Planet Open Government Open Source Hacking

Budget and Deficit Transparency

2010-03-12T19:22:07+00:00

Earlier this week, the Senate passed an amendment to the unemployment extenders bill that would require the Secretary of the Senate to post information related to the debt effect of each bill that passes the Senate. The vote was 100-0. Unaminous votes are pretty rare in the Senate. This one highlights both the significance that the debt is playing in lawmaker’s minds and the general support for transparency as an idea in Congress.

The bill itself has some issues, which I’ll address here.

First, what does the amendment do? This is the legislative language (which, unlike most legislative language, is pretty straightforward):

(a) In General.–The Secretary of the Senate shall post prominently on the front page of the public website of the Senate (http://www.senate.gov/) the following information:

(1) The total amount of discretionary and direct spending passed by the Senate that has not been paid for, including emergency designated spending or spending otherwise exempted from PAYGO requirements.

(2) The total amount of net spending authorized in legislation passed by the Senate, as scored by CBO.

(3) The number of new government programs created in legislation passed by the Senate.

(4) The totals for paragraphs (1) through (3) as passed by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by the President.

(b) Display.–The information tallies required by subsection (a) shall be itemized by bill and date, updated weekly, and archived by calendar year.

(c) Effective Date.–The PAYGO tally required by subsection (a)(1) shall begin with the date of enactment of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 and the authorization tally required by subsection (a)(2) shall apply to all legislation passed beginning January 1, 2010.

Okay, now the criticism:

1) The items that are to be disclosed in (a)(2) and (a)(3) are either not specific or only tell one side of the coin. For example, the net spending in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), is $871 billion from 2010-2019. However, the net cost is listed at $614 billion from 2010-2019. Furthermore, the CBO projects that the bill would result in a net reduction in deficits of $132 billion from 2010-2019. So, the CBO projects that the bill will reduce the deficit, but this amendment would only disclose the “total amount of net spending.” That seems a bit like cherry-picking if you ask me. Same goes for disclosing new government programs created in a bill. First, the amendment does not define a government program. Definition is really important in disclosure legislation. Second, what if a bill reduces the number of government programs? Why would we not want to disclose that?

2) Is there a database for this? It doesn’t look like it. And why is it updated weekly instead of in real-time? Also, why not post the deficit impact of legislation before it is passed by the Senate or both chambers? Posting information on legislation prior to enactment or passage would probably help achieve the transparency bill’s goal of making it more difficult for lawmaker’s to approve deficit spending.

3) The whole thing seems like a piecemeal effort. What the government really needs is something like the Budget.gov web site that my colleague Daniel Schuman discussed in this post. Additionally, Congress should give citizens access to all the same legislative resources that Congress is provided through the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the Legislative Information Service (LIS).

I’m all in favor of more transparency around the budget, the deficit and the debt. Rather than an ad hoc requirement placed on the Secretary of the Senate, there may be a more broad and sustained approach to budgetary and deficit transparency that could be more informative to the public’s needs.

Massa, Maf54 and the Ethics Committee

2010-03-12T19:18:40+00:00

And now to totally contradict my previous post stating why no one needs to talk about tickle-monster Eric Massa.

The House voted today 404-2 to recommend that the House Ethics Committee reopen their probe into Massa’s misconduct and examine whether House leaders were aware of his misdeeds and whether they failed act quickly enough. This follows on the heels of reports that an aide in Speaker Pelosi’s office was informed in October that Massa was living with aides, hired too many aides, cursed around staff and appeared to be going on dates with openly-gay male staffers from other congressional offices.

On first blush these don’t exactly rise to the level of ethics investigation material — congressmen have been known to live with aides in the past and if he wants to cheat on his wife with adult men, that’s his prerogative. Either way, the Ethics Committee should look into whether there was any more information relayed to leadership prior to the reported receipt of complaints about harassment in February and whether they responded properly or not.

Already, this case is being compared to the 2006 Mark Foley scandal. I’m not really sure that it rises to that level for a number of reasons. That being said, let’s take a look at what made the Foley scandal toxic for the congressional leadership who covered it up.

