The Office of Government Ethics took an important step towards greater transparency yesterday when they launched an improved system for online access to public financial disclosure reports.

The Sunlight Foundation has advocated for online access to personal financial disclosure reports for years. The House of Representatives started putting their reports online in 2008. The Senate and Judiciary do not provide online access to their reports.

The new system puts executive branch financial disclosure documents (SF 278 and OGE Form 278) in one place and simplifies the request and retrieval process. Requests for copies of certified public financial disclosure reports and Certificates of Divestiture for people nominated by the President to Senate confirmable executive branch positions can be submitted online, with access to results available in seconds. Ethics agreements and waivers are available on-demand and interested parties will not have to submit a formal request to view them.

In 2009 the White House began providing online access to SF 278 Request Forms. The move was an improvement over the old paper system, but the process was still time consuming and complicated. There was no central hub of documents. Instead, after a formal request was made the reports were located and sent via email. The new system represents a significant upgrade.

The information now available online covers individuals appointed after January 20, 2009. If you are looking for information prior to that date you will still need to submit a paper form, available on the OGE website.

We are happy that the executive branch is joining the House in making their reports readily available to the public. The Senate and Judiciary should join the Executive and House of Representatives and put their information online to ensure that the sun shines on financial disclosure reports across the government.

Policy Fellow Matt Rumsey wrote this post. 

In case you missed it, I wanted to share this message that Ellen Miller, our Executive Director, sent out this morning:

I wanted to take the time to thank you for your support of our work this year. This has been a big year for Sunlight, but an even bigger year for transparency. This year, Americans awakened to the realities of money, power and politics, and we’re proud of the work we’ve done to promote transparency as a fundamental value of the movement to restore democracy.

Rather than rattling off all the projects we’ve worked on this year, I’d like to share a video with you that highlights some of the amazing work being done by Sunlighters -- not just our staff, but also the amazing transparency activists we work with throughout the country and the world.

We’ve only come this far because of your support -- and I hope you’ll contribute today to help us continue shining sunlight to new horizons: sunlightfoundation.com/donate/2011

Thanks for all of your support, and from all of the Sunlight team, happy holidays!

Ellen S. Miller Executive Director Sunlight Foundation

P.S. -- In the spirit of some holiday fun, Sunlight Labs has created an interactive holiday game that I'd like to share with you. Play it here: http://sunlightfoundation.com/happyholidays/

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.

Policy Fellow Matt Rumsey wrote this post.

The Congressional Management Foundation announced its Golden Mouse Awards for the 112th Congress on October 23. The CMF began grading congressional websites in 2001 and announces the Golden Mouse Awards biannually to honor the best. Earlier this year, we conducted an investigation evaluating congressional committee websites.

Congressional websites have improved significantly since 2009, according to the  report. The most common grade jumped from an F up to a B between the 111th and 112th congresses. However, there is still room to grow in some significant areas. According to the report, many member websites "lack basic educational and transparency features." Alternatively, while members have been quick to utilize social media tools, committees have been slower to follow suit.

The CMF found that, when searching for information on their policy positions or votes, constituents look first at their member's websites. Despite this fact, many members have websites that do not provide useful information in a transparent way. For example, more than 40% of members do not post information about their votes, sponsored, or cosponsored bills. Additionally, 67% of member websites do not provide clear information directing constituents how to contact their member with casework requests.

In contrast,  most committees provide information expected by interested users in clear and readable formats. For instance, 90% of committees provide an archive of information on their hearings, and 78% have a video webcast feature. Committee websites lacked transparency in one major area- only 16% post information on individual legislators committee votes.

When it comes to social media adoption rates, the tables are somewhat turned. Individual members have taken to social media with gusto over the past two years, while committees are trailing behind. In 2009 only 21% of member websites linked to Facebook; that number is now 81%. Meanwhile, 71% of members link to a Twitter page and CMF found that 65% actively used the platform. Committees have been slower to adopt social media, with only 40% linking to Facebook and just 31% actively using Twitter.

During our own investigation, we found that, although there is wide variation in the quality of committee sites, there are some identifiable trends.

On the whole, House committee websites were superior to Senate sites. However, there was parity in certain areas. Both chambers lagged in making legislation, amendments, and markups available on their sites. Additionally, only four committees provided forms for whistleblowers to report issues. Like CMF, we found that committee sites had been slow to adopt social media, with the House being more advanced than the Senate. On the positive side,  every committee made it possible to view hearings online, although not all provided live webcasts.

The raw data from the investigation can be accessed here.

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.

That lobbyists are influencing Super Committee members is a “dog bites man” story. Corporate lobbyists are eager to earn their hefty retainers by convincing members to save their clients from the chopping block. The real news would be if the Super Committee members disclosed to the public the names of those lobbyists, the clients they represent, and which particular government programs, subsidies or grants the lobbyists want to save.

Sunlight has called for the Super Committee to adopt H.R. 2860, the Deficit Committee Transparency Act, a bill that would require Super Committee members to report, in real time, when they meet with special interests. We also called for Super Committee members to take the simple step of voluntarily reporting their meetings with special interests.

