2009 and 2011.

In 2011, offices did the relatively easy stuff: skimping on office supplies and new computers, and letting some staff go. That leaves the harder stuff: more serious cutting of salaries and staff.

According to a Congressional Management Foundation survey, “the consensus is that the cumulative two-year cut of 11.4% will require the large majority of offices to make painful cuts that will be felt by virtually all staff."

This will have consequences. With each cut to salary and staff, and each reduction in office resource budgets, it becomes that much more challenging for the House to do its job. As staff struggle with declining resources and scramble to work harder to compensate for lost positions, they become that much more dependent on outside lobbyists to help them.

Table 1. Changes in aggregate House expenditures (arranged by 2009 expenditure size)

Expense Category	2009-to-2011 change	2009 (3rd quarter)	2010 (3rd quarter)	2011 (3rd quarter)
PERSONNEL COMPENSATION	-1.7%	$175,130,327	$178,841,894	$172,070,988
PERSONNEL BENEFITS	+5.8	$64,285,035	$66,060,868	$68,020,505
OTHER SERVICES	-3.4%	$22,620,349	$25,185,966	$21,847,980
EQUIPMENT	-46.4%	$21,007,024	$16,974,756	$11,257,324
RENT, COMMUNICATION, UTILITIES	-4.5%	$19,727,104	$21,767,994	$18,846,353
SUPPLIES AND MATERIALS	-30.3%	$7,931,749	$7,350,006	$5,526,529
TRAVEL	-11.3%	$7,588,514	$8,250,876	$6,732,969
FRANKED MAIL	-25.8%	$6,014,439	$11,960,012	$4,463,841
PRINTING AND REPRODUCTION	-7.5%	$5,336,864	$12,134,250	$4,937,813
TRANSPORTATION OF THINGS	+11.6%	$64,978	$62,646	$72,487
ALL COSTS	-4.8%	$329,708,391	$348,591,278	$313,778,802

STAFF REDUCTIONS IN FORCE

Breaking down the salaries by title, we can see where on the totem pole offices are cutting. Among the 20 unique position titles that account for the most combined expenses, “staff assistants” suffered most significant reduction, a loss of more than 200 positions, from 1,245 to 1,038 (down 16.6%). The number of “professional staff member” positions also declined at almost the same rate, from 205 to 176 between 2009 and 2011, down 14.1%. “Part Time Employees” are also down substantially, from 506 to 427 (down 15.6%).

On the side of growth, the fastest growing position in the House is “Communications Director.” Despite the cuts, the House actually added 32 new communications directors between third quarter of 2009 and third quarter of 2011, going from 232 to 264 positions (an increase of 13.8%). It is, however, worth noting that the number of press secretaries decreased at the same time by 12 (down 6.6%, from 183 to 171 positions), so some of the new communications directors may be press secretaries who got a new title.

Other big increases were in the position of “Scheduler” (up 12.6%, from 143 to 161 positions), “District Director” (up 8.2%, from 291 to 315 positions) and “Legislative Director” (up 7.4%, from 309 to 332 positions). Interestingly, the number of “Constituent Services Representatives” is up 6.8% (from 205 to 219) while the number of “Caseworkers” is down 5.5% (from 307 to 290).

Table 2. Changes in staffing force, by position (for 20 most expensive positions by total expenditures, arranged from biggest decline to biggest gain)

Position	2009-to-2011 change	2009 (3rd quarter)	2010 (3rd quarter)	2011 (3rd quarter)
ALL POSITIONS	-7.4%	12,779	12,735	11,831
Staff Assistant	-16.6%	1245	1148	1038
Part-time Employee	-15.6%	506	520	427
Professional Staff Member	-14.1%	205	213	176
Legislative Assistant	-7.1%	793	783	737
Press Secretary	-6.6%	183	181	171
Caseworker	-5.5%	307	310	290
Legislative Correspondent	-4.7%	380	374	362
Counsel	-2.6%	117	119	114
District Representative	0.0%	197	208	197
Field Representative	+0.4%	266	272	267
Executive Assistant	+0.6%	154	156	155
Chief of Staff	+0.7%	420	396	423
Deputy Chief of Staff	+2.0%	98	95	100
Shared Employee	+6.1%	588	621	624
Constituent Services Representative	+6.8%	205	207	219
Senior Legislative Assistant	+7.1%	140	144	150
Legislative Director	+7.4%	309	337	332
District Director	+8.2%	291	293	315
Scheduler	+12.6%	143	137	161
Communications Director	+13.8%	232	247	264

STAFF PAY

For those who managed to keep their jobs on the Hill, the average salary actually increased by 3.7% since 2009.

