Blog - Articles Tagged 'Transparency'

Chris Bowers at Open Left posted this video of freshman Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson at yesterday’s Financial Services Committee hearing grilling Fed Vice-Chairman Donald Kohn on the lack of transparency in the financial bailout:

The related legislation here, as I’ve been writing about a lot this week, is the TARP Reform and Accountability Act. The bill is designed to require more accountability and transparency in how the second $350 billion tranche of the TARP money is spent. Rep. Barney Frank, the bill’s sponsor, is now backing away from passing his own bill, saying that he is willing to accept the Obama administration’s word that they will act as if it were the law.

There may be some hope for increased oversight and accountability of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) after all. This afternoon, The House passed Barney Frank’s TARP oversight legislation, the details of which I spelled out in a previous post, and now there is a glimmer of hope from the Senate that Democrats may push to pass similar legislation.

Last week, Chris Bowers of OpenLeft reported that Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd would not be introducing a Senate version of Frank’s bill, nor would he be bringing Frank’s bill to the Senate floor as it is. Of course, both the Senate and the House to have to approve legislation before it becomes law, so this seemed to meant that, regardless of whatever happens in the House, there would not be any new TARP oversight legislation.

But Bowers spoke with another Banking Committee member this afternoon and received assurances that he would push to pass S. 195, a separate bailout oversight bill that has been introduced by Senator Dorgan:

>About an hour ago I had a chance to speak with Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio [pictured], who sits in the Banking committee. I asked Senator Brown that, in light of HR 384 ready to pass the House, would he help push Senator Dorgan’s S 195, which has been referred to the banking committee and which places similar oversight and transparency requirements on the Wall Street bailout money. His response was both clear and positive: yes, he would try to push S 195 out of committee, and that “we” (I assume he meant himself and other banking committee Senators) would speak to, and work with, Chairman Dodd in an attempt order to make it happen.

So, this is a way forward, but there are important differences between the two bills that would have to be worked out in a conference committee if the Dorgan bill is passed.

Here’s the key difference: Dorgan’s bill seeks to apply new oversight and accountability mechanisms to all money that the government has committed to the financial system, including TARP (this is the $7.8 trillion figure), while Frank’s bill is aimed only at the $700 billion in TARP money. That said, here’s a quick compare-and-contrast of the bills:

Same in both bills (basically):

• New requirements that all firms that receive financial assistance from the government (only TARP recipients in the Frank bill) report quarterly on how they have used the money. Frank’s bill specifies reporting to include any amount of increased lending that the money has made possible.

• Applying the stricter executive compensation limits from the auto bailout bill to all firms receiving government assistance (again, only TARP funds in Frank’s bill). These include a ban on bonuses and incentives for to the 25 most highly compensated employees of a company, “any compensation plan that would encourage manipulation of such institution’s reported earnings to enhance the compensation of any of its employees,” and a mandate to divest in private airplanes.

• Gives the government more access to data from financial firms that receive government money. Dorgan’s bill mentions “access to personnel and any books, papers, records, or other data,” while Frank’s bill mention’s access to board meeting, which I believe would be covered under “personnel.”
  
  

Only in Dorgan’s bill (besides applying generally to all government financial assistance):

• Extends the original TARP oversight provisions (sections 104, 105 108, 116, 121 and 125 of the bailout bill) to all funds that the government has committed to the financial system.

• The creation of a Taxpayer Protection Prosecution Task Force to “investigate and prosecute financial fraud cases or any other violation of law that contributed to the collapse of our financial markets,” and “seek to claw back any ill-gotten gains, particularly by those who received billions of dollars in compensation creating the real estate and financial bubble.”

• The establishment of a Financial Market Investigation and Reform Commission, modeled after the 9/11 Commission, to examine how the financial crisis happened and report back to Congress on how similar crises can be prevented in the future.
  
