Last fall, the government of South Africa announced that it was adopting Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and Open Document format (ODF) as official standards for government communications.  South Africa’s moves are adding further momentum to the global trend among governments and other institutions to adopt open standards. South Africa joined such countries as Brazil, China, Spain, India and Malaysia, as well as municipal and regional governments in other countries (Massachusetts and New York here in the states), in using open source as a way to encourage efficiency and effectiveness of governance, to cut IT costs, foster the development and competitiveness of their national software industries, and as means to compete worldwide.

Mark Surman, executive director of the Mozilla Foundation, writing at his commonspace blog, links to audio of a talk given by Aslam Raffee, chairperson of the South African government’s OSS working group. Raffee was speaking at last week’s Open Everything Cape Town event where he gave an update on the transformation and discussed the challenges that they have encountered. “We’ve done very well in terms of setting policy, but very poorly at implementation,” he said. “We’ve got to fix that.” Surman summarized by saying the government is on track to have all departments have ODF capability by the end of the year; Microsoft is integrating ODF into Word; and the government’s document management is likely to be open source.

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There’s nothing really new in this new study, but it reconfirms what we’ve known (and updates the figures for Congressional candidates) about who provides the lion’s share of money for Congressional campaigns. (Some of the older studies on this topic were done by Public Campaign, and I even recall one funded by the Joyce Foundation that doesn’t appear to be available on the Web. (Too bad. That one was the first and it was a real eye-opener since it confirmed all suspicions about who gives the big money in politics: white, rich males.)

Lee Drutman, writing in the new Miller-McCune magazine, profiles a new analysis. University of Maryland political scientists researched and wrote “The Check Is in the Mail: Interdistrict Funding Flows in Congressional Elections,” which shows how money contributed to congressional elections is raised in ever increasing percentages from a small number of wealthy zip codes, places that Drutman termed “the political ATM’s of the campaign trail.” These locales, full of wealthy and politically engaged donors include Hollywood, Calif.; Manhattan’s Upper East Side; Greenwich, Conn.; and the suburbs of Washington, D.C. As I said, no great surprises.There just aren’t large numbers of people out there with either with disposable incomes or the inclination to make large campaign. Because of this, candidates are increasingly dependent on donors concentrated in those few wealthy urban centers. The report found that in the typical congressional race, less than one-third of individual donations to a candidate came  from people who could actually vote for the candidate and over two-thirds (70.2 percent to be exact) from nonresidents. As Drutman notes, this percentage is steadily increasing, up from 54.5 percent in 1996 and 63 percent in 2000. And as of 2004, in only one in five congressional districts residents provided a majority of funds raised for the campaigns of the candidates running to represent it. And in 18 percent of the districts, 90 percent or more of the funds came from non-residents.

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(this message is from a post I sent to the Open House Project google group, part of an exchange you can read here.)

The name “readthebill” does seem like an exhortation– Sit! Stay! Roll over! Readthebill!…

But, I think it would be a mistake to conflate the 72 Hour Rule with “members reading bills”, for a few reasons.

First, there’s a big difference between recommending that Members do anything (nearly impossible task) and making it possible that they or their staff do it.  Obscurantism shouldn’t be arrived at through rapid legislative maneuvering, or by contrived complexity, as Clay and Chris note.

Now, that isn’t to say that Members and staff are going to start reading all bills.  I actually think it’s important that a Members can vote ignorantly if they’d like to; you can’t mandate competence to a legislative body that’s supposed to be independent.

Indeed, the current Rules of the House provide that each bill is read three times, in Rule XVI, 8:

This requirement is routinely dispensed with without objection — objection to dispensing with the readings is even used as a dilatory tactic.  This is just as well, because a clerk reading legislative language to an empty floor doesn’t really add much.

Finally, I’d like to raise the public component to the 72 hour rule.

Posting legislation online 72 hours before votes is about more than member and staff consideration.  This is yet another case where the needs of congressional staff and public citizens overlap (a point Rob Pierson makes constantly).  “Representing” a district shouldn’t be a metaphor, it should be more of a gerund.  When a member “represents”, they shouldn’t just represent in the same way a roadsign represents an upcoming turn.  Representation necessarily involves interaction.

Maybe I’m wandering back into the world of saying what members should do, so let me walk that back a bit.  If legislation isn’t posted online before consideration, then an interactive style of representation is impossible.  Constituents are necessarily shut out of that aspect of the legislative process without some lag between posting a final version and its floor consideration.

Our conception of public involvement in legislation suffers from a weird mythology, where stories like Mr. Smith goes to Washington or the ladybug story, where some exceptional circumstances lead to (gasp!) the impossible puncturing of the legislative bubble, proving that we can all make a difference if we just try.