1) Members of Congress were aware as early as 1995 that Foley was interested in teenage male pages. Foley was elected in 1994. A male page who served in 1995 stated later, “Almost the first day I got there I was warned. It was no secret that Foley had a special interest in male pages.” In 2000, then-Rep. Jim Kolbe and Clerk of the House Jeff Trandahl were informed of complaints of inappropriate e-mails from Foley to teenage male pages. In 2002 or 2003, Foley appeared in the page dormitory after-hours and was visibly drunk. This information was conveyed to Trandahl who then informed Foley’s chief of staff Kirk Fordham and Fordham subsequently informed Speaker Dennis Hastert’s chief of staff Scott Palmer that Foley exhibited inappropriate behavior around pages, but did not tell him about the drunken dorm incident. Trandahl stated that Hastert’s office was informed of Foley’s behavior in 2003 and was given regular updates about his conduct.

2) In the specific incident that led to Foley’s removal from the House, congressmen were made aware of the lascivious e-mails in early-2005 (the story broke in September of 2006). Hastert’s office was made aware in the fall of 2005 and Hastert was specifically informed in early-2006. Other congressional leaders, Majority Leader John Boehner and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds, were informed of the emails and IM conversations in the spring of 2006. Boehner and Reynolds stated that they both told Hastert about the allegations.

3) Foley was hitting on teenage pages and engaging in sexual relationships with ex-pages. This is a far-cry from going on dates with adult congressional staffers. Parents entrust their children to Congress when they are serving as pages and expect that members of Congress aren’t going to be making sexual advances on them — or that, if such a case were to arise that congressional leaders would do something about it. Also, did I mention that Foley was hitting on teenagers, not adults.

I can’t really see the Massa issue rising to this level of extreme malfeasance by leadership. It appears to have come as somewhat of a surprise to people in Washington. This is probably because the guy was only a congressman for about 14 months. The complaints that were made with Pelosi’s office, if the story is accurate, rise to the level of talking to Massa’s staff, but certainly not to an Ethics Committee investigation. The complaints received by Hoyer’s office were rather more serious and his office referred the matter to the Ethics Committee almost immediately. If this is the full story, it certainly doesn’t rise to the level of the actual cover-up of Foley’s repulsive behavior.

Since the House already voted to send the issue back to the Ethics Committee, we’ll have to wait and see if everyone’s story is accurate.

Anderson County hosts Transparency panel

2010-03-12T18:50:44+00:00

Anderson County is hosting a transparency panel today in honor of Sunshine Week. Yours truly will be tuning in via skype along with the other panelists today at 6 pm EST. Anderson County has been a poster child for proactive disclosure of government information and was one of the first to earn a perfect transparency grade from SR.

A little briefing on what it’ll entail from the Independent Mail

At 6 p.m., in the Anderson County Civic Center, interim county administrator Rusty Burns will answer questions from a panel of news representatives and others. The panel includes Jay Bender, attorney for the South Carolina Press Association, and SC Senator Bryant, R-Anderson.

The Blanche Lincoln Energy & Climate Complex

2010-03-12T18:13:43+00:00

Sen. Blanche Lincoln has put herself front and center in opposing efforts by her party’s leadership to pass or implement comprehensive caps on carbon emissions in the United States. She opposes the proposed cap and trade legislation that passed the House of Representatives and has been touted by President Barack Obama and senators John Kerry, Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman. Similarly, she has signed on to legislation that would block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from implementing their own regulations to cap carbon emissions should cap and trade legislation fail to pass Congress. In this effort she is aided by a coterie of former staffers who currently lobby for a variety of interests seeking to weaken or derail carbon capping whether through legislation or the EPA’s rule-making authority.

Six of Lincoln’s former staffers currently lobby for interests invested in influencing carbon capping legislation. These interests include oil & gas trade groups, agriculutural companies, the airplane industry and biofuel and bioenergy firms. As chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Lincoln holds a powerful position to influence carbon capping legislation and she has made no secret of her desire to block the legislation.

(For a full visualization of Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s former staffers lobbying for the energy and climate industries click here or the image to the right.)

