All hail Jon Stewart and those clever Daily Show writers for very adeptly (and hilariously -- though not in a very safe for work way) reporting last night how quickly and quietly Congress and President Obama combined forces to gut major transparency provisions of the STOCK Act passed last year. In an election year, they rushed to pass this reform legislation (and garner public kudos for doing so), but now with less of a spotlight on their actions, they rushed to undo the bill.
Readers of our blog know that Sunlight's lobbyist, Lisa Rosenberg, has taken the charge to inform you about this as it happened nearly two weeks ago. As she put it, the Senate's action to approve the removal of STOCK Act transparency provisions was an epic failure on Thursday, May 11, especially since they did so invoking unanimous consent. Then the House followed suit and rushed the vote in mere seconds the next day, as most House members had already left Washington for recess. The House also completely lapsed on fulfilling their "read the bill" rule to wait three calendar days to deliberate on the legislation -- to, you know, actually give citizens time to know what their elected officials were voting on before it was a done deal. (This would have also given the press more time to inform Americans of these shenanigans.)
Rep. Justin Amash has introduced a bill that would make it a lot easier for everyone to understand congressional legislation. The Readable Legislation Act of 2013 would require that draft legislation contain sufficient detail to make it possible to understand the effect and intent of the bill. It would impose "track changes" capability on federal legislation, where you could see how a bill would change the law.
Congressional committees already track changes for legislation they report out under the Ramseyer Rule in the House and the Cordon Rule in the Senate. (Sometimes these rules are waived, although I don't know how often.) Most legislation never makes it through committee, or skips the committee process entirely, and thus is not subject to these rules.
Track changes for legislation isn't a new idea. Most states draft legislation this way. I've written about this idea before, and my friend Harlan Yu just gave a 3-minute talk on one way to make this happen at an Advisory Committee on Transparency event.
The problem in implementing a track changes (or GitHub) approach to federal law arises from the fact that much of US law is not available in an official, codified format. Much of the US Code is unofficial, and to see the actual law you need to look up each bill as passed by Congress, and then look up the bills that amended that bill, and so on. That's an incredibly hard task. Making matters even more complicated is that many of the laws passed by Congress are not available in a free (or easy to manipulate) digital format.
While the House is working on addressing aspects of this problem, it remains a thorny issue. Perhaps legislation could be drafted in such a way that it's easy to see how the bill would modify the US Code, even if the Code is not the law itself. A combination of markup tags and/or natural language processing would make this technologically possible, if arduous.
But to make this work, legislation may need to be drafted two different ways -- once to amend the actual law and a second time to reflect changes to the Code -- which would impose a significant burden on legislative counsel, especially as legislation can go through multiple drafts on a single bill. It might also reveal when the law and the Code don't agree. And as legislation is not all crafted by a centralized drafting office, particular in the Senate, this may require some culture changes in how legislation is written. That's a tall order.
Just because this would be difficult doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. All the time we see provisions inserted into legislation that no one realizes is there until after the bill has passed. This is unacceptable. The elimination of one of these Easter eggs could pay back Congress for the cost of implementing a better change tracking system. Rep. Amash proposes implementing this requirement for January 2015. That is a worthy goal.
A bipartisan assembly of groups representing a variety of interests—from a conservative government watchdog to a supporter of women’s rights to social security advocates—today sent a letter to the twelve members of the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction asking them to post their recommendations for trimming at least $1.2 trillion from the federal budget online for 72 hours prior to a committee vote.
The breadth of groups that joined the letter demonstrates that Super Committee transparency is an issue that matters to every American. Anyone with an interest in any federal program should have the opportunity to read the bill and determine its impact on the programs they care about. Likewise, the members of Congress who will be called on to vote on the Super Committee’s recommendations without amendment should have more than hours or minutes to determine how to cast their vote. They should, too, have a chance to weigh in with Super Committee members before the bill is finalized, if their constituents feel strongly that the bill should be changed.
