The congressional debt committee, commonly referred to as the super committee, has been a popular topic in the news since it was created by the Budget Control Act of 2011. We have been tracking lobbyist ties and campaign contributions to members of the committee since August. The Washington Post published an interesting report in early September announcing that many of the super committee members had ties to lobbyists. The Washington Post article uses GE as a case study to discuss the almost 100 registered lobbyists who are former employees of super committee members and are now "representing defense companies, health-care conglomerates, Wall Street banks and others with a vested interest in the outcome of the panel's work." While this article involved some heavy duty investigative journalism, many of its major claims can be substantiated by publicly available data. The article states that Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) "has employed more than a dozen currently registered lobbyists." The Center for Responsive Politics' "Revolving Door" tool allows investigators to search for individuals by former employee or by former employer. A search for "Murray, Patty" as "employment" returns 18 people who have formerly worked for the senator. Clicking on an individual record shows the individual's former position as well as their new employer and title. Digging into the 18 people returned by the initial search gives us 16 former Murray staffers who may currently be working as lobbyists. (See the end of this post for a full breakdown of the 16.)

1. Douglas Clapp, a former Aide to Murray, now works as the director of Washington state's Washington, DC office.
2. Rick Desimone, Murray's former Chief of Staff and former Vice Chair and Chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, is now an Executive Vice President at McBee Strategic Consulting.
3. Carrie Desmond, a former Legislative Assistant to Murray, now works at Lockheed Martin's Washington Operations organization.
4. Christy Gullion, a former Northwestern Regional Director for Murray, now works as chief federal lobbyist for the University of Washington.
5. Shay Michael Hancock, a former Legislative Assistant to Murray, is now a Senior Vice President at the lobbying firm Denny Miller Associates.
6. James Jones, Murray's former Speechwriter (as well as Sen. John Kerry's former Communications Director), now works as a Manager of Integrated Communications at Exxon Mobil.
7. Joy Langley, a former Legislative Assistant to Murray, now works as the Assistant Director of Government Affairs at J Street.
8. Dale Learn, a former Senior Legislative Assistant to Murray, is now the President of Gordon Thomas Honeywell's Governmental Affairs.
9. Justin LeBlanc, former Senior Staffer to Murray, is now the President of LeBlanc Government Relations.
10. Eric Masten, former Legislative Assistant to Murray, now works as a Public Policy Associate at the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.
11. Ben Lee McMakin, former Legislative Director to Murray, is now the Managing Director of Government Issues at Van Ness Feldman.
12. Heather Meade, former Deputy Scheduler/Assistant to the Chief of Staff for Murray, is now the Senior Manager at Washington Council Ernst & Young.
13. Nate Potter, former LA to Murray, is now a Federal Affairs Consultant for Gordon Thomas Honeywell.
14. Casey Sixkiller, former Policy Advisor to Murray, is now a Senior Advisor at SNR Denton's Indian Law and Tribal Representation practice.
15. Karen Waters, Murray's former Deputy State Director, is now a Senior Vice President at Strategies 360.
16. Todd Webster, Murray's former Communications Director, launched his own strategic communications firm, Webster Strategies.

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"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.

It seems the Obama administration has decided the time has come to once again flex its ethics muscles. The Office of Government Ethics announced rules that would extend a lobbyist gift ban to all government employees. The Office of Management and Budget issued guidelines to executive branch agencies to prohibit them from allowing lobbyists to sit on federal boards and commissions.

Generally, we like to applaud the administration for making strides to address influence peddling in Washington, but there comes a point where baby steps simply aren’t big enough to reach the heights necessary to really clean up Washington.

It is long past time for this administration to stop focusing on the low-hanging fruit and take the initiative to address the real and dangerous avenues of influence in our political system. Where should they start? How about with a long dormant executive order that would disclose hidden money given by federal contractors to influence elections? The administration has had ready, since at least April, an executive order that would require disclosure of dark money contributions funneled through shadow campaign organizations. The Chamber of Commerce and its allies in Congress objected to the draft executive order when it was leaked and the administration seems to have given up on it.

And where is the president on the opaque Super Committee? When he signed the law (negotiated in secret) creating the powerful deficit cutting committee, he failed at the time to insist that the bill include a single provision requiring the committee to operate in the sunlight. Now that there are legislative proposals that would correct that omission by requiring disclosure of campaign contributions and special interest lobbying meetings, the administration has remained silent rather than encouraging speedy passage of the law by Congress.

Finally, there is the whole new specter of unlimited secret corporate money infiltrating elections as a result of the Citizens United. The president came out forcefully against the decision. But when the DISCLOSE Act died in Congress, the administration did not come out in support of a streamlined disclosure-only bill. In fact, just the opposite. Administration cohorts and allies started up their own super PAC to solicit funds from the deepest pockets to pay for ads designed to help with the president’s re-election.

