Our friends at the Sunlight Foundation believe (like we do) that all legislation should be posted online for at least 72 hours before a vote, to give lawmakers and citizens sufficient time to review and debate it. The "Financial Bailout" bill was posted online for review--which was a start. But Sunlight Foundation called on Congress to go farther.
They created a petition urging Congress to wait until October 1, 2008 before voting on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. (That would be 72 hours since it was first posted online.)
"Congress took a real step yesterday toward legislative transparency, by giving the public access to the proposed bailout legislation by posting it online in advance of floor consideration," said Ellen Miller, executive director and co-founder of the Sunlight Foundation. "But, before the bailout proposal is considered by lawmakers, it must undergo an even more important test: evaluation and assessment by Americans. That's why we are calling on citizens to sign a petition to urge Congress to wait 72 hours between when the bill was first posted online and the actual vote. We believe all legislation should posted online for at least three days before a vote to give lawmakers and citizens sufficient time to review and debate it, and this bill is no exception. This isn't a bill to rename a few courthouses; this bill is Congress's biggest intervention in the economy in decades. This important legislation deserves more time for public scrutiny."
Speaker Pelosi and the House Financial Services Committee posted the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 as a PDF yesterday in the late afternoon. Late Sunday night, Sunlight posted the text of the legislation PublicMarkup.org, allowing citizens to review and comment on the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry before the House and Senate vote on the measure. The simple-to-use blog-like layout of PublicMarkup.org lets users critique the entire bill or offer views on specific provisions, bringing citizen oversight to the legislation.
Since Sunlight posted the legislative proposals from the Treasury Department and Senator Dodd on PublicMarkup.org last week, citizens flooded the site with hundreds of comments on these iterations of the bailout bill.
Recent articles in the Washington Post and New York Times raise concerns about potential electoral problems this November. The areas of concern may sound familiar to Change Congress readers: security of electronic voting machines, lack of an auditable paper trail, voter registration, and voter identification & disenfranchisement. Similar concerns were raised in the run up to the 2004 & 2006 elections. In the aftermath of both the 2004 and 2006 elections there were numerous and significant claims of voter disenfranchisement and voting irregularities. Some went so far as to claim that these irregularities had altered the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. These claims, while never having been fully proven in a court of law or of public opinion, are nonetheless unsettling when considered in the light of the problems that accompanied the 2000 presidential election.
Why is it that we are hearing similar stories eight years later?
Potential answers can be found in the origins of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, the chief sponsor of the Senate bill, described HAVA as "the first Civil Rights Act of the 21st century." HAVA was a response to the election problems of 2000. The explicit goal of HAVA was to fix America's electoral system by replacing outdated voting systems with newer, more reliable machines and procedures. The act created the Election Assistance Commission to administer Federal elections, to establish a set of election standards and to allocate $3.9 billion to be used for investing in new voting equipment.
Lobbying, Campaign Contributions and Conflicts of Interest
HAVA's goals were noble but the results have been questionable. Some of the most vilified political figures in recent memory are deeply associated with the creation of the act. Former Ohio Congressman Bob Ney was the chief sponsor of the House bill. Robert F. Kennedy Jr described Ney's HAVA involvement:
"The primary author and steward of HAVA was Rep. Bob Ney, the GOP chairman of the powerful U.S. House Administration Committee. Ney had close ties to the now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose firm received at least $275,000 from Diebold to lobby for its touch-screen machines. Ney's former chief of staff, David DiStefano, also worked as a registered lobbyist for Diebold, receiving at least $180,000 from the firm to lobby for HAVA and 'other election reform issues.' Ney - who accepted campaign contributions from DiStefano and counted Diebold's then-CEO O'Dell among his constituents - made sure that HAVA strongly favored the use of the company's machines."
For the record, both Abramoff and Ney are convicted federal felons as a result of accepting money and gifts in exchange for political favors.
Kennedy also found a series of deep financial and professional ties between lawmakers and voting machine manufacturers. "Diebold, along with its employees and their families, has contributed at least $300,000 to GOP candidates and party funds since 1998." Additionally, Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, who also voted in favor of HAVA, was the former chair of one of the four major voting equipment manufacturers.