Chiefs of staff are doing quite well. Their average compensation rose 5.8%, from $120,276 to $127,280 a year (estimated from third quarter compensation), topped only by individuals in the somewhat ambiguous role of “special assistant,” who have seen their compensation rise by 8.5% during this period (from $42,464 a year to $46,084 a year).

Major positions where the average salary declined more than five percent are “Counsel” (down 5.8%), “Deputy District Director” (down 5.7%), and “Legislative Correspondent” (down 5.4%).

Where salaries declined, it may likely be as a result of new, less experienced staffers who will work for less replacing older, more experienced staffers who commanded more money.

Table 3. Changes in salary, by position (for 20 most expensive positions by total expenditures, arranged from biggest decline to biggest gain)

Position	2009-to-2011 change	2009 (3rd quarter)	2010 (3rd quarter)	2011 (3rd quarter)
ALL POSITIONS	+3.7%	$13,507	$13,860	$14,002
Counsel	-5.8%	$23,283	$24,068	$21,928
Legislative Correspondent	-5.4%	$7,870	$7,914	$7,442
Senior Legislative Assistant	-4.1%	$14,083	$13,452	$13,504
Professional Staff Member	-3.9%	$21,455	$21,531	$20,611
District Representative	-2.9%	$11,099	$10,908	$10,781
Legislative Assistant	-1.5%	$10,889	$11,004	$10,722
Constituent Services Representative	-1.5%	$9,714	$10,128	$9,569
Field Representative	-1.4%	$10,035	$10,396	$9,895
Scheduler	-1.2%	$10,320	$10,800	$10,194
District Director	-0.1%	$21,087	$21,751	$21,058
Staff Assistant	+0.1%	$8,574	$8,878	$8,580
Legislative Director	+0.6%	$18,066	$18,196	$18,177
Press Secretary	+0.6%	$13,219	$13,084	$13,304
Communications Director	+1.4%	$15,962	$16,746	$16,192
Caseworker	+1.4%	$10,225	$10,630	$10,364
Executive Assistant	+1.7%	$13,279	$13,472	$13,502
Deputy Chief of Staff	+2.0%	$22,270	$23,744	$22,715
Part-time Employee	+2.3%	$5,135	$5,330	$5,251
Shared Employee	+3.1%	$3,829	$4,260	$3,946
Chief of Staff	+5.8%	$30,069	$31,061	$31,82

It is worth noting, however, that personnel benefits were up 5.8% between 2009 and 2011, from $64 million to $68 million. Most of the growth there, however, is in health insurance costs (up 12%) and retirement costs (up 4%). These are costs that congressional offices typically have less control over.

SUPPLIES AND EQUIPMENT

The biggest cuts came from spending on equipment (down 46.4%), supplies (down 30.3%) and franked mail (down 25.8%). The decrease in spending on franked mail is probably not cause for concern. Members are using more and more e-mail and social networking to reach out to constituents anyway.

More than half of the equipment budget goes to computers, and  this is where offices have really skimped. The computer budget is down 62.5% from 2009, from $14.1 million to $5.3 million. At a time when so much work is conducted electronically, increasingly out-of-date equipment will put staff at an ever-increasing disadvantage.

In the category of “supplies and materials,” the top three expenses are office supplies, medical supplies and publications and reference materials. Office supply budgets are down 20% (from $6.5 million to $5.3 million), publication and reference material budgets are down 25% (from $2.2 million to $1.7 million). Medical supplies are down slightly (from $2.8 million to $2.7 million).