That’s what the administration hasn’t done to address dark money in politics. So what about what it is doing? Are the baby steps going to make a difference? Maybe. But we have to ask whether transparency wouldn’t be a less draconian, more effective way of addressing potential avenues of influence in the executive branch. For example, rather than banning lobbyists from federal boards and commissions, while still permitting bank CEOs, oil executives and labor bosses to sit on those boards, wouldn’t it be better if there were more disclosure of myriad financial interests of everyone on a federal advisory board? And on that OGE gift ban, will non-lobbyist lobbyists be able to make their case while nibbling finger food at conferences with executive branch employees, while lobbyists who register and report are shut out of the process? And while we are at it, does the administration think so little of its executive branch employees that it believes they can be bought for the price of a cheese square on a toothpick and a glass of cheap chardonnay?

The administration’s baby steps would look less like cynical ploy to appear strong on ethics if they were coupled with at least some effort to acknowledge the big picture and the big money that is infecting our political process. It’s time for the administration to grow up.

Like many organizers, I’ve been following the #occupywallstreet movement for a while. Last weekend, I was planning to head up to New York to see what it was all about when I learned that it was spreading and had already arrived in Washington. #OccupyDC started sometime Friday night with around six people. When I showed up on Saturday morning to check it out, there were over a hundred people there, and I’ve been back every day since to watch it grow.

As an organizer, this has been an incredibly cool movement to watch. As a transparency advocate, it’s been even better: Occupy DC, also known as @occupykst, is a grassroots movement that is seriously talking about the overwhelming power of powerful special interests, lobbyists, and money in our political system. In fact, they’re occupying McPherson square -- on K Street and only steps from some of the most powerful lobbying firms in the country.

So this weekend, Sunlight’s going to be heading over to the Occupation to do a teach-in on following the money in politics. We’ll be talking about lobbying firms, banks and investment banks data, Super PACs and how money works in the post-Citizens United world, and the nonstop party of political fundraising.

Want to join us? We’ll be there at 3pm on Sunday, October 9th.

What: Teach in at #occupydc on following the money in politics Where: McPherson Square When: Sunday, 3pm

Part of #OccupyDC and want us to cover anything in particular at the teach-in? Leave it in the comments.

Just a quick note for those who might be confused: While they have, for the last few days, shared a hashtag on twitter, the #Occupy group I'm referring to is not the same as the group currently occupying Freedom Plaza. That was a separately organized event that's been in the planning for months, and while there's many activists that have been trying to show support for both, the Freedom Plaza "Stop the Machine" rally appears to be focused on issues a bit different from the K Street group or Sunlight.

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

Yesterday it was reported that a former Member of Congress, Ernest Istook, was seen on the House floor asking his colleagues to oppose the Boehner debt ceiling legislation. It seems that Istook, though clearly “lobbying” by anyone’s sense of the word, did not violate a House Rule that prohibits former members who are lobbyists from access to the floor.

The reason Istook can use his clout, his friendships with current House members, and the resources of the Heritage Foundation—where he is currently employed—to sidle up to lawmakers and ask for their support, is because he is not a registered lobbyist. A current gaping loophole in the law provides that anyone who spends less than 20 percent of his time lobbying does not need to register and report his activities. In the case if former members, the loophole also allows them to continue to access their colleagues on the floor of the House, the House gym and other exclusive venues limited to current and former lawmakers.

On a day when average citizens couldn’t reach their members of Congress because phone lines were overwhelmed and web sites crashed, it is particularly galling that former members, the ultimate Washington insiders, have such direct and immediate access.

Sunlight supports legislation, HR 2339, the Lobbying Disclosure Enhancement Act, that would end stealth lobbying by closing the 20 percent loophole. In addition, the bill would require that all lobbyists report the names of the individual members with whom they are meeting so that we know who our elected officials are talking to, and about what.

Is the federal government getting biased advice from its advisory committees? Concerns about skewed advice and conflicts-of-interest prompted President Obama's September 2009 order banning lobbyists from executive-branch federal advisory committees and remedial legislation last Congress. No legislation was ultimately enacted, and the president's order barely scratched the surface of the issue.

A recent CRS report explains how advisory committees give advice to the government on a wide variety of issues and often help the government manage and solve complex or divisive issues. During FY 2010 there were 1,004 active committees with a total of 74,336 members, with total operating costs of around $400m. The committees are intended to gather and explore viewpoints from business, academic, governmental, and other interests.

Concerns about skewed advice led to the introduction of the Federal Advisory Committee Act Amendments of 2010, which passed the House unanimously but was not considered by the Senate. That bill was reintroduced this Congress by Rep. Cummings as part of the Transparency and Openness in Government Act, and appears to be co-sponsored by all the democratic members of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Committee Chairman Issa has already publicly stated his willingness to hold a hearing on that bill -- the part of it that concern Federal Advisory Committees -- although a date has not yet been announced.

