Over two months ago, a special committee was created to offer recommendations on how to reduce the national deficit by at least $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. The bi-partisan Joint Select Committee, also known as the Super Committee, is comprised of 12 members and has until November 23 to come up with solid recommendations that will be used as guidelines in shaping our nation’s deficit budget conundrum.

When talk of formation of the committee started making the rounds, we immediately went to work creating a website resource to inform and share information on all things Super Committee.

Our grassroots campaign to make sure that citizens are kept in the loop about what the members are doing kicked off with enthusiastic responses from the public eager to open the Super Congress.

Contacting the Super Committee

Our friends at Open Congress created better self organizing tools to help you simultaneously contact all three of your members of Congress and let them know that you are tracking their actions. If you have a representative on the Super Committee, let them know you demand transparency. If your representatives aren’t on the Super Committee, ask them to support H.R. 2860 and other Super Committee transparency initiatives. Learn more about Open Congress’s tools here:

Join the campaign

On the home front, we asked you to join hands with us by signing on to tell the Super Congress to be open .

Write to Congress

We also provided you with a customizable letter to write to your representative or visit your local congressional office with tips on how to make the most out of your trip. Lastly, we asked you to ‘sing it from the rooftops’ by using the hashtag #opensupercongress to share your visit or letter with your social media network. All the while, giving you four options to reach your respective member of congress. We did not stop at that, we wanted to hear how your district visit to your representative went, so we sent out a survey encouraging you to share your experience so others can be inspired to visit their leaders too.

The Committee itself has also aided the process further by designing an official website where citizens can now write directly to the members with suggestions on what they think can be done to reduce the country’s deficit. But voicing your ideas on how we can beat the deficit is not enough. We have to ensure that while they are negotiating these issues, all meetings and hearing are publicized and any financial contributions attached to a member of the Committee, disclosed.

With the introduction of the Deficit Committee Transparency Act, which calls for members and staff of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to disclose lobbying activities and campaign or member-designated political action committee contributions, the campaign for openness gained even more momentum. Last month, we complimented this momentum by hosting a conference call with our partners at Public Citizen to discussion updates on the Super Committee. Click here to listen to the audio from the conference call. It was also the perfect forum to bring up experiences for activists to made the trip to their representatives’ offices. Sunlight's Lisa Rosenberg and Public Citizen's Craig Holman were on hand to answer participants questions and an audio recording will soon be available for those who did not make it to the conference call.

A movement forms

In addition, over 5,230 signers citizens have signed on to support the campaign for a transparent Super Committee -- you still can here.

Blogging: the element of each one reaching one

We still encourage local bloggers to take up this issue. Local bloggers play a crucial role in spreading the word to their communities and followers -- and as the Committee members are also representatives and senators to some of the local bloggers, it becomes a civic responsibility to inform the constituents represented by these members. Maybe you would rather illustrate your message, we made it easier by creating this video which you are welcome to use in your blog post. Several local bloggers including Jason Williams, Stefan Passantino, Charles Davis and Celeste Meiffren (who loved our video) Michael Signer  have already started spreading the word!

The Super Committee is continuing its work, though behind closed doors. We have less than a month left. Join us to help demand an open and transparent process.

 

This week, we will be bringing you more updates including actions planned to open up the Super Committee. Stay tuned...

It’s time to think big: The Super Congress situation is developing at an incredibly fast rate and we want to be able to respond as fast as possible -- both as an organization committed to greater government transparency and as citizens who live in a democracy.

Right now, the rules on the books say almost nothing about about how transparent this super committee’s process has to be. That means that a body of 12 members of Congress will get to operate totally above the reach of accountability (in the form of public meetings and financial and lobbying disclosure) to determine one of the most significant deals in American history: how to slice $1.5 trillion from the national debt.

We’ve written about this issue a few times (here and here, for example) and have even built a coalition of partners to support our five leading recommendations for committee openness, but now we want to hear from you.

Calls to congressional offices and district meetings with representatives are great ways to get our voices heard (and you may be hearing from us again about taking these actions), but what more can we do? America, we need to get riled up: The recommendations made by this committee will have a tangible impact our country and our lives. Now is the time to get creative.

