We've written fairly often about unbelievable situation over the Federal Election Commission. Always regarded as a toothless watchdog even in the best of days, since there's been a partisan stalemate over new appointments, it's been totally neutered.
Now, Paul Kiel reports that the Bush Administration has offered a so-called compromise. The most controverisal nominee -- Spakovsky -- remains a nominee, and an administration spokesperson told the The New York Times that they would accept a separate vote on him. In the meantime, the administration has submitted a new nominee to replace FEC Chair David Mason, one of the two setting commissioners.
Continue readingThinking Like a Dandelion
Cory sez:
My latest column in Locus Magazine, "Think Like a Dandelion," came out of a talk I had with Neil Gaiman about the bio-economics of giving stuff away for free. Mammals worry about what happens to each and every one of their offspring, but dandelions only care that every crack in every sidewalk has dandelions growing out of it. The former is a good strategy for situations in which reproduction is expensive, but the latter works best when reproduction is practically free -- as on the Internet.But the disposition of each — or even most — of the seeds aren't the important thing, from a dandelion's point of view. The important thing is that every spring, every crack in every pavement is filled with dandelions. The dandelion doesn't want to nurse a single precious copy of itself in the hopes that it will leave the nest and carefully navigate its way to the optimum growing environment, there to perpetuate the line. The dandelion just wants to be sure that every single opportunity for reproduction is exploited!
Think about government data in just that way.
Continue readingIt’s Just Upping the Ante
The Politico published a pretty interesting analysis that used data from the Center for Responsive Politics to show how green energy interests are upping in pretty dramatic ways the amount of money they spend lobbying Congress. Despite these large increases, however, they remain vastly over spent by the oil and gas and coal mining industries. Think of it as the arms race applied to the world of money and politics.
The alternative energy industry has increased their lobbying outlays eightfold over the past ten years, going from $2 million to almost $16 million. For instance, the American Wind Energy Association spent over $815,000 on lobbying efforts, and the National Biodiesel Board spent more than $1,235,000.
Continue readingLegiStorm’s Data Making Waves
LegiStorm, the Web site that shares Sunlight's goals of making Congress as transparent as possible, via their blog reports on how Roll Call used LegiStorm's congressional data to show how Christopher Riley, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, violated House rules by exceeding the amount of side income a staff member can make. Riley was being paid by his bosses' reelection campaign, as well as receiving a congressional salary. As Deal's chief of staff, Deal earned a large enough salary that qualified him as a "senior staffer." House rules limit such staffers to $25,000 in outside income annually. Riley's income had greatly exceeded this amount, LegiStrom's data revealed. In response to Roll Call's inquiries, he returned $90,000 to Deal's campaign. Deal said he was unaware of the House rule limiting outside income.
Earlier this week, Roll Call published a story that used LegiStorm's financial disclosures to reveal a potential conflict of interest with an energy business owned by Rep. Steve Pearce. The paper reported that Pearce sold his assets of his oil services company for $12 million to an energy company that had testified before a panel he co-chaired. Pearce's personal financial disclosure listed the value of the company at $1 million to $5 million.
Continue readingCould It Happen Here?
It's one thing when the information about who your neighbors give campaign contributions to is public, but it's quite something else to know what every citizen earned and what they paid in taxes. Don't panic it hasn't happened here in the U.S. but the Italian government published it all. And yup, the government's web site was taken down after a formal complaint from the country's privacy watchdog.
The release of the information was one of the last acts of the outgoing centre-left government and has shocked many tax-shy Italians. . . . But it was also hugely popular, and within hours the site was overwhelmed and impossible to access.
The finance ministry described the move as a bid to improve transparency.
The transparency ploy has generally been regarded as an end of term sour grapes move.