Table 4. Changes in expenditures on equipment and supplies and materials, major categories

Expense Category	2009-to-2011 change	2009 (3rd quarter)	2010 (3rd quarter)	2011 (3rd quarter)
Computers	-62.5%	$14,112,169	$8,341,676	$5,297,438
Office Supplies	-19.9%	$6,526,360	$8,500,553	$5,229,226
Medical Supplies	-2.5%	$2,796,013	$2,823,205	$2,726,987
Publications and Reference Materials	-25.3%	$2,245,468	$2,049,677	$1,676,573

While these may be reasonable areas to cut, these reductions are not necessarily sustainable. At some point, House staffers are going to need new computers and some office supplies. Yet with more cuts still ahead, it’s unclear where the money will come from.

Most offices could weather a lean year on supplies and equipment. But as anybody who has worked on the Hill knows, offices are far from luxurious. In a world in which more and more activity is conducted electronically, to fall behind technologically puts congressional staff behind the curve. Furthermore, with another round of cuts coming, it’s going to be hard for the House to catch up.

Now House offices have to cut another 6.4%. That will likely mean fewer staff, less support, probably lower salaries and more outmoded technology. Congress will likely be forced to rely more on interns, and almost certainly more on lobbyists.

A NOTE ON THE DATA

Our data come from the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. That means we are dependent on what the House reports. The biggest challenge in aggregating the data is that different House offices classify expenses in different ways. This is most obvious with job titles. Even when we standardized the title names by collapsing all synonymous abbreviations, we still wound up with 2,600 unique position titles over the three years. Though we are confident that our data captures the larger patterns, we must in good faith disclose that the underlying data are messy. At best, the data reveal general trends, and higher levels of confidence in it can only come when the House of Representatives makes a better effort with respect to how it normalizes and releases the data to the public. To dig through the data yourself, visit our House Expenditure Reports Database.

 

Here’s a riddle: What do you call it when someone earns millions of dollars from corporate clients, uses his relationships with the most influential officials in government to pursue those clients’ interests, and even has offices on K Street?

Answer: If you are Newt Gingrich, not a lobbyist.

The Washington Post reports that corporate clients paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the current leader in the Republican primary in exchange for him providing “access to top transformational leadership across industry and government” through his for-profit “think tank.” Apparently they got what they paid for. According to the Post, “Gingrich also bragged about his success in pushing conservative policies and legislation in Washington during his political exile.”

We’ve written many times before about stealth lobbyists, often former Members of Congress who crawl around Capitol Hill and the White House advocating on behalf of fat cat clients, but who skirt disclosure under the lobby laws by claiming they only provide “strategic advice” or spend less than 20% of their time lobbying.

And we’ve advocated—dare I say lobbied—to change all of that.

The specter of Newt Gingrich, former non-lobbyist lobbyist, occupying the White House should galvanize calls for lobbying reform. It’s problematic enough when a former Member of Congress provides his clients with access to his friends and colleagues in the House or the Senate. But if Washington’s revolving door should swing that person into the White House, corporate interests who once paid handsomely for strategic advice will have a direct line to the leader of the country.

The Gingrich example is at the top of the list of why we need a new approach to lobbying disclosure. The most influential people in Washington can easily skirt the rules currently in place. Everyone who is not in that top tier of influence peddlers—including all of the registered lobbyists who follow the rules—should recognize the failure of the current system and work to change it by ensuring that if someone is paid to lobby, they register and report as a lobbyist.

Earlier today, protestors from OccupyDC headed over to the offices of the Podesta Group, a high profile lobbying firm, before joining hundreds (possibly thousands) of other Occupy protesters from across the U.S. in shutting down K Street. There's another #occupy protest planned at the Supreme Court, highlighting the January 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision.

As we’ve written before, we’re excited to see a grassroots movement forming that addresses such wonky issues as campaign finance and lobbying reform. We hope that the Occupy protesters’ concerns on those issues don’t get lost in the coverage of the more colorful aspects of today’s actions. While the Occupy movement has become famous in part for its alleged lack of clear demands, we hope that the media coverage of the protests today highlights the need for real reform to bring transparency to lobbying and campaign finance.