The proposed legislation has a number of good ideas.

• It significantly increases transparency about committee activities. As a general, 15 days prior to each meeting -- but no later than 48 hours in advance -- information about committee activities must be posted online, including how members are chosen, a list of current members, any member recusal agreements, a summary of how the committee makes decisions, notices of upcoming meetings, and a statement indicating when a meeting is closed to the public and the reason why. Transcripts or recordings of committee proceedings must be published online within 30 days of the meeting.
• It extends all advisory committee disclosure rules to subcommittees (and privately contracted committees) with the same force that they apply to the full committee. This way, committee work won't be shunted to subcommittees in an effort to avoid disclosure requirements.
• It allows the public to suggest who should serve as a committee member, so that the usual suspects aren't named to the board again and again.
• It closes a loophole that allowed government officials serving on the board to avoid making ethics disclosures.
• It requires people who regularly attend, participate, and otherwise act like committee members (except that they do not vote) be considered as committee members, and thus subject to committee disclosure rules.
• It provides for oversight of the committees by the Comptroller General, who must publish annual reports on the committees.
• It requires committee members to be selected without regard to partisan affiliation

These improvements go a long way towards making the advisory committee more open. We have additional suggestions.

• All information made available on the Internet shall be done so by state-of-the-art methods and in open formats. Information published online should be in user-friendly formats that machines can automatically gather for analysis.
• There should be a publicly-available online calendar that identifies all upcoming advisory committee meetings, and contains basic information about those meetings. The calendar should link to each committee's agenda.
• All information made available to the public (whether on the internet or otherwise) should be at no cost. Committees should not be able to charge for transcripts or other documents.
• Documents submitted to the Advisory Committee shall be made publicly available unless the Advisory Committee determines that those materials would disclose matters described in the FOIA exemptions listed in section 552(b) of title 5, United States Code. That determination should be appealable, and there should be a publicly-available summary of the contents at the time the materials are submitted.
• In addition to listing the names of its committee members, each committee should also make available brief biographies of its members.
• All members of each advisory committee shall file financial disclosure forms, which shall be made available on the committee website after redactions to remove personally identifiable information, such as social security numbers. This will help determine if there is a conflict of (financial) interest.
• All members of the Advisory Committee should declare and publicly disclose conflicts of interest. These statements must be updated whenever new conflicts arise or on an annual basis, whichever is more frequent. These disclosures shall be placed on the Internet. There should be random reviews to ensure that all proper disclosures are filed.
• The FACA main website should be updated and reworked. It's design is pretty bad.
• The underlying data behind the FACA database should continue to be made publicly available in a bulk format. For example, here's the raw file of members through 2008.

Federal advisory committees are a major way that the government gets advice from members of the public, especially expert advice. We need to make sure that the advice is not tainted by hidden agendas and reflects the best analysis available.

Representatives Quigley and Polis took a significant step toward improving what we know about Washington power players by introducing the Lobbyist Disclosure Enhancement Act today. The bill would require lobbyists to disclose the names of the covered executive branch officials or Members of Congress lobbied (or the name of the employer if the lobbyist meets with staff), the dates of the meetings and the issues discussed. If enacted, speculation about what lobbyists are doing would be replaced with facts contained in databases of lobbying information. The public would have access to answers to questions about lobbying including: Who was the target of the lobbying? What did the lobbyists discuss? When did the lobbying contact take place?

The legislation also closes a gaping hole in who needs to report. Currently, some of the most powerful players inside the beltway are subject to zero disclosure. Former members of Congress such as Tom Daschle and Norm Colman, CEOs of major corporations like Jeffrey Kindler of Pfizer, and labor leaders such as SEIU’s Andy Stern have significantly more political and financial pull in Congress than many of the mom and pop lobby shops that must report. Yet, because the law says reporting is only necessary if a lobbyist spends more than 20 percent of her time lobbying for any particular client, the public is completely in the dark about many of these "stealth lobbyists" who wield tremendous influence.

The Quigley bill rightly eliminates that loophole. Bravely too, as many of the Congressman’s colleagues might decide to further their careers by becoming “policy advisors” in Washington law firms or lobby shops. Nearly 200 former members have chosen this lucrative path and many rely on the 20 percent loophole to avoid disclosure.

The bill also significantly speeds disclosure of new registrations and reduces delays in reporting of lobbyists’ contributions. Instead the current 45-day lag time for filing a registration when a lobbyist takes on a new client, the bill requires registration within 5 days. This nearly real time, online reporting will hasten public access of information that can be a vital clue as to what issues are trending in Congress and what companies or industries might be facing congressional scrutiny. Under the bill, reporting of contributions lobbyists make to candidates will occur quarterly instead of semi-annually. This aligns contribution reports with required quarterly reporting of lobbyists’ activities, improving the ability to track when lobbyists’ contributions amplify their requests for help from Members of Congress. (Sunlight would go even farther than the Quigley bill and require real time reporting of contributions and lobbying activity to eliminate the risk of the barn door being closed after the cows have escaped.)

