Today's dedication of the George W. Bush presidential library will bring the five living current and former presidents together for a rare meeting. It will also serve as a monument to $500 million worth of undisclosed,  unaccountable donations.

George W. Bush isn't the first president to raise huge sums of dark money to pay for his library, and unless something changes he won't be the last. Presidents often start raising money for their library's several years before leaving office and the practice has resulted in several scandals over the past two decades. As long as presidential library donations remain secret, unethical actors will continue to use them to try to exert influence.

Luckily, a remedy for this problem exists in the form of the Presidential Library Donation Act of 2013, introduced by Rep. John Duncan, R-Tenn.,  and recently reported favorably by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Affairs. The bill would require quarterly reporting of library contributions over $200 and create an online database, maintained by the National Archives, to make the reports available to the public.

Sunlight has joined with more than 20 other organizations to send a letter to House leadership, urging them to bring this important legislation to the floor for a vote as soon as possible.

Presidential Library Donation Reform Act - Sign On by Sunlight Foundation

Photo Credit: Flickr user InSapphoWeTrust

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee favorably reported a number of transparency related bills at a markup earlier today. The bills, including several that Sunlight has strongly supported in the past, were all approved with overwhelming bipartisan support.

In addition to FOIA reform legislation recently introduced by Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the committee moved bills that would bolster the Government Accountability office, improve access to information, and shed light on a unique type of political influence.

We are particularly happy to see that the Federal Advisory Committee Reform Act, which tackles reforms that Sunlight has advocated for, is moving forward. Additionally, Sunlight recently sent a letter in support of the Presidential Library Donation Reform Act, calling it a "measured response to a discrete problem."

We hope that the broad bipartisan support these bills received in committee will translate to swift passage by the full House.

You can follow their progress, along with that of a number of other transparency bills, through Scout, our legislative tracking tool.

Photo Credit: RepublicanConference on Flickr.

This Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is slated to markup a number of important transparency measures. The meeting, scheduled just a week after a they held a hearing dedicated to transparency, shows continued committment to concrete action to make the government more open during the 113th Congress.

Overall, the committee is scheduled to mark up 10 bills on Wednesday, including the Federal Advisory Committee Reform Act and the Presidential Library Donation Reform Act, both of which we have previously written in favor of. The committee will also consider the FOIA Oversight and Implementation Act of 2013, exciting legislation aimed at overhauling the FOIA, that was recently introduced by Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-MD).

Today at 10 a.m. I will be testifying about open government before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The hearing is timed to coincide with Sunshine Week, an annual, week-long discussion on the importance of access to public information. The testimony (pdf, odt, docx) is intended to encourage the Oversight Committee to continue its good work, to adopt the Administration's best initiatives, and to help the Administration meet its pledge to be the most transparent once ever.

I hope that you'll watch and let me know what you think. I am particular excited that Chairman Issa and Ranking Member Cummings just yesterday released draft legislation to overhaul the Freedom of Information Act, which follows on the bipartisan DATA Act and Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act that was favorably reported by the committee last Congress.

Today Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, spoke about his vision for improving open government and federal spending transparency at the O'Reilly Media 2011 Strata Summit. The Chairman focused his remarks on the DATA Act, the bipartisan legislation he introduced that would transform how government tracks federal spending and identifies waste, fraud, and abuse.

He emphasized the importance of making government data available online in real time so that innovative minds can immediately make use the information to build their own businesses. Business, in turn, would help the government identify program mismanagement and data quality problems. The Chairman specifically singled out Vice President Biden as a supporter of efforts to find a common solution to make data available in a systematic way.

In an ensuring Q&A with O'Reily Media's Alex Howard, Chairman Issa explained that the private sector must step up as advocates for greater openness because they will benefit from building and using the tools made possible by greater transparency. He added when government drives down the cost of obtaining information, private individuals will derive value from the analysis of data, not its ownership.

The Chairman also addressed proposed cuts to the Electronic Government Fund, which supports many government transparency programs, saying that he doesn't always agree with funding cuts. He added that he has an assurance from appropriators that they're willing to listen when he makes that case that increased spending on transparency programs in the short term may save more money later. Accurate data will help drive down the inefficiencies of government.