Sunshine Week presents the perfect opportunity each year to recognize the importance of transparency and open government. This year, with the ever-increasing influence of often secretive super PACs in our elections, the need for transparency is even more clear.

We have an opportunity for greater disclosure right now. A new bill -- the DISCLOSE Act 2012  will, if passed by Congress, require:

• Corporations and other outside groups to stand by their campaign ads -- with their leader and top financial contributors disclosed in the ads.

• Public reporting by corporations, unions, super PACs and other outside groups to the FEC within 24 hours of making a campaign expenditure or transferring funds to other groups for campaign-related activity (of $10,000 or more).

• Corporations and other outside groups to disclose campaign-related spending to shareholders and organization members.

• Lobbyists to disclose campaign-related expenditures in conjunction with their lobbying activities.

Help get the word out by writing a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Let your community know that it’s time to expose dark money behind our elections. It’s time to pass the DISCLOSE Act 2012.

Though we can see what these super PACs are spending their money on, the rules that let us see who’s giving them money are weak and don’t let us see the whole picture. Without disclosure, we can’t know if the ads we’re watching are funded by corporate VIPs with hidden agendas or everyday people like you and me.

If you want to see if your rep is a co-sponsor on the bill, look them up here and encourage them to keep up the support. If they are not co-sponsors, let them know too that it’s time to open up our government.

The bill has not yet made its way to Senate, so make sure to ask your senator to introduce a complementary bill and bring transparency into our government.

Writing a letter to the editor is easy and takes only a few minutes with our online tool -- we’ll walk you through each step. Lawmakers pay close attention to what goes on in the newspapers of their districts. A letter to the editor will help raise awareness about the need for transparency and accountability in your community. And it sends a clear message to your representative: we’re not afraid to speak out and demand transparency in our elections.

Want to learn more about the DISCLOSE Act? You can follow our updated blog posts about it here:

The day of gadget envy reckoning is upon us as Apple unveils their latest iPad and it seems only natural that the Sunlight Foundation watch this media frenzy in regards to our policy proposals. One particularly confounding (and floundering) situation is that the Senate refuses to use the internet and file their campaign finance reports electronically, though a few Senate offices nobly do.

The current process of filing goes something like this: a senator's campaign staff fills out campaign financial disclosure forms as required every quarter, submits those forms to the Secretary of the Senate who prints them out and sends it over to the Federal Election Commission. The FEC then takes this pile of paper and pays an army of data-entry folks to put those forms back into electronic format and then the FEC posts it online. We might be laughing at this scene set to Yakety Sax if it weren't costing taxpayers an estimated $430,000 every single year! This is stupid.

We tried appealing to their environmental concerns. We tried appealing to their government efficiency concerns. We tried appealing to their debt concerns. Turns out those concerns aren't so strong. Now, we appeal to their gadget envy concerns.

The iPad Proposal:

• Most recently cited cost of not filing electronically: $430,000
• Cost of a brand new 16 gb iPad with WiFi and AppleCare Warranty with taxes: $612.68
• Number of iPads that could be purchased with savings: 701
• Every Senate office gets 7 iPads and the extra goes to the Secretary of the Senate.

Maybe this will bait McConnell out from his cave of baffling obstruction?

Note: This proposal is tongue-in-cheek and we think it's much better for senators to just use their existing computers to file, like the House has been doing for years. Maybe they could put the money they would save towards funding other e-government programs?!

For the latest proof of the importance of money in politics, look no further than the Wednesday decision by Bob Kerrey to make a comeback bid for his old Senate seat and the excitement it is generating.

Never mind that Nebraska's one-time Democratic governor and senator has spent the last decade living in New York City's legendarily hip Greenwich Village. Never mind that he had to use his sister's address to register to vote in the state where he was born. Never mind that he hasn't been on a ballot since 1994 and will have to reintroduce himself to a new generation of Nebraskans.

He should have plenty of dough to help him do so. The one constant throughout the brainy, mercurial Kerrey's career has been his track record as a money magnet.

Sunlight's Influence Explorer shows that Kerrey raised nearly $10 million during the 12 years he was in the Senate. That's on top of the $681,000 that records on file with Nebraska's Accountability and Disclosure office show he raised for his first race, a successful 1982 campaign for governor. As chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 1995-96, Kerrey helped rake in another $33 million for his party.

Nor did his fundraising prowess end with his political career: The New School of Social Research, which Kerrey headed from 2001 until last year, credits him with raising more than $110 million to spark a major expansion of the Manhattan-based university. Benefactors included such bold-faced names as fashion designers Donna Karan and Diane von Furstenburg and media mogul Barry Diller. Influence Explorer also shows the New School's sophistication in the ways of Washington: The university has spent nearly $4 million lobbying, and has been rewarded with some $22 million in federal grants and contracts.