Some (rough!) ideas we’ve thought up:

• Guerrilla theatre productions of Super Congress committee meetings in public spaces
• Asking folks to hold rallies in the districts of the 12 selected members of the committee
• Smoke machine flash mobs. (As in “smoke and mirrors” or the smokey backroom deals of lobbyists....Get it?)
• Asking business to hold their meetings outside.
• Get a congressional representative to write a “Dear Colleague” letter in support of opening the Super Congress. (Oh, wait, Reps Quigley and Renacci beat us to it.)

So, got any great ideas? Got any less-than-great-but-possibly-salvageable ideas? Brainstorm with us in the comments -- and be sure to like/up-vote the good ones, too!

For more updates on this campaign, join us at http://sunlightfoundation.com/opensupercongress.

Kudos to andymangold for the kicking image.

People have a right to know who is influencing elected officials while they create public policy. That lobbying information is most useful when it is reported as it happens. On the federal level, registered lobbyists are required to report their activities each quarter. While not perfect, it's a start, and I wanted to know how the states compared.

Twenty-six states require reports at least as frequently as the federal government. As demonstrated by the following chart, the most common reporting requirements on the state level are quarterly and twice a year. Eight states require activity reports only once a year.

The "other" category is comprised of eight states, seven of which have stricter reporting requirements when the state legislature is in session. While the increased reporting frequency is a step in the right direction, it's a questionable phenomenon - who decided lobbying influence only happens while the legislature is in session? For example, in New Mexico, reports are due within forty-eight hours of each expenditure made or incurred in the amount of $500 or more while the legislature is in session. Otherwise reports are only due twice a year, creating a significant lag time between when a lobbying activity happens and when the public can know about it.

• In Alaska and Arkansas, lobbyists are required to file monthly reports while the legislature is in session and quarterly reports when it is not.
• In Connecticut, activity reports are due quarterly unless the state legislature is in session and the lobbyist has expended or agreed to expend $100 or more for legislative lobbying. Under these circumstances the activity reports are due monthly.
• In Georgia, reports are due twice a month while the legislature is in session and monthly during the rest of the year.
• In Kansas, the reports are due monthly for the four months that the legislature is in session, then two reports (each covering four months) are sufficient for the rest of the year.
• In North Carolina, reports are due quarterly, but each lobbyist that incurs reportable lobbying expenditures in any month while the legislature is in session must additionally submit a monthly report.

The last state in the "other" category is Rhode Island, which is unique in that it has different reporting requirements for "standard" (legislative branch) and "executive" (executive branch) lobbyists.

• Standard lobbyists are required to submit monthly reports beginning with a report on March 15th that covers January and February, then individual monthly reports thereafter. In addition, "final reports" are due at the conclusion of a legislative session. These reports summarize all the lobbying activity for the session, as well as signify that a lobbyist has finished lobbying for the session. Annual reports also need to be submitted by January 15th of every year. These reports include an itemized report of any money or item valued over $250 given or promised to any major state official during the preceding year.
• Executive lobbyists are required to file semi-annually reports.

The majority of states have reporting requirements just as strict as the federal government's, if not stricter. However, only New Mexico comes close to requiring real-time reporting with reports due within 48 hours, but that is only when lobbying expenditures are involved and the legislature is in session. While tracking monetary influence is certainly important, lobbyists can also impact legislation without spending a dime. Real-time reporting of significant lobbying contacts with public officials would take us a step closer to meaningful disclosure.

As I discussed last week, states have different qualifications that determine when a person needs to register as a lobbyist. The states also vary in regards to the amount of time a person is given to register after he or she has met the qualifications for registration.

Fourteen states require lobbyists to register before actually engaging in any lobbying. Four additional states require lobbyists to register before lobbying or within 30 days of being hired to lobby. As seen below, other time windows that are frequently imposed by the states include five, seven, ten, or fifteen days.

• Before Lobbying: 14 states
• Before Lobbying or 30 Days after Being Hired to Lobby: 4 states
• Five Days: 11 states
• Seven Days: 4 states
• Ten Days: 6 states
• Fifteen Days: 5 states

Six states have unique time windows, ranging from "immediately" in Arkansas, to 48 hours in Vermont, to three days in Oregon.

Fifteen days is the maximum leeway time any state gives a lobbyist to register. By contrast, on the federal level a person who has met the lobbyist threshold for registration has 45 days to actually register as a lobbyist.

The federal system also does not impose late fees, while a majority of the states do. Daily fees range from $5 with a cap of $100 in Minnesota, to $100 per day with a cap of $4,500 in Indiana. Other states have different systems for imposing late penalties. For example:

• Illinois considers every day a registration is late to be an individual violation of the state's lobbying regulations, which results in a fine of up to $10,000 per violation.
• Michigan has a daily late fee of $10 with a cap of $300, and after 30 days the lobbyist is guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to a fine of up to $1,000.
• Vermont levies an automatic $25 fee once a registration is late, then adds $10 for each day the registration is late, with a cap of $175.
• Lastly, Maine imposes a late fee of $200 per month that the registration is late.

UPDATE: Reps. Quigley and Polis introduced legislation today that would reduce the federal grace period to 5 days, among other changes.

Just as lobbyist registration fees vary widely among states, so do requirements for who must register in the first place. Most states do not have any registration threshold, requiring “all lobbyists” or “all compensated lobbyists” to register. Other states, however, have registration thresholds based on percentage of time spent lobbying, hours spent lobbying, amount of lobbying expenditures/compensation for lobbying activities, or a mix of the above. Here's a brief overview.

Percent of Time Spent Lobbying Threshold

Four states use the percentage of time spent on lobbying activities as a trigger to require registration. In North Carolina, lobbyists are required to register if they spend over five percent of their time lobbying. By contrast, Georgia lobbyists are required to register if they spend 10 percent or more of their time lobbying.

Hours Spent Lobbying Threshold

Alaska and Maine use a minimum of hours as their threshold for registration. In Alaska, when a person is compensated and spends more than 10 hours in any given 30-day period lobbying, then he or she is required to register. Maine requires registration for any person who spends 8 hours in any given month lobbying.

Lobbying Expenditures/Compensation Threshold

Several states have a threshold based on lobbying expenditures or compensation. For example, in Arkansas lobbyists are required to register if they receive compensation or reimbursement of at least $400 or expend at least $400 in a quarter for lobbying activities. In Connecticut, the threshold is expending, receiving, or agreeing to expend or receive over $2,000 annually for lobbying.

Mixed Threshold

Some states require registration if either a time or an expenditure/compensation threshold is met. In Hawaii, lobbyists are required to register if they spend over $750 in a reporting period (either 8 months or 2 months, depending on the time of year) or spend five hours in any month of a reporting period on lobbying activities. In Oregon, registration is required if a lobbyist either spends 24 hours or $100 in a quarter on lobbying activities.

Pennsylvania, on the other hand, only requires registration if both the time and expenditure/compensation thresholds are met. Anyone who spends and receives more than $2,500 for lobbying and spends over 20 hours lobbying during any 3-month reporting period is required to register.

California also has both a time and an income threshold, but further breaks it down by type of lobbyist. In-house lobbyists are required to register if one-third of their time per month is spent engaging in direct communication with officials for lobbying purposes. Contract lobbyists are required to register if they receive or are entitled to receive $2,000 per month for direct communication with officials.

Maryland may have the most detailed system with different thresholds for different types and degrees of lobbying. Legislative Branch lobbying requires registration once a person spends over $500 on travel or subsistence expenses related to lobbying, earns over $2,500 for direct lobbying, or earns over $5,000 for indirect lobbying in a reporting period. Executive Branch lobbying requires registration once a person spends over $100 on direct communication with covered officials, earns $2,500 or spends over $500 for direct lobbying, or earns over $5,000 for indirect lobbying in attempting to influence a regulation or an executive order in a reporting period. There is a catch-all provision as well: all lobbyists who attempt to influence action regarding a procurement contract over $100,000 or who are compensated by a business to obtain a state grant or loan are required to register. Finally, any organization that spends $2,000 on grassroots lobbying in a 6-month reporting period is required to register.

Federally...

The federal system currently has a time and contacts threshold, where lobbyists are required to register if they spend 20 percent of their time lobbying and make two lobbying contacts. In addition, organizations that employ in-house lobbyists are required to register if their total expenses for lobbying activities in a quarter exceed $11,500. The 20 percent federal registration threshold is one of the provisions that needs to change, as it creates a loophole where many of the most influential players in Washington - including former Members of Congress, business executives, and labor leaders - are exempt from registering and reporting their lobbying activities.

The Center for Public Integrity's iWatchNews reports that former Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., has a new gig working for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, traveling around the country with former George W. Bush chief of staff Andrew Card. Political Wire plays telephone with a Politico version of Public Integrity's story, and ends up with the headline "Bayh to Become a Lobbyist."

At Sunlight, we've argued that for all intents and purposes, Bayh, a "senior adviser with a role in public policy" for Apollo Group, along with quite a lengthy list of other former Washington officials, is a "non-lobbyist lobbyist," defined here as someone who walks and quacks but does not register as a lobbyist. From what little information is available about the Chamber job, it appears Bayh won't have to register for them either.

Reading over the memo from Tom Donahue, the Chamber of Commerce's president and CEO, describing the role of Bayh and Card, it's not clear that either will have to register as lobbyists. Donahue writes that the pair "will carry a bipartisan message on regulatory reform out around the country through a 'road show' of speeches, events, and media appearances at various local venues." We called the Chamber of Commerce to ask if Bayh and his road show partner Card will register to lobby; we'll update when we hear something.

As the federal government considers changes to the Lobbying Disclosure Act, such as those we have recommended here, another consideration could be whether to impose lobbyist registration fees. Although the current federal system does not require fees, a majority of states do. They vary widely - from as low as $5 to $650 annually. These fees do everything from supporting state lobbying disclosure systems and ethics commissions to augmenting the general treasury.

I've taken a close look at state lobbyist registration fees and found some interesting things.

Texas and Wisconsin top the list in terms of the cost of registration. Texas has a flat $500 fee for all lobbyists except nonprofits, who pay $100, and contractors, who pay $50. Wisconsin charges lobbyists who lobby on behalf of a single employer a fee of $400, but the fee is $650 if a lobbyist lobbies on behalf of more than one organization. Organizations that hire lobbyists also have to pay a fee in Wisconsin - $375 to register plus an addition $125 authorization fee for each individual lobbyist hired.

By contrast, the average registration fee is around $100, and roughly half of states charge less than $50 annually. It is difficult to determine the exact average or median amount, however, as many states do not have a single set registration fee. These states have developed systematic ways to charge different amounts for different types of lobbyists or lobbying.

For example, in Kansas the registration fee is based on how much a lobbyist reports in annual expenditures on behalf of a client. If the amount reported is under $1,000, the annual fee is $50. If the amount reported is over $1,000, the fee jumps to $375. If the lobbyist is employed at a lobbying firm then the fee is even higher - $450 annually.

While Kansas bases its fee on annual expenditures, Wyoming bases its fee on the lobbyist's annual payment or reimbursement for lobbying activities from an employer. If the amount is less than $500, the registration fee is $5. If the amount is over $500, the fee is $25.

In Kentucky, lobbyists register as either an "Executive Agency" lobbyist or as a "Legislative" lobbyist. The annual fee is $125 per organization that employs one or more lobbyists for Executive Agency lobbying. The annual fee increases to $250 for any organization that employs one or more lobbyists for Legislative lobbying.

Maine differentiates between "lobbyists" and "lobbyist associates" for the purposes of registration fees. The fee for a lobbyist is $200 while the fee for a lobbyist associate is $100. The state defines a lobbyist as anyone who is employed to lobby and spends more than eight hours in any month lobbying. The state defines a lobbyist associate as anyone who works with a lobbyist, lobbies on behalf of a lobbyist’s employer, and spends more than eight hours in a month lobbying.

Nebraska charges compensated lobbyists a $200 fee, but drops the fee to $15 for lobbyists who do not receive compensation.

Nevada charges paid lobbyists $300, unpaid lobbyists $20, and unpaid lobbyists who are veterans no fee.

Ohio has a system where the state charges a registration fee of $25 for earch of the three possible lobbying categories for which a lobbyist lobbies: legislative, executive, and retirement system.

And finally, Vermont charges an initial flat registration fee of $25, but also charges an additional $5 for each lobbyist employer listed. If the registrant is a lobbyist employer then the employer has to pay the $25 registration fee plus an additional $5 for each lobbyist listed.

There has been legislation introduced on the federal level that would establish a $50 annual registration fee for lobbyists. Our Policy Counsel Daniel Schuman wrote about that legislation last year.

The committee room before the full crowd arrived.

The Advisory Committee on Transparency's event earlier today was a huge success and we thank everyone who was able to join us. It was certainly a lively discussion and we will be following up on the many topics discussed. I hope our panelists enjoyed themselves and the audience found the 'Washington's Lobbying Fix' illuminating.

