Sunlight Foundation

How Can Markets Help Policy Deliberation?

2008-05-09T17:49:53+00:00

I just discovered DARPA's Policy Analysis Market project. The idea has me wondering what the place is for market based deliberations solutions, and when it's appropriate to give actors a self-incentive that isn't already inherent to a situation.

There's a strong argument to be made for the predictive power of markets, and their stabilizing incentive structures, but their application beyond economics hasn't really been worked out yet. Some examples of market-like political models include Fantasy Congress, and National Journal's Political Stock Exchange.

When success isn't able to be neatly defined as profit (as in financial markets), and when motivators and strategies are as complex as they are in a legislature, sometimes, paradoxically, it's profitable to operate at a loss. Indeed, one could suggest that all non-profits are the pure form of incentives being isolated from broader incentive structures.

(hat tip to this tweet from "hytmal"; my initial response is here)

Great New Transparency News Resource

2008-05-09T17:01:18+00:00

This is very cool. Our friends at VoterWatch have just launched a new 'Transparency Recap' -- a regularly updated overview of what bloggers are saying about government transparency and accountability. In their first roundup, VoterWatch highlights Sunlight's latest project, PublicMarkup.org (thanks!), a post from Free Government Information on a report about the National Archives' plan to provide online access to the Founding Fathers papers, All Things Whistleblower's reporting on the raid on the Office of the Special Counsel and on the home of Special Counsel Scott Bloch and the soft launch of the Center for Responsive Politics' newly redesigned OpenSecrets.org site.

We love roundups like this for keeping updated on the news that matters the most. Make sure to add VoterWatch to your feeds!

New Investigations and Suitcases of Money

2008-05-09T16:14:18+00:00

Now boarding, El Al nonstop flight to Israel. Please make sure your suitcases of money are properly secured in the Prime Minister's house. William Jefferson eat your heart out. An investigation into corruption in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office led to a search of Olmert's house where suitcases of money were found. The suitcases, containing hundreds of thousands in American dollars (I know what you're thinking, American dollars, aren't they worthless now), came from New York businessman Morris Talansky, referred to in coded transmissions as "the Laundry Man." Olmert denies any wrong doing, claiming that the money was for campaign purposes. Judah Grunstein at World Politics Review makes about the only observation one can:

I don't know a whole lot about Israeli campaign finance laws, but I imagine that suitcases full of cash that go undeclared until a police raid on your home probably violate them.

Back here in the states, the Department of Justice opened a new investigation into the possible misuse of congressional staff by two offices. Reps. Jane Harman and Neil Abercrombie were accused of using congressional staff to do campaign work by a former staffer who recently plead guilty to fraud charges. It is a violation of House rules for congressional staff to do campaign work unless it is on their own time. This may also violate federal law statutes regarding the solicitation of political contributions from employees.

Both Harman and Abercrombie denied using staff for campaign work. It should also be noted that these violations rarely go anywhere. If anything, members get a slap on the wrist, which in congressional terms is a politely worded letter that stops short of admonishment. The House Ethics Committee should investigate this alleged misuse of campaign staff. They did recently when Rep. John Conyers was alleged to have forced a staffer to do campaign work and they should do so again. I'm not holding my breath though. (Sigh.)

VA Secretary of Technology Gives Blogger Briefing

2008-05-09T06:43:37+00:00

This afternoon I attended a talk by Aneesh Chopra, the Secretary of Technology for Virginia, hosted by New Media Strategies.

Chopra described his rather unusual job, a sort of newly styled state-CIO position, and gave us his vision for government and the development of the surrounding areas in the process.

Chopra began by listing the three priorities in his job as a cabinet member under the Governor. He sees his job in thirds. The first third deals with tradition IT manangement (are the servers working). The second third is his role as emissary and cheerleader for technology in government, soliciting, recognizing, and fostering creative new ideas, like combining forms to orient agency workflow toward a citizen-centric model. In his description of this aspect of his work, Chopra really shined, probably a sign of someone engaged in something new and constructive, full of ideas, and seeing potential everywhere he looked. He said "just scratching the surface" and "really simple things" repeatedly, more signs of someone enchanted by the possibilities of technology, and in the right position to make things happen. About including the public in his work, he said:

We have failed to tap the hidden talent of the uncredentialed.

