Since resigning from Congress two years ago as a result of some seriously icky tweets, Anthony Weiner has cashed in on his congressional contacts to become another “stealth lobbyist,” earning enough from his corporate clients to move on up to a deluxe Park Avenue Apartment from more humble digs in Queens, all without registering and reporting who he is working for and what he is working on.

Shock and outrage (and some really amusing if not-ready-for-prime-time bits on the Daily Show) accompanied the former representative’s slimy use of social media. But there’s no shock or outrage accompanying his even slimier use of his former position for profit. Indeed, the New York Times seems to think Weiner’s secret lobbying on behalf of corporate clients somehow serves “as a compelling campaign credential” as he considers a run for mayor.

Rather than touting it as a career booster, Weiner’s stealth lobbying should be seen as still more evidence for the need to strengthen current lobbying disclosure laws. The only people in Washington who seem to support secret lobbying are the members of Congress who want to keep that lucrative career path open to themselves when they leave government service. For the rest, closing the 20 percent loophole that allows people like Tom Daschle, Newt Gingrich and now, Anthony Weiner to lobby without registering and reporting makes perfect sense from a transparency and accountability perspective. It is good policy for a junior lobbyist for a nonprofit organization, a mid-level associate for law firm and a named partner in a major lobbying outfit to register and report their lobbying activities. So why aren’t former members of Congress—some of the most powerful influence peddlers inside the Beltway—subject to the same disclosure requirements?

Only a few weeks after Weiner left Congress, he opened up his stealth lobbying shop. But the public became aware of his clients only after they signed waivers, at a time when the former Congressman decided to flaunt his assets (a recurring theme in his life?) declaring himself “a good capitalist.”

His prior “disclosures” on Twitter notwithstanding, Weiner’s most valuable asset may be his easy access to his former congressional colleagues. And although in some respects we have waaay too much information about the former congressman, we don’t know nearly enough about his work as a stealth lobbyist.

Information about who is trying to influence our government should be available to the public with as few restrictions as possible. At a minimum, empowering the public to know about who has access to power (and how they try to influence that power) should include details about who lobbies, who is being lobbied, and what is being lobbied about.

The state of municipal lobbying disclosure varies greatly from one town/city/county to the next, with some municipalities disclosing detailed, structured data about lobbying activity online and others continuing to wrangle with paper and file folders. As we explore the role that open data plays in a broader municipal context, we decided to take a closer look at lobbying data, in particular, to see not just what a complete suite of our ideal open lobbying dataset would include, but to examine the political levers that affect the openness of this data and the kinds of accountability and context that can result from its release.

To this end, we've created a Municipal Lobbying Data Guidebook to help local policymakers and advocates create stronger lobbying disclosure. In this guide, we've attempted to answer several questions we feel are important to creating a roadmap to meaningful municipal lobbying disclosure. This is not meant to be the complete source for recommendations related to municipal lobbying data or lobbying reform. Rather, this is an exploration of what is possible, with ideas for how to make possibilities into realities.

Lobbying disclosure should provide a meaningful check -- and balance -- on the world of influence. To do that, the transparency it creates must be proportional to the influence that it seeks to uncover, with attention paid to the completeness, timeliness, and openness of the information that is ultimately disclosed.

This Guidebook is only a first step in articulating and exploring these issues and will feed into our analysis and review of municipal lobbying data and related disclosure initiatives. As we learn more (and hear from you), we plan to refine this guide and to promote best practices.

We welcome your feedback.

On the first day of President Obama’s first term, he had a lot on his plate. The economy was in recession, Osama bin Laden was at large, and war was ongoing.  But, despite it all, the president made clear that he was going to try to clean up Washington, ushering in new era of transparency and accountability. On his first day in office, the president issued an executive order instituting a new policy that banned White House staff from lobbying the administration for two years upon leaving. He also barred staff from working on issues they lobbied on previously and banned gifts from lobbyists to administration officials.

His goal was "to help restore faith in government, without which we cannot deliver the changes that we were sent here to make."

On his first day in office, the president also issued a Memo on Transparency and Open Government, promising the administration’s commitment “to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government…to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.”  The memo promised that the executive branch would “disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.”  It also called for the creation of an Open Government Directive to guide agencies on how to implement increased transparency.