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They Don’t Know How to Spell Transparency at DoD
In its May issue, Conde Nast's Portfolio.com has an unbelievable story about continued financial bumbling by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Despite spending tens of billions of dollars over the past four years to upgrade its accounting software, the military's business systems are as unreliable as ever. DoD's systems are "so obsolete and error prone" that it doesn't know where large chunks of its $439.3 billion (2007) annual basic budget goes. And that figure doesn't include the vast sums being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to the report, the agency's accounting is so dysfunctional it's impossible for DoD to comply with an 18-year-old requirement by Congress to audit its books. What results is a system that once payments are authorized and money is transferred, there is no reliable way to trace where it ends up. The Portfolio.com article echoes a February article by The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer that profiled DoD's "labyrinth of arcane and incompatible accounting systems." The News & Observer notes that the accounting problems are not new, and quotes Winslow Wheeler, a project director at the Center for Defense Information, as saying if DoD were a public company, "...it would have gone belly up before World War II."
Continue readingSunlight Really is a Pretty Darn Good Disinfectant.
Speaking of Change Congress, I was reading Japhet Els' posting about earmarks and wanted to weigh in here. (I just joined the Change Congress Google Group and will post this there, too.)
First of all, it is always easier to identify the problem than to solve it, no matter which policy arena you are playing in. But in this case, it's even hard to identify the problem. Is it that lawmakers get to decide where to spend government money and the process is too subjective? (If not them, would a government bureaucrat know the needs of a district better?) Is it that the private financing of public elections corrupts public officials absolutely (or partially), and so we can't trust the spending of government money to them because they simply can't make unbiased decisions? (I kind of think the latter is a big part of the problem if not the whole of it.) Is it because some lawmakers have private investments in companies that might execute the contracts to perform the work designated by earmarks or that they make decisions to benefit their own personal holdings. (See Dennis Hastert.). It's probably all of the above and more. (See Bill Allison's frequent blog postings on earmarks.)
Second, proposals for reform have to be realistic. (Yes, they can be idealistic and realistic at the same time.) It is simply not realistic to propose to ban earmarks, I mean, someone has to decide which bridges and roads need to be fixed, which universities are doing great research and need to be supported, which community health clinics deserve government money, and yes too, how many new bombers we need. And while I understand that calling for an earmark ban is useful as an organizing vehicle, as policy it doesn't make a lot of sense. Who would decide how to spend the money? And even if you suspend my disbelief, a history of reform efforts show us that such a "ban" would most likely drive the spending underground and make it even hard to track how Congress spends taxpayer money. The money will get spent.
Continue readingRemix Change Congress
Everyone loves Professor Larry Lessig's lectures. He's known for his impressive keynote presentations. (I know that sounds like an oxymoron but trust me in this case it's not). He always leaves the rest of us wondering how we can emulate his delivery skills. And mostly, we can't.
His recent talks about his latest project -- Change Congress -- don't disappoint. And now he's making it all available for remixing. Dig in here.
(Full disclosure: Larry serves on Sunlight's advisory board.)
Continue readingWall Street Comes to Washington
Politico seems to be suggesting that Wall Street has just discovered Washington. They've been here a long time.
“Wall Street Comes to Washington” is the title of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association event convening Thursday. Attendees will be entertained by media celeb Tucker Carlson and will hear from House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). They’ll have dinner with Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), and they’ll participate in panel discussions about the ongoing credit crunch and the regulatory future for their industry.
This industry doesn't have trouble attracting lawmakers to their lobbying-fest. They represent Rep. John Boehner's fifth largest source of campaign funds; and Sen. Richard Burr's seventh largest. As for snaring Rep Joseph Crowley's? No problem. They are his largest contributor.
Continue readingSo Much for That Reform
Every time I see one of these stories about the failure of "reform" efforts to deliver the goods I don't know whether to tear my hair out or say "I told you so." Politico reports that the new reports filed by lobbyists don't do very much to make it easier to track what's really going on, particularly when it comes to finding out the financial backers of the shadowy coalitions that popup in various high-profile policy debates - usually using lots of expensive TV ads to stir up the grass roots.
According to Jeanne Cummings:
....this first round of reports, which does include some of the more modest new disclosure requirements, represents an inauspicious beginning to what was supposed to be a new age of enlightenment about K Street and Congress.
Duh.
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