The new healthcare exchange site has been the topic of several news stories these past few weeks. Many of them are quoting vastly different numbers for how much it cost to build. You'd think that sites like USASpending.gov or the Federal IT Dashboard1 would be able to give us some idea. But in reality, that's just not how federal spending is reported.
Much of government spending is bundled into huge contracts called IDIQs (indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity) that are meant to span many years and may go to multiple recipients. They're a lot like regular contracts except they can have very vague requirements and once the IDIQ itself has been competed, the government no longer has any requirement to compete any contract within that IDIQ. CGI Federal has one of these IDIQ contracts with the Department of Health and Human services. It was signed in 2007, long before the Affordable Care Act became law, and lasts until 2017. Within each IDIQ, the government creates purchase or task orders for specific services, which you can find in the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). You can see a list of all the task orders for the CGI Federal IDIQ here.
Given a few constraints (was the task order post-ACA? does the description sound like it might contribute to healthcare.gov?) I highlighted in blue my guesses at what task orders might be related to healthcare.gov. I think my guesses err on the over-inclusive side. Even so, if you add them up, it's about $70 million. That's not unheard of for a government website and it's certainly far lower than the $600 million cost that has been reported in some places. But the fact that we can't figure it out shows the dire state of federal spending transparency.
Announcing the Global Open Data Initiative’s New Declaration on Open Data – And Inviting Your Feedback
The Global Open Data Initiative partners are excited today to share a draft Declaration on Open Data, and would welcome comments and feedback on its contents. This post was co-authored by the Global Open Data Initiative partners, and the original can be viewed here.
Open Data has enormous unfulfilled promise to change how governments work and to empower citizenship. Even as more governments and issue experts discover new potential in the public release of data, civil society groups still need clear guidelines and mechanisms for cooperation. Global Open Data Initiative hopes to help provide both, and we hope this draft declaration will help us fill that gap.
By building on existing efforts to gather guidelines and best practices, and by building a clear, joint voice made up of outside groups, Global Open Data Initiative hopes to provide a CSO-led vision for how open data should work.
Ted Cruz Moves on from Trying to Defund Obamacare to Defending Dark Money
Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) mission to shutter the government in one fell swoop may be (temporarily) over, but that doesn’t mean he’s stopped trying to handcuff federal agencies in an effort to impose his own agenda on their work. His most recent effort involves preventing a Senate vote on the nomination of Tom Wheeler for FCC chairman because he wants to get Wheeler’s commitment that he will not use the FCC’s regulatory authority to require disclosure of the dark money behind political ads.
In a statement, Senator Cruz’s office announced, “Yes, the Senator is holding the nominee until he gets answers to his questions regarding Mr. Wheeler’s views on whether the FCC has the authority or intent to implement the requirements of the failed Congressional DISCLOSE Act. Mr. Wheeler had previously declined to give specific answers, but as he’s now expressed his readiness to revisit the Senator’s questions, the Senator hopes to communicate with him soon.”
Good luck to Mr. Wheeler during that conversation.
Government Shutdown + Arcane Senate Rules = Less Transparency in New Jersey Senate Race
“We told you so,” is so petty, but, well, we told you so. We predicted that disclosure of Senate campaign... View Article
Continue readingSupreme Court Could Snuff Out Last Ember of the Campaign Finance System
On Oct. 8, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a case in which the plaintiff, Shaun McCutcheon, joined by the Republican National Committee, is challenging the constitutionality of the overall limit on contributions to federal candidates and political parties. If the court rules in favor of McCutcheon and the RNC, it might as well tie a big bow around Congress and deliver it to a tiny percentage of the very, very rich.
Plutocracy anyone?