HAVA Unchanged Since 2002 + Diebold Today
From what I was able to gather from an hour and a half of research on Google, Maplight.org and the Library of Congress site, the Help America Vote Act has not been modified once since its initial passage in 2002. Of the more than 50 HAVA-related bills that have been introduced in the House and Senate since 2002 none have passed.
The Diebold board of directors acted to put an end to all executive level political giving in 2004 stating that Diebold officials "may not make contributions to, directly or indirectly, any political candidate, party, election issue or cause, or participate in any political activities, except for voting." Despite the ban, Diebold executives continued to give money to Republican campaigns. Since that time Diebold has changed the name of its voting equipment subsidiary to Premier Election Solutions and while executive level campaign contributions appear to have come to an end, state level lobbying efforts continue. In addition to Diebold/Premier, other voting equipment manufacturers have engaged in an aggressive lobbying campaign in order to counter negative public opinion and to win business from states which have been allocated hundreds of millions in HAVA funds.
Saving our Democracy: A Call for Transparency
Given the importance of the issue, the integrity of our democracy, there is a surprising lack of information available on the link between campaign finance, lobbying and the voting records of politicians. The data exists but it's certainly not easily accessible. Our friends at OpenSecrets and MapLight have been doing a tremendous job of increasing the transparency in politics but neither has data that goes back to 2002 and the HAVA vote. If you have access to useful tools or information related to HAVA, please let us know.
In general our political system and the economy of influence that drives it need to be more open and accessible. Political contributions by PACs, lobbyists and corporations make up a significant proportion of money in politics and we need a more transparent system that will allow us to more easily determine if the drafting of legislation and votes are being traded for cash. There are plenty of tools out there that are being developed for this, including the array that the Sunlight Foundation have been working on. What we need to do is integrate these tools into our daily lives. Sunlight Foundation is collecting comments on the recent federal bailout bill. You can add your own here.
Given theses facts, it's very easy to believe that Diebold and other voting equipment manufacturers gave money to well placed politicians in order to influence legislation that was worth $3.9 billion to their industry.
It has been a hard few months for those of us who admire Charlie Rangel, a Purple Heart and Bronze Star winner for his heroism in Korea, a co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, the fourth-longest serving Democrat in the House and one who has used that tenure for the benefit of the people of Harlem and for liberal causes generally.
Problem is, these days, that he has also used that tenure to benefit himself. A brief review of his recent woes is troubling:
He controls four rent-controlled apartments in his Harlem building, paying less than half the market rates, and until recently used one of the units as his campaign headquarters. Some have argued that his landlord's allowing him to have so many reduced-rate apartments violates the limits on gifts to Members, or the ban on in-kind contributions.
Claiming "cultural and language barriers," Rangel owes thousands in back taxes on rental income from a villa he owns at a swank (is there any other kind?) resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. He also failed to declare this income on many Congressional disclosure forms.
And the fans of Lawrence Lessig's talk at Netroots Nation will remember: the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College, which will also house his papers and is all well and good -- except for the fact that not only is it being funded via a $1.9M Congressional earmark and two HUD grants, but he is soliciting money for the Center from corporations and business leaders with interests before Ways & Means on Congressional stationery, and as Lessig says, this sort of thing destroys the conditions upon which trust is built as to the basis for his official decisionmaking.
The NYT has called on Cong. Rangel to cede temporarily his Chairmanship of Ways & Means, saying "Committee posts are not bestowed by voters. They are partisan privileges granted by leaders in Congress, and Ms. Pelosi must not cut slack for an ally. If Mr. Rangel refuses a temporary hiatus from his chairmanship, Ms. Pelosi should remove him permanently."
What are we in the Netroots to say about all this? First off, this is not an Al Wynn situation in which primarying the incumbent might bear fruit. As a well-placed NY politico friend put it to me,
Unless Charlie dies or resigns you might as well forget primarying him. He is beloved in his district. He has excellent constituent service. He brought empowerment zones to Harlem, he has brought money; he brought Bill Clinton's office to 125th St. and that brought more money. He is chairman of Ways and Means...and the community knows how much that matters to Harlem.
I should say that unlike Towns or Meeks or Wynn, Charlie is a populist and a progressive... as much as you can be as chair of Ways and Means. He doesn't vote against his community's interests as they do. He is also tireless and everywhere.
