Sunlight Foundation

Change Congress Conducts a Survey

Our friends at Change Congress have asked their members and supporters to take a survey to help them decide what they should be focused on for the coming year. And a number of questions they asked dealt with government transparency: Are earmarks fundamentally wrong or just need to be more open and transparent to the public? What's one thing that would create a more open and transparent government? And finally, should lobbyists have a role in government? All good questions.

Japhet Els, Change Congress' political director, lists some of the responses they have received. Regarding earmarks:, "I believe that if earmarks are going to exist, they ought to be transparent." Another, "Nothing is 100% wrong or right. Earmarks have their use and full and timely transparency should check abuses." We agree with these sentiments. That's why we worked with our friends at Taxpayers for Common Sense to create Earmark Watch, where we've placed over 3,000 earmarks online, and ask citizens to research them.

Regarding reforms to foster transparency, one respondent wrote, "All info must be available on the web within a short time." That's a great idea. Since Sunlight's founding in the spring of 2006, this is what we've been doing. We have assembled and funded an array of web-based databases and tools including OpenCongress.org, Congresspedia.org, FedSpending.org, OpenSecrets.org, Public Markup and others. These sites make millions of bits of information available online about the members of Congress, their staff, legislation, federal spending and lobbyists. Regarding transparency, another person wrote, "I would suggest a daily e-mail to all constituents listing the complete activity of an elected official the day before." Again, we agree. That's why we built Punch Clock Campaign, where we've asked all candidates for congressional office - challengers and incumbents - to promise, if elected, to post their daily schedules on the Internet. Lawmakers who agree to share their schedules, including who they've met with and why, show that they are responsive, open, transparent and above all accountable, leading to greater public trust. Regarding lobbyists: "This is a tough one. Our democracy and principle of freedom of speech pretty much demands that we not eliminate lobbying altogether. At the same time, it badly needs reform. Don't have a clue how to approach that reform." Here's an idea, total transparency, where every lobbyist visiting a member of Congress or the executive branch to influence government policy or vote should be required to register online about the meeting with all sorts of relevant details about the meeting. The listing should include the name of the lobbyist, who he or she represents, the amount the client pays the lobbyist, the meeting's purpose, a listing of specific policy or bills discussed, what the lobbyist is asking the official to do, and a list of campaign contributions made by the lobbyists and the client. The transparency provided would go along way to prevent lobbying abuses.

Transparent Lawmakers Win

In January of 2007, freshman Democratic congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand became the first member of the House of Representatives to post her daily schedule on her official web site, a historic step for transparency in Congress. At the time, many feared that this level of transparency would harm her reelection prospects in a mostly Republican district. Those fears turned out to be wrong. Last night, every non-retiring candidate posting their daily schedule online was reelected to Congress, proving that transparency does not harm electoral prospects.

Since Rep. Gillibrand’s daily schedule went online, eight other lawmakers (including Sen. Jon Tester, the first senator to post a daily schedule) began posting daily schedules - you can view a map of their meetings here. They include Reps. John Doolittle, Dennis Rehberg, Kathy Castor, Jan Schakowsky, and John Yarmuth and Sens. Tester, Max Baucus, and Bill Nelson. Of these lawmakers, Rep. Doolittle retired and Sens. Tester and Nelson were not up for reelection. Reps. Rehberg, Castor, Schakowsky, and Yarmuth and Sen. Baucus all joined Rep. Gillibrand in winning reelection.

From her first day, Rep. Gillibrand has been a leader on operating a unilaterally transparent congressional office. Aside from posting her daily schedule, she was among the first lawmakers to post on her web site a list of her earmark requests and her personal financial disclosure. Since then, unilateral transparency (the disclosure of information not required by laws or congressional rules) has become much more prevalent throughout the House and Senate.

Today, over forty lawmakers disclose their earmark requests to some degree, while dozens more provide some lesser form of earmark disclosure. Others post their personal financial disclosures and travel reports.