Yes, time is running out. But that is no excuse for the Super Committee to claim they can’t allow the public to read the bill. They have known since August that the public and members of Congress have been calling for the committee’s recommendations to be made public before a committee vote. They can’t be surprised if there is outrage should they decide to ram a bill through at the 11th hour. Members of Congress are procrastinators. They will wait until a deadline to come to any conclusion. It won’t matter if the deadline is 72-hours earlier than they had hoped.
We strongly urge the Super Committee to heed the call of those urging them to complete their work and post the bill online 72 hours before they vote. In what has been an entirely secretive and undemocratic process so far, it is the least that can be done to attempt to restore the public’s faith in the deficit cutting process.
The Super Committee has 10 days to reach a deal to reduce the debt by at least $1.2 trillion. They should do it in 7. Here’s why. From the beginning, negotiations and lobbying on the committee’s efforts to reshape the federal budget have been handled in secret. If the Super Committee does come to an agreement, the public must have the option to see for themselves which programs will be cut, which will be spared, and why. The 523 members of Congress who are not on the super powerful, super secret committee should likewise have time to digest and weigh in on proposed changes before it is too late for the bill to be modified. In an affront to our democratic traditions, no member of Congress will be able to amend the bill when it goes to the floor of the House or the Senate. The only chance an elected official will have to voice the concerns of his or her constituents is if he or she is given the opportunity to read the bill before the Super Committee votes.
We can hear the excuses already: Super Committee members need every last minute to hammer out a deal; It’s not fair to shave 3 days off of the time they need to negotiate; The deal is too important to risk it failing for lack of time. We’re not buying it. In August, well before the Super Committee began hiding behind closed doors to attempt to negotiate a solution, Sunlight and many others publicly called for the committee’s recommendation to be made public before a committee vote. Legislation has also been offered to mandate online disclosure of the bill before a vote. Members can’t now feign shock that people are demanding to read the bill. Nor can they complain that they need those extra three days. We have seen time and time again that members of Congress are procrastinators. They will wait until a deadline to come to any conclusion. It won’t matter if the deadline is 72-hours earlier than they hoped. If there is any chance they will come to an agreement (and Super Committee co-chair Jeb Hensarling says he hasn’t “given up hope”) and if they believe transparency is at all important, they will find a way to arrive at an agreement in time for the details to be made public, online, before a final committee vote.
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle regularly voice concern about one party or the other “ramming through” legislation at the 11th hour. Now is the time for the bipartisan super committee to recognize that before they make decisions that will impact every American—whether by restructuring social services, modifying the tax code, or altering the defense budget—we have the right to read the bill.
From the stream of news coming from Congress about the budget, one might think that committee meetings and legislation on federal spending would be easily accessible online. That's often not true.
For example, the legislative text for four major appropriations bills are not yet online despite their apparent approval by both the full Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday and the relevant subcommittees prior to that. The four missing Senate bills are: Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2012; Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012; Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2012; and Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2012. The public's only chance to see the legislation is after all the important decisions have been made. By comparison, the House generally makes legislation considered by committees available to the public prior to votes.
None of the Senate committee reports for these bills are available online, either, except for the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, which is on THOMAS. The reports explain the decisions by appropriators and often provide significant guidance on how money will be spent.
Senate Appropriators do release streaming audio of subcommittee markups, although the audio feed isn't always reliable. The House, by contrast, will live stream video of its markups, but only when the committee finds it convenient; it often does not broadcast meetings at all. This goes against the spirit -- and likely the letter -- of the new House Rules passed by the 112th Congress.
Unfortunately, the best way to look at the legislation and reports in a timely way is often by using expensive private news services. Congress owes the public a better explanation of what it's doing.
This week marks the fifth anniversary of the Sunlight Foundation. It is exciting to reflect on how far we've come, the great people who helped us along the way and where we plan to go. With your help, we've grown from a small organization with big ideas to a connected community whose call for greater government openness and transparency is heard throughout the country.