Speaking only for myself here, I too think that Cong. Rangel should probably cede his chair while the investigation is ongoing. I am particularly troubled by the last item -- using his leverage as Committee chair to raise funds for a Center being named for himself. It speaks of vanity, arrogance and an abuse of power that are just so unlike the cranky, exuberant, beloved liberal I've gotten to watch over the years.
[I recognize that there's a political tightrope here -- would Rangel stepping down just boost GOP efforts to paint Dems are corrupt, or since they're trying it already does it cauterize the wound? I don't think this is a Mark Foley-level controversy that captivates the public and hurts us generally, so the only question is, what's the right thing to do?]
Beyond that, I think Cong. Rangel at this point would be well-served to continue to honor the maxim of his lawyer, Lanny Davis -- yes, that Lanny Davis -- who subtitled his primer on political spin "Tell It Early, Tell It All, Tell It Yourself." And Rangel's certainly talking, and within the limits of his cantankerousness, admitting fault and demanding full investigations to confirm (he hopes) no wrongdoing. I hope he fully cooperates with every inquiry and every investigation, accepts the consequences and, when it is appropriate, end his distinguished tenure in public service with dignity, good humor and grace.
The former Legislative Director to Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) was arrested this past Monday on 10 corruption counts after giving gifts to several public officials as a reward for their "taking actions beneficial to [his] clients." Doolittle, of course, has been under the microscope after allegedly being tied to fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He's challenging a Justice Department subpoena and hired a attorney formerly with Ken Starr's office to defend himself.
The item that caught my eye in the Wikipedia entry on Doolittle was "Small Towns pressured to hire lobbyists." Doolittle's staff apparently told California municipal employees that hiring a lobbyist "wouldn't hurt." Let's go a few thousand miles north to the town of Wasillia, AK, where then-mayor Sarah Palin hired a Washington lobbyist to give her town a bit more power inside the beltway. Clearly, there seems to be the beginnings of a trend here: state elected leaders using powerful D.C. beltway lobbyists to tap into support (read "money") from the federal government. Indeed, the New York Times noted this trend back in 2006 saying that small towns, municipalities, school districts and transit authorities are, "putting lobbyists on retainer to leverage their local tax dollars into federal tax dollars." Since they aren't getting what they need from the state, they're jumping to the federal level by hiring a lobbyist and hoping to garner more federal funds for their town.
So, what's keeping every town of seven thousand citizens from hiring lobbyists? More importantly, does this change the process and structure of how federal and state governments interact? What this seems to create is a dependency not on the state's internal resources, but instead, on those of the federal government. Instead of working within each of their own state budgets, lobbyists are hired to take the interests (needs) of small town America directly to the federal government in the hopes of securing funding for projects, thus bypassing state government altogether. This threatens the very integrity of the state political structure in that it makes it indebted to Washington, D.C. It's easier to avoid the competition within your state budget when you can hire a lobbyist in D.C. and have access to a bigger pot of potential gold.
The solution to this lies in opening up government. Earmarks, the main tool used by politicians to fund local projects with federal money, can be transparent and be pushed through an approval process allowing others to see who is requesting what money for which projects. Not only will this help clean up corrupt or questionable earmarks but it will also engage people and allow them to take part in a process that has, up until now, been left to the lobbyists, politicians and special interests.
One of the first things you can do is sign our petition asking Congress to overhaul the earmark process, open it up and take the corruptive influences out. Then find three friends who will sign it with you. The only way to change the same-old politics of D.C is to challenge it. That's what we're trying to do here at Change Congress and we hope you'll join us.
Please join me in welcoming Stephanie Taylor to our Change Congress team. Stephanie's primary role will be to build the Change Congress netroots community and manage our online web presence.
She comes to Change Congress with many years of experience as an activist and organizer. She started as a field organizer for a number of years for SEIU 1199 in Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky, helping nurses and other health-care workers form unions and negotiate contracts. Later, she began working as an online organizing for the AFL-CIO, the DNC, MoveOn and most recently at SEIU, where she designed and implemented the first New Media Department in the history of the union.
Stephanie believes the Internet is making us a more democratic society, by shifting power away from moneyed elites into the hands of ordinary citizens. She feels that Change Congress is an important part of that movement, and is happy to be offering her skills towards its success.
