Congress Lags Behind
By Ed Davis
Posted on Mon Dec 01, 2008 at 03:18:58 PM EST
Let the sunshine in
CQ ($ required) posted a revealing timeline of Congress' attempts at transparency, generally showing how it lags behind in opening up to the public. The Senate seems especially resistant to its public role. It took the Senate five years to finally open its proceedings to the public in 1794. Seven years after the House began televising its proceedings - and 36 years after the first televised presidential debate - the Senate opened up to C-SPAN. And today, the Senate still does not require campaign finance reports to be filed electronically. In some cases private entities have taken open government into their own hands, in this case charging a fee to citizens to view public records: 2006: Legistorm, an independent Web site, begins posting congressional staff salary reports online. The reports had been available only in quarterly published reports. The site subsequently provided online copies of the financial disclosure and travel reports of lawmakers and their top aides, which had previously been kept on paper in a records room. But the official congressional record-keepers still maintain those reports on paper in a basement room. Finally, congressional leaders resisting greater transparency should remember this: 1932: CBS and NBC are denied permission to broadcast on the radio the congressional debates on repealing prohibition; the networks secretly plant microphones in the House chamber.
Lots of Reform Talk but Little Action in Harrisburg, PA
By Erin Huckle -- Intern
Posted on Wed May 30, 2007 at 01:54:47 PM EST
Pennsylvania's State Legislature is taking positive steps to reform campaign finance, modify its internal rules, and expand Pennsylvania's Right-To-Know Law. Unfortunately, the Indiana Gazette Online reports that floor votes and real changes on these reform issues have been moving along at a frustratingly slow pace for months.
One of the major reforms proposed involves modifying the current Right-To-Know Law so that citizens can have access to records covering more than just accounts, contracts, minutes, or orders and decisions. If it passes, the extended Right-to-Know Law will be a significant step towards a more open political system in Pennsylvania, which is lagging far behind other states in allowing public access to government records.
Word games
By Kirstin Ellison
Posted on Mon May 07, 2007 at 02:36:51 PM EST
About that Senate electronic disclosure bill...
Still, it seems no Republican wants to fess up to placing the nearly monthlong hold on a bill that would make it easier for the public and the media to access Senate campaign finance reports, which currently are filed on paper, unlike House reports, which must be filed electronically.
Curiously, the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, along with help from some other watchdog groups and liberal blogs, last month got constituents and other concerned citizens to ask all 100 Senators whether they were the one with a hold on the bill. The unanimous answer was, "Not me."
Which leads to the question: Who's been lying?
"It's hard for me to imagine that a Senator lied outright to a constituent, but it's not hard for me to imagine that a Senator would play word games," said Sunlight Foundation Executive Director Ellen Miller, whose group has had success in the past at ferreting out anonymous holders.
Word games have no place in a discussion of openness and accountability. It's time for Senator Anonymous to either explain his or her objection to the bill, or to lift the secret hold.
Electronic disclosure is a "no-brainer"
By Kirstin Ellison
Posted on Wed May 02, 2007 at 04:28:07 PM EST
The electronic disclosure bill sponsored by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) is still being held up by some anonymous Republican Senator who placed a secret hold.
Everyone has long lost patience with this "Senator Anonymous" - and Roll Call tells us in an editorial today where we should direct our attention and frustration:
It should be brought to bear on the entire Senate, but especially its Republican leadership, which did nothing about the ridiculous, expensive and anachronistic practice of paper filing for the most recent four years that it was in the majority and now is failing to use its persuasive power on the Senator or Senators blocking the bill.