  

Only in Frank’s bill (besides only applying to TARP):

• Requires that at least $40 billion of the second $350 billion of the financial bailout money is used for a comprehensive foreclosure mitigation plan, which the Treasury must design by March 15, 2009.

• Restricts mergers and acquisitions involving TARP recipients unless the Treasury determines that they would reduce the risk to taxpayers or that the transaction could have been consummated without money from TARP.

• Expands the Financial Stability Oversight Board that was set up by the original bailout bill and gives the board new powers to overturn TARP policy decisions from the Treasury Secretary by a 2/3rds vote.

• Several changes to the Hope for Homeowners program, including elimination of the 3 percent upfront premium requirement, reducing the 1.5% annual premium and eliminating government profit sharing of any appreciation of home values above what they were at the time of refinancing.

• Requiring the Treasury to carry out a program “to stimulate demand for home purchases and reduce unsold inventories of residential properties.

• Non-binding language “clarifying” that TARP can be used for bailing out auto companies, supporting the availability of consumer loans, and supporting issuers of tax-exempt municipal bonds.

• Making permanent the increase in deposit insurance coverage for banks to $250,000, which was part of the original bailout bill.
  
  

So, if Dorgan’s bill were to pass in the Senate, many of these things would still need to be worked out by a conference committee before a final piece of legislation could be sent to President Obama to be signed into law. There would be several options for a compromise – add Dorgan’s task force and commission to Frank’s bill, change Frank’s bill to apply to all firms receiving government assistance (not just TARP funds), add Frank’s housing provisions to Dorgan’s bill, etc.

The conventional wisdom still is that bailout oversight legislation will not pass the Senate. Bloomberg notes that Barney Frank said on the House floor today that he had been "given indications that the Senate does not plan to act on this,” and that the vote is meant “to strengthen our hand in making sure the Treasury does what we think is necessary even if it doesn’t become law.”

If this is an issue you care about, be sure to follow Bowers’ work at Open Left. He’ll undoubtedly be following up with Senator Brown on his promise today to push for Dorgan’s bill and perhaps there will be a larger community effort to lobby on the bill’s behalf.

UPDATE: Some very related thoughts up on Open Left.

The Washington Post has just launched a new politics site with a focus on profiling powerful players in D.C. politics – WhoRunsGov.com. From the About page:

>Our site will feature profiles of a select group of government officials, including members of the new presidential administration, legislators, senior Congressional aides and committee staff, and experts at think tanks and interest groups who influence how policy is made. Each profile focuses on an individual’s policy experience and involvement with specific areas of government decision-making, from health care to telecommunications to financial services to national security.

For now, the profiles on WhoRunsGov are all compiled and edited by in-house staff, but they plan on moving to a “moderated wiki” in the future, meaning that the public will be able to submit suggestions for profile revisions which will be subject to staff review. Check out a few of the profiles to get a sense of the kind of information that’s on the site – Kirsten Gillibrand, Timothy Geithner, Peter Orszag, Gen. James L. Jones, Richard C. Holbrooke…

Accompanying the launch of the site is a new blog – The Plum Line – written by former Talking Points Memo blogger Greg Sargent. The goal of the blog, so says Sargent, is to “chronicle the new D.C order – as perceived and experienced by the people building it, as well as by the people who are resisting or at least coming to terms with it.” It should be an excellent blog for getting an insider view into the messy world of policy creation in D.C. I recommend grabbing the RSS feed.

Overall, it looks like a good site with some unique information, though I agree with Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb that there is some room for improvement in areas of data integration and interactivity. Check out Marshall’s review of WhoRunsGov and his list of five similar projects that he thinks are doing it better (thanks for the mention, Marshall!).

And don’t forget to check out the awesome new LittleSis.org – an involuntary facebook of powerful Americans.

There is a bill in Congress right now, the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (H.R. 801), that, if passed into law, would end the National Institute of Health’s public access policy and restrict similar policies for other taxpayer-funded research. The research team at the money-in-politics website, MAPLight.org, released an analysis today showing how campaign contributions relate to the bill’s support in the House.