I've tried to say this before in other ways--distributed expertise is disconnected from policy creation, etc--but his formulation captures the real potential for transparent and receptive institutions. Chopra sees analysis from bloggers as having huge potential for stimulating reform (and should check out the Open House Project), and, as I often do, bemoans the focus on the political and wonders about people's capacity to add to substantive policy debate and deliberation. His plan to integrate public policy ideas amounts to a small e-suggestions box for now, but Chopra is certainly deeply involved in the practical fight of how to make Virginia's government function more effectively though technology.

He's not just trying to get the government running smoothly, though. Chopra sees the development of the IT sector of our area's economy as the third major goal in his work, and has grand ideas to test about how young people given a real chance and a computer might find their way into the new tech economy.

Virginians are lucky to have such a proactive visionary leading their tecnological development.

Local Sunlight

2008-05-08T19:42:53+00:00

Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and Congressional political news. This week I have highlights from Hawaii, New York, Tennessee, New Hampshire, and Florida.

In Hawaii, iLind.net goes through the state ethics commission’s failure to act when the Hawaii Superferry, Inc didn’t fully disclose their lobbying efforts. iLind.net makes a good case for why the ethics commission should be more forceful when these types of violations occur.

In New York, Politics on the Hudson has created a database that shows what earmarks Albany legislators brought to their districts.

TerryFrank.net in Tennessee highlights, an editorial in Tennessean, on the status of an open records bill in the state legislature. The bill has been passed out of committee but with amendments to make it more difficult to gain access to public records. A provision would lenghthen the time requests can be complied with and would give different access to documents for in state and out of state citizens.

GraniteGrok of New Hampshire has a great post about the movement to put more local government information online by the citizens of Gilford, New Hampshire. There has been a move to look at what improvements could be made to the local government’s Web site. It also highlights the work of SunshineReview.org, who have a very handy ten point government website transparency checklist.

I have been meaning to highlight Florida Politics for their weekly roundup on the bills that having been going through the Florida state legislature.

Three Perspectives on Transparency and Sharing

2008-05-08T14:01:44+00:00

Last week I participated in a panel at the Center for Global Development with Scott McNealy, Chairman of Sun Microsystems. Dave Witzel, a visiting senior program associate at CGD and I shared the Q and A session with McNealy, and while the three of us approach the issue of transparency from very different perspectives, there was no disagreement about the answer to the basic question -- whether sharing and openness is a good thing, does it really matter?

The obvious answer was "yes." McNealy articulated a whole host of reasons why it matters, not only to his company, but also for the rest of the world. Dave and I amplified his core thoughts. But for the most part the audience, made up of people from international agencies, foundations, non-profits, think tanks, consulting firms, academia, and publishing, appeared a bit dubious, or perhaps, it was just the first time that they had been exposed to the notion of what sharing and openness means in the 21st century. There is alot of education to be done.

Dave has a detailed write up about the event here.

Good bye Chairman Mason

2008-05-07T21:11:12+00:00

We've written fairly often about unbelievable situation over the Federal Election Commission. Always regarded as a toothless watchdog even in the best of days, since there's been a partisan stalemate over new appointments, it's been totally neutered.

Now, Paul Kiel reports that the Bush Administration has offered a so-called compromise. The most controverisal nominee -- Spakovsky -- remains a nominee, and an administration spokesperson told the The New York Times that they would accept a separate vote on him. In the meantime, the administration has submitted a new nominee to replace FEC Chair David Mason, one of the two setting commissioners.

But here's the rub: Mason has opposed a move by Sen. John McCain to pull his presidential campaign out of the public finance system. McCain had earlier joined the system and accepted the $54 million spending limit. Mason's position is that the FEC would have to approve his request to leave the system, and that he couldn't just opt out. Meanwhile, the McCain campaign is spending away and has long surpassed the spending limit. Bush's solution...Good bye Chairman Mason.

Thinking Like a Dandelion

2008-05-07T16:38:34+00:00

Cory sez:

My latest column in Locus Magazine, "Think Like a Dandelion," came out of a talk I had with Neil Gaiman about the bio-economics of giving stuff away for free. Mammals worry about what happens to each and every one of their offspring, but dandelions only care that every crack in every sidewalk has dandelions growing out of it. The former is a good strategy for situations in which reproduction is expensive, but the latter works best when reproduction is practically free -- as on the Internet.