The most influential of Lincoln’s former staffers is Kelly Bingel, a lobbyist for Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti. Bingel is a former chief of staff to Lincoln and has been called “Sen. Lincoln’s alter ego.” Bingel’s clients include two incredibly powerful organizations opposed to carbon capping: the American Petroleum Institute (API), the lead trade group for the oil industry, and Koch Industries, one of the largest oil manufacturing, trading and investment companies in the country. David Koch, one of the two owners of Koch Industries, is a big contributor to conservative movement organizations and is an outspoken opponent of cap and trade legislation. Koch has invested millions in various conservative organizations that have led lobbying and grassroots stimulation efforts to get people to advocate to their lawmakers to oppose cap and trade legislation. API spent $7.32 million on lobbying last year, almost double what it spent in 2008. API states that any carbon capping legislation or regulations will cost the industry jobs and increase taxes.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Lincoln is currently the number one recipient of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry from 2005 to 2010. She has received, through her campaign committee and her leadership political action committee (PAC),$309,500 from the industry.

Another former staffer to Lincoln, Ben Noble, lobbies for organizations opposed to carbon capping efforts including a variety of agricultural interests. Agricultural companies and trade groups have a major stake in cap and trade legislation as it moves through Congress. According to the EPA, agriculture accounts for 6 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The industry is seeking to avoid carbon capping regulation in cap and trade legislation or through EPA regulation.

One of Noble’s clients, the USA Rice Federation, opposes cap and trade legislation and recently praised Lincoln for her stance against the legislation, “We applaud Chairman Lincoln for putting the American economy and jobs first in this debate. While there are a number of questions surrounding the issue of climate change, there is absolutely no question about the severe impact that pending legislation and regulation would have on our economy and jobs.”

Lincoln is the top recipient of campaign contributions from a variety of agricultural industries including agricultural services, crop producers, food processors and meat processors and plants. Since 2005, Lincoln has received $789,372 from the agribusiness sector.

Both Bingel and Noble also represent organizations generally supportive of cap and trade legislation, so long as it contains language that allows them to maximize their profits under the new system. Bingel represents the electrical utility trade group the Electric Edison Institute (EEI). EEI, which includes members who have received specific benefits in the House-passed cap and trade legislation, sees the legislation as an openning into new markets with high potential to increase their share of energy distribution.

Noble represents the massive bio-tech, agribusiness firm Monsanto. Monsanto seeks to gain profits from a cap and trade system by getting farms and agribusiness to switch to a “no-till” method of farming. The “no-till” method would require farmers to purchase herbicides and seeds made by Monsanto. The lobbying effort by Monsanto is detailed in Tom Philpott’s explanation at Grist.

Last week, Lincoln released her first campaign advertisement in the uphill battle to retain her Senate seat. The ad touts her continued opposition to the passage of cap and trade legislation. This continues her statement from last year that cap and trade is a “complete non-starter.”

(Revision: Todd Wooten no longer lobbies for Enerkem. He is currently employed by Duke University.)

Congress to Obey Earmark Rules, New Business Group Gets Spendy and More in Capital Eye Opener: March 11

2010-03-12T17:57:57+00:00

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

THE IMPERILED EARMARK: Perennial earmark opponent Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) wants to force the House Committee on Standards to report what documents and interviews it conducted while last year investigating campaign cash-for-earmarks allegations involving now-disbanded PMA Group. The committee recently exonerated all members but released only a five-page report on the situation. Investigations by Roll Call have failed to turn up a single member or former PMA employee who was even interviewed as part of the investigation.

The issue has been heating up as a March 19 deadline to submit earmark requests for inclusion in this years appropriations bills approaches. Just this week, David Obey, House Appropriations Committee chairman, announced the panel would not approve any earmarks going to for-profit groups. House Minority Leader John Boehner indicated that Republicans are considering a self-imposed moratorium on earmarks this year and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made similar assertions in recent days. The White House also included improved earmark disclosure as part of a memorandum outlining how it plans to tighten the reins on special interests.

NEW BUSINESS GROUP PLANS BIG SPENDING: A new business-backed group, Employers for a Healthy Economy, plans to spend up to $10 million on advertising in an attempt to stop the latest action on health care reform. The group is funded by nearly 250 lobby groups and companies and includes money from the health insurance industry. The Washington Times reports the group’s ads will run nationally, and then in districts targeting key House members whose votes would be needed to achieve final passage.

In addition to the cash being spent on targeted advertising, the companies and industry trade groups behind the television campaign have some serious clout from years of campaign contributions and lobbying. Listed among the group’s members are the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Associated Builders and Contractors, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the National Retail Federation. The Chamber alone spent $144.5 million last year on lobbying.