I’m as susceptible to public involvement glurge as much as the next person (I think the ladybug story is excellent), but this narrative about miraculous public engagement overshadows what’s really going on: the public has an immense and largely untapped capacity to engage in the substance of legislation.  Policy already flows out of lobbyists, legislative support agencies, “urgent issues” sometimes fomented by the popular media, trade groups, and scientific research.  These communities, to various degrees, have developed institutional pathways leading from need to legislative action.

The 72 hour rule is about making it possible for the dispersed expertise, whether well connected to the instituions of Congress or not, to react to legislation before floor consideration, and to allow representatives to more fully represent, insofar as they’re moved to.

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Be sure to check out Party Time, Sunlight’s project to track parties thrown at the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions as well as fund raising activities by all lawmakers running for Congress that happen all year round in Washington, D.C. and beyond. By accessing the site, you can find out where the parties are, view the array of invitations that go to lobbyists, Political Action Committee (PAC) representatives and others around Washington, D.C. and beyond. You can see who is hosting these parties, how much money it costs to go, where and when the party is and what people are going to be doing there.

Nancy Watzman, Party Time’s director, is streaming live Qik videos where she will record the action as she attempts to crash some of the parties, including the Blue Dog’s invite-only party hosted by AT&T. (Pardon our initial technical difficulties…You’ll notice we are providing a different angle on the conventions.) You can also follow her Twitter feed, where she is reposting her videos. By accessing delicious, you can follow all of Party Time’s mentions in the media. You can also follow New Media coverage of the convention at the Big Tent site, named after the literal big tent where you’ll find Gabriela Schneider, Sunlight’s communications director, assisting bloggers and other journalists cover the parties.

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Since the presidential race has turned into an episode of MTV Cribs - next up, web ads with seizure inducing editing of million dollar homes - I figured that it would be worth while to look at the personal financial disclosures of John McCain and Barack Obama to see what information we can find on their houses.

Oh wait, what’s that? Personal financial disclosure rules don’t require the listing of residential properties. That’s why no one knew about Chris Dodd’s favorable mortgage from Countrywide or Rep. Laura Richardson’s two foreclosures.

Looking at Obama and McCain’s form I can see that some of McCains eight to eleven residential properties are listed under Cindy McCain’s name while Obama’s home is not listed. Here are some of the ones listed on the McCain financial disclosure:

Residential Real Estate Held for Investment, Coronado, CA - Over $1 million

Sedona Property, Cornville, AZ (Two Parcels. Parcel 1: Residence and Guest House. Parcel 2: Guest House.) - Over $1 million

Those are only two residential property listings that appear in both candidates financial disclosures. There are few proposals flying around Congress to require home disclosure on personal financial disclosures. Perhaps they should address this.

On another personal financial disclosure related topic, I noticed the Mark Nicholas used our Fortune 535 site to compare the net worth of Barack Obama and John McCain. Unfortunately, the site uses as its most recent filing, the 2007 report, which represents the year 2006. This was prior to the huge profits made by Obama through royalties from his latest book. So, if you want to get the most recent average net worth, you’d have to look at his 2008 report (covering 2007), in which he reports well over a million in assets.

John McCain is another story. McCain is the only member of Congress who still checks a box that lists asset value at “Over $1 million”. He does this under an exemption rule allowing the filer to not identify the actual range, over $1 million, if the asset is held by a spouse or dependent child. I should reiterate that McCain is the only member of Congress who claims this exemption and fills out the “Over $1 million” box for many assets. John Kerry, Dianne Feinstein, Jane Harman, and Nancy Pelosi all list the highest accurate value range for their spouse’s large holdings; John McCain does not. Considering this, John McCain, when combined with the actual value of Cindy McCain’s holdings, is worth much more than the amount we extracted from his personal financial disclosures for Fortune 535.

Bottom line: Obama worth more than listed and McCain worth way more.

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The news out of the 2008 biennial news consumption survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press is not the fact that the drop off of consumers of traditional news sources (especially print newspapers) continues to decline and the percentage of those accessing news online is soaring. These trends have existed for the past five or six surveys Pew has conducted over the past ten or 12 years. This year’s incarnation found a sizable minority of us are at “the intersection of these two long-standing trends,” Pew reports, where “today it is not a choice between traditional sources and the Internet for the core elements of today’s news audiences.” In other words, a new grouping of news consumers has developed whose news gathering habits integrate traditional media sources with the Internet.

Through the survey’s data, Pew has identified four segments in nation’s news audience: The above-mentioned group, who Pew terms “Integrators,” who use both traditional news sources along with the Internet. They make up 23 percent of those surveyed. The younger set, which Pew terms “Net-Newsers,” relies primarily on the Web and are the vanguards leading the social networking revolution. They are much less likely to watch television or read print newspapers. This tech-oriented group makes up 13 percent of those surveyed. The older crowd, dubbed the “Traditionalists” by Pew, is the largest grouping at 46 percent. This group cites television as their primary news source. The fourth group, the “Disengaged,” has little interest in news, according to Pew, and make up 14 percent of the public.