But the disposition of each — or even most — of the seeds aren't the important thing, from a dandelion's point of view. The important thing is that every spring, every crack in every pavement is filled with dandelions. The dandelion doesn't want to nurse a single precious copy of itself in the hopes that it will leave the nest and carefully navigate its way to the optimum growing environment, there to perpetuate the line. The dandelion just wants to be sure that every single opportunity for reproduction is exploited!

Think about government data in just that way.

It's Just Upping the Ante

2008-05-07T14:28:47+00:00

The Politico published a pretty interesting analysis that used data from the Center for Responsive Politics to show how green energy interests are upping in pretty dramatic ways the amount of money they spend lobbying Congress. Despite these large increases, however, they remain vastly over spent by the oil and gas and coal mining industries. Think of it as the arms race applied to the world of money and politics.

The alternative energy industry has increased their lobbying outlays eightfold over the past ten years, going from $2 million to almost $16 million. For instance, the American Wind Energy Association spent over $815,000 on lobbying efforts, and the National Biodiesel Board spent more than $1,235,000.

Along with lobbying, the alternative energy sector has increased its giving of campaign contributions. So far in the 2008 election cycle, green energy has shelled out almost $528,000 to federal candidates, and is on the pace to match its giving high-water mark of almost $957,000 in 2000 when Al Gore was running for president. In 1998, the industry gave just over $308,000 in contributions.

In 1998, the alternative energy sector accounted for $308,000 in donations to candidates. So far this cycle, green industry donors have given nearly $528,000 - putting them on track to match or surpass their high water mark of nearly $957,000 in 2000, when global warming guru Al Gore topped the Democratic presidential ticket.

As impressive as these increases might be, they continue to be dwarfed by the traditional energy giants: oil and gas ($82,620,985 in 2007 for lobbying, $11,534,676 in contributions so far this cycle) and coal mining ($10,898,700 in 2007 for lobbying, $1,617,787 in contributions this cycle).

As you can see, the old energy industries of oil and gas and coal invest heavily in Congress. And thanks to a Capital Eye article written by CRP's Lindsay Renick Mayer we now know that members of Congress invest their personal wealth heavily in old energy too. Lawmakers' personal financial disclosure reports show they have "at least 45 times more money invested in the oil and gas industry (at least $20.6 million) than in public companies that provide "green" products and services (at least $452,100)," Mayer writes.

And so the beat goes on.

PublicMarkup.org Progress and Plan

2008-05-05T20:06:41+00:00

In the month since PublicMarkup.org launched, we've gotten 121 comments on our draft reform legislation, the Transparency in Government Act of 2008. The media and blog coverage has been overwhelmingly favorable, but not without a healthy dose of skepticism.

The main questions we've faced attempt to locate the bill within a traditional reform process: Who will sponsor it? When will it pass? What are its chances?

As I wrote when we started encountering these hesitations,

As it stands now, though, we're happy to not have all the answers about where the bill is going. Just like legislation itself, we're not pretending to know the best strategy for the bill, and we recognize that best ideas will be the ones that can benefit from a large community of experts and stakeholders.

Now that we've gotten some real feedback about the bill's provisions, we can make some decisions about how to advocate for the package's implementation. (more)

We're delighted by the value of the comments. The comments repeatedly point out specific improvements or suggestions that we'll be glad to integrate into a new version of the bill. Participants have suggested everything from wording changes to improvements for the interface and Web site. We're also happy to see public proof that broad scrutiny can have a constructive influence on legislative work.

To integrate the community's suggestions, we've decided to let comments open for about another two weeks, and to then craft a new version of the legislation, taking suggestions into account. We want to be sure that public involvement is credited for the improvements, continue to allow at least general commentary on the new version after it's prepared.

Thanks again to everyone who has participated, and if you have more feedback to offer, you have until about May 19th to leave it!

Oversight on the Office of Legal Counsel and Secrecy

2008-05-05T04:27:07+00:00

After previewing it first, I attended last Wednesday’s Hearing by the Constitution Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee about “Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government.”

For fuller coverage, see FireDogLake, the Guardian, ACS Blog, or the statements and testimony from the hearing (set off on the upper right).

While my coverage will be far from complete, I find the process of taking and then preparing my notes from committee hearings to be a great way to digest what was presented, and to start to work through some of the issues that relate to open government and accountability, which lie at the heart of this hearing. (more)

The hearing started right into defining this distinction, with John Elwood, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General, making two sharp distinctions: First, he contended that the OLC memos were legal advice, not binding law, and, second, that Congress didn’t need to see the actual OLC memos in order to understand the policy under which the executive branch is operating.