It’s disheartening, to put it mildly, that calls for Super Committee transparency have so far met with a collective shoulder shrug from the very members of the committee who have been given unprecedented power over the nation’s purse strings. Perhaps they are suffering from a raging case of hubris—believing themselves immune from the persuasive powers, not to mention campaign contributions, of corporate special interests. They have demonstrated a complete unwillingness to make their meetings with one another transparent. It is no wonder they want to keep their meetings with special interests secret as well.

But what about their colleagues—the 523 members of the House and Senate whose power was diminished the minute the Super Committee was convened? Why have the appropriations committee chairs and budget committee members, the fiscal hawks and the champions of the social safety net complacently allowed secrecy to become the modus operandi for the Super Committee? They should be outraged that the Super Committee is doing its work behind closed doors. But instead of demanding accountability from their colleagues, they are quietly acquiescing. Only five members of the House have cosponsored the Deficit Committee Transparency Act, and not a single senator has stepped up to even offer the bill in the Senate.

Perhaps they don’t want to offend their colleagues on the Super Committee. Perhaps they hope, if the Super Committee model becomes the norm, to someday also wield extraordinary power in the dark. Or perhaps they are so accustomed to the way Washington does business—with corporate, moneyed special interests having access and influence while the rest of us are shut out of the process—that they don’t even recognize the problem.

It’s time they open their eyes. Members of the House should cosponsor H.R. 2860. Members of the Senate who claim to believe in transparency should introduce the bill. All should call on Super Committee members to demonstrate responsibility and accountability and disclose every meeting they or their staff take on super committee issues.

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

By policy interns Jacob Hutt and Eric Dunn

This is the third in a series of blog posts about congressional committee websites. For an overview of committee websites, see our first and second posts.

Social media and news releases are powerful examples of how technology can link citizens and elected officials. Congressional committees should publish informative content on their websites, but they should also make this content clear and accessible so that people can understand it. In this post, we take a look at how congressional committees make their websites work for constituents by releasing publications, reaching out to whistleblowers, and taking advantage of social media.

Publications

We looked at committee websites to see if they displayed reports from the committee, Congressional Research Service reports on committee-related material, the rules of the committee, or a comprehensive committee oversight plan.

The House Budget Committee was an exemplar of what we hoped to find.  The website featured reports on its Laws and Rules page, information about how the federal budget process works, and a glossary of budget terms provided by the GAO. These are excellent tools that highlight how access to these types of publications can make committee websites more effective.

Another committee that stood out was the House Committee on Education & the Workforce, which included fact sheets on pending legislation in the committee. Notably absent from almost every other committee website, fact sheets are a great resource for constituents looking for a way to digest legislation. Unfortunately, generally speaking, non-committee legislative publications (CRS reports, memoranda, GAO reports, etc.) are difficult to find on committee websites.

The Best: House Committee on the Budget and House Committee on Education & the Workforce

Whistleblowers

Congressional committees should give constituents the opportunity to participate in government and provide a secure way for whistleblowers to report fraud and abuse. Only four committees offer forms for whistleblowers to report waste, fraud and abuse on their websites: the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the House Committee on Financial Services, the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. All four forms remind whistleblowers that their information will be kept in confidence.

Social Media

New media is a crucial way for representatives to keep the public quickly informed and fully engaged. We traced six different types of media on committee websites: a blog, a Facebook account, a Twitter account, a photo gallery, a podcast link, and an RSS feed/email list.

The House Armed Services Committee is one example of social media done well. Links to the committee’s Twitter and Facebook pages appear at the top of their website. A member of the public tuned into their Twitter feed or Facebook page would have easy access to all types of information. The pages are updated every few hours with legislative activity, links to live streams of hearings, and other committee news.

The House Ways and Means Committee also stood out for its unique use of media - including a podcast and Youtube channel - to connect constituents with the work it is doing.

Other websites haven’t quite found their way into the 21st century. The Senate Armed Services website is a prime example of a website that serves an important government function but makes it difficult for constituents to find social media pages.

The Best: House Armed Services Committee

Committees By the Numbers

• 14 of 21 House committees have a Facebook page, compared to just 2 of 20 Senate committees.
• 18  House committees have a Twitter feed; just 2 Senate committees have one.
• 5 House committee websites have a regularly updated blog. The Senate has none.
• Just 4 committees make documents available in non-PDF formats.
• Only 9 House committee pages featured links to a comprehensive oversight plan (as required by the rules).

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group released a score card that gave Connecticut an F in spending transparency. The score card based its ranking on the state's Checkbook-level website which contained vendor's estimates of goods and services, but not actual payments they received.  A look at the implementation of their Economic Development Incentives and Grants program, showed that there was detailed information on recipient-specific grants that allowed a visitor to determine the purpose of the specific expenditure, but there was no information that allows a visitor to determine the purpose of the program or information on economic development incentives. It is therefore noteworthy that Connecticut took the research group's advice and created a website to show how they are using the tax payers' money.