The movement towards transparency continues unabated. The proven ability of transparent lawmakers to win reelection provides further space for more lawmakers to operate in an open and transparent manner.

Sunlight North

True democratic government depends on citizens being able to monitor and participate in the actions and activities of their government.  And this is not only true in our country, obviously. Just like Sunlight, My Society in the UK and VisibleGovernment.ca in Canada are applying Web 2.0 tools to facilitate openness and transparency in their governments.

Jennifer Bell, VisibleGovernment.ca's director, learned of Change Congress' national movement to end corruption in Congress. Specifically, Jennifer was impressed by Change Congress asking congressional candidates to make four simple commitments: No money from lobbyists or PACs; vote to end earmarks; support reform to increase congressional transparency; support publicly-financed campaigns. So inspired, her organization has launched I Believe In Open .ca where they are asking candidates to agree to five commitments: Support reforms that increase government transparency and accountability; make campaign promises specific and measurable, and report progress on promises and their metrics at least semi-annually; publish the content of his or her daily schedule (quite similar to our Punch Clock Campaign), including meetings with lobbyists and special interest groups; support reforms allowing free access to scientific and survey data gathered by government institution; and support reforms that make it easier for Canadians to obtain government information they have a right to know.

You can read a good article about VisibleGovernment.ca's campaign in The Epoch Times, which reports as of October 7, 274 voters and 111 candidates across Canada have signed up.  The newspaper quotes Jennifer advocating for the creation of "tools outside of government that give a window on what's happening inside, and provide incentive and visibility for [government] to modernize their (information technology) systems."

Montana Leads in Openness and So can Yours (if you ask)

Since its launch, on Tuesday, the Punch Clock Map has gotten some excellent support. The one of note is this editorial in Montana's Helena Independent Record:

Delegation leads in openness
By IR staff - 12/13/07
Naively, no doubt, we were hoping that the Montana congressional delegation’s practice of posting their daily schedules on the Internet might catch on in Washington.

After all, it’s an easy way for members of Congress to show their commitment to transparency in government and maybe even help repair that institution’s tattered image.

No such luck. A national watchdog organization called the Sunlight Foundation recently applauded U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and Sen. Max Baucus and U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg for being among only eight of the 535 members of Congress to post their schedules.

A foundation spokeswoman said congressional members often say they don’t want to reveal their schedules for reasons of security. That’s a particularly lame excuse. All they need to do is post their scheduled a day late, as the Montana delegation does. Yesterday’s schedule isn’t of much help to any bad guys lurking out there. The real reason so few are willing to make their schedules public is that they probably fear political operatives will be poring over their itineraries, searching for any ammo they can find for future attacks.
Read more

Sen. Max Baucus Punches the Clock!

Today we were alerted to the very impressive schedule from Montana Senator Max Baucus. Now for the first time Montana citizens know who all of their members of Congress are meeting with. I have to say Sen. Baucus has done the right thing by his constituents.

This could not have happened without the dedication of the Montana blogging community; especially Don Pogreba from Intelligent Discontent and Jay Stevens and Matt Singer from Left in the West. Montana bloggers understand that openness and transparency are worth fighting for as practices that are important for elected officials to embrace.

Montana is currently the only state whose entire congressional delegation posts a daily schedule. Constituents can now track the meetings of both Senators and their representative to make sure that they are working hard for Montana.

Congratulations, this is a great day for Montana - and for transparency.
Read more

“How About it Max?”