Much of the hearing addressed this distinction. Is the term “secret law” appropriate? Insofar as OLC memos are binding on those they proscribe, and insofar as some regulations such as TSA regulations literally affect a citizen’s conduct, then there is “secret law”.

Senator Whitehouse☼ and Mr. Elwood went back and forth a few times on the degree to which OLC memos are a certain kind of admissable document in a court, trying to distinguish what kinds of legal evidence or legal usage the OLC memo might have the possibility of becoming. Senator Whitehouse accused the Bush Administration of using the OLC memos as a way of making cover for the rest of the agencies, which the operate under (technically illegal) legal advice.

If you’re getting legal advice, you want it to be be objective. This is why the recent IG reforms that passed the Senate and House incude a provision to provide IGs with separate legal counsel. How objectively can one do oversight when your legal advice is coming from the office you’re investigating?

The issue here is between the Congress, which is like the IG, needing to do effective oversight on the Department of Justice, where the Office of Legal Counsel writes their memos. If Congress can’t see the memos, or sometimes gets to see them, but only alone, without staff, and can’t take their notes with them, then how is that oversight? If they get to see individual pages, or even individual sentences, but not the rest of the documents, how can they perform their legislative duties?

There was a pleasant part of the hearing, where Senator Brownback☼ and Senator Feingold☼ realized they agreed on a limited measure that would require reporting of a certain kind from the executive branch when they interpret the law differently than it looks, which, as the rules now stand (apparently), is required only when the executive decides to not carry out the law. Both reporting requirements have the same effect; when the President avoids something viewed as unconstitutional, whether through interpretation or through denying any execution at all, Congress should have the right to be notified, since this is a clear violation of the intent of the legislation.

Senator Whitehouse’s testimony brought up some troublesome issues with executive power, especially dealing with the relationship between the President and the Department of Justice, and between Executive Orders and current Presidential conduct. The disturbing section follows, go here for an on screen version;

1. An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement
for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms
of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has
instead modified or waived it.
2. The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article II, can determine
whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President’s authority under Article II.
3. The Department of Justice is bound by the President’s legal determinations.

While I’m not a legal scholar, the principles discovered here by Senator Whitehouse show an executive that is claiming expansive power, and, in turn, making the task of citizen oversight nearly impossible, in some circumstances. While the struggle and negotiations that go on around disclosure boundaries will probably not stop, they’re likely to shift a little when people realize that oversight and disclosure documents can offer real substance.

It’s easy to shirk a responsibility to share when no one cares. If people are empowered in their role as overseers, as watchdogs, then perhaps memos like these don’t get written.

LegiStorm's Data Making Waves

2008-05-02T20:51:07+00:00

LegiStorm, the Web site that shares Sunlight's goals of making Congress as transparent as possible, via their blog reports on how Roll Call used LegiStorm's congressional data to show how Christopher Riley, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, violated House rules by exceeding the amount of side income a staff member can make. Riley was being paid by his bosses' reelection campaign, as well as receiving a congressional salary. As Deal's chief of staff, Deal earned a large enough salary that qualified him as a "senior staffer." House rules limit such staffers to $25,000 in outside income annually. Riley's income had greatly exceeded this amount, LegiStrom's data revealed. In response to Roll Call's inquiries, he returned $90,000 to Deal's campaign. Deal said he was unaware of the House rule limiting outside income.

Earlier this week, Roll Call published a story that used LegiStorm's financial disclosures to reveal a potential conflict of interest with an energy business owned by Rep. Steve Pearce. The paper reported that Pearce sold his assets of his oil services company for $12 million to an energy company that had testified before a panel he co-chaired. Pearce's personal financial disclosure listed the value of the company at $1 million to $5 million.

In February, LegiStorm created hysteria on the Hill by releasing a database of staffer personal financial disclosures. Since the database went public, four chiefs of staff for House members have come under public scrutiny over matters contained in the personal financial disclosures.

Local Sunlight

2008-05-01T21:42:28+00:00

I have highlights this week from Delaware, North Dakota, New York and Earmark Corner.

DelawarePolitics.net reports that the State Senate Minority Leader Charlie Copeland will support the FOIA request for Citizens for Clean Power for documents and expenditures from recent Energy Committee hearings about wind power. “I fully support and have led this General Assembly on the issue of transparency in government,” said Copeland. “I believe that if tax dollars are involved, people have a right to know how those dollars were spent. I fully support the release of these documents.” Excellent point Sen. Copeland, keep honoring those FOIA requests.

