“Buy it, use it, break it, fix it, Trash it, change it, melt - upgrade it.” If only fixing and changing the technological infrastructure of Congress would be as simple as Daft Punk would have us believe. At the beginning of the month Republicans were up in arms over a seemingly nefarious move by Democrats to gavel out a vote on an amendment to the Agriculture Appropriations Bill, a move reminiscent of the 2003 Medicare vote and 1989 incident where Speaker Jim Wright held the vote open for more than the required time. It seems, however, (a special House committee is looking into this) that the error made was possibly the fault of an outdated, outmoded electronic voting system employed on the floor of the House.
Obama on Transparency in Government Take Two
Two months ago, Sen. Barack Obama laid out his plan to make the executive branch more transparent and accountable to the American people. Ellen wrote a blog post then which both acknowledged the importance of a major Presidential candidate putting transparency on the agenda and pushed for an even more active transparency agenda. Yesterday in Iowa, Sen. Obama reiterated his transparency agenda while adding a bit more to it.
Continue readingPossible Pocket Veto Holding Back Lobbying and Ethics Bill
Fearing a pocket veto of the recently passed lobbying and ethics bill Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid are holding off on sending the bill to the President during the August recess. According to Roll Call, "Democrats are worried that Bush could decline to sign the bill in the constitutionally specified 10-day period, leaving lawmakers with no opportunity to overturn the pocket veto." The White House has voiced concerns over three aspects of the bill: the Senate earmark reforms do not go far enough, the requirement of candidates to pay charter rates rather than first-class rates when they travel is unfair, especially considering that it will apply to incumbent Presidential use of Air Force One, and that the revolving door provision is tougher on executive branch officials and Senators than it is on members of the House. Holding the bill is probably the best plan for Democratic leaders as the President does not have the votes to sustain a veto should he choose to veto come September.
In case you were wondering what a pocket veto is and wanted to know how it is used I pulled some useful CRS reports on the subject. The first is titled "Regular Vetoes and Pocket Vetoes: An Overview" and it provides a quick run-down on the difference between the two and the frequency of use by each President. For a more detailed examination about the history, use, and legal rulings on the pocket veto read "The Pocket Veto: Its Current Status". The pocket veto, historically, was only used at the end of the second session of a Congress. President Reagan broke with this tradition by issuing intersession pocket vetoes in 1981 and 1983. President Clinton issued three intrasession pocket vetoes during his time in office. If the current President Bush were to pocket veto the lobbying and ethics bill it would be considered an intrasession pocket veto.
Continue readingEarmark Transparency Leads to More Earmark Competition
"It was not supposed to turn out this way." That is unless you understand the motivations of members of Congress. On Saturday, the New York Times reported that earmark disclosure, instead of reducing the appetite for earmarks, is increasing the competition among district and state-based companies and governments to get federal dollars for their projects. Members of Congress are also starting to realize that transparency is actually beneficial to them. For years members of Congress have sent out press releases announcing money they've secured for their district. Now, the information gets released for them. While some voters find earmarking to be an odious, wasteful system, more often than not district voters support earmarked money for their district. As Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) says, "Everybody hates earmarks. Everybody loves earmarks."
Continue readingSenate Passes Lobbying and Ethics Overhaul
The Senate just passed S.1, a bill that provides unprecedented online disclosure in both the House and the Senate. The vote was 83-14 and now goes to the White House for President Bush's signature. Once the bill becomes law it will mark the first time that the word "Internet" has appeared in the Senate Rules. I'll have more to say about this bill next week.
Continue readingSenate Showdown on Lobbying, Ethics, and Earmarks
Update: 80-17 in the affirmative, the bill has cleared the 66 vote threshold needed for cloture. Republican dissenters could only muster 17 votes against cloture. Those voting against cloture, I'm missing two names here, were Sens. Allard, Bennett, Brownback, Bunning, Burr, Coburn, Cochran, Cornyn, Craig, Crapo, DeMint, Graham, Inhofe, Lott, and McCain. The full Senate will vote at 1:50 pm to pass the bill. (The two names I missed were Sens. Ensign and Kyl.)
The Senate is debating S.1 now as some Republicans have declared their outright opposition to the bill and their intent to stop it. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is leading the charge against the bill, along with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), claiming that the bill has gutted earmark reforms and is "business as usual." The bill, which changes Senate rules, requires 66 votes to pass cloture (the 2/3s majority requirement is based on the number of present Senators and thus is 66 and not 67 because of the absence of Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD)). So far, Sens. DeMint, Coburn, Trent Lott (R-MS), and Ted Stevens (R-AK) have voiced opposition to the bill. Other Senators who have publicly criticized the bill or who have been involved in strategy sessions with DeMint and Coburn include Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Richard Burr (R-NC). The cloture vote is happening now, I'll update soon.
Continue readingTed Stevens Threatens to Block Ethics Bill
What happens when you combine the last two posts by Bill and myself? You get a story like this one from John Bresnahan at the Politico:
"Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, whose home back in Alaska was raided by federal investigators Monday in a wide-ranging corruption investigation, has threatened to place a hold on the Democratic-drafted ethics legislation just passed by the House and expected on the Senate floor by week’s end.
The senator told a closed session of fellow Republicans today, including Vice President Dick Cheney, that he was upset that the measure would interfere with his travel to and from Alaska – and vowed to block it."
Sen. Stevens' is apparently upset that lobbyists will no longer be able to freely ferrett him from Washington to Alaska. He is concerned that he may have to use some of those millions of dollars which he obtained with Bob Penney and Bill Allen to actually - gasp - pay for his own travel.
Sen. Stevens could always just stay in Alaska.
Continue readingUnprecedented Disclosure in House/Senate Reform Bill
Update: The bill passed the House at 11:58 with a vote of 411-8.
The House and Senate Democratic leadership released their new versions of lobbying and ethics reform today containing unprecedented disclosure in for members of Congress and lobbyists. While this bill is not perfect (what bill ever is?) it contains numerous provisions to put more information about what lobbyists are doing and more information about members of Congress online in searchable databases. Below is a list of what is new that is disclosed:
Continue readingMore Observations on Legislation 2.0
When David All and I wrote in an Op-Ed for The Hill that “the time has come to re-imagine the world of the wired elected official,” I did not expect members of Congress to be so quick to pick up and use these new lines of communication. Halfway into the year more members of Congress are using their Web site to disseminate useful information and some, albeit very few, are actually communicating with citizens in meaningful two-way dialogue both on and off their member Web site. Perhaps the most innovative example of this is Sen. Dick Durbin’s effort to craft broadband legislation with the help of citizens online, which Ellen wrote about earlier today.
Continue readingD.C. Madam Spawns Citizen-Generated Online Database
While much of D.C. is all atwitter about the D.C. Madam scandal and the subsequent revelations about Sen. David Vitter's appetite for prostitutes, we've been pretty silent here at Sunlight about the whole thing. That's because scandals about the personal failings of someone's private life are of no consequence to us. The Mark Foley scandal was an exception because that highlighted the institutional failings, and possible rule-breaking, of the congressional leadership at the time. Duke Cunningham's prostitutes were also an exception because they were used as bribes for earmarks. The Hill, however, reported today on an angle of the D.C. Madam case that is of interest to Sunlight. After Deborah Jean Palfrey, the D.C. Madam, posted her phone list on her personal Web site four Boston-based Brandeis alumni used that data to create a searchable database of all the phone numbers used to call Palfrey and secure her "services".
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