With the advent of Rep. Rehberg (MT) posting his schedule to his official congressional Web site, Montana bloggers and newspapers have asked if Sen. Baucus would join his fellow lawmakers and post his schedule, as well. Lawmakers who agree to share their schedule show that they’re responsive, open, transparent and above all accountable to their constituents. When citizens can find out who has the ears of their lawmakers they can fairly determine if those lawmakers are making fair decisions. The information is vital to a strong democracy because it allows, for the first time, a voter to engage in the daily life of their elected official. The Montana Standard agrees -- on Sunday they printed an editorial making the point that

With just three people representing the fourth largest state in the country, our congressional delegation already faces a great challenge in trying to stay in touch with Montanans, and this one relatively easy way to keep people in the loop.
Given the distance between Washington DC and Montana it could be frustrating to a Montanan to feel connected to their representative. But, with a schedule, people know that members of Congress are, in fact, meeting with people in the district and keeping those needs in mind daily. Bloggers are also asking, Don Pogreba’s blog Intelligent Discontent
It's time for Senator Max Baucus to do the right thing. Following the lead of Senator Tester and Representative Rehberg, it's time for Max to start telling Montana voters how he spends his days in Washington.
and Jay Steven’s Left in the West "So you know what this means! Max Baucus is the only Montana federal-level representative hiding his business behind a cloud."

The value of a daily available schedule is not lost and constituents actually see the value and want to see all their Representatives do the right thing. We have seen the power that Montana Bloggers have in demanding accountability from their elected officials, and I am confident that Sen. Baucus will do the right thing by his constituents. There’s hope he’s already considering it. Today, the Billings Gazette published an editorial citing, Sen. Baucus’ spokesperson, Barrett Kaiser stating “…said last week that the senator is considering posting his schedule.”

Read more

Rep. Dennis Rehberg Punches In!

Rep. Dennis Rehberg is the 7th Member of Congress (and the second from Montana) to put a daily schedule online. Montana freshman, Sen. Jon Tester, made a campaign promise to post his schedule and he has been posting it since the beginning of his term. The existence of Tester’s schedule prompted the Helena Independent Record to ask Rep. Rehberg and Sen. Baucus if they were thinking of posting one also. Rehberg’s spokesman said his schedule was available to anyone who called his office and asked but when bloggers decided to take him up on that offer they found out that his schedule was available only if you were in Washington (more responses here). Later, an article in the Missoula Independent quoted Rep. Rehberg’s chief of staff saying that when the website was redesigned Mr. Rehberg’s schedule will be posted daily.

Read more

Mapping a Member’s Schedule

Since the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet’s John Neurohr is able to read our minds I figure that I ought to give a demonstration of what we have been doing with the daily schedules that some members of Congress are posting. Currently most members of Congress, the press, and partisan outfits see the daily schedules as a target for cherry-picking “gotchas” like the recent fuss about Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand’s schedule showing a fundraiser for the congresswoman in Europe. Look at the schedule as a whole and not a series of single events and you get a different picture. Instead of one event that may be unseemly you will be able to tell a story that explains whether or not, in the meetings that the congressperson is holding, the member is fulfilling their representational duty to work with individuals and groups in the district. That’s why we decided to see what a Google map of the schedule might look like.

Read more

Bennett Drops his Amendment but No Quorum [Updated]

UPDATE: Our intelligence tells us that the committee will vote off the floor around noon today.

Rules and Administration Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) just announced that Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) will drop his amendment allowing the electronic filing bill to move forwards. Feinstein agreed to hold a hearing on a stand alone bill of Bennett's amendment. And now Bennett cosponsors the bill, S. 223. Amazing!

However, not enough Democrats showed up for there to be a quorum so the meeting was adjourned without a vote on the bill. The committee will likely vote off the floor once they get enough votes. It's ironic that a disclosure bill will be voted on behind closed doors. The bill should still move forwards.

Read more

Disappearing Schedules

As an energetic promoter of lawmakers posting their daily schedules on line, we've talked about the terrific efforts made by Sen. John Tester and Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, the first two lawmakers to really give us some sense of who they meet with and what they do everyday. But today we realized that the schedules were not actually being archived on their sites, meaning that if you wanted to see how many citizen groups Rep. Gillibrand has met with over the long term, or how much time Sen. Tester spends working on legislation with his staff, you couldn't figure it out. No doubt this is an oversight on their part.

Read more
« Previous
1 2