We began with the nonpartisan goal of using the revolutionary power of the Internet and new technology to open government information. When we started, this modern interpretation of transparency was almost a completely foreign idea in Washington - a place where corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff dominated the headlines and sifting through reams of paper in order to get at the truth of what was going on was the status quo. While ordinary citizens were embracing new media tools and websites that gave them a readily available stream of information at their fingertips, government showed little interest in keeping up with the times.
Right out of the gate, we took on these age-old issues with a fresh arsenal of online tools and empowered citizens to engage in new forms of direct oversight. We believed then, as we still do, that none of us are as smart as all of us and that we have a stronger democracy when open information gives people the ammunition they need so they can speak truth to power. Sunlight developed all kinds of new tools and websites to achieve these goals and get the public involved in the political process.
Through it all we are most inspired and proud of the people who take action and participate in the process to improve our democracy. Thank you to the countless people and organizations who have worked with us, used our tools, dug deep into our websites through our first five years. The Sunlight Foundation will continue to work with you explore how to enhance our democracy and citizen engagement with our public officials using online tools. Sure, there's a lot more to be done. As a wise person once said, if this was easy, it would have been done already. And we promise you - the best is yet to come!
Two weeks ago the House of Representatives violated a pledge made by Speaker John Boehner to provide a 72 hour window for all legislation to be viewed by the public before it is brought to the floor for debate by voting on a bill to defund National Public Radio. Today, the House majority is again violating that pledge by voting on the Government Shutdown Prevention Act.
The Government Shutdown Prevention Act, a bill that deems the budget cutting bill passed by the House earlier this year to have passed Congress without the Senate's assent, was introduced on March 30 at 1:13 pm. At the present moment, this bill has not been available for even 48 hours.
The House majority sent the bill to be approved for floor debate by the House Rules Committee under emergency rules. The NPR defunding bill was also considered by the House Rules Committee in an emergency session.
Earlier this year the House Republicans changed the House Rules to implement a Read the Bill rule that stating that bills must be available on three calendar days prior to consideration. Sunlight was very pleased to see the new House Rules incorporate language that strengthens the public's ability to see legislation online before votes. We've also recognized that this rule might be artfully evaded through a variety of means, one of which is the "calendar day" definition.
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This "calendar day" issue was previously pointed out by Sunlight's Lisa Rosenberg, "the “third calendar day” yardstick for determining whether a bill is ripe for consideration could result in a bill being available for less than 72 hours. Sunlight has advocated using a “72 hour” time frame instead of three calendar days to prevent possible gamesmanship."
There still remain many other potential ways in which the current Rule and previous pledges could be subverted. Sunlight Policy Director John Wonderlich pointed these out in a post earlier this year.
This rule is clearly meant to fudge the previous promise by Speaker Boehner to provide 72 hours of public, online exposure for each bill before it is debated. In case you are wondering if Boehner made a 3 day, as opposed to a 72 hours, pledge, please watch below:
It's worrying that the majority would repeatedly evade a pledge that they made to the American people to make the House a more transparent body. It is especially worrying that the majority would do this on two votes that are clearly not emergencies.
How was the defunding of National Public Radio an emergency requiring the circumvention of normal Rules Committee procedures and the 72 hour pledge? The current Continuing Resolution to fund the government expires on April 8. Why can't the majority wait until Monday to vote on this bill?
The 72 hour rule is needed to give the public not only a chance to read the bills, but a chance to voice their opinion. This is especially important when bills are crafted and pushed forwards for political purposes. The public needs to be involved, but the majority is blocking that involvement for nothing other than the pursuit of quick political wins and message control. This is very disturbing.
Here is the original bill copy with time stamp in the lower left hand corner:
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In the post below I noted that it's a bit surprising that the Read the Bill pledge was subverted by the majority not providing 72 hours of online, public review of the NPR defunding bill because of Speaker John Boehner's many public pledges that specify that 72 hour time frame.