Like former Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and current Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., before him, Kerrey is demonstrating the power of a proven fundraiser to displace the ambitions of lesser-known locals.

"I gave up my seat on the University of Nebraska Board of Regents based on his word," Chuck Hasselbrook, a Democrat who says he entered the Senate race only after Kerrey assured him he wouldn't, told the Christian Science Monitor.

The Nebraska race is likely to be hard-fought and expensive, and it could be key to determining whether Democrats manage to maintain control of the Senate, where they now hold a 53-47 vote edge (a margin that includes two independents, Connecticut's Joe Lieberman, and Vermont's Bernie Sanders, who caucus with the Democrats). It's not unheard-of in such circumstances for parties to turn to a familiar face with a proven track record of bringing in the bucks. In 2000, when Democratic leaders worried that then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani would enter the race for the seat of retiring Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N,Y., Rep. Nita Lowey, a veteran Democrat from the New York City suburbs, had to give up her hopes of moving to the other side of the Capitol in favor of Clinton. The then-first lady ran her campaign for New York's Senate seat from the White House. And in 2010, when the retirement of Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., opened up an opportunity for Republicans, party leaders recruited Coats, who served in the Senate during the 1990s, over a former GOP congressman and state senator who also wanted the nomination.

Kerrey, 68, is a former Navy Seal who walks -- and sometimes jogs -- on a prosthesis, the result of losing part of his right leg to a grenade attack in Vietnam. His his war record came under a cloud, however, in 2001 when he acknowledged participating in an attack where Vietnamese civilians, many of them women and children, were killed. First elected to the Senate in 1988, Kerrey four years later launched a campaign for president. He lost the Democratic nomination to Bill Clinton in a campaign not marked by good feelings. Kerrey famously called the future president "an unusually good liar." Back in the Senate, where he won a second term in 1994, he was an early advocate for health care reform and Social Security reform. In 2000, he abruptly announced that he would not seek a third term and moved to New York to head the New School. In 2005, he briefly considered challenging Michael Bloomberg for New York City mayor.

The 2006 race for the seat that Kerrey is now seeking cost $20 million -- a figure driven up by the personal funds poured into the race by millionaire Republican candidate Pete Ricketts. Democratic incumbent Ben Nelson won, despite being outspent nearly two-to-one -- a sign that while money talks, it can only walk you so far.

(Keenan Steiner contributed reporting for this post)

Policy Fellow Matt Rumsey wrote this post.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee held a business meeting yesterday morning where they discussed a number of measures, including S. 743, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2011. The Act is intended to renew and strengthen previous whistleblower protection legislation passed in 1989.

According to the Project on Government Oversight, the bill has 14 cosponsors and support from more than 400 groups and 50 members of the Make it Safe coalition.

According to Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI), who sponsored the bill, federal courts have interpreted the original act in a way that is inconsistent with congressional intent. These interpretations have proved harmful for whistleblowers. Akaka introduced his bill in order to solve these issues.

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) noted that a similar bill had been passed by the Senate last year, but the House of Representatives had stripped it of provisions protecting intelligence community personnel. The bill ultimately failed. This year, according to Collins, the two chambers "worked to achieve a consensus on how intelligence commuity personnel should be handled" that is now reflected in the bill.

Before voting on the bill, Senator Akaka introduced an amendment to clarify provisions on nondisclosure agreements, give the Government Accountability Office more time to review the bill, and provide the Defense Department with access to information and consultation rights in some of the intelligence provisions. The amended bill was passed by the committee via a voice vote and will now advance to the full Senate.

The committee also considered and passed S. 1409, the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2011 and S. 237, the Government Accountability Office Improvement Act of 2011, in addition to a number of other measures.

A webcast of the entire hearing is available here.

Thanks to PopVox, you can view and search the bill text below.

Andy Rash of iotacons crafted these amazing 8-bit versions of your elected senator, well done.  I've also gone ahead and added Influence Explorer data to each one, take a look below.  You can embed this image into your blog by mousing over it and clicking the embed icon in the top left corner.

