Here's the correspondence logs we received from the Department of Defense recently. We received about 100 pages of documents in PDF format that we converted to text.
Continue readingTwo House Appropriations Bills List Earmarks
Via National Journal's CongressDaily (subscription only) comes word that the Appropriations Committee has released lists of earmarks along with two bills (I've appended them to this post):
The House Appropriations Committee today took its first official steps to disclose pet projects in FY08 spending bills, revisiting the Interior-Environment and Financial Services measures to add the earmarks in advance of floor action next week. Now that Republicans got their wish, they are seeing the fruits of their efforts up close. Their own projects are being squeezed both by House Appropriations Chairman Obey's decree of a 50 percent total reduction in earmarked projects as well as being on the receiving end of a 60-40 split between the majority and minority they have not experienced in a dozen years. Continue reading
GSA Organizes Government Blogs
This week, the General Services Administration introduced a new section to their Web site USA.gov highlighting blogs run by government agencies. Only a few government agencies are getting into the blogging spirit but you can now find them all in one spot. Thinking about joining the Peace Corps.? Now you read the Peace Corp. blog, an aggregator of Peace Corp. Volunteers' own blogs on their experiences. Want to follow the National Endowment for Arts initiative to make reading a central part of American life? Check out The Big Read Blog and follow NEA Literature Director David Kipen as he travels the country. There are a number of other blogs across the government including the Library of Congress blog, the Pandemic Flu Leadership blog, and the GLOBE Program blog. I can't think of a better way to communicate what these agencies are doing than to talk to the public through the blogging platform. Maybe Congress will decide to change the way they communicate some day too.
Continue readingAnnoucing New Sunlight Grants
We are very pleased to annouce today our third round of grants for 2007 for projects that use the Internet to connect the public to information about the workings of Congress. The groups we are funding are leading the way in making Congress more transparent, and therefore, more accountable to the public. Each in their own way are innovative in their use of ‘Web 2.0' technology to equip citizens with the tools and knowledge necessary to effectively participate in democracy.
The grants, totaling $350,000, are being awarded to MAPLight.org, the Center for Independent Media and The Focus Project's OMB Watch.
Continue readingCongressional Staff Need to be Transparent Too
Writing in the Washington Post, Paul Kane explicates the fine print on a fundraiser flier sent out by Sen. Charles Schumer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and finds that the draw for prospective lobbyist fundraisers will be congressional staff members -- not members of Congress:
Officially, lobbyists are asked to give or raise $2,000 to be a "host" or $1,000 to be a "DSCC friend" in order to meet "individuals representing" Senate Democrats. That's code word for chiefs of staff and staff directors of committees, according to lobbyists who received the fundraising pitch. The image of the invite that was e-mailed to Capitol Briefing included the file name of "chiefs invitation". Continue reading
Conyers Sets up Web Site for Justice Department Whistleblowers
Congressional investigators are using the Web to ask whistleblowers to come forward in crucial investigations. Today, John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced a new Web page asking current and former employees of the Justice Department to come forward with any information regarding the politicization of the law enforcement agency. Earlier this year, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) introduced a whistleblower e-mail hotline for his committee. This seems like a great way for investigators to connect with executive branch employees with a story to tell. Just as members of Congress can use the Internet to better communicate with citizens, congressional investigators can use the Internet to better connect with whistleblowers.
Continue readingIn Praise of Partisan Politics
I always hear people deriding the partisan politics in Washington. It comes from both sides of the aisle and from a lot political independents. It's also voiced by many Washington elites like David Broder and Dan Balz of the Washington Post. But is it really true? Simply looking at this earmark fiasco in Congress I have to say that partisanship is helping to create more transparency. Now, I fully understand that Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) have a personal distaste for earmarking - neither of them ever request earmarks - but one cannot deny that Boehner, Flake, and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) were not making a partisan political decision when they decided to attack Rep. David Obey's (D-WI) plan to hide all earmarks until after conference committee. What Obey was doing was terrible for transparency and openness and the Republicans found an opening in a tough political climate where they could score points with their base and with a larger group of Americans. That's politics. And guess what? This political decision has led a number of congressmen to release their earmark lists to the public for the first time.
Continue readingCNN Says 31 House Members Released Earmark Requests
CNN contacted the offices of all 435 House Members asking for lists of 2008 earmark requests members made--and just 31 provided them with lists. Seven said they'd requested no eamarks. That means 397 either said no (68 of them) or didn't respond (329). CNN provides a tool with the story for looking up lawmakers to see how they responded; it might have been easier for users if CNN had separately provided the lists or links to lists of earmarks that they did get. What's apparent is that the overwhelmeing majority of House members--both Democrats and Republicans--are not exactly racing to be transparent.
Continue readingWhat’s With These Guys?
Every single time we look around one Senator or another (in our experience usually a Republican) is blocking a piece of legislation that would require greater transparency for the work of Congress. First, it was Sen. Ted Stevens who had a secret hold on the Coburn-Obama bill that ultimately passed after pressure from the blogosphere, then there is Sen. Mitch McConnell who is effectively is hiding the Senator who is blocking a bill that would create electronic filing for Senators' campaign finance reports, and now there's Sen. Stevens (seems to be a pattern here)... who blocked the markup of legislation that would provide transparency for presidential library donations, which currently have no official disclosure requirements.
Continue readingOGE working toward electronic filing of financial disclosure forms
Members of Congress aren't the only ones to file publicly available personal financial disclosure forms; so do presidents, cabinet secretaries, high ranking officials, and others throughout the upper echelons of our government. Just as with the legislative branch, the public must be afforded the opportunity to determine whether administration officials have potential conflicts of interest.
The agency responsible for collecting these forms is the Office of Government Ethics (OGE); they collect paper forms SF 278 (which are maintained by OGE and available to the public) and disseminate paper OGE forms 450, which are filed by lower level employees, are ...
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