Stephanie will be based in Washington, DC working closely with our Political Director Japhet Els and the rest of our Change Congress team based in San Francisco. No doubt, you will be hearing from Stephanie in the coming months -- we have plans to launch more campaigns designed to shine light on government corruption and put an end to the distorted ways Congress uses and views money.
Thursday night, the final night of Republican Convention celebration here in St.Paul, we were invited to a closing party called "It's a Wrap" sponsored by major D.C. lobbying firm Patton Boggs LLP. It was also sponsored by Ford Motor Company, EnCana Energy, Sands Las Vegas Casino Corporation, Oracle, DDC and Fierce, Isakowtiz & Blaylock.
The party was held in the majestic Landmark Center here in St.Paul, just a few steps away from the Xcel Energy Center where the convention speeches were taking place. Upon getting in we toured the grand ballroom and upstairs rooms, all of which were outfitted with open bars and waitresses walking around with niblets of food that looked more like art than tasty morsels (don't worry, they were tasty as well).
I talked to a few folks milling about and finally found someone from the law firm who was willing to answer some of my questions, albeit not on camera because they were forbidden to do so. Oddly, her card read, "Director of Media Relations and Communications." I guess that simply meant she wasn't allowed to actually say anything on the record. I let her know that I was not a member of the media. As soon as I asked her about the party she said, "we're not allowed to get into that." So I asked her about the firm -- what kind of law they focused on and who their clients were. She went through the typical talking points -- offices in countries around the world (including new offices in Abu Dhabi and Qatar), major work in public policy arena, etc., etc. Then she said, "Yeah, we're kind of known as the grand-daddy of lobbying firms." And why not? With the size of the party being put on, who would think otherwise.
How close is Patton Boggs, the "grand-daddy of lobbying firms," to our elected leaders? This from their About Us section of their website:
For more than 40 years, Patton Boggs has maintained a reputation for cutting-edge advocacy by working closely with Congress and regulatory agencies in Washington, litigating in courts across the country, and negotiating business transactions around the world. Our partners include women and men with extensive backgrounds in government service with strong ties to both major political parties, as well as top-flight litigators and individuals with a keen understanding of business and finance.
Clearly, they're proud of their connections to both Democrats and Republicans. And reading through the firm partner's bios, you can see how fast the revolving door between lobbyists and government regulators actually spins.
Edward J. Newbury, Partner: formerly served on several congressional staffs including chief appropriations staff and press secretary to U.S. Representative Frank R. Wolf (R-VA) and associate staff member on the House Appropriations Committee. They proudly tout his profile in a NY Times piece entitled, “Wing-Tipped Migration: Five Prominent Men and How They Got from Congress to K Street.”
Stuart M. Pape, Partner: served in various positions in the Office of the Chief of Counsel at the FDA prior to joining the firm in 1980. He is the former associate chief counsel for food, and from 1978-1979, served as executive assistant to FDA Commissioner Donald Kennedy. Now, he lobbies on behalf of corporations looking to obtain approval of new food ingredients, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices; advising on labeling and advertising of regulated products; assisting in enforcement proceedings initiated by regulatory bodies; and lobbying in connection with legislative consideration of statutory changes to the laws governing FDA-regulated products.
John F. Jonas, Partner: before joining the firm, Jonas served in number of government positions: while serving as counsel to Congressman Pete Stark (CA-13) on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee in 1981, Jonas "played a principal role in the rewriting of statutes concerning the taxation of life insurance companies." Jonas also worked extensively on the 1982, 1984, and 1986 tax laws during his time with the Ways and Means Committee. Now, his focus is...you guessed it: tax law. Concentrating on "representing financial services companies and a wide variety of health care interests before the House Ways and Means Committee, Senate Finance Committee and the Department of the Treasury." Jonas is busy lobbying for the very industry groups he regulated over a decade ago.
Let's be clear. None of these folks broke any laws. This is by no means an indictment of what are arguably some of the most accomplished lawyers in the country. But, this is how Washington works. The point of revealing this revolving door between lobbying groups and those tasked with regulating them is to show why the public, understandably, distrusts the government's ability to get the most important questions of our time, right. If government is supposed to be the counterweight to business and private industry, why would the public have faith in a system that puts both on the same side of the scale?
Parties are well and good. But with every party, every free drink, every gift to regulators (our elected leaders) there comes a hidden expectation: payback, usually in the form of a favorable vote in Congress or within some Congressional committee.