The Say Anything blog, in North Dakota, reports that a new database was created to show the budget and expenses for all the school systems in North Dakota.

In New York, Room Eight highlights an article in the NY Daily News that shows 40% of City Councilors have a conflict of interest with non profits that receive state money. This story comes at the tail of the controversy surrounding City Council Speaker Christine Quinn creation of fake non profits to funnel city money through. These stories make it obvious that non profits also need some transparency in regards to their relationship to elected officials.

Earmark Corner has highlights from Florida and South Carolina.

South Carolina Politics Today reports that the State House has just passed a bill that would require lawmakers to fill out a form when making budget requests so they can be identified with a potential earmark. This is a great transparency measure that will bring the earmark process out into the open.

The All Florida Blog lists some of the earmarks coming to the Tampa area from the state budget. It is important to see where earmarks are going and how much they are.

Could It Happen Here?

2008-05-01T21:27:24+00:00

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.

They Don't Know How to Spell Transparency at DoD

2008-05-01T21:06:35+00:00

In its May issue, Conde Nast's Portfolio.com has an unbelievable story about continued financial bumbling by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Despite spending tens of billions of dollars over the past four years to upgrade its accounting software, the military's business systems are as unreliable as ever. DoD's systems are "so obsolete and error prone" that it doesn't know where large chunks of its $439.3 billion (2007) annual basic budget goes. And that figure doesn't include the vast sums being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to the report, the agency's accounting is so dysfunctional it's impossible for DoD to comply with an 18-year-old requirement by Congress to audit its books. What results is a system that once payments are authorized and money is transferred, there is no reliable way to trace where it ends up. The Portfolio.com article echoes a February article by The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer that profiled DoD's "labyrinth of arcane and incompatible accounting systems." The News & Observer notes that the accounting problems are not new, and quotes Winslow Wheeler, a project director at the Center for Defense Information, as saying if DoD were a public company, "...it would have gone belly up before World War II."

Both articles lay much blame on the complexity of layers upon layers of bureaucracy partly caused by continued turf wars between the four branches of the armed services. This results in each branch continuing to maintain separate and increasingly outdated business systems that are unable to communicate with each other, trace money disbursements and detect over billing by private contractors.

And guess who picks up the tab for the waste, fraud, and abuse?

Hat tip: TPM.

Sunlight Really is a Pretty Darn Good Disinfectant.

2008-04-30T22:06:34+00:00

Speaking of Change Congress, I was reading Japhet Els' posting about earmarks and wanted to weigh in here. (I just joined the Change Congress Google Group and will post this there, too.)

First of all, it is always easier to identify the problem than to solve it, no matter which policy arena you are playing in. But in this case, it's even hard to identify the problem. Is it that lawmakers get to decide where to spend government money and the process is too subjective? (If not them, would a government bureaucrat know the needs of a district better?) Is it that the private financing of public elections corrupts public officials absolutely (or partially), and so we can't trust the spending of government money to them because they simply can't make unbiased decisions? (I kind of think the latter is a big part of the problem if not the whole of it.) Is it because some lawmakers have private investments in companies that might execute the contracts to perform the work designated by earmarks or that they make decisions to benefit their own personal holdings. (See Dennis Hastert.). It's probably all of the above and more. (See Bill Allison's frequent blog postings on earmarks.)

Second, proposals for reform have to be realistic. (Yes, they can be idealistic and realistic at the same time.) It is simply not realistic to propose to ban earmarks, I mean, someone has to decide which bridges and roads need to be fixed, which universities are doing great research and need to be supported, which community health clinics deserve government money, and yes too, how many new bombers we need. And while I understand that calling for an earmark ban is useful as an organizing vehicle, as policy it doesn't make a lot of sense. Who would decide how to spend the money? And even if you suspend my disbelief, a history of reform efforts show us that such a "ban" would most likely drive the spending underground and make it even hard to track how Congress spends taxpayer money. The money will get spent.

Fundamentally, banning earmarks is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It's a political point now being made by all those who attempt to represent themselves as populists - faux or real.

