Because of some the work we've done before on last minute negotiations and divided government, Sunlight prepared the following graphic that visualizes the recent history of US House votes on the debt ceiling, based on public voting records and a CRS report. The bars indicate the "yea" votes.

We'll have more commentary forthcoming, but here are a few initial thoughts on what this graphic makes clear:

1. Opposition to raising the debt ceiling is often partisan, with opposition coming from either party, based on who is in the White House. Many House Republicans have voted for raising the ceiling, just as President Obama voted against it when he was a Senator.
2. Divided government has necessitated support from both parties to raise the limit.
3. There is a significant untold story about the Gephardt Rule, a House Rule which enabled the limit to be raised with little public record. The role this rule played in setting up the current showdowns has been insufficiently examined.
4. Good access to congressional data and reports enables this kind of analysis; it could be improved.
5. Each of these votes was a predictable consequence of budgets that were passed before them, demonstrating another facet of political hypocrisy.

Daniel Schuman, Zander Furnas, Caitlin Weber and Matt Rumsey contributed to this post.

As we expected, the culmination of the "fiscal cliff" negotiations was a rush to the finish line, in which policies decided by a few men in a room were passed through the Congress without amendment. The last few days of congressional deliberations were so bad they make the supercommittee look participatory, or, as Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch observed, they make "the passage of Obamacare seem like the apex of republican democracy."

Some observations on the mess:

The Unread Bill: Despite Boehner's many promises to the contrary, the bill was not online for 72 hours. This isn't a surprise, since the House wasn't really a party to the final negotiations, and relegated itself to the binary position of pass or veto usually reserved for the President. The House voted blind, with about 12 hours of access to the bill, starting New Year's morning, before floor debate. The only bright spot here is that the House Rules Committee helpfully posted the bill as soon as they had it. Of course, that's nowhere near adequate time to process a bill, so stories of the ridiculous corporate tax subsidies in the bill only came out as the floor debate started.

This is a side effect of not legislating. If Congress legislates, then they'll have access to legislation. If they try to maximize imaginary leverage through crisis brinksmanship, then their role gets diminished to the point that they're voting on things they haven't read.

Someone Had Access: While Congress (and the rest of us) only just found out what was in the bill, a coterie of corporate lobbyists managed to get their profit-boosting tax expenditures included. It's hard to imagine how NASCAR and Hollywood had stronger negotiating positions than the House of Representatives, but in the end, they did.

Faith, Lost: One fake disclosure and staged leak after another punctuated the entirety of the negotiations, from CPI to brave phone calls to congressional curse words. In the absence of substantive proposals, the public was cast into the world of fake narratives and reassurances. Our party leaders provided no check whatsoever against manipulative PR negotiating tactics.

What Deal: We cautioned in November that we are unlikely to know the outlines of the entire deal, since concessions could be made outside the context of legislation. (This is not a hypothetical concern).  This seems less likely to have happened in yesterday's deal -- the process was so convoluted that secret deal terms would probably have been impossible to agree to. The fact remains, though, that when the negotiating table is utterly unseen, we can't know what's put on it in our names.

Groundhog Day: We'll be at it again in a few months, and it's likely to get worse.  Each iteration of these negotiations has produced less public information -- heightening fearmongering, and uncertainty, while further empowering those with privileged access.  It's probably going to get worse before it gets better.  Our recommendation still stands -- Refuse to cynically accept secret negotiations as the status quo for self-government.  

The Sunlight Foundation, along with the Institute for Policy Innovation, OpenTheGovernment.org, Public Citizen and U.S. Public Interest Research Groups sent a letter to President Obama, Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, Representative Boehner and Representative Pelosi urging them to ensure that a minimal standard of transparency apply to the fiscal cliff negotiations.

Recognizing that some negotiations will necessarily occur in private, the groups encourage leaders to commit to ensuring that any legislation resulting from the negotiations is online for 72 hours prior to consideration in Congress and that any side agreements, including promised votes on future legislation, are also made public. In addition, meetings with lobbyists and other influencers attempting to impact the outcome of the negotiations should also be disclosed online in real time.

Transparency around the fiscal cliff negotiations is critical to begin to restore accountability to a broken budget process.

Letter on Fiscal Cliff NegotiationsFINAL

This morning the Sunlight Foundation's Senior Fellow Lee Drutman joined Washington Journal to discuss the "fiscal cliff" and his analysis of the many powerful interests lobbying on this issue. Also be sure to check out Sunlight's recommendations to improve the secretive negotiations.

Thankfully the full segment is available to watch below for those of us who didn't happen to switch on C-SPAN at the crack of dawn: