Although we preach the importance of public meetings, we recognize that there are some legitimate frustrations to be had with their openness. For instance, a lot of public meetings are boring. And long. And, critics are right: public meetings aren’t necessarily the best format for every single deliberation made by a governing body.

But most of these “issues” are besides the point. As our Policy guy, John, noted, the need for public meetings doesn’t mean that every conversation needs to happen in public, but that all the official meetings should. That’s the basis behind our push to open up the meetings of the “Super Committee” -- the body created by Congress to deal with our national debt -- and an important factor to consider in the arrests made at a DC local gov meeting in June.

I wrote about the event shortly after it happened, but the quick version goes like this: Two reporters were arrested by Park Police at a Taxicab Commission public meeting at the request of members of the commission: the first for taking photographs of the meeting. The second, for filming the arrest of the first. The charge? Disorderly conduct and unlawful entry...which, at a public meeting (and with video evidence of how they actually acted), is absurd. Thankfully, the charges have since been dropped and there’s been a lot of conversation about the future of the Taxicab Commission (Council Member Tommy Wells wants to scrap it, local blogger David Alpert wants to reform it), but there's been little conversation about the impact of this event on DC’s public meetings law.

The gray zone in this issue is that DC’s Open Meetings Act doesn’t actually specify whether or not meetings can be photographed or recorded. But, as the DC Open Government Coalition pointed out, “The absence of an explicit statutory mandate to allow recordings of open meetings does not translate into a prohibition [of recordings].”

Following pressure from the media and advocacy groups like the DC Open Government Coalition and the National Press Photographers Association, on August 1st the Taxicab Commission issued a revised policy on public attendance, behavior, and recording during meetings:

Pursuant to section 742 (the “Open Meetings Act”) of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act ... all meetings and hearings of the Commission are open to the public. Also, a recording (or transcript) of the proceedings will be made available to the public free of charge.

A member of the public, including any representative of the media, may record or photograph the proceedings of the Commission at an open meeting by means of a tape recorder or any other recording device so long as the person does not impede the orderly conduct of the meeting, by, for instance, creating excessive noise that impairs the ability of others to hear the proceeding or using excessively bright artificial light.

The policy goes on to review all the ways the commission does not have to support public recordings, but open government activists in America’s littlest state should still take heart. Perhaps this renewed policy will set a precedent for the broader Open Meetings Act, or will at least inspire District residents and activists to advocate for one. In their statement about the Taxicab Commission debacle, the DC Open Government Coalition highlighted the fact that the role of director for DC’s Open Government Office has been vacant for almost 4 months. The office, they note, was established as the public’s primary means of enforcing the Open Meetings Act and funding for the Office has already been provided.

Filling this office is a step DC can take to show their commitment to open government and to reduce the “burden” of meeting citizens’ requirements for greater transparency. DC is by no means the only governing body wrestling to adjust to the increased demands on and attention paid to its public meeting and public records laws: this sort of news is making headlines all across the country. The important thing is that, going forward, DC and other governments do find ways to adapt to the Age of the Interwebs and the increasing expectations constituents have for public access -- and that they take advantage of the free tools (YouTube...) and advocacy groups out there offering help.

*Photo credit: matthewgriff, via Flickr.

Whether it is a top-down issue or the other way round, we can not help but notice a disconnect between what Florida's Governor -- Rick Scott preaches and what he practices. Earlier this year, one of his top aides avoided using emails, because they create a paper trail. And the mixed messages ranging from designing Florida Has a Right to Know , to imposing fees on public records that were previously free, are not helping.

• A private company that provided e-mail services for Governor Rick Scott’s transitional administration “accidentally” deleted all emails from the Florida governor-elect's office soon after he took office. Peter Schorsch is wondering whether this was a genuine accident considering the governor’s disregard for open government laws. See how he equates it to the ‘dog ate my homework’ situation on SaintPetersblog.

• The city of Laurel in Maryland has amended their background check law on all candidates vying for city council office. After consulting with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the city’s mayor Craig Moe, said the original law was meant to increase transparency to the election process but now feels that conducting a background check could be considered discriminatory. Gordon Basichis notes one plausible aspect of the amendment law; which is the immediate removal from office, of anyone convicted of a crime while in office. Read on at Corra Daily Planet.

• Campaign finance laws in Fulton County, Georgia could soon see some change. A resolution created to stop any corporation, officer, agent or individual making campaign contributions or gifts from seeking county contracts, is under consideration by the county’s Board of Commissioners. Already proposed in Indiana, and found problematic in Colorado, the new resolution seeks to regulate conduct of campaign financing and contributions. Stefan Passantio is screaming “fire” about this “pay-to-play” ordinance so head on over to the Pay to Play Law blog to see why.

• Citizens in New Mexico will now be able to access complaints against police officers under a new ruling by the state’s Supreme Court. Alicia Feichtmeir, an attorney in litigation and dispute resolution shares that information contained in the citizens’ complaints belong to the citizen in question regardless of whether or not the allegations made a true or false. See how she compares this ruling to the Washington’s Public Record’s Act on Local Open Government Blog.

• John Knutsen a Puyallup, Washington Councilmember was awarded a key award by the Washington Coalition for Open Government for opting out of informal discussions that happen outside of the scheduled council meetings. The informal meetings, also known as rolling meetings are used by some councilmembers in groups of two to three to discuss official issues, without the burden of notifying the public. For more on how open government supporters are praising the Councilmember’s action as a transparency effort, see Puyallup NOW.

 

A new trend by those in power to keep public information secret from those who are not, is slowly spreading. From using exaggerated public records fees, to state laws, leaders across the country are continuing to come up with ways of preventing the public from knowing what is going on in their government...

The Tennessee Ethics Commission recently turned down a request from TNReport (an online newsource) for the number of complaints and investigations that have been received by the Commission. Citing a section in the state’s code that gives the Commission the right to preserve confidentiality of all its proceedings including investigations, the Commission’s Executive Director Drew Rawlins, said that making the records public could create problems from people who may be against some cases. Tom Humphrey shares how the Commission has never found anyone guilty of violating any ethics rules on Humphrey on the Hill.

The Sunshine Review was slapped with a $22,000 bill by Miami-Dade county in Florida, for requesting for public information. Other counties have provided the same information for free, including Palm Beach county (in the same state) and Harris county in Texas. Michael Barnhart, the Sunshine Review’s president is joined by others who feel that it’s an outrageous fee which is perhaps being used by the county to deter the public from getting the information they have a right to know about. Kristin McMurray writes all about it on the Sunshine Review.

After struggling to get a B in content, C in clarity and C in accessibility, the city of Costa Mesa in California has finally upped its transparency. In a new dramatic move, the city recently released a detailed report of all its employee salaries including full and part-time staff. Sunshine advocates praised this effort as a proactive one from the city, and emphasized how citizens will now be encouraged to become more involved in their government. Joseph Serna shares  more on LA Now.

The California Assembly seems to be operating in the dark. In an earlier report by the Sacramento Bee, the Assembly said the public had no right to see lawmakers' current office budget documents because it could be wrongly interpreted as punishment of lawmakers who do not vote in favor of key votes - especially if their budgets have been significantly slashed. One such lawmaker who recently got the “punishment” is Assemblyman Anthony Portantino. John Seiler writes how a secret legislative assembly can easily become a corrupt one on Cal Watchdog.

Making sure that state publications appear in a timely manner especially when they are time sensitive, is one of the major open government best practices. A librarian for the North Carolina State Publications Clearinghouse at the Government & Heritage Library, Kurt knows all too well the importance of making sure that information is easily accessible electronically. See how he lays out other best practices on Government and Heritage Library Blog.

Earlier this month, Ohio Governor John Kasich, signed into law a bill that will greatly reduce the penalties for unlawful destruction of public records. Sandwiched in the budget amendment bill, and likened to SB 178, the bill sets a $10,000 limit per case in fines that a given agency can pay for destroying public records.

Before the amendment, the state’s Public Records Act prohibited anyone from removing, destroying or mutilating all records because they were the property of the Public Office ( Sec. 149.351.)

The implications of this bill are two fold:

1. Agencies now have leeway to burn or shred public records that they consider either controversial or unfit for the public to see. As long as they can pay the $10,000 fine, then they are good to go.

2. While advocates for this bill believe that it will stop people requesting documents they do not need (especially after they have been destroyed) only to turn around and sue for large amounts of money, opponents feel that the $10,000 cap on lawyers fees will prevent most Ohioans from suing agencies that destroy public records. Several transparency supporters, including newspaper publishers and environmentalists, believe that this is a direct attack on open government.

The Ohio newspaper Association, Ohio Environmental Council, Ohio Association for Justice and the Ohio Employment Lawyers have all signed a joint testimony calling on the Governor to remove the amendment to the Public Records Act from the budget bill. (See joint testimony at the bottom.)

Ohioans are also showing their displeasure in the study: A Quinnipiac University poll released this week shows that 50% of registered voters disapprove of the way the governor is conducting his work.

Ohioans and others dissatisfied with their governor’s commitment to transparency legislation (or, at the very least, their commitment to not signing into law legislation that will directly inhibit transparency) can take action against these kinds of transparency rollbacks. Our campaign to tell our governors not to roll back on transparency now has a tool that makes it easy for you to call your governor’s office and tell them that open government issues -- like public records laws, financial disclosure, and open data -- are important to you. If you don’t tell your elected officials that these issues matter, then anti-transparency measures like Governor Kaisch’s signing of SB 178 will be norm.

Make the call and let us know how it went. By continuing to track our governors’ actions, we ensure that their campaign promises of being transparent are not just promises, but actions they can be accountable for.

P.S. For those of you following our trip to Utah to visit the National Governors Association (NGA), we should note that Governor Kaisch recently opted out of the NGA because he did not feel like it was “worth the amount of money to be [a] member.”

Look for more coverage of our trip this week!

Ohio Public Records HB153 Testimony

As mentioned earlier, the open government movement made major strides today -- when together with the Participatory Politics Foundation, we launched OpenGovernment Minnesota. This brings the total number of states covered by the OpenGovernment initiative, to six. As we continue to expand this project to include more states, we take note of individual citizens who are being proactive about tracking the legislature in their states. By so doing, we recognize that active citizen participation in government is the key to prompting change and increasing accountability. And we support this recognition by building tools that empower the public to see how their government is functioning. But our role can not simply be reduced to tracking bills. We need to be engaged in the rule making process and reinforcing Public Records Laws and Open Meetings Laws is one such way of doing that. All the while ensuring that the legislative system is not given "special treatment".

• Two years ago, the legislature in Bacon Hill, Massachusetts managed to exempt itself from  the requirements of the Public Records Law and the Open Meetings Law -- using a sweeping ethics reform bill. Now, there are four bills that have been introduced to subject the legislature to the open meetings law. Media and technology lawyer Robert Ambrogi, is challenging the lawmakers to pass these laws if they are true supporters of transparency. Will these bills see the light of day, unlike their predecessors that went no where? Read more on the media law blog.

 

• A new bill that will make all executive orders issued by the office of the mayor of New York City available on line, has been passed. Currently, the orders can only be accessed via requests through the Freedom of Information Law. Richard Yeh shares that open government advocates are applauding the bill because of the transparency and openness it will create. Legislative text from the bill shows that all memorandum of understanding and similar documents will be available on a government website starting April 1, 2012. See what else the bill says on the WNYC News blog.

• Public information from the governor’s office in Louisiana will soon be accessible to the public. A new bill that will significantly relax the state’s public records law by making all of the Governor’s documents including those related to budgetary issues, public, has been introduced. At the moment, the state is using Act 495 enacted in 2009, which exempts the governor from disclosing any material considered to be under a “deliberative process”. Chad Rogers is sure this bill will go a long way in restoring confidence in the public. Read more about how the bill will change Louisiana from being the only state that exempts the governor's records from disclosure on chadrogers.net

• The Cleveland Coalition, together with several open government supporters including the Sunlight Foundation, will be joining forces for the Transparency Action Plan Summit (TAP) to take place in Cuyahoga Ohio on July 29-30. The first of its kind in the region, the summit will bring together like-minds to discuss transparency initiatives that will make the county a leader in government transparency and public engagement. For more of the action plan details, head on over to Cleveland Coalition.

 

 

We welcome Daniel O’Leary as our guest blogger today. Daniel is the Vice President of Global Solutions for LincWare, an electronic forms and document assembly company that specializes in replacing paper forms with dynamic, electronic forms that integrate with a wide variety of ECM systems. You can follow him on twitter at @danieloleary.

     

Meeting minutes from public entities like city councils and public universities provide citizens with almost floor-to-ceiling windows of insight into the goings-on of tax-payer supported efforts. Problem is, elected officials and those working on our dime are prone to pulling the shade, allowing the sun to shine on only portions of the minutes they deem fit to share.

That's not how it's supposed to work.

Enter electronic minute recording forms.

Since some meeting minutes in public environments are recorded, there is no reason they can't be entered into text fields as part of a customized, searchable form that can be made web-accessible. In fact, this can be a powerful time saver for the secretaries and interns charged with keeping up with the ramblings and tirades of those sitting around the table.

The process most commonly used today (not electronic) is still rather “old school”. A tape machine (cough! 1980! cough!) or digital recorder is used to capture the audio as it’s happening. (Today, we call that "real time.") Post-meeting, they are put down on paper to be approved at the next meeting. Well check this out: What if the completed minutes form was hung on-line in a password-protected place for the requisite board members to access prior to the meeting? This saves paper and tons of e-mails and calls needed to verify items. Once a board member gives them a quick review, the next meetings approval goes smoothly, sans debate about contextual mistakes or semantics. Then -- and here's the cool part -- the minute taker simply "submits" the form to the Web site, where it's now available to the press and public, with rays of sunshine beaming all over it.

All interested citizen parties and media can subscribe to that page to receive alerts as soon the minutes form is updated. Every form can be archived, as is legally required, via a cloud-based repository. Because everything is digital, people can search for keywords within the minutes to rapidly find the appropriate subject area. Individually titled fields can be created for each meeting topic. Attendee lists with links to public bios, scanned hand-outs and even custom voting record lists could also be embedded into such a form.

(Take a look at the demo below for an idea of how an eform can be used).

                                         

Now, whether we like it or not, there are categories of information that can be held in the dark such as any public record or information prohibited by federal law or regulations from disclosure including an injured worker’s social security number. (Chapter 7 of the Social Security Act explains it in details).

Okay, fine; we're not here to argue that. Via the very cool minutes eform, the minute taker can assign a "closed" status to fields that are not accessible on the published version. That way, even more time can be saved by not having to manually redact or edit just those portions that people are not allowed to see. Who hasn't run into delays when requesting information because a public employee needs to pull information from a document?

So folks, are we starting to see the light on the power of eforms in the public information arena? If so, then we should push for more minute recording using eforms!

(The views expressed in this blog post are entirely the guest blogger’s. This is not an endorsement of any product mentioned in the blog)

   

When it comes to public records, different states have different exemptions. What is exempted in one state, may not necessarily be exempted in another. Take an example of  New Jersey. Under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA), State or federal statutes and regulations, Executive Orders, Rules of Court, and privileges created by State Constitution, statute, court rule or judicial case law are specifically exempted from disclosure.  While the California Public Records Act makes available all public information because it believes that "access to information concerning the conduct of the people's business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person." So when we see states making an effort to open up their governments even more, we make a note of it. Just as we are doing with Oregon.

• A new proposed amendment to Senate Bill 41 in Oregon will reduce exemptions that allow public records to be kept private. The proposal was introduced during a conference organized by the Oregon Library Association, where several government transparency projects were discussed, including the Oregon Transparency website and data.oregon.gov which lets you build your own graphs using state government data. Check out Chrystal Reeves blog post as she writes more about the integration of state and federal agency data on Oregon Legal Research.

• In his blog post “Ethics Laws Potentially to Get Quick Fix; Push For Comprehensive Reform to Come Next Year,” Charlie Harper recommends a comprehensive ethics reform for Georgia that is funded by an investigative Ethics Commission. Sparked by the recent ruling of Georgia’s ethics Commission that declared that gifts and expenses on legislature staff will be exempted from disclosure requirements and cripple transparency, Harper believes that a well funded Commission will restrict lobbyists from influencing the state’s decision makers. Take a look at how he rationalizes it on Peach Pundit.

 

• Governor Dannel Malloy has a solution for Connecticut’s fiscal crisis: balance the budget with $2 billion in employee concessions. But while writing about an article in the Middletown Press , Jonathan Pelto expressed that he feels that the governor should be more open about where  he hopes to get the money from. Pelto argues that even with the state employee give backs, the  governor will not be able to make up the difference needed to balance the budget so the questionable conclusion is that  the ongoing negotiations between the state unions and the governor’s administration may not be as transparent as they are made out to be. Find details on the New Haven Advocate.

• State purchasing officers in Oklahoma will soon be able to use a public Wiki to report items that are on a mandated state purchasing schedule thanks to a recently introduced House Bill. Authored by Jason Murphey and state Senator Clark Jolley, HB 1086 will also enable the creation of a website that will help policy makers and the public to monitor state projects from start to finish. Murphey shows how this bill will improve communication between purchasing offices and potential vendors interested in bidding for government business on the House district 31.