The full video of the event will be on our site shortly or, for those who have some nostalgia for the electronic fireplace, you can watch the event on CSPAN2 tonight at 8:30-10:00. Below are more photos from the event.

Photos by Nicko Margolies

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was asked a series of questions today based on the Politico story I blogged about earlier.

Carney refuses to answer whether the White House has any guidance on when it's appropriate to schedule meetings that occur outside the reach of the visitor logs records. I doubt there's any formal guidance, but instead that whoever sets up a meeting thinks about the meeting's potential disclosure in the same way you might consider who is invited, how big the meeting might be, or what the agenda should be. In other words, these decisions are probably made as a matter of course.

Rather than engaging with detail in the question, or sidestepping it altogether, Carney attacks the idea that anyone would question the administration's commitment to transparency:

The suggestion that we’re not being transparent is laughable given the unbelievable precedent this administration has set in its -- closing the door, the revolving door, and releasing these records.

The tone of this response reads to me like insecurity.

If the White House feels vulnerable on lobbying reform, then they should avoid obfuscating on real questions about how the visitor logs policies work.

Of course, the fastest way to make these questions go away is to say that the visitor logs release is incidental (not essential) to the lobbying disclosure fight, and that Obama is going to actually push for lobbying reform in Congress.

The back and forth in question is below:

Q Given the President’s commitment to transparency, is there any guidance White House officials get about when it’s appropriate to meet off campus with a lobbyist and when a lobbyist meeting should be on campus?

MR. CARNEY: This administration has taken extraordinary actions to be transparent. I think this question stems from a story that, frankly, was absurd. We release hundreds of thousands of records voluntarily, a policy instituted by this President because of his desire for transparency -- something no administration had ever done before. The decisions about where -- and those records are available to every American citizen online to be reviewed, and all different types of people come to the White House complex for meetings on issues. And our level of transparency and disclosure is unprecedented because the President believes deeply in it.

What I would say is that, as any of you who have walked around this complex know, been in the West Wing -- not like the TV show; very small space, very few meeting rooms. The Old Executive Office Building -- the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, a third of which has been under renovation since we’ve been here -- very limited space. Jackson Place is a White House conference center -- so designated -- and therefore when we have large meetings sometimes we use that space if there are no spaces here.

So that’s --

Q But would you agree that there’s effectively a transparency loophole here, if the goal is to show when lobbyists, powerful interests, are meeting with White House officials, that right now it’s routine for White House officials to meet off campus with these people and there’s no daylight on that?

MR. CARNEY: It is routine for the White House officials to meet with all types of people, including lobbyists, and frequently here. The suggestion that we’re not being transparent is laughable given the unbelievable precedent this administration has set in its -- closing the door, the revolving door, and releasing these records. There are no -- the WAVES system, which is the system that produces the records, operates in certain buildings and not others. And for those decisions, how that operates and why, I refer you to the United States Secret Service. But the principle here is the unprecedented level of transparency that we have provided because we believe deeply in it.

Q Would it be inappropriate for a White House official to intentionally arrange a meeting off campus to not be caught by the WAVES records?

MR. CARNEY: Look, we have meetings with all sorts of people. We have them here. Those records are available.

Q But would it be appropriate if you choose to go off campus because you didn’t want it to show up in the files? It’s yes or no.

MR. CARNEY: The guiding principle here is transparency, and we believe that -- nobody is, that I’m aware of, is hiding where they’re meeting. The meetings that happen at Jackson Place, it’s a big meeting place and that’s where --

Q If it’s so big, why not change the policy and release those names --

MR. CARNEY: We do not control where the WAVES is. And I’m not going to -- in terms of --

Q You could release them separately. You could change the policy.

MR. CARNEY: Well, Chip, look, I’m not aware what policies might be instituted in the future. But what I think is fundamentally important to remind you of is that we release information that has never been released before. I think you probably remember, you were covering the previous administration. They went to court, to the Supreme Court, to prevent the disclosure of people who were meeting with the Vice President. We voluntarily release the records that are available to us. And we never said that there was a way to get every name in every meeting. The principle is disclosure, and we have gone to extraordinary lengths to make that happen.

Q Would you consider changing the policy to increase disclosure?

MR. CARNEY: Again, I don’t want to predict about future policies that may be put in place. I just want to remind everybody about what we’ve done and why.