Finally, the bill tries to impose some order on the wild west of lobbying disclosure by creating new enforcement mechanisms, including random audits and, eventually, an online whistleblower provision to ensure that lobbyists are accurately registering and reporting.

This is an important piece of legislation. Following the actions of lobbyists by making their work more transparent is one way to track influence and ensure accountability inside the beltway. Improved disclosures will also improve the dialogue in Congress by ensuring that voters can react and respond to the arguments their representatives are hearing from lobbyists. If a voter sees that her Congressman has met with a lobbyist whose views she opposes, she can contact the Congressman's office to make sure her viewpoints are heard, too.

Follow the progress of this bill as well as Sunlight’s work on it by checking in here or following the hashtag #openlobby on Twitter.

Lobbyist Disclosure Enhancement Act

They’re at it again. Members of Congress who give lip service to transparency and accountability go out of their way to keep political spending in the dark. First they block the DISCLOSE Act, a reasonable—if not perfect—response to the Supreme Court’s devastating Citizens United decision. This time, Senators Collins and Portman are the culprits behind an attempt to amend the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (S. 981) in a way that would prevent potential federal contractors from disclosing political expenditures.

Senators Collins and Portman are taking this step in response to a draft Executive Order that would impose transparency on the federal contracting system. Whether their point is to bully the President into not issuing the EO or to protect their campaign contributors if he does, the result is still the same: Millions of dollars of political spending by military contractors will be known to elected officials, but not to the public.

Among the myriad dire consequences of the Citizens United decision, among the most worrisome is the tool lobbyists now have to threaten to use secret campaign spending against members who do not do their bidding. The draft Executive Order is an effort to address this problem. We urge members of the Armed Services Committee to defeat this amendment and take a stand against secrecy and pay to play rules that are anathema to a transparent and accountable system of federal contracting.

On the intersection of K Street and Wall Street lies the burgeoning “political intelligence” industry, where lobbyists, advisors and other DC insiders use their campaign contributions, connections and clout not to shape legislation, but to make investment decisions. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, H.R. 1148, introduced by Representatives Walz and Slaughter would shed some light on political intelligence activities by requiring firms that specialize in gathering nonpublic information from Hill sources to register with the House and Senate, as lobbying firms are required to do. The bill also creates rules to tamp down the occurrence of insider trading by members of Congress.

It’s no wonder that savvy investors at hedge funds look to Washington insiders to help them decide to buy or sell stocks. Will a bankruptcy bill help or hurt credit card companies? Will offshore oil drilling be allowed? Will legislation to address antitrust claims be introduced? Is the pharmaceutical industry going to face new regulations? What Congress does matters very much to the business world, and early, nonpublic information about the way Congress will impact any business or industry can lead to huge profits for investors.

The political intelligence industry relies on remaining in the shadows. The website for one firm that specializes in political intelligence notes,

Our political intelligence operation differs from standard 'lobbying' in that the OSINT Group is not looking to influence legislation on behalf of clients, but rather provide unique 'monitoring' of information through our personal relationships between lawmakers, staffers, and lobbyists working the K Street - Pennsylvania Avenue corridor. Providing this service for clients who do not want their interest in an issue publicly known is an activity that does not need to be reported under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA), thus providing an additional layer of confidentiality for our clients.

If the STOCK Act passes, the “additional layer of confidentiality” will disappear, helping to ensure that insider information is not driving investment decisions for a few, leaving the rest of us in the dark.

In the most recent, and possibly most repugnant, turn of the revolving door, FCC commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker will join Comcast just months after approving the Comcast/NBC Universal merger. The move spurred the New York Times to call for expanding the definition of lobbying. We agree. While Baker’s hiring may be a done deal, the lobby laws need to be changed so that we know who she is lobbying, about what, and when.

Rules put in place by the Obama administration mean that Baker will not be allowed to lobby anyone at the FCC for two years. That’s a sliver of an exclusion that leaves her plenty of opportunities to spread the Comcast/NBC message inside the beltway. The day after she starts, this well-connected, high-ranking administration official can start lobbying Congress on any issue, including the Comcast/NBC merger.

The current laws do next to nothing to inform the public about the ways Baker will wield her power on Capitol Hill. Sunlight is calling for changes in the current Lobbying Disclosure Act that would require her and others like her to report the names of the offices she lobbies—whether in person, on the phone, in writing or email—and link the names with the specific issues on which she sought government action. We would require that reporting to happen in real time and online.

We may not be able to close the revolving door, but we can find out what happens whenever people pass through it.