From iotacons.blogspot.com -

TOP ROW: Richard Shelby (R-AL), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mark Begich (D-AK), John McCain (R-AZ), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Mark Pryor (D-AR), John Boozman (R-AR),Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Mark Udall (D-CO), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tom Carper (D-DE), Chris Coons (D-DE), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Johnny Isakson (R-GA); SECOND ROW: Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Jim Risch (R-ID), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Richard Lugar (R-IN), Dan Coats (R-IN), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Rand Paul (R-KY), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), David Vitter (R-LA), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Ben Cardin (D-MD); THIRD ROW: John Kerry (D-MA), Scott Brown (R-MA), Carl Levin (D-MI), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Al Franken (D-MN), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Max Baucus (D-MT), Jon Tester (D-MT), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Harry Reid (D-NV), John Ensign (R-NV), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Robert Menendez (D-NJ); FOURTH ROW: Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Tom Udall (D-NM), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Richard Burr (R-NC), Kay Hagan (D-NC), Kent Conrad (D-ND), John Hoeven (R-ND), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Rob Portman (R-OH), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Bob Casey, Jr. (D-PA), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Jim DeMint (R-SC); FIFTH ROW: Tim Johnson (D-SD), John Thune (R-SD), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Bob Corker (R-TN), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), John Cornyn (R-TX), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Mike Lee (R-UT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jim Webb (D-VA), Mark Warner (D-VA), Patty Murray (D-WA), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Herb Kohl (D-WI), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Mike Enzi (R-WY), John Barrasso (R-WY)

We've just gotten the following document, which gives us the latest on the Senate's plan to post official Senate expenses online this Congress.

Sunlight has been anticipating the first ever digital release of Senate expenses since 2009, when the new policy was passed, as a result of Senator Coburn's amendment, which followed on Speaker Pelosi's new policy.

It looks like the first view of the disclosures will happen in November, and cover April to September. Most disappointingly, the information will be disclosed as a PDF. The legislation was rather clearly intended to create the release of actual data, not data in the difficult-to-reuse form of a paper document. Unfortunately, PDF documents can meet the standard of searchable (as long as the text is exposed), and itemized (if the items are listed), so the Senate is getting by on a technicality, and reaching for the lowest common denominator.

You can expect us to continue to try to get this released as a proper dataset -- more often than semi-annual, and perhaps most importantly, as structured data.

This should still be a big step forward, since the Senate expenses were only released before as a semi-annual book that almost no one knew about. We'll also be watching to be sure that the information available is at least as detailed as the information contained in the old, print edition of these disclosures.

Here's the letter:

Senate Expenses PDF

Senator John Tester announced on Facebook and Twitter that he has joined a very small handful of Senators who electronically file their campaign finance disclosure reports online with the FEC. (Update: Other sitting senators who file electronically include: Boxer, Cochran, Cornyn, Leahy, Lugar, Feinstein and Sanders.) By doing so, Tester sends an important message to all of his Senate colleagues. Even though they are not legally required to, Senators and Senate candidates can and should file their reports of campaign contributions and expenditures electronically.

Disclosure of important information about who supports which Senate candidates is delayed because the Senate decided years ago that it should not have to abide by mandatory electronic filing requirements all other political committees follow. Recognizing the absurdity of this antiquated system, in January Senator Tester introduced S. 219, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act. Sunlight has long supported previous incarnations of this legislation, first introduced in 2003 (!) and we will continue to advocate its passage. Unfortunately, Senator Mitch McConnell is likely to put up the same obstacles blocking this simple bill that he has used in the past. That’s why voluntary electronic filing is important. It is the only way the public can have real time access to Senate campaign finance information. Voluntary filing will never obviate the need for a change in the law because there will always be outliers who think they can game the system by delaying disclosure. But it is an easy way for Senators to demonstrate their support for transparency. We hope more Senators will Tester’s lead.

The 112th Congress is about to formally begin, and the Senate may face a number of procedural questions at its start.

In addition to filibuster reform, the Senate Rules reforms are about the nature of majority power in the Senate, and whether one Congress can bind a future Congress. The New York Times ran an editorial today that summarizes the filibuster reform issues succinctly.

Kagro X on Daily Kos is also well worth following here -- the depth of his coverage of congressional procedures is unparalleled.

For the mother lode of substance on filibuster reform, check out this transcript of a Senate Rules Committee hearing from last year. It's often heated, partisan, and entertaining.

While procedural reform isn't necessarily a transparency issue, the partisan fights and configurations of power that they create form the backdrop for public access. We'll be watching closely to see how things change in the Senate.

Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-OH) recently introduced legislation that would make it a lot easier for the public to access thousands of congressionally mandated reports. These reports are created when Congress requires agencies to give an accounting of their actions or plans for addressing a particular issue. Once received by Congress, the reports become House or Senate documents, and often provide valuable insight into what the federal government is (or should be) doing.

House documents, according to the Clerk of the House, originate from congressional committees and including annual reports of executive departments, investigative reports made to congress, presidential messages, and other similar publications. (House or Senate documents should not to be confused with House or Senate reports, which are prepared by congressional committees on proposed legislation and issues under investigation.) Rep. Dreihaus’ bill applies to congressionally mandated reports only.

