I’d be remiss to fail to mention Liza Sabater’s pre-PDF Conference blog post, “The Cluetrain Manifesto for People Powered Politics.” In her post Sabater aims to do for politics what the Cluetrain Manifesto did for the business community. Writing, “Gone are the days in which engagement is only mediated by an elite ‘entrusted’ by the masses with every single policy and political decision making that will end up affecting their lives,” Sabater highlights a point that I find to be instrumental in understanding the changes that an Internet-enabled open and transparent government will enable. While Sabater focuses on the realm of elections, I’d like to take a look at her “Manifesto” in terms of governance. “Constituencies are conversations,” and they can be empowered to affect the legislative and governing process as well as direct the political process.
Continue readingSigh. Another Secret Hold.
What is it with bills that create more open and transparent government and secret holds? Last week, a Republican senator placed a secret hold on the OPEN Government Act, a bill that would expand and fill the holes in FOIA. OPEN is cosponsored by Senators Pat Leahy (D-VT) and John Cornyn (R-TX), who have pushed for greater FOIA rights for some time now. As soon as they get the ability to pass the bill someone in Cornyn's party blocks it. We know that the secret hold comes from a Republican because it came through the leadership. This is yet another instance of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) hiding the identity of a secret holder. Josh at the Seminal has put together a list of senators to call and ask if they placed the secret hold. If you have a moment you should stop by and give your senator a call. Openthegovernment.org, Public Citizen, and the Federation of American Scientists have also put out a call to arms to unmask the secret holder. Do your part and make the call. If they can't end the practice of secret holds anytime soon than we may as well make the secrecy obsolete by unmasking the secret senator every single time.
Continue readingMapping a Member’s Schedule
Since the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet’s John Neurohr is able to read our minds I figure that I ought to give a demonstration of what we have been doing with the daily schedules that some members of Congress are posting. Currently most members of Congress, the press, and partisan outfits see the daily schedules as a target for cherry-picking “gotchas” like the recent fuss about Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand’s schedule showing a fundraiser for the congresswoman in Europe. Look at the schedule as a whole and not a series of single events and you get a different picture. Instead of one event that may be unseemly you will be able to tell a story that explains whether or not, in the meetings that the congressperson is holding, the member is fulfilling their representational duty to work with individuals and groups in the district. That’s why we decided to see what a Google map of the schedule might look like.
Lobbying Bill Vote Underway
Update: Lobbying bill passes!
Following up on their promise to pass an ethics and lobbying reform bill before the Memorial Day recess the Democratic majority brought the bill to the floor today. Voting on amendments to the bill is still underway but there have been some developments that already buck against the growing press accounts bemoaning the slow pace of the bill's passage. Despite supposed opposition from some Democrats the Chris Van Hollen sponsored lobbyist bundling disclosure bill passed by a wide margin, 382-37. The bill was strengthened further by a Republican measure, supported by freshman Democrats, that requires PACs to disclose bundled contributions as well.
Continue readingAmendments Submitted for the Lobbying Reform Bill
The House Rules Committee received today 48 amendments that will be offered during the debate and vote on the much-anticipated lobbying bill. There isn't too much of interest to us at Sunlight but I figured that you might want to check out all of the proposed amendments. The most controversial ones will certainly be Chris Van Hollen's bundling disclosure amendment, Chris Shays' 2-year lobbying cooling off amendment, Marty Meehan's ban on lobbyist thrown parties at national conventions, and the numerous amendments to create outside ethics enforcement bodies. Jeff Flake, notorious for his anti-earmark crusade, has also offered a raft of controversial amendments related to earmarks including an outright ban on lobbying for earmarks. I've put the whole list below the fold. Check it out:
Continue readingAttorney Purge E-Mail Database Online
When the House Judiciary Committee put all of the Justice Department e-mails relating to the Attorney purge they received online they started an immense distributed research project that led hundreds of citizens to pour over documents hoping to find the needle in the haystack that would become a story the next day. The only problem with these online document dumps was that they were just that, dumps, as in the pouring of documents online in no particular order and without a search function. Those days are over thanks to a cadre of committed online researchers at Daily Kos. DKos poster drational posted today about the DOJ Documents database created by 20 kossacks and spearheaded by nuketeacher. Check out the database here.
Continue readingLobbying Bill Markup
The House Judiciary Committee just took a break from the lobbying bill markup session to go vote on the floor of the House so it seems like a good time to give a re-cap. The first action the committee took was to pass HR 2317, the lobbyist bundling disclosure bill, out of committee. There were some questions raised from Rep. John Larson (D-CT) and Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) but ultimately the bill was voted out in favor. The bill will be reported as an amendment on the floor to be added to HR 2316, the lobbying and ethics package. In regards to HR 2316 the committee passed a manager's amendment that stripped the increase in the revolving door provision from 1 to 2 years, changed the location of disclosure for Members negotiating for outside employment from the Clerk of the House to the House Ethics Committe, and stripped a provision (Conyers called it a "drafting error") that would have required 501(c)(3)s to disclose all contributions over $500.
Continue readingHouse Puts Personal Financial Disclosures Online!
Last night, the House Democrats revealed the much anticipated companion lobbying and ethics bill to the Senate's S.1 (we'll have a more detailed look later). Included in the bill is a provision to put personal financial disclosures and travel reports online for the first time. As you may know, we've been lobbying for this and consider this to be a great victory for transparency in the House of Representatives. We commend the House for continuing to towards a more open and accessible online presence. Thanks to everyone who called or sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi and members of the Judiciary Committee. We've heard that your calls and letters helped push the leadership to include this provision. In the face of newspaper articles doubting the seriousness of the reform effort in the House this provision should indicate that the House is willing to make their own institution more transparent and open to the public at large. Now, for the provision itself. (Clause (a)(2) requires personal financial disclosures be put online.)
Continue readingPut Personal Financial Disclosures Online
The House Judiciary Committee is currently deciding what will or will not be included in the House’s ethics reform bill. While the Committee is talking about requiring greater transparency from lobbyists they aren’t taking simple steps to make the House more transparent. Last week, Ellen proposed that the Judiciary Committee take one simple step to make the House more transparent by putting personal financial disclosure forms online. (This is also a recommendation in The Open House Project report.) You can help make this happen by following this link and contacting Speaker Pelosi and the members of the Judiciary Committee and asking them to include a provision putting personal financial disclosures online in the ethics bill. If you want to know why you should care about the online disclosure of personal financial disclosure forms you can read Ellen’s post and continue reading this post. (See also the Congresspedia entry on personal financial disclosure.)
Continue readingOnline Journalist Ejected from Press Gallery
Citizens and journalists are taking to new mediums to report on Congress. These new mediums, however, are not recognized by the U.S. Senate Press Gallery. Today, ConsumerAffairs.com reports that it's Congressional reporter, Joe Enoch, an award-winning investigative journalist, was ejected from the Press Gallery after he was denied renewal of expired credentials because he wrote for an online venture. According to the Senate Press Gallery, ConsumerAffairs.com is not a "legitimate journalistic enterprise." This is a shining example of what Rob Bluey pointed to in his Hill op-ed and in his Open House Project recommendations to create a credentialing to bloggers and citizen journalists. The right to report is not limited to those employed by elite media institutions. ConsumerAffairs.com founder and editor in chief James R. Hood puts it best when he says, "The Constitution of the United States guarantees freedom of the press to everyone; it does not establish a legitimacy litmus test."
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