Good News for Transparency from Alaska's Senate Race

Publication: The Nation

Zephyr Teachout
May 21, 2008

I'm in Alaska this week--a state famous for both beauty and corruption--and the news here is promising for a movement towards open government. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, who is running neck-and-neck with Ted Stevens in the race for the US Senate, announced a major ethics pledge this week.

Among other things, Begich campaign promised to ban secret meetings. "[F]rom day one, Mark will post his daily Senate office schedule on his website so every Alaskan knows he is working for Alaska families, not special interests."

If Begich wins--which he can--and follows through on posting his daily Senate office schedule online, he will join Max Baucus and Jon Tester in proving that citizens actually want to know--or at least to know that they could know--what their Senators are doing. You can find Baucus' and Tester's schedules here and here.

I am particularly encouraged by the Begich pledge because when I was the National Director of the Sunlight Foundation, we launched an effort called the Punch Clock Campaign. We asked Members of Congress to post their daily schedules online.

The idea was based on a few simple premises: First, Members of Congress work for American citizens, and we have a right to know what they do with their time. Most Americans have to punch the clock and account for their time. Second, elected officials are often corrupted by time--the time they spent raising money, lingering over good dinners with interested parties, and meeting with friends of friends who themselves were interested parties. Third, the Internet makes it easy to upload the daily schedule of a Senator or Member of Congress, to be shared with constituents. In the rare occasion that a meeting needs to be secret, you can always make allowances, but the default setting ought be openness.

We offered a bounty--up to $1,000 for sitting members of Congress--to citizens who persuaded their elected official to sign this agreement:

The Punch Clock Agreement

I believe citizens have a right to know what their Member of Congress does every day.

Starting with the next Congress, I promise to publish my daily official work schedule on the Internet, within 24 hours of the end of every work day. I will include all matters relating to my role as a Member of Congress. I will include all meetings with constituents, other Members, and lobbyists, listed by name. (In rare cases I will withhold the names of constituents whose privacy must be protected.) I will also include all fundraising events. Events will be listed whether Congress is in session or not, and whether I am in Washington, traveling, or in my district.

Thousands of citizens petitioned their representatives to sign, and we met with staffers for many different legislators. Most told us our proposal was crazy and would never work, and their own boss would never sign. The line of defense followed a familiar pattern.

First--almost invariably--they would bring up the gay rights group hypothetical.

"Look, say a gay rights group wants to meet with the Senator. You want him to meet with them, right, but if he knows people know, then he won't meet with them, see?"

Instead of mentioning that any politician worth her salt could figure out a way to finesse such a meeting, and that the staffer was cheerfully admitting a craven culture, we would point out that we did include a loophole where privacy was important. Then, the conversation would take the inevitable next turn:

"People just won't understand. They think they know what a meeting means, but they don't know. They'll see meetings with major groups and they will think there's influence, but sometimes you just have to meet with all the players. Look, you haven't been in this game long enough, people just wont understand."

It was disturbing to realize that so many staffers were basically undemocratic at core; they saw their jobs as protecting their boss from the wrong-headed public, instead of enabling better communication with the multi-headed public. We quickly learned that candidates were far more open to openness than staffers--making it all the more important that voters speak up about the issue on the campaign trail. 92 candidates took the Punch Clock pledge and a few members of Congress. And since then, both Tester and Baucus have shown that openness doesn't hurt your popularity back home.

I am thrilled that Begich--and I hope many others this campaign season--brings some faith to the collective intelligence, over time, of the people he hopes to represent. Truth is, if you don't believe people are capable of understanding the political process, then you don't actually believe in democratic government.

Transparency isn't everything, but when online communication is so easy, willful secrecy is not acceptable.