Former Speaker Hastert Announces Retirement, Lauds Earmarks
Rep. Dennis Hastert announced today that he will not seek another term in Congress. In his farewell address on the steps of the old Kendall County courthouse, Hastert cited some of his accomplishments over more than 20 years in Congress. Here's the text from Hastert's Web site, with a few links I've provided:
Locally, we have invested in area hospitals and schools, making quality health care more accessible and improving education. From the city of Aurora to the Village of Prophetstown, we have provided Police and Fire First Responders with the resources they need to respond to crises and protect their residents. We worked directly with community residents to address local challenges such as the thorium cleanup in West Chicago**. We have advocated for local use of alternative fuel sources, like corn-based Ethanol and assisted Fermi National Laboratory in advancing its physics research. Our communities are among the fastest growing in the nation, so we have built roads and bridges, and expanded Metra service to avoid congestion and move people from place to place – benefiting our economy and protecting our quality of life.It's not clear that any of those earmarks (save for the Prairie Parkway) were actually the handiwork of the former speaker. In fact, the lack of transparency in the earmarking process will also be one of Hastert's legacies--such preference for secrecy and unaccountability may well have contributed to the end of his tenure as speaker. It would be curious to see how many other accomplishments he cited were managed through earmarked appropriations. Continue reading
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 readingA Dose of Transparentium Required?
Received via email this morning....
Recent weather and gasoline issues are proof of the existence of a new chemical element. A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science.
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The new element has been named Governmentium. Governmentium (Gv) has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.
Earmark 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 readingUpping the Ante on McConnell as Senate Republicans Try Trickery
Who knew a little bill requiring senators to file their campaign finance reports electronically could cause such a problem on Capitol Hill? Today, Senate Republicans under the stewardship of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tried their hand at a parliamentary trick to add poison pill amendments to S. 223. When Majority Leader Harry Reid tried to move S. 1, the Senate' lobbying reform package, to conference committee Sen. Bob Bennett attempted to add S. 223 while reserving the right to add another amendment. Bennett likely wanted to slip in the same amendment that he tried to add to S.223 when it was in committee. That amendment would allow party committees, like the RNC or the DSCC, to coordinate campaign activities with candidate committees. Bennett's amendment is widely opposed by the majority Democrats and would not only make S. 223's passage impossible in conference or in the House of Representatives, but would endanger the entire lobbying and ethics reform package. Reid scuttled this parliamentary trickery by objecting to Bennett's proposition. The Senate went into convulsions and recessed without advancing S. 1 to conference committee. (There are some conflicting accounts of exactly how this proceeded.))
Since the Senate minority is upping the ante with procedural tricks, the Sunlight Foundation has decided to up the ante on Mitch McConnell. Today, Sunlight announced the extension of the deadline for our campaign to get Mitch McConnell on the record responding to questions about the continued blocking of S. 223. Not only is the deadline extended but the prize money is doubled. You will now receive $1,000 if you are the first to submit a video of McConnell responding to questions about the bill. Check out What's McConnell Hiding? for more details.
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 readingPeople Powered Politics or People Powered Governance?
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 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.)
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