CRP IN THE NEWS: Jim Puzzanghera at the Los Angeles Times finds that legislation to create a new financial regulatory agency will likely exempt payday lenders, including some big donors to key Senators, from expanded oversight … Deborah Zabarenko reports for Reuters that the massive spending by the energy industry to influence climate change legislation will only increase in the wake of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision…Forbes reporter Liz Moyer uses CRP data in a story on the lack of regulatory reform for risky securities trading … the Philadelphia Inquirer's Jeff Shields tackles the issue of taxing soda and quotes CRP's Dave Levinthal regarding industry lobbying activity … CNNMoney.com's Jennifer Liberto notes our research in this piece about student loans.

Have a news tip of link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org.

The future of libraries

2010-03-12T16:31:50+00:00

This article in the New Republic by Lisbet Rausing takes a look at the future of libraries and knowledge and the obstacles preventing scholarly knowledge and research from reaching the wider public over the web. I’ll just selectively quote below. The whole article is worth the read.

Look at JSTOR (if you can). There you find the evidence-based, source-critical foundations of sociology, anthropology, geography, history, philosophy, classics, Oriental studies, theology, musicology, history of science and so on. They are all closed to the public. It is wonderful, of course, that high-energy physics and string theory are open to all. But is it not ironic that we have opened the gates only to that scholarship which few professors, let alone members of the public, have the cognitive capacity and appropriate training to grasp?

The opportunity costs for society are self-evident. But what about the opportunity cost for scholars? For example, the public has set itself the task to rewrite knowledge for the public domain through Wikipedia and the like. Should not these sites be hyperlinked with JSTOR? By excluding the public from their scholarly literature, academics make it impossible for amateurs to use sound research methodologies, critically examining evidence by cross-referencing and source analysis. Scholars then critique the public’s output for not being sufficiently academic. Academics commonly refer to the occasionally wobbly scholarly standards of Wikipedia as proof the public does not wish to pursue scholarship. Might it not instead prove that they do not let them?

Forget, for the moment, about the morality of thus adding insult to injury. Consider instead the downside for the universities. Does not the professoriate take a reputational risk? After all, the web-tech community is working on how to verify information on the Web, or as they put it, “engineering layers of trust and provenance.” In the longer term, the question is not whether the Web will be scholarly in some perfectly meaningful sense. It is whether traditional twentieth-century scholarship in the humanities and the social sciences will be integrated into that emerging, increasingly cross-referenced and even more scholarly world of the web. Or will what James Boyle has nicely termed our cultural agoraphoria—our undue skepticism of open networks—lead the universities to become bystanders in the new worlds of open-access knowledge?

If scholars continue to hide away and lock up their knowledge, do they not risk their own irrelevance? An immediately important debate, I think, is to be had over how academics fail to engage with their natural constituency (and former students): journalists, business leaders, lawyers, entrepreneurs, politicians, and civil servants. These people are the ruling classes, if you would like. They are the ones who house and feed professors. Is it really in academics’ long-term interest to not let these well-educated and well-intentioned people as much as glance at, say, the Index of Christian Art? Is it really in their interest not to show the public their scholarly articles and academic monographs? What does this tell the public about who academics think is clubbable? And how will that affect how the public thinks about, say, federal research grants, or top-up fees?

Rep. Eric Massa's Bankrollers: Angry, Disappointed and Disassociating Themselves from Him

2010-03-12T16:31:41+00:00

Hundreds of people and political action committees supported freshman Rep. Eric Massa with millions of dollars because they largely considered him a left-leaning lion in an Upstate New York congressional district chocked with conservatives – a coup for Democratic faithful.

Now, Massa's political career is little more than embers inside a still-hot inferno of accusations and admissions that he routinely used sexually charged language around male staffers, when not outrightly tickling and groping them.

Massa resigned his office Monday, then submitted to live interviews Tuesday with Fox News' Glenn Beck and CNN's Larry King, both of which produced more cringe-worthy moments than, say, a naked row in a congressional gymnasium shower.

"A human train wreck," is how Democratic strategist Bob Shrum described Massa.

"[P]eople say Washington politics is a freakshow, and Eric Massa is writing a whole new chapter," said CNN senior political analyst David Gergen.

So, where does this leave Massa's legion of bankrollers who supported him during times less lascivious?

Alternately disappointed and angry, with an undercurrent of bamboozlement.