K Street is (in)famous for being the epicenter of lobbying in Washington. In fact, the #OccupyDC group in McPherson Square also calls themselves @OccupyKSt, because ‘the money from Wall Street flows to K Street,’ disproportionately influencing the government. It’s no secret that there’s quite a bit of money around K Street -- we actually mapped the top lobbying firms when we did a teach-in at OccupyDC a while back.

The reality, though, is that we don’t even know where all the money is. For example, loopholes in lobbying registration rules mean that unless you spend 20% or more of your time lobbying, you don’t have to register. So powerful figures, including former congressmen -- like former Senator Dodd who now heads the movie industry’s lobby, or "historians" like former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich -- do not have to register as lobbyists. Which means we can't track their activity. It also means that, in effect, we rely on lobbyists to uphold an honor code of registering when appropriate. That's not a good recipe for public oversight. Sunlight’s been advocating for serious lobbying reform for years -- you can learn more (and join us!) here: http://sunlightfoundation.com/policy/lobbying/

Lobbying disclosure, of course, has been a problem since long before Occupy. The public has a right to know how special interests and lobbying help shape public policy—for better or worse. But it’s getting harder for us to get that information.

Last January, the Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission drastically changed the landscape of our election system by allowing corporations to make unlimited campaign ads—often without disclosing the donors who funded the ads. In the wake of that decision, the FEC has done next to nothing to create transparency, and the DISCLOSE Act, a piece of legislation intended to create disclosure in the wake of Citizens United, failed in the last Congress.

If Congress, the Supreme Court and the FEC are going to make it difficult to follow the money, then it’s imperative for watchdogs and journalists to follow the action. When it comes to knowing who's wielding influence in Washington, that action is lobbying. After last year’s Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission ruling, campaign finance and lobbying disclosure became even more closely linked. How? Lobbyists can—without ever saying a word—threaten that their clients will spend millions on ads if senators or representatives do not do what the lobbyist wants.

Imagine you’re a member of Congress. A lobbyist comes to you representing a powerful corporation and asks for your help on a bill provision. You’re not sure that bill provision best represents the interests of the people in your district, but the lobbyist points out that their client has a Super PAC that is willing to spend millions of dollars running ads in your district -- money that you can’t match. What’s more, because of how weak campaign finance disclosure laws are, that lobbyist might have an army of other corporations or wealthy individuals who also support the bill who could secretly funnel unlimited amounts of money to that Super PAC. What would you do?

Occupy Wall Street got the country talking about economic disparities and corporate accountability. We hope that today’s actions -- the Occupation of K Street -- fuels the conversation about money in politics and the need for reform.

The drumbeat continues for the twelve members of the Committee on Deficit Reduction to step up and match their newly acquired power with a new-found commitment to transparency. Today, more than a dozen organizations joined Sunlight on a letter to Super Committee members, urging them to voluntarily disclose the campaign contributions they receive from now until the committee completes its work. Just as important, the groups call for members to disclose information about the special interest meetings Super Committee members take while serving on the committee.

The letter noted that failure to ensure transparency of these fundamental avenues of influence will reinforce the public’s mistrust of the deficit reduction process and risk delegitimizing the Committee’s work.

The Committee’s efforts to make its work transparent by creating a website and making some meetings public only go so far. Real access and influence come from large campaign contributions and when special interests meet with members to plead their case. Yet nothing will be disclosed about either lobbying or campaign contributions until well after the committee makes its recommendations. Too late, in other words, for the public to understand or respond to money and access--factors that may play an oversized role in the decision making process of super committee members.

Already the public, as well as members of Congress who do not serve on the Super Committee, are at a disadvantage. The committee has begun working to find ways to make enormous cuts to defense and social spending—cuts that will affect every one of us. Yet there is no disclosure of who is asking the committee members for help or who is writing large checks to committee members. The Committee’s work is too important for secrecy to be an option.

14 Groups Call for Super Committee Transparency

On Wednesday, the House passed a bill 253-166 to limit the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency and expedite the agency’s air quality permit process.