FDA Regulations Point to Need for Strengthened Lobbying Disclosure Laws
As my colleague Nancy Watzman reported, the Food and Drug Administration proposed strict new rules to ensure the cleanliness of food production, distribution and warehousing facilities. At the same time, the American Bakers Association announced “a major victory" because somehow they had ensured the new rules would not apply to their warehouses. To find out how and why the ABA secured an exemption to the rules was no straightforward task. A search of the lobbyist disclosure database yielded few results. Instead, it took a Freedom of Information Act request, digging through law firm websites and other sources in order to piece together who the influencers in Washington were and how they managed to ensure their clients were not subject to rules that, on the surface, would appear to be designed to impact their industry.
Continue readingWhy Kenya’s open data portal is failing – and why it can still succeed
Kenya’s open data portal is floundering. Despite the excitement that surrounded its launch in July 2011, the portal has not been updated in eight months, has seen stagnant traffic, and is quickly losing its status as the symbolic leader of open government in Africa.
For a number of reasons, the portal, which runs on a Socrata platform and can be viewed here, has not lived up to the often sky-high expectations of many onlookers.
First, government ministries have been reluctant to release data. Many observers expected that the launch of the portal would help eradicate the Kenyan government’s harmful culture of secrecy. The Official Secrets Act, a holdover from the colonial era that prevents government employees from sharing official information, has created a closed culture in government and has starved the portal of much needed information.
Second, implementation of the new constitution has hamstrung government officials who are trying to adjust to new roles and identify new responsibilities, significantly reducing government officials’ ability to incorporate open data into their already overburdened workstreams. The new Kenyan constitution, which was overwhelmingly passed in a 2010 referendum, created a new devolved system of government. Large changes are still being implemented, and government officials are struggling to adjust.
This inexhaustive list displays some of the large obstacles standing between the open data portal and the goals of a more transparent, accountable, and effective government. Despite these challenges, there is still hope that Kenya’s open data experiment can regain its footing and reestablish itself as an open government leader.
OpenGov Voices: CivOmega: Making Government Data Useful to Everyone
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the... View Article
Continue readingYour Guidelines to Open Data Guidelines Pt. 2: Stages of Development
In revisiting Sunlight’s Open Data Policy Guidelines for our Version 2.0 release, we took a closer look at other sources for open data guidance that have been released over the years. To see a comprehensive round up of open data guidance (complete with a timeline!) see Part 1 of Your Guideline to Open Data Guidelines: The History.
Although it’s only been eight years since the first resource of this kind was created with the Open Knowledge Foundation's Open Knowledge Definition, exploring open data guidance in its totality not only shows how much these recommendations build on each other, but how the movement has matured. Moreover, many of these resources occupy separate-–but overlapping-–arenas of expertise, though an outside perspective may not immediately catch their nuances. Below, we’ll explore in more detail the three major themes of open data guidance: How to Define Open Data, How to Implement Open Data, and How to Open an Open Data Discussion.
The sequence, prevalence, and layering of these themes showcase the developmental stages of the open data movement thus far. Over the years we have seen open data advocacy emerge from its nascent expert-driven defining period to becoming (quite self-referentially) a public discussion. We’ve seen different missions of the major players in the open data movement inform nuanced definitions and implementation recommendations, and we have seen an increase in best practice assessments, academic critique, and diverging schools of thought.
To understand this larger story, let us look at each piece.
Continue readingSunlight Joins Effort Across the Pond as Britain Tries to Rein In Influence Buying
A heated debate over proposed lobbying legislation is underway in Great Britain, where lobbying reform legislation has been offered as a result of a scandal in which Members of the House of Lords apparently offered assistance to fake solar energy lobbyists in exchange for payment.
Prime Minister David Cameron proposed lobbying reform legislation in 2010, but it took the scandal to muster enough outrage to spawn reform efforts.
Much of the outcry over the bill is focused on provisions that would limit the amount of money third parties could spend on elections. But even more fundamentally, the bill fails to do what it set out to do—that is, shine a light on the activities of lobbyists. The bill is so poorly and narrowly crafted that it may result in less transparency than is currently provided by the UK’s voluntary (and woefully incomplete) lobbyist registry.
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