Some say they believe Massa should consider donating or returning his remaining campaign funds, which through December totaled nearly $644,000. Others want no part of such discussion – or Massa himself.

"It's his prerogative to donate the money. If he does he does, if he doesn't he doesn't, but I wouldn't be disappointed if he did donate it," Lionel Kaplan, an attorney in New Jersey who in May donated $1,000 to Massa, told Capital Eye.

"His money -- it should go to any other progressive cause to support progressives who will speak up on the environment, on heath care, the public option," said Bobette Gorden, a marketing executive in Arizona who donated $500 to Massa last year. "I really believed in him. It's such a shame. I'm not mad, I'm sad ... I don't get any pleasure from him dropping out."

For Dick Alexander, chairman of Texas-based software company Global Shop Solutions, Massa's campaign money should "be put toward a campaign to balance trade."

Alexander, who last year donated $1,000 to Massa, told Capital Eye he once met with the former congressman in Washington, D.C., and left impressed by his commitment to balancing the nation's trade deficit. Massa's political implosion is "just surprising -- a disappointment because he's one of the few in Congress who was very much a balanced trader," Alexander said.

Jim Spellane, media director for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said his organization is experiencing some "buyer's remorse" regarding its $34,500 in contributions to Massa.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers PAC first decided to donate to Massa "in consultation with the local level" of its organization, Spellane explained.

"The goal was to elect those who supported the issues of working people," he said.
But Spellane declined to comment on whether he believes Massa should refund that money – the largest total contribution to the embattled politico by any single PAC.

Other PACs and organizations that had once supported Massa with five- and six-figure donations are completely disinclined to now discuss their association with him.

"We have no comment on any of that," said Paul Doell of the American Maritime Officers PAC, which has donated $10,000 to Massa this election cycle.

Massa is only one of six federal candidates this election cycle to receive $10,000 – the legal maximum – from the American Maritime Officers PAC, Center for Responsive Politics research indicates.

ActBlue, a political action committee and online fund-raising conduit for Democrats that sent more than $672,000 to Massa for his career, notes that it didn't directly support Massa. Instead, it processed credit card donations from individuals to Massa's campaign.

"So not only do we not have a position on his behavior, the question isn't even germane to what we do," ActBlue spokesman Adrian Arroyo said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, meanwhile, both contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Massa through their leadership PACs. So has Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), who's been hamstrung with ethical issues of his own.

Aides to both Pelosi and Hoyer said their offices would respond to questions from Capital Eye about their leadership PAC contributions to Massa. Neither office ever did.

Pelosi and Hoyer are hardly alone in their financial support of Massa, as a veritable all-star roster of Democrats helped Massa fill his campaign coffers in recent years.

This includes former President Bill Clinton, who in August conducted a fund-raiser in Manhattan for him, according to political event tracker Party Time.

Massa's all-time top contributors are listed below. Note that the organizations' contribution totals are based on donations from both political action committees and individuals associated with them:

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Contributor	Total	Individuals	PACs
ActBlue	$672,598	$672,598	$0
Corning Inc.	$45,650	$35,650	$10,000
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers	$34,500	$0	$34,500
AmeriPAC: The Fund for a Greater America (Steny Hoyer)	$30,000	$0	$30,000
Service Employees International Union	$26,000	$1,000	$25,000
American Federation of Teachers	$25,000	$0	$25,000
American Fedn of State/County/Muni Employees	$25,000	$0	$25,000
PAC to the Future (Nancy Pelosi)	$25,000	$0	$25,000
United Auto Workers	$25,000	$0	$25,000
Teamsters Union	$24,375	$0	$24,375
Harris Corp.	$24,250	$9,250	$15,000
Plumbers/Pipefitters Union	$24,000	$0	$24,000
Sheet Metal Workers Union	$23,500	$0	$23,500
American Postal Workers Union	$22,500	$0	$22,500
Communications Workers of America	$21,000	$0	$21,000
National Leadership PAC (Charles Rangel)	$21,000	$0	$21,000
Machinists/Aerospace Workers Union	$20,000	$0	$20,000
United Food & Commercial Workers Union	$20,000	$0	$20,000
United Steelworkers	$17,500	$0	$17,500
University of Rochester	$17,250	$17,250	$0

Massa could not be reached for comment on what he plans to do with his campaign money now that he is exiting politics.