H.R. 2021, the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act of 2011, was introduced by Republican Rep. Cory Gardner of Colorado, and will alter the Clean Air Act by changing the physical location drilling vessels are required to be inspected at to determine their impact on air pollution from offshore to onshore. It also forces the EPA to make decisions regarding applications for clean air within six months.

Gardner, a freshman Rep. and the bill’s sponsor, received his second greatest amount of contributions during his campaign for the House in 2009-10 from the oil and gas industry.

The bill’s most vocal opponents, Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill, and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif, frequently referred to it as “the Shell bill,” during the debate because they believe the bill was only drafted to facilitate Shell’s permit request to begin the drilling process in the Arctic waters off Alaska. According to Shell, the company has been trying to obtain a permit from the EPA for five years. However, representatives from the EPA said in a hearing in May before the Subcommittee on Energy and Power that Shell withdrew its permit application at least once and changed the location for the permit on other occasions, thus starting the process over.

Shell has reported spending $3.8 million lobbying in the first quarter of this year alone, according to the Sunlight Foundation’s Influence Explorer. The oil company has reported lobbying on many issues related to drilling and energy policy including permitting issues.

Gardner and other supporters of the bill cite the long and arduous process Shell claims to have gone through to get a clean air permit granted to them by the EPA as a need to cap the time allotted for making decisions on such applications.

Reps. opposing the bill called it a “give away” to the oil companies and damaging to the public’s opportunity to weigh in on such measures because the limit on time allowed to complete the permit process will take away from the public comments period and possibly make the permits issued less defendable in court. Opponents also say that based on the EPA’s reported consistent history of giving Shell permits within 3-6 months of application, this legislation is not necessary.

     

In our still on going campaign to tell our governors to support open government, we stand beside citizen activists who want to see an end to the roll back of transparency laws. We are dedicated to equipping the public with tools with-which to demand for accountability, and have developed various resources including open government.org,  an open-source public resource website for government transparency and civic engagement at the state and local levels. So far, we have covered California, Louisiana, Maryland, Texas, and Wisconsin with Minnesota to be launched soon.  Montana's recent strike at open government reaffirms the need to continuously-- as Pete Weitzel, former director of the Coalition of journalists for Open Government puts it-- "turn a public official's 'right to no' into your 'right to know'."

• Last week, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer vetoed a bill that would have created a website with the state’s budget and spending details. Proposed by Rep.Tom Burnett, HB 444 would have enabled the public to search, retrieve and download information about the state finances including state budgets, revenues, appropriations and expenditures. But Gov. Schweitzer thwarted the bill with claims that at an estimated $400,000, the website would be too costly and did not have an “ investment on return for the tax payer”. Michael Noyes writes more on Montana Watchdog.

• The city of New York unveiled a “Road Map for the Digital City” -- a project that will feature APIs for city data and plans that will change the way government information is presented online. Open government entrepreneurs are optimistic that the Road Map will give the city’s startups an advantage through integrating media and technology while widening access to wifi in public parks. Anil Dash, who is confident the web is a public space, adds that this would be a valuable opportunity for citizens to be engaged through technology. Read more on Anil Dash.

• Last week, we highlighted a post that mentioned Oregon's move to strengthen their public records. Now, A.J. O’Connell is writing that the opposition from some government agencies including the League of Oregon Cities, that  has hired lobbyists to try and prevent the bill from becoming law, may cause a problem. His attempt at reaching out to the state’s Attorney General to show that Creswell, his city, is not aligned with the lobbyists intentions, have been swept under the rug. What is he hoping to do next to save open government in Portland? Find out on A.J. for Creswell.

• A bill that would limit the reach of public records in Raleigh, NC was proposed on the grounds that productivity of government workers searching for, organizing and providing information requested by the public, will be reduced. Daniel O’Leary is proposing an easier way: turning the documents into electronic format! Through LinDoc which creates electronic e-forms, that connect directly to a universal repository, the public and reporters are able to search and find public records for themselves, eliminating the need for government staffers to do this task. In cases where some records have to be paid for, O’Leary recommends using WebLink which is already being used by other states. Read more of his compelling argument on Capture Expert blog.