Contrast that robust and ambitious transparency agenda of four years ago with today. While we don’t know yet if he will be signing any executive orders, rest assured that if he does, none of them will be about making government more open and less corrupt. Indeed, while it is unlikely he will overtly backtrack on the lobbyist ban, many expect to see more waivers used to allow recent lobbyists to work for the White House.

On FOIA issues, some have argued that under Obama, agencies have gotten even less transparent, with agencies vigorously fighting FOIA requests instead of honoring them.

Day one of Obama’s second term won’t result in an Open Government Directive 2.0, even though the success of the first OGD were decidedly mixed.

Transparency and accountability are no less important than they were four years ago. We hope the president returns to these issues during his second term, if not on day one, then very soon afterwards.

by Cassandra LaRussa

Only 63% of information disclosed on lobbying reports were "properly reported and supported," according to a new Government Accountability Office audit. The March 2012 report surveyed lobbyist compliance with federal reporting requirements during 2011. According to the report, the major reasons for inaccurate disclosure reports included confusion regarding the definition of “lobbying activities” and the definitions of “covered positions.”

Although the majority of lobbyists surveyed indicated that lobbying reporting (LD-2) disclosure requirements were overall “easy” or “somewhat easy” to meet, some lobbyists interviewed indicated that they “were not sure when research and support activities become lobbying activities and therefore needed to be disclosed.” Others described confusion “as to whether congressional interns were considered covered positions and therefore need to be disclosed.” At least 11% of lobbyists in the study did not disclose previously held covered positions.

After the audit, 17 lobbying firms planned to amend and resubmit their LD-2 forms.

GAO reviewed a random sample of 100 LD-2 Forms, which lobbyists must file according to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007. After examining the LD-2 forms, GAO asked lobbyists to verify the reported information by providing supporting documents.

Although lobbyists are not required to keep this documentation on file, all lobbyists complied with the request and provided documents to support 93% of the disclosure reports. Last year, lobbyists selected for review were able to support 97% of their reports. Reasons for not providing supporting documentation included a lack of recordkeeping and situations in which lobbyists over-reported, and did not actually lobby during the time period in question.

The GAO study also looked at LD-203 forms, in which lobbyists disclose their federal campaign contributions. Only 86% of lobbyists in the study who were required to file an LD-203 actually did so. At least 4% omitted one or more political contributions that should have been reported.

There has only been one enforcement case brought by the Department of Justice since the enactment of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007. The GAO indicated that the US Attorney’s Office hired a new staff member in September 2010 specifically to handle lobbying compliance matters and developed a “top-ten list of noncompliant lobbyists” for closer investigation.

Photo credit [F]oxymoron

The Washington Post reported yesterday on new lobbyist regulations being proposed by the American League of Lobbyists. According to the report, ALL recommends eliminating the 20 percent loophole for lobbyists for hire. That would mean powerful stealth lobbyists like Tom Daschle, Newt Gingrich and Jon Corzine would have to register. ALL’s proposal would reduce the size of the loophole for in-house lobbyists, but just barely. It would allow lobbyists who work in-house to fly under the radar by claiming they spent less than 15 percent of their time lobbying. Sunlight has been advocating closing the 20 percent loophole for all lobbyists since before it was cool.

Sunlight’s position is simple. If you lobby, and you are paid to lobby, you should register to lobby. Twenty percent, fifteen percent, in house or not, it makes no difference.

Any carve out will be exploited, giving power players a way to hide their activities. Take Chris Dodd. The head of the Motion Picture Association of America is a former powerful senator who undoubtedly has the private numbers of many current members of Congress programmed into his cell phone. He’s not registered now, and there is no reason to think he would register simply because the threshold was lowered from 20 to 15 percent. Yet he has far more access and far more power than I, an outside lobbyist consultant to Sunlight, or the vast majority of lobbyists-for-hire could hope to have. Why give him a pass?

ALL is not the only group with a proposal to reform lobbying. The American Bar Association has a set of recommendations (that includes eliminating the 20 percent loophole, among other things), as of course, does Sunlight. Lobbying reform legislation has been introduced in Congress, and the President continues to talk about the issue. With all of the suggestions, ideas and competing (and overlapping) proposals, the time is ripe for Congress to take the issue of lobbying reform seriously. A start would be to hold hearings so that advocates could fully explain their positions and members of Congress could start to build a record and build a consensus for meaningful reform.

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.