• An official website with down-loadable data containing Connecticut’s spending has been launched. TransparencyCT.gov shows total expenditures by account, fund and line item for each fiscal year. Last year, the state’s then Governor, Jodi Rell, signed legislation that would enable the creation of a searchable state budget database. A year later, Brian Lockhart writes that now the remaining challenge is to meet the deadlines for submitting data for this website. For more, check out Political Capitol.

• Concerned lawmakers are planning to introduce legislation that will cut down on the secrecy in Ohio’s government. Sparked by the blatant disregard of public meetings laws and lobbyists who are now writing legislative language, the lawmakers are drafting HB 113 and HB 294 which will respectively, give taxpayers a right to know and specify any form of communication between lobbyists and legislators, as a meeting.  However,Trent Dougherty is proposing a more definitive solution -- which is to create a Statehouse Accountability and Public Empowerment Act. Read on about the Act which could provide for more openness through the use of technology on Ohio Environmental Law Center.

• Wisconsin has introduced a proposal that could amend their constitution and open meetings law. The proposal will close a loophole that currently allows legislators to violate open meetings laws by not providing (enough) public notice of a meeting. Created by House Rep. Jon Richards and Peter BarcaIt, the amendment if approved will also make legislators subject to citations and civil penalties for violating the law. Mark Piper contacted the office of the Assembly Speaker, to find out what he thought about the proposal but he got no response. How is this affecting transparency? Read more as he predicts the states sunshine laws on Love is a Verb.

• Liberty Leaders -- a project of Illinois Policy Institute --  has developed a checklist to help residents in Bureau county, Illinois to access the county’s financial information. The 10 point transparency checklist identifies lobbying, budget and public records  as some of the information a county website should provide. Mark Cavers is showing how citizens can rally for more transparency using the checklist on Liberty Leaders.

By policy interns Jacob Hutt and Eric Dunn

This is the second in a series of blog posts about congressional committee websites. You can see our first post here and our final post here.

In our last post, we reviewed how well committees made their inner workings publicly available. In this post, we look at their pages for hearings, subcommittees, legislation, and ethics disclosure.

Legislation and Markups

It is crucial that bill markups and draft legislation be available online prior to consideration. Committee pages on legislation and markups should include the legislation that was referred to the committee, drafts of legislation, the chairman’s mark, amendments, a summary of amendments, any votes on amendments, and the committee report on the legislation. In general, both House and Senate committees could do a much better job of this.

There were highlights, however: the House Rules Committee features an “Active Bills” page that shows a real-time list of actions taken on a specific pieces of legislation, including the time the bill will reach the floor. The House Natural Resources Committee provides a page for every piece of legislation with a summary, a link to the full text and markup progress, and relevant hearings on the legislation. And the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources has individual pages for significant legislation passed, such as the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and the American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009. But these were exceptions to the rule. Most committees did not make this information available.

The Best: the House Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Hearings

On hearing pages, we expected live broadcasts of the hearings, indications of the type of hearing taking place, a list of witnesses, witness testimony, documents submitted to the committee, and a transcript of the hearing. We were pleased to see that all committees make it possible to view hearings online. However, we did not evaluate the extent to which live hearings are made available (all hearings available vs. a few  hearings available), which has been a problem for some committees, such as the House Appropriations Committee.

That said, there were clear differences among committees: some advertised their hearings very well (the House Natural Resources Committee); some were a bit difficult to navigate once on the hearings page (the House Judiciary Committee); and some included information that helped users orient themselves on the issues of a specific hearing (the House Energy & Commerce Committee website has background memos on each of the hearing pages).

The Best: The House Energy & Commerce Committee

Subcommittees

Although certain committees do their work as a full committee, most hold hearings and debate legislation in subcommittees. We listed many standards for subcommittee pages, suggesting that they should offer the same content as a normal committee page: links to live hearings, copies of witness testimony, legislation the subcommittee was considering, minority leadership information, and more.

We found the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee to be a perfect model for subcommittee pages. They include relevant legislation, resources for veterans, membership information, and jurisdiction. Most of the subcommittee coverage was similar to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s page, which meets many but not all of the recommendations we made for subcommittee pages. By contrast, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and its subcommittee page had almost no substantive information on their subcommittees.

The Best: The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee

Ethics Disclosure

One of the hallmarks of transparency is ethics disclosure, whether it is members disclosing their personal incomes or committees disclosing earmark requests by certain members. This was rarely featured on committee websites. We found two exceptions: the Senate Appropriations Committee, which has personal financial disclosure records available for every member of the committee next to their name; and the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee, which identifies specific earmarks that each committee member has requested. (The committee has not updated this information since the House of Representatives imposed a moratorium on earmarks, even though earmarks have continued in a different guise.)

In addition to these committee-specific disclosure efforts, the House Committee on Administration posts monthly financial reports that committees are required to file with the House Committee on Administration. Beyond these required reports, committees should post members’ financial records, as the Senate Appropriations committee has done.

The Best: Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee

Many committees, particularly in the Senate, have work to do in enhancing their content, specifically in the legislative area. More websites need comprehensive legislative webpages where citizens can view the changes made to a bill before it becomes a law. While committees are making good progress on these websites, we hope that as they continue to publish substantive material onto the web, they will remember the need for both accessibility and ease-of-use in publishing this material.