• Proposed legislation in Maryland, House Bill 173 is about to make Invest Maryland -- a venture capital program -- the most easily accessible website in the state. The program, which will require disclosure of all funds and credits that the state invests in a company, will also provide details of the state’s spending programs, including annual reports from the Department of Business and Economic Development. Megan Poinski blogs that this will increase the state’s public records availability. Read more on Annapolitics.

Today we introduce and welcome Jason Williams as our guest blogger. Jason is a Political activist and blogger on both local and national issues since 2005. He also hosts a daily afternoon political talk program in Northern Utah.

With a 21-7 vote, the Utah State Senate last week approved an overhaul of the state's Government Records and Access Management Act (GRAMA). HB477 would shield lawmakers' voicemail, text messages, instant messages possibly even email from public record. Only one Republican voted against the bill. Senate sponsor Sen. Lyle Hillyard explained in an email exchange with a constituent his reason for co-sponsoring the bill:

Some people who know me don't know there is a difference and some think that when I am out of the office that my senate e-mail is the only way to contact me. Our staff is tired of the threats from the media and we plan on working with them if they want after the bill is passed if there are changes to be made but let's do it without threats of going to court.

First introduced in a surprise hearing by House sponsor Rep. John Dougall, the bill would also allow agencies to charge "professional rate" fees for requests, and guide courts to seek a "preponderance of evidence" justifying a releasing documents. The current GRAMA law instructs courts to focus on the public benefit of release. The bill passed the house 61-12 on Thursday, and the Senate less than 24 hours later so as to avoid, in the words of Senate President Michael Waddoups, letting it "fester" over the weekend. Sen. Hillyard declared proudly, "I'm doing this for future legislatures!". The House released this statement after final passage:

A core concern with GRAMA is the distinction between a conversation and a record. When GRAMA was created it wasn’t fathomed that day-to-day conversations would be considered as records. But what you and we now consider a digital conversation is now considered public record: text messages, voice mails, instant message logs. If that’s the case, why not just mic up every elected official and the tens of thousands of public employees across the state? Not only is it an impossible task, it’s also a gross invasion of privacy. And so we come to Rep. John Dougall and House Bill 477. The bill resets GRAMA with today’s technology in mind and clarifies legislative intent where court decisions have swung the pendulum dangerously far in one direction.

The Senate majority issued a statement, as well as the audio of Rep. Dougall's bill introduction. Lawmakers quickly moved on to controversial immigration reform bills, hoping to regain control of the narrative.

What they didn't count on was an enraged public.  This bill has drawn criticism from both progressive and conservative state organizations. Even Eagle Forum president Gayle Ruzicka, normally kind to the legislature, said "I hated the process," and called parts of the bill "outrageous."

Reaction was broad, bipartisan and decidedly against the changes proposed. By Monday morning, the Governor's office had been flooded with calls and emails demanding a veto of the bill, an online petition had garnered nearly 1,000 signatures in a matter of hours, and two separate rallies had been planned for the final few days of the legislative session. Even after veto threat from Governor Herbert resulted in a rare recall of HB477 to change the implementation date a rally organized on Facebook by local blogger Bob Aagard drew more than 150 protesters to the Capital Rotunda. But that night, the Governor signed the bill into law, promising a non-binding "work group" will be formed to consider amendments before implementation. The Utah Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists responded:

Perhaps worst of all, HB477 strips from Utah’s public records law language stating clearly that government records are presumed to be public and that the burden is on government to show why records should not be disclosed. This is critical language, language recognized by the statutes or common law of every state in the country.

“With one scribble of a pen, the governor made his state the most secretive in the nation, as well as more backward than most countries, including Mexico and Albania,” said SPJ FOI Committee chairman David Cuillier. “This will price citizens out of their government, encourage corruption and online sweetheart deals, and embolden those who would undermine democratic principles.

Legislators have responded to the backlash from transparency advocates, angry voters and journalists by scapegoating local media as unable to report objectively on the issue, accusing the public of not understanding the bill, and anecdotal misleading justification for the changes. Bill sponsors Dougall and Hillyard have said they only seek to protect legislators' private communications. What they don't explain is that the current law already does.

HB477 represents an arrogant legislative body placing their own position and power above the right of citizens to know what business is done in their name. In a state already challenged by one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country, Utah legislators have acted selfishly and in bad faith, placing themselves above increasing the confidence of Utah voters in the integrity of their public institutions.

A second rally is planned at the Capitol tonight, the final night of the 2011 legislative session, at 6pm, and a citizen referendum petition to completely repeal the law has been filed with the Attorney Generals office. With the Governor's signature, HB477 is set to take effect July 1st.

The Utah Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Utah League of Women Voters are hosting an HB477: What's Next? event to build a strategy:

Utah SPJ/League of Women Voters Sunshine Week event:

"HB477 May As Well be Law - Now What"? March 17, 7 p.m. Salt Lake City Library, Lower level, Rooms A&B

More resources:

On Facebook: Repeal Utah House Bill 477 and Utah's Right to Know. Shine a Light on Government Rally.

Organizations: Utah Society of Professional Journalists and RCFP Utah.

Local coverage:  The Salt Lake Tribune and The City Weekly.

For more of Jason’s work, check out these blogs: (Utah) The SideTrack (National) MyDD (Radio) Host, KVNU's For the People

Before coming to D.C., I wrote for a family-owned newspaper in New Mexico. There, I saw first-hand how closed government can impact a population. I still try to keep up with what's happening back in New Mexico, and a recent story there caught my eye. The director of the State Investment Council resigned in October pending a federal investigation into a pay-to-play scandal. The scandal itself is intriguing, but I'm more interested in how the Investment Council lost a federal subpoena:

Problem is, the subpoena and questionnaire referred to in the letter weren’t included in the package of documents released to the media. Asked about that, spokesman Charles Wollmann said the SIC believes the documents are public records, but it can’t locate them.

“You have everything that we have. It’s not that we’re trying to hide anything,” he said.

More than likely, he's telling the truth, and there's nothing nefarious at foot. But what would happen to you if you lost a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission? It's a curious disconnect between what we require of our government and what the government requires of us.

Sarah Welsh, the director of New Mexico's Foundation for Open Government said, "in order for the public to access public records, agencies have to hang on to them." There are pretty clear federal guidelines governing the preservation of records. The states have a system too, but that's where the problem begins: the system is similar, but not uniform, across the states. That makes it difficult for an organization like ours to focus our efforts on state governments.

My colleague Nisha is on the front lines, so to speak, tracking down examples of local transparency stories, news and challenges with her weekly Local Sunlight series. Paul also has the issue on his radar, and over on OpenCongress we're working to make it easier for users in one state to connect with their fellow residents.

In 2010, however, the Sunlight Foundation will be making more of a push into state government, a welcome move that I greet with enthusiasm. Simply put, the local issues do matter, and while we've always known that, I'm glad we're able to step up and try to make a real difference there too.

Over the last month, Sunlight has examined the document collections of the Office of the House Clerk and Office of the Secretary of the Senate to find out what they have. There seems to be an even split between public documents that are available online and those which you have to visit their office to read – or are not publicly available at all. Here is our list of House and Senate documents, which contain summaries of what we found.

The Senate makes available a handy report listing all of their public documents, but you have to goto their public record's office to obtain a copy. (We've uploaded the 2009 version.) The House doesn't have an equivalent report, although they do make available a bookmark listing some of their resources. Both offices charge a per-page printing/copying fee ($0.10/page for the House and $0.20/page for the Senate). Neither office lets users make copies of their electronic files, whether in whole or in part, even though many files are available in electronic format on dedicated computers in their offices.

According to our count, the House Clerk's office has 12 different kinds of documents: 6 are available online, 4 are available only at their office, and 2 are not available publicly at all. Likewise, the Senate Office of Public Records has 14 different kinds of documents; 3 are available online, 9 are available only in their offices, and 2 are not available publicly at all.

There are a number of interesting variations regarding how reports are filed and when they're made available. Some of the information made available online can be downloaded in bulk, although much of it is only available piecemeal. Also, there are different reporting periods for different kinds of filings, even though many of the filings occur quarterly. Moreover, staff and Members of Congress may file some documents electronically while others must be submitted in paper.

Congress would be well served to permit Members and staff to file all reports online. Likewise, it would make sense to have all of the public reports made available online in a searchable and downloadable database. Finally, each office should release a list, updated annually, of the reports that they hold and how they can be obtained.

(Much thanks to Jessica Pearce and Miguel Villalobos for their research assistance.)