The Pfizer-General Motors-Northwest Airlines-United-Coors Democratic and Republican conventions are looking for more sponsors; Dodd doesn’t understand acronyms; sometimes it’s not... View Article
Continue readingIn Broad Daylight: Disclosure Is Next To Cleanliness
Wealth disparity in Congress as lawmakers disclosure their finances; KBR can’t decide if it’s “Support the Troops” or “All for... View Article
Continue readingSunlight is Contagious and Disruptive
I know that Nisha generally covers the local Sunlight topics, but I was quite touched by an email sent by... View Article
Continue readingForeign Agents Lobbying Reform
In today’s edition, The New York Times reports on legislation that’s meant to close a loophole lobbyists use to cloak... View Article
Continue readingIn Broad Daylight: Another Day of Congress News
Follow up on Curt Weldon’s Russian ties and the Pentagon contracts he tried to secure, a “dead beat congresswoman,” one... View Article
Continue readingWhen Disclosure Isn’t Disclosure
The Hill highlights a problem that we've seen far too often with personal financial disclosures. Lawmakers do not always follow the rules in properly filling out these important disclosure forms. More often than not, the public is not privy to the lack of disclosure because oversight is spotty at best. Sometimes it takes an unfortunate story to point out what is lacking from a financial disclosure form:
Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.) could face fines for leaving a heavily indebted mortgage off her financial disclosure statement, according to campaign finance experts.
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Transparency, Bush Administration Style
The Washington Independent reported late this week on the Bush Administration's Orwellian use of the word "transparent" to describe its disregarding scientific opinion in favor of corporate interests in setting regulatory policy.
Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson used the new pet word last week to describe the process used to reverse EPA recommendations for limiting smog. Appearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Johnson said of the administration's decision, "It's been a very transparent process." As if.
The next day, another Bush Administration official, the top regulatory officer with the Office of Management and Budget, used the word to describe new EPA rules that allow the Pentagon and industry to keep the EPA from evaluating toxics. OMB Watch has a helpful factsheet on the decision. Incredibly, the White House has the nerve to call this transparency.
One thing is transparent alright -- the Administration's total co-option by corporate interests. They don't even try to hide it anymore.
Continue readingGOOD Magazine Illustrates Transparency
If you haven't discovered GOOD magazine yet, do yourself a favor and check it out. It bills itself as a venue "for people who give a damn." It's also a lot of fun. In the past couple of weeks, the magazine has published four political visualizations in its TRANSPARENCY section.
The first is an amazing graph illustrating the amount of work accomplished and time spent by the U.S. Senate over each of the last 20 years.
Another is a very cool three-minute video on where John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have received their campaign cash.
They have a fascinating graph titled "The Cost of Nation (Re) Building" illustrating the value of U.S. government contracts awarded in Iraq and Afghanistan from October 2003 through September 2006.
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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Hidden Money + Advocacy = Doubt
The involvement of several non-profit advocacy groups in the debate over the Air Force's $40 billion air-refueling tanker contract highlights how important transparency is for not just the government, but also for those that ask us to trust their opinions of it. (Quick synopsis of the controversy: Boeing won the contract in 2003, then it was suspended after an Air Force staffer was successfully prosecuted for corruption related to the deal, then Northrop Grumman and European Aeronautic Defence and Space won the contract and now Boeing is contesting that.) One of the groups, Citizens Against Government Waste, has been recruiting others to join their support of the Northop contract, which they see as a better value for taxpayers. An opposing set groups, including Frontiers of Freedom and the Center for Security Policy, are backing Boeing on the grounds of keeping major arms contracts within the U.S. The problem for the Washington Post reporters covering the story was that, after some digging, they found that several of the groups had taken funding from either Boeing or Northop and were collaborating with the companies on their advocacy efforts. The cynicism this practice caused was palpable in the piece:
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