Here's a selection of the many, many times that Speaker Boehner pledged 72 hours of public review for all bills.
Yesterday the House Republicans voted on a bill to defund National Public Radio without providing 72 hours for the public to review the bill. This violates a pledge that Speaker John Boehner made repeatedly that he would require every bill to be made available for at least 72 hours online and in public.
Earlier this year the House Republicans changed the House Rules to implement a Read the Bill rule that stating that bills must be available on three calendar days prior to consideration. Sunlight was very pleased to see the new House Rules incorporate language that strengthens the public's ability to see legislation online before votes. We've also recognized that this rule might be artfully evaded through a variety of means, one of which is the "calendar day" definition.
In the case of today's vote, the bill technically meets the House Rules as passed in January, but could, if voted on prior to a 72 hour period expiring (approximately 8 AM on Friday), violate the numerous pledges made by Speaker Boehner and other Republican leaders to provide a public, 72 hour window for all legislation.
The bill was voted on yesterday afternoon and, thus, violated Boehner's pledge. To be more accurate, the pledge was violated even before the vote as the 72 hours of public review should end at the beginning of debate, which, on the NPR defunding bill, began yesterday morning.
Sunlight has previously stated our concerns about ways that the majority could circumvent this pledge and the rule, which does not mirror the pledge, implemented earlier this year. It is a bit surprising that the pledge was initially broken in this unnecessary manner, especially after Boehner being so emphatic and specific about the 72 hour time frame.
The House is set to vote today for a bill that would forbid funding for National Public Radio. The bill, while posted to the Internet on Tuesday morning, has not been available for 72 hours or more, which would appear to violate a pledge by Speaker John Boehner to afford the public this amount of time to read bills prior to consideration.
Earlier this year the House Republicans changed the House Rules to implement a Read the Bill rule that stating that bills must be available on three calendar days prior to consideration. Sunlight was very pleased to see the new House Rules incorporate language that strengthens the public's ability to see legislation online before votes. We've also recognized that this rule might be artfully evaded through a variety of means, one of which is the "calendar day" definition.
In the case of today's vote, the bill technically meets the House Rules as passed in January, but could, if voted on prior to a 72 hour period expiring (approximately 8 AM on Friday), violate the numerous pledges made by Speaker Boehner and other Republican leaders to provide a public, 72 hour window for all legislation. (Update: Sunlight's previous call for 72 hours of online bill availability required 72 hours prior to consideration, not prior to a vote. Under that rule, the consideration of this bill has already violated that pledge.)
Here is Speaker Boehner at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference earlier this year:
This "calendar day" issue was previously pointed out by Sunlight's Lisa Rosenberg, "the “third calendar day” yardstick for determining whether a bill is ripe for consideration could result in a bill being available for less than 72 hours. Sunlight has advocated using a “72 hour” time frame instead of three calendar days to prevent possible gamesmanship."
There still remain many other potential ways in which the current Rule and previous pledges could be subverted. Sunlight Policy Director John Wonderlich pointed these out in a post earlier this year.
Sunlight hopes that the House decides to go with previous pledges of requiring bills to be online for at least 72 hours prior to a vote in the future.
UPDATE: Rep. Anthony Weiner just pointed out the failure of the majority to provide 72 hours prior to consideration of this bill. The presiding congressman gaveled out a parliamentary inquiry from Weiner after declaring his question of whether the bill had been online for 72 hours to be "hypothetical." I'm not sure what is hypothetical about that inquiry.
UPDATE 2: Here is the video of Weiner making a point of order on the 72 hour rule.
UPDATE 3: Below is the original draft of the bill as submitted to the House Rules Committee. This is the earliest available draft of the bill. You can see the time stamp in the lower left-hand corner on each page. It reads March 15, 2011 8:21 am:
House Resolution to Defund NPR