MAPLight.org analyzed campaign contribution data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics and determined that the publishing industry gave an average of $5,150 to each of the bill’s five bill sponsors and an average of $2,506 to each of the other 34 non-sponsor members of the [Judiciary] Committee.

View the full analysis>>

Late last month, Sen. Russ Feingold introduced the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act of 2009. The bill would require members of the Senate to file their quarterly campaign finance disclosure forms electronically. While the House of Representatives already does this (and has for 10 years), senators submit their forms on paper. The forms have to be packed up by the Secretary of the Senate and sent to the Federal Elections Commission, where staff manually type the information into a database. Proponents of the bill say the current process is not only expensive (costing taxpayers $250,000 a year), but stifles the spirit of disclosure the forms are meant to promote.

In the 110th Congress, the bill (S.223) had 47 cosponsors, and already this year 29 senators have signaled their support. There is no acknowledged opposition or criticism of the bill’s provisions, while a number of good-government groups (like OpenCongress partner The Sunlight Foundation) support the bill.

So what’s the hold up? Last time around, it was Sen. John Ensign, trying to attach an amendment targeting outside groups that file ethics complaints against senators (you can read more about it at the OpenCongress Wiki). This year, it’s Sen. Pat Roberts insisting on the amendment, which would force those groups to reveal their donors after lodging a complaint. That means the Senate can’t consider S.482 under unanimous consent, the quickest way to approve legislation.

Today, the Sunlight Foundation launched a campaign to Pass S.482. They’re asking that constituents call their senators, urge them to co-sponsor the bill, and reject the Roberts amendment. The web site is tracking where each senator stands on the legislation, and which ones still need to be called.

The stakes are pretty clear – during the final weeks of the 2008 election, the public could access campaign finance records for the House and presidential races. But it takes weeks and sometimes months to get that information online for Senate candidates. Want to help change that?

Image (used under a Creative Commons license) by D. Sharon Pruitt.

Today, at the Personal Democracy Forum conference, OpenCongress is announcing our biggest update yet, coming this summer: a complete site re-design, more data on “the money trail” in Congress, and new tools to engage with your elected officials. Everyone can be an insider.

Currently, OpenCongress works as a hub of conversation about bills and issues in Congress, but the upcoming redesign will make the site a more powerful organizing platform. If OpenCongress were a software project, we’d call it version 2.0, and we’re excited to get it out into the world.

Here are some screenshot previews of the redesign, along with quick ways for you to give your feedback and help spread the word. First, to the right, check out the new OC homepage in progress — click the image once to see it in full in a new browser window and again to enlarge:

… so fresh & so clean, the redesign improves the readability & usability of all the government data & social wisdom on our pages. We’re continually working toward the point where, instead of feeling overwhelmed or intimidated by government data, newcomers to politics feel more informed and empowered in the face of the legislative process.

Congress w/ Social Context

Second, our bill page interface has been redesigned with one of the primary aims being to foreground the interactive tools:

… the new right-hand sidebar presents easy access to tracking and voting features, built-in social sharing, and now, as below, the ability to write your elected officials directly from bill pages with your opinion on the bill:

… scrolling down back on this draft bill page, we’ve brought out and highlighted the social data on “Users Tracking This Bill” — what other bills and Members people are tracking, supporting, and opposing. This data, uniquely generated by the OpenCongress community, works like a “Six Degrees of OpenCongress” — find other topics of likely interest to you in the Congressional haystack, based on the associations of real people.

Watchdog Congress

Third, we’re especially excited to announce a new set of “Watchdog” features called as part of every free “My OpenCongress” profile:

… on your “Watchdog” tab, you can easily view your Senators’ and Representative’s latest actions, and compare your personal votes “aye/nay” on bills with their official votes on those bills’ passage. Watchdog tabs are accompanied by state- and Congressional district-specific portals to find your elected officials and what other users in your state are tracking, supporting, and opposing. These are significant steps towards our goal of taking OpenCongress more local and facilitating peer-to-peer constituent communication about the votes that matter to you.