Not all congressionally mandated reports are available online. Electronic access would put more eyes on each document, thereby enhancing their usefulness as oversight documents. My colleague John Wonderlich earlier wrote about how these reports can inform committee oversight plans. Rep. Dreihaus’ spokesman Tim Mulvey explains that “The reason Congress passes laws mandating these reports is so the American people can understand how their government works, and where it may not be working so well.” Driehaus, who sits on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, believes this bill could play a vital role in educating the public on what the government does.

At the beginning of each Congress, the Clerk of the House generates (pursuant to House Rule II) a report entitled “Reports to be Made to Congress,” which lists all congressionally mandated reports. It cites the law or resolution in which the requirement may be contained and placing under the name of each officer the list of reports required to be made by such officer.

While the report itself is available through GPO (here’s the 235-page report submitted in the 111th Congress: [PDF]) all of the reports it identifies are not. The GPO makes an effort to make these documents available online, but they don't get everything. In addition, even when the documents are online, they are often difficult to find. For a closer look, check out the GPO’s index of congressional documents and search engine.

The Access to Congressional Mandated Reports Act, or H.R. 6026, would resolve several problems. The bill requires the director of the Office of Management and Budget to create a central website that will let the public access congressionally mandated reports. The legislation would mandate improved search functionality so that people can find the documents, allow people to be notified when a particular document becomes available, and require public access to the report within 30 days. In addition, OMB would be required to issue regulations to the agencies on how they should submit reports, which must be in electronic format.

Rep. Dreihaus has the right idea. Reps. Towns and Clay agree, as they’ve co-sponsored the legislation. Congressionally mandated reports (with few exceptions) should be available online, and I would add that congressionally documents should be published online as a general rule. Creating deadlines for the reports to be available, requiring electronic formats, and improving access to the public are all excellent ideas.

I do have a few minor quibbles. OMB has experience issuing regulations to make this kind of effort succeed, but it would be unconventional for their regulations to apply to independent agencies or the legislative or judicial branches. Similarly, it is more common for the Clerk or the Library of Congress or some other entity under congressional control to house congressional documents, instead of OMB, which is an arm of the President. Nevertheless, this legislation is a smart move in the right direction toward making government more open, transparent, and accountable.

Eric Naing contributed significantly to the writing and researching of this article.

The Senate is expected to bring up the DISCLOSE Act tomorrow—perhaps a last stand to get the bill enacted before elections in the fall. Senate Republicans have been united in their opposition to the bill—efforts to get the support of moderates like Senators Brown, Snowe and Collins seem to have been fruitless. Without them, the bill will be shy of the 60 votes it needs to survive cloture. And without the DISCLOSE Act, the public will be left in the dark about who is funding political campaigns across the country.

Senator Reid is probably playing politics by bringing up bill knowing it doesn’t have the votes to pass. He’s right to use this vote to point out that Republicans are, in this case, the party opposed to transparency. And the voters should care. They should also ask anyone who opposes the DISCLOSE Act the following:

• Why, when the Supreme Court specifically said, “transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages,” are you opposed to a bill that does that?
• How can you claim that the DISCLOSE Act violates the first amendment when disclosure regimes have long been upheld as constitutional? Campaign contributions, candidate, party and PAC expenditures and lobbyists disclosures have long been upheld as legitimate methods of deterring corruption and the appearance of corruption in the political process.
• What is the basis for claiming the bill treats corporations and unions differently? The House and Senate bill ensure that unions and corporations are subject to the same transparency provisions, including disclosure of contributions to electioneering communications and stand-by-your-ad requirements. Under the Senate bill, both corporations and unions are required to report transfers among affiliates, including dues, greater than $50,000.
• How is the public served when a shadow group can conceal everything about itself and still influence elections by pumping unlimited amounts of money into campaign ads? The interests of the messenger can be easily disguised by giving a group an innocuous or even misleading name. At its core, the DISCLOSE Act is designed to lift the curtain off of such groups so that public can judge the veracity of a campaign ad and the credibility of the speaker.

The arguments lobbed against the bill are flimsy excuses to justify voting against legislation that would provide the public with critical insight into who is paying for our elections. By potentially killing the bill, Senate Republicans are not only denying the public with important disclosures about campaign expenditures by outside groups, they are also denying the public timely information about Senate candidates’ contributions and expenditures. The DISCLOSE Act includes a Sunlight priority to require electronic filing of Senate candidates’ disclosure reports. This straightforward provision has also been indefinitely stalled as a result of Mitch McConnell-led obstruction by Senate Republicans.

It’s ironic that the Chamber of Commerce would call this bill a partisan power-grab by Democrats. Rather, by opposing transparency, it seems that Senate Republicans and their special interest allies are trying to boost their own fortunes in November by ensuring that Republican-leaning corporate coffers can be opened up to help Republican candidates without leaving any fingerprints behind.