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TPM Muckraker captured some great audio of Sen. Ted Stevens lashing out at constituents asking questions about his current legal predicament. To me, the last question was by far the most interesting. There’s a transcript of the last Q&A after the video.

Q: I’ve been following the news lately and they were mentioning that you supported an ethics bill in 1989 that Congress had passed, it was an amended ethics and government bill that said that members of Congress needed to disclose their financial reports, anything exceeding $200, and now your defense team is saying that’s unconstitutional, and I’m just wondering if you can talk to us Alaskans about how that’s unconstitutional in 2008 but in 1989 that was satisfactory.
A: As I’ve said before, I haven’t seen that pleading, it was filed by my lawyers in Washington, they’ve been hired to do it-
Q: OK well why don’t you give us your opinion, aside from what your lawyers are saying-
A: I’m sorry I’m not going to give my opinion about what my lawyers have done that I haven’t read. So thank you very much, I don’t know who gave you that amendment, that question, but whoever gave you that question ask them.

That’s a pretty good question. From what I can tell, the Government Ethics Reform Act of 1989 passed the Senate by voice vote with an amendment attached. Also interesting, Sen. Stevens was an original cosponsor of the Ethics in Government Act of 1977, the law under which he is being prosecuted.

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Sen. Ted Stevens has served as senator from Alaska for most of his life and nearly all of the state’s existence. Stevens greatest accomplishments have been as a patronage chief; bringing home federal dollars for Alaska and protecting and expanding the extraction industries in the state, particularly the oil industry. In many ways, Stevens is Alaska. It comes as no surprise that Stevens would run his current reelection campaign on a message that says, “Without Ted, we’re toast.”

As some have noted already, Stevens - a “patronage-distributing warlord” - may be a dying breed of politician. There are others who still exclusively practice this kind of politics, most notably Alaska’s lone representative Don Young, but few to the degree that Stevens has over the years. Stevens’ undying support for earmarking and the oil industry may have brought on investigative scrutiny and, ultimately, an indictment. But they also appear to have muddled the water in the investigation, prompting prosecutors to charge Stevens with seemingly lesser felonies - for now. (more…)

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It’s been almost three weeks since Washington lobbyists had to turn in their new lobbyist disclosure reports titled the LD-203. The new disclosure requirement is a result of the series of ethics and transparency bills passed into law last year. “The Jack Abramoff report” is how one lawyer called the new rule in “honor” of the scandal that gave great momentum to the reform, according to Roll Call (subscription required).

Last month I speculated that there should be some interesting material in these new reports. I’m proud to point to my Sunlight colleagues Bill Allison and Anupama Narayanswamy, who are doing great analysis of the disclosures. As Anu reported last week, Mark Warner, former Virginia governor and U.S. Senate candidate, has received the most cash from lobbyist so far this year, a total of $206,000.

Other investigators are finding useful information too.

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Today, we are launching a new Web site, Party Time, a project to track parties thrown at the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions as well as fund raising activities by all lawmakers running for Congress that happen all year round in Washington, D.C. and beyond.

The count of parties and events we’ve heard about scheduled for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions is now above 400-and counting. As we noted the other week, here, these convention parties are often sponsored by corporate interests such as Citi, Eli Lilly and Qwest, as well as powerhouse lobbying firms such as Patton Boggs. They continue despite new ethics reforms intended to rein in excesses of special interest bashes for members of Congress. Many of these party hosts are also sponsors of the conventions’ host committees, major donors to federal candidates and party committees and are also big spenders on federal lobbying.

So, for example:

AT&T is hosting more than a dozen parties at both conventions, most of them parties for different state delegations. The company is also underwriting both the Democratic and GOP Convention committees, and happens to be the #2 top donor to federal and candidates and parties since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. AT&T has spent more than $3 million on federal campaign contributions and lobbying combined in 2008 alone, 60% of which is directed to the GOP. It has also spent another $3.2 million on federal lobbying.

Qwest’s CEO, Ed Mueller, is hosting an event at the Denver Art Museum on Monday, August 25. The company is also giving the Democratic and GOP Convention host committees a total of some $12 million in direct and in-kind contributions. Qwest has given $682,000 to federal candidates and parties so far this election cycle, and spent $1.7 million on lobbying.

A long list of financial service powerhouses are sponsoring a “financial literacy brunch” at the Democratic National Convention, including Allstate, AEGON, Bank of America, Capitol One, Charles Schwab, Edward Jones, Fidelity, Genworth, MasterCard, Mutual of Omaha, Nationwide, Principal Financial Group, State Farm, NASDAQ, US Bank, Visa, Wachovia and Wells Fargo. These companies are major campaign contributors and lobbying forces in Washington.

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