We must begin tackling this problem of corruption today. Corruption in the People's House, in our government, is the first problem. Much like an alcoholic dealing with a failing liver, a crumbling family life and a potential job loss, all of these challenges are connected back to the first problem: alcoholism. Similarly, Congress must deal with corruption first. If we want to solve global warming, the healthcare crisis, a failing economy and the war in Iraq, we must first deal with corruption. All of us play an important role. These elected leaders work for us, not vice versa. Lest we forget we are the ones that have the responsibility to make a change in our government when it continues to get the easy answers utterly wrong.
Change Congress is making that change. You can help by joining us and help show our government that the first problem, the problem of corruption, cannot be ignored.
Prosecutors got more than they bargained for after U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle sentenced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff to four years in prison. The case has shattered the public's confidence in government, said Huvelle.
It also appears to have shattered the former King of K Street.
"I come before you as a broken man," Abramoff said at his sentencing before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle. "I'm not the same man who happily and arrogantly engaged in a lifestyle of political and business corruption."
He added later that, "My name is the butt of a joke, the source of a laugh and the title of a scandal."
At the same time, Abramoff admits to being a victim of a broken system, someone who thrived in the legal gray area between politics and lobbying. And who does he blame for that broken system? Senator John McCain.
Although Abramoff expressed remorse Thursday, he also has spent his time in prison cooperating with a book that portrays him much differently: as a victim of Washington politics.
The book, set for publication later this month and obtained by The Associated Press, says Abramoff was pressured to plead guilty. The book blames The Washington Post and Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee whose Senate committee investigated Abramoff, for making him the fall guy.
"I never expected that I would have to go to prison," Abramoff says in the book, "until it became clear that the media could not allow this play to close without the hanging of the villain."
Is Abramoff just another victim of a corrupt system or is he the villain who learned how to take advantage of his extraordinary access to top elected officials and the Department of Justice, bribing them to further his own power and influence?
I've been to both conventions over the last two weeks. There are obvious differences in the what is being talked about, who is doing the talking and the rhetoric pouring out of politico mouths. But some things are the same, and one of those is the parties.
The parties are everywhere. Sunlight Foundation folks were invited and attended a party put on by the travel, airline and real estate industry last night and talked to a popular lobbyist about why the party was being thrown. The signs, "Vote for Travel! Vote for Hospitality! Vote for Real Estate!" appeared to be more than simply party decorations but rather implied requests to elected officials from major industry groups.
ABCNews was also on the lobbyist trail with a great piece on the parties here in the Twin Cities.
Senator McCain asked that the partying be muted in respect to the hurricanes slamming into the Gulf States but it seems the lobbyists (and many elected officials) didn't hear the message or chose to ignore it.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin wants the American public to believe that she is a strong reformer and a logical teammate for Republican candidate Senator John McCain. Because of her relative freshness to the national political scene I thought I'd put together some background on her reform record.
As mayor of Wasillia, Palin hired a Washington lobbyist in order to represent the town. (That lobbyist, Steven Silver, previously had served as an aide to Senator Ted Stevens).
90% of campaign contributions during her race for governor came from individuals, not PACs. This will help her argument as being a Washington outsider.
In that same campaign, Palin accepted over $10,000 from lawyers and lobbyists.
Palin's Legislative Director has been under scrutiny due to his ties to a Juneau lobbyist who has given Palin's campaign $1500 over the past three years.
Palin joined forces with Democrats to push through new corporate oil taxes going against industry as well as her own party.
In early 2007, Palin tried to push an ethics bill through the Alaskan Legislature. SB 19 and 20 were both passed but were watered-down versions of her initial effort.
Regardless of the laundry lists being emailed around about Palin's ability and experience, we're all trying to get to know her as quick as possible. At the moment, if feels as though Palin has dipped in and out of playing the political game while at the same time trying to remain an outsider.
Hiring a Washington lobbyist on behalf of your town of 5,470 is not a compelling argument for a candidate claiming to be a reformer. However, raising taxes on Big Oil and challenging the party line does show either acute political adroitness or a maverick streak.
Based on Palin's green (and thin) record, I wouldn't say she is any more a reformer than your typical politician. And being a reformer at the state level is certainly different than being one at the federal level. But seriously, what did we expect to find after three days of media hype? More is coming I am sure.