Republicans presume to be the party of efficient government and fiscal responsibility, yet the Senate filing system is a mockery of both principles. It requires transferring mostly electronic contribution and expenditure reports compiled by campaigns onto paper for delivery to the Secretary of the Senate, whose office then scans each page — more than 10,000 total pages last year — back into digital form to send to the Federal Election Commission, which then takes 11 hours to print them all out on paper again for shipment to a private contractor that re-keys them into a digital format at a cost of $250,000.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is the only one we can be sure knows who placed the secret hold (besides the guilty party). The hold is preventing the bill from passing with unanimous consent, a procedural tool that would allow the bill (which is co-sponsored by 21 Democrats, 15 Republicans, and two independents) to pass without debate. "Sen. Luddite" again holds up the disclosure bill
By Kirstin Ellison
Posted on Fri Apr 27, 2007 at 01:11:49 PM EST
Yesterday Senators Feinstein (D-CA) and Feingold (D-WI) again took their electronic-disclosure bill to the floor for unanimous consent. And again, it was stopped cold by an "objection" on behalf of an anonymous Republican Senator. The Washington Post speaks for most of us, I'm sure, when it calls out this behavior on today's editorial pages:
And just as he or she did on April 17, Sen. Ima Luddite (R-Who Knows Where) voiced opposition. This time the mouthpiece was Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.). "On behalf of the Republican side," he said, "I object." We object to the obstruction.
Honestly, what is the big deal here? Filing campaign finance reports electronically has been standard operating procedure for candidates for the House of Representatives and the White House for years -- as it has been for political parties, political action committees and "527" groups. Yet Senate candidates are still trudging down to the Senate Office of Public Records with paper copies of their reports, which are then passed along to the Federal Election Commission, which sends them to a vendor that punches in the information and zaps it back to the FEC electronically. That finally makes them widely available, sometimes too late for voters to see who's donating to whom and how the money is being spent. With this seeming fear of modernity, it's a wonder the Senate isn't calculating budgets with an abacus. Or is it a fear of disclosure?
On the other hand, maybe all this nonsense will bolster efforts to do away with the practice altogether.
Long-standing Senate custom allows the objection of a single senator to stop a bill in its tracks -- it's known as a secret hold. A measure that passed the Senate earlier this year, and awaits a House vote, would eliminate the practice.
Let the sunshine in
By Kirstin Ellison
Posted on Wed Apr 25, 2007 at 12:39:35 PM EST
Here's a story for you: there's legislation in the Senate requiring Senators to file their campaign finance disclosure forms online. The House already does this, so it's not groundbreaking territory - it's a simple reform that would be easy enough to implement and is long overdue. In fact, there's overwhelming support for the legislation among Senators. So why hasn't this legislation passed yet?
Some anonymous Senator has placed a secret hold on it. Seriously. And woe to the legislator in question when his or her identity is eventually discovered...and the activists will discover it:
The objection -- a long-standing Senate custom that allows a single unnamed member to stop any bill in its tracks -- unleashed a vigorous response from bloggers, led by the Sunlight Foundation. The group called on its members to dial their senators and ask if they put the hold on the bill.
Over the past week, the Sunlight Foundation continued to update its list, crossing off names as its members obtained denials. Yesterday morning, they were down to two -- Republican Sens. Jon Kyl (Ariz.) and Judd Gregg (N.H.).
By the end of the day yesterday, however, both Kyl and Gregg had issued denials. So does that mean someone lied? Stay tuned to the Sunlight Foundation for the latest updates about this.
It's time to substitute truthiness with truth
By Celia Wexler
Posted on Tue Apr 24, 2007 at 12:22:24 PM EST
Stephen Colbert likes to talk about "truthiness" -- opinion that is not necessarily based on any facts. OpentheGovernment.org is a coalition in which Common Cause participates that really wants to substitute truth for truthiness.
The coalition consists of a wide variety of journalism, transparency, environmental, labor, and other public interest and democracy groups concerned about the increasing propensity of the Bush Administration to keep important information hidden from the American public.
The statistics about what the government is hiding from us are pretty depressing. But the flash video the coalition has put together is not. Coalition director Patrice McDermott said that its purpose was to remind Americans of their heritage of openness. "Our democracy is indeed in jeopardy but the public can join Ms. Public, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and others in fighting the foes of secrecy," McDermott said. "It is a fight we can and must win."
Take a look, and pass on to a friend. It will make you laugh, and hopefully inspire you to do more to support the fight against truthiness.
www.openthegovernment.org
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