Instead, how about full and complete transparency for earmarks: who is requesting them, for what, with lots of details about costs and disclaimers about personal connections by lawmakers, along with a requirement that they all be posted for a minimum of 72 hours online in a downloadable format before they are voted on? We could easily craft such a policy. (No neither the House nor Senate went as far as what needs to be done to get real 21st century style disclosure in their last round of reforms. Minimally this ought to be a first step.

Remix Change Congress

2008-04-30T20:59:19+00:00

Everyone loves Professor Larry Lessig's lectures. He's known for his impressive keynote presentations. (I know that sounds like an oxymoron but trust me in this case it's not). He always leaves the rest of us wondering how we can emulate his delivery skills. And mostly, we can't.

His recent talks about his latest project -- Change Congress -- don't disappoint. And now he's making it all available for remixing. Dig in here.

(Full disclosure: Larry serves on Sunlight's advisory board.)

Wall Street Comes to Washington

2008-04-30T18:35:16+00:00

Politico seems to be suggesting that Wall Street has just discovered Washington. They've been here a long time.

“Wall Street Comes to Washington” is the title of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association event convening Thursday. Attendees will be entertained by media celeb Tucker Carlson and will hear from House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). They’ll have dinner with Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), and they’ll participate in panel discussions about the ongoing credit crunch and the regulatory future for their industry.

This industry doesn't have trouble attracting lawmakers to their lobbying-fest. They represent Rep. John Boehner's fifth largest source of campaign funds; and Sen. Richard Burr's seventh largest. As for snaring Rep Joseph Crowley's? No problem. They are his largest contributor.

Senate Hearing on Secret Law

2008-04-29T19:52:04+00:00

Tomorrow morning, the Senate Constitution Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government. In Chairman Feingold's words:

Senator Feingold is talking about memos put out by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), a part of the Department of Justice. The executive branch needs guidance on how the law affects its actions, and the OLC exists to provide legal interpretations for rest of the executive branch. These opinions strongly determine the nature of executive branch activities, and therefore have an undeniable bearing on the public interest. (more)

While, like most government information, some OLC memos contain sensitive information, most of them fall squarely within those things that the public has a right to understand, and should certainly be within the reach of congressional oversight committees. As the Bush Administration has treated even this agency-wide legal counsel as secretively as possible, most notably in the case of the John Yoo memo on so-called interrogation (released only thanks to an ACLU lawsuit ), Congress is beginning to redraw lines about what should be subject to classification, and what should lie plainly in the view of the public.

The expectation that executive legal opinions should generally be public isn't new; this paper from the American Constitution Society, written by a team of former OLC lawyers and published in December 2004, lays out guidelines for the Office of Legal Counsel. Number six is on public memos:

6. OLC should publicly disclose its written legal opinions in a timely manner, absent strong
reasons for delay or nondisclosure.

OLC should follow a presumption in favor of timely publication of its written legal
opinions. Such disclosure helps to ensure executive branch adherence to the rule of law and
guard against excessive claims of executiin the lawfulness of governmental action...

It goes on, reading the entire paper is worthwhile (pdf, online version, more ACS resources).

Sunlight is happy to see Congress addressing legal secrecy, and agrees that public transparency is absolutely necessary for government accountability.

(via the AALL blog, Senator Feingold's podcast feed, and ACS blog)

So Much for That Reform

2008-04-29T18:36:51+00:00

Every time I see one of these stories about the failure of "reform" efforts to deliver the goods I don't know whether to tear my hair out or say "I told you so." Politico reports that the new reports filed by lobbyists don't do very much to make it easier to track what's really going on, particularly when it comes to finding out the financial backers of the shadowy coalitions that popup in various high-profile policy debates - usually using lots of expensive TV ads to stir up the grass roots.

According to Jeanne Cummings:

....this first round of reports, which does include some of the more modest new disclosure requirements, represents an inauspicious beginning to what was supposed to be a new age of enlightenment about K Street and Congress.

Duh. Sunlight has recommended what we think would make a big difference when it comes to transparency reforms for lobbyists: Everyone who is paid to engage in direct issue advocacy with lawmakers and their staff should be required to register, and all registered lobbyists should disclose all legislative contacts (by name and office), all legislation and regulations discussed, and any relationship to a current member of Congress, staff member, or executive branch employee. And all these reports should be filed online within 24 hours of any meeting or contribution.

Frankly, let's make it even easier. How about a Twitter feed for lobbyists? That way, lobbyists could tweet the information from their BlackBerry as they are leaving their appointments. Nothing could be easier.