I don't want to let this slip by.

The Hill reported on a U.S. District Court decision made on Friday that upheld a key provision of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 (HLOGA). In February, the National Association of Manufacturers had filed suit challenging HLOGA's disclosure provision requiring any organization actively participating "in the planning, supervision, or control" of lobbying efforts that ponies up more than $5,000 in a quarter to disclose their activities and expenditures. NAM argued that the disclosure clause is imprecise and impacts groups that it is not intended to target, and that it violates the First Amendment. They also said that they were worried that the law would also require it to disclose the names of its members.

In a 57-page opinion, Judge Kollar-Kotelly disagreed, saying the clause was "narrowly tailored to serve compelling government interests, and is neither vague on its face nor is applied to the NAM." You can read the judge's opinion by following a link provided by the Campaign Legal Center. The court decision clears the way for the new law to force disclosure of such coalitions' members to the public for the first time on April 21, according to The Hill.

I know this is a cynical take, but if Congress won’t provide accessible databases of information, maybe we should move in this direction.

Cartoon from the Politico.

Via National Journal's CongressDaily (subscription only) comes word that the Appropriations Committee has released lists of earmarks along with two bills (I've appended them to this post):

The House Appropriations Committee today took its first official steps to disclose pet projects in FY08 spending bills, revisiting the Interior-Environment and Financial Services measures to add the earmarks in advance of floor action next week. Now that Republicans got their wish, they are seeing the fruits of their efforts up close. Their own projects are being squeezed both by House Appropriations Chairman Obey's decree of a 50 percent total reduction in earmarked projects as well as being on the receiving end of a 60-40 split between the majority and minority they have not experienced in a dozen years.

Last week, GoodbyeJim.com's Jonathan Marks wrote a post about a company called ProLogic. After noting that that company has made campaign contributions to Rep. James Moran, and has hired a sophisticated lobbying firm, PMA Group, whose employees have been generous contributors to Moran's campaigns over the years, Marks raises what I think is a fairly important question: How does ProLogic win business? How does it fair against competing firms that don't have the benefit of any representation from a savvy insider firm like PMA Group (which describes what it does here)? And what does this say about the way procurement decisions are made in the government? Are we always buying the best mousetrap? Are we unable to buy the best mousetrap without the mediation of lobbyists? Conversely, are we making do with somewhat overpriced, somewhat mediocre mousetraps because the company that manufactures them hired the lobbyist with the right connections?

This story, about the problems that the Coast Guard and its contractor, Integrated Coast Guard Systems (a joint venture of Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin), are having with their Deepwater program, got me thinking--and about something other than this report on the program by the Inspector General of the Dept. of Homeland Security.

Under federal law (it's title 31 U.S.C. section 1352, for those of you keeping score at home), contractors and subcontractors, for-profits and non-profits, universities and state and local governments that lobby the federal government for contracts, grants, cooperative guarantees, loans, loan guarantees or loan insurance have to file a form, called SF-LLL, when they lobby the federal government for that contract, grant, cooperative guarantee, and so on. The instructions that come with the form say, "The filing of a form is required for each payment or agreement to make payment to any lobbying entity for influencing or attempting to influence an officer or employee of any agency, a Member of Congress,an officer or employee of Congress, or an employee of a Member of Congress in connection with a covered Federal action."

My colleague Zephyr Teachout asks what we as citizens (and more narrowly, those of us at the Sunlight Foundation) should be doing to push for real reform in how Congress goes about its business. There's no shortage of proposals out there, including proposals to establish an independent office of public intregrity for Congress, banning gifts, travel and meals paid for by lobbyists or special interests, and reforming lobbying disclosure.

On the latter topic, one suggestion I'd make is to consider using as a model the requirements of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a piece of legislation that dates back to 1938 and was enacted to "insure that the American public and its law makers know the source of information (propaganda) intended to sway public opinion, policy, and laws."