More $$ Data

Fourth, we’re integrating more campaign contribution data to help the public follow “The Money Trail” throughout Congress. For Members of Congress, the redesigned site will show new levels of detail from OpenSecrets on which industries have donated to their campaigns. For bills, we’re now syndicating more info from MAPLight on interests that support and oppose the bill (e.g., the recent Climate Change Bill [H.R. 2454]). These are significant additions in making OpenCongress a more useful tool for combating corruption and building broad-based accountability.

Fifth, as part of the redesign launch we’ll be releasing the OpenCongress API, currently in beta. In short, the API provides web developers with automated access to all the data on OpenCongress in order to remix it for their own websites & online communities. In addition to official legislative data, the API offers a wealth of one-of-a-kind social data: bills most in the news & blogs, what’s popular in the Battle Royale, users tracking this bill are also tracking these bills, summaries of hot bills, and much more.

Wiki Knowledge

Sixth and last, the redesign will feature enhanced access to the shockingly useful content available on the OpenCongress Wiki — especially RaceTracker, the community project tracking every election for the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, and governorship. This crowd-sourced project allows individuals to add information they know about who’s running for office in their district and state, as long as the info is referenced to an outside source. The result is a collaborative, non-partisan, rich web resource on everyone running for Congress in 2010 and beyond. The OC Wiki will also release a new project giving enhanced access to Congressional scorecards from issue-based organizations from a variety of backgrounds. On pages for Members of Congress, you’ll have over 30 scorecards at your fingertips with meaningful votes on important issues, as well as the ability to access all this structured data through semantic MediaWiki. For example, visit the wiki profile of Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) & do a ‘find’ on “Congressional scorecards”.

Help Us Out!

Overall, by making our site more social and interactive, we’re working to make Congress more transparent and accountable. We’re interested in your feedback – to volunteer as a beta-tester and how the new features work for you, simply email us at w/ subject line “redesign”. In the weeks to come we’ll email you a preview link with further instructions on how to help. In the meantime, please help spread the word about our upcoming redesign — short link to Tweet, Digg post to Digg, or simply email this blog post to your friends. As always, OpenCongress is a 100% free, open-source, non-partisan, and not-for-profit joint project of Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation. Can’t wait to see how individuals and organizations use the new site to get involved in the Congressional process. Thanks for using OpenCongress.

The Washington Post has some shocking numbers on the insider, big-money fight against a public health insurance option:

The nation’s largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosures and other records.

The tactic is so widespread that three of every four major health-care firms have at least one former insider on their lobbying payrolls, according to The Washington Post’s analysis.

Nearly half of the insiders previously worked for the key committees and lawmakers, including Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), debating whether to adopt a public insurance option opposed by major industry groups. At least 10 others have been members of Congress, such as former House majority leaders Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) and Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), both of whom represent a New Jersey pharmaceutical firm.

The hirings are part of a record-breaking influence campaign by the health-care industry, which is spending more than $1.4 million a day on lobbying in the current fight, according to disclosure records. And even in a city where lobbying is a part of life, the scale of the effort has drawn attention. For example, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) doubled its spending to nearly $7 million in the first quarter of 2009, followed by Pfizer, with more than $6 million.

Ron Paul’s [R, TX-14] bill to audit the Federal Reserve (H.R. 1207) has reached another landmark. Every single House Republican has now co-sponsored it. But it’s not just a Republican bill. Ninety-three Democrats have co-sponsored it too.

It’s been referred to the House Financial Services Committee, and Chairman Rep. Barney Frank [D, MA-4] has said that there will be hearings on it before the August recess. The Senate version of the bill is not doing as well. It only has 8 co-sponsors, all Republicans, and its original sponsor Sen. Bernard Sanders [I, VT].