Best Practices for Government Datasets: Wrap-Up

2010-03-12T16:26:01+00:00

[This is the fifth and final post in a series on best practices for government datasets by Harlan Yu and me. (previous posts: 1, 2, 3, 4)]

For our final post in this series, we'll discuss several issues not touched on by earlier posts, including data signing and the use of certain non-text file formats. The relatively brief discussions of these topics should not be interpreted as an indicator of their importance. The topics simply did not fit cleanly into earlier posts.

One significant omission from earlier posts is the issue of data signing with digital signatures. Before discussing this issue, let's briefly discuss what a digital signature is. Suppose that you want to email me an IOU for $100. Later, I may want to prove that the IOU came from you—it's of little value if you can claim that I made it up. Conversely, you may want the ability to prove whether the document has been altered. Otherwise, I could claim that you owe me $100,000.

Digital signatures help in proving the origin and authenticity of data. These signatures require that you create two related big numbers, known as keys: a private signing key (known only by you) and a public verification key. To generate a digital signature, you plug the data and your signing key into a complicated formula. The formula spits out another big number known a digital signature. Given the signature and your data, I can use the verification key to prove that the data came unmodified from you. Similarly, nobody can credibly sign modified data without your signing key—so you should be very careful to keep this key a secret.

Developers may want to ensure the authenticity of government data and to prove that authenticity to users. At first glance, the solution seems to be a simple application of digital signatures: agencies sign their data, and anyone can use the signatures to authenticate an agency's data. In spite of their initially steep learning curve, tools like GnuPG provide straightforward file signing. In practice, the situation is more complicated. First, an agency must decide what data to sign. Perhaps a dataset contains numerous documents. Developers and other users may want signatures not only for the full dataset but also for individual documents in it.

Once an agency knows what to sign, it must decide who will perform the signing. Ideally, the employee producing the dataset would sign it immediately. Unfortunately, this solution requires all such employees to understand the signature tools and to know the agency's signing key. Widespread distribution of the signing key increases the risk that it will be accidentally revealed. Therefore, a central party is likely to sign most data. Once data is signed, an agency must have a secure channel for delivering the verification key to consumers of the data—users cannot confirm the authenticity of signed data without this key. While signing a given file with a given key may not be hard, surrounding issues are more tricky. We offer no simple solution here, but further discussion of this topic between government agencies, developers, and the public could be useful for all parties.

Another issue that earlier posts did not address is the use of non-text spreadsheet formats, including Microsoft Excel's XLS format. These formats can sometimes be useful because they allow the embedding of formulas and other rich information along with the data. Unfortunately, these formats are far more complex than raw text formats, so they present a greater challenge for automated processing tools. A comma-separated value (CSV) file is a straightforward text format that contains values separated by line breaks and commas. It provides an alternative to complicated spreadsheet formats. For example, the medal count from the 2010 Winter Olympics in CSV would be:

  Country,Gold,Silver,Bronze,Total
  USA,9,15,13,37
  Germany,10,13,7,30
  Canada,14,7,5,26
  Norway,9,8,6,23
  ...

Fortunately, the release of data in one format does not preclude its release in another format. Most spreadsheet programs provide an option to save data in CSV form. Agencies should release spreadsheet data in a textual format like CSV by default, but an agency should feel free to also release the data in XLS or other formats.

Similarly, agencies will sometimes release large files or groups of files in a compressed or bundled format (for example, ZIP, TAR, GZ, BZ). In these cases, agencies should prominently specify where users can freely obtain software and instructions for extracting the data. Because so many means of compressing and bundling files exist, agencies should not presume that the necessary tools and steps are obvious from the data files themselves.

The rules suggested throughout this series should be seen as best practices rather than hard-and-fast rules. We are still in the process of fleshing out several of these ideas ourselves, and exceptional cases sometimes justify exceptional treatment. In unusual cases, an agency may need to deviate from traditional best practices, but it should carefully consider (and perhaps document) its rationale for doing so. Rules are made to be broken, but they should not be broken for mere expedience.

Our hope is that this series will provide agencies with some points to consider prior to releasing data. Because of Data.gov and the increasing traction of openness and transparency initiatives, we expect to see many more datasets enter the public domain in the coming years. Some agencies will approach the release of bulk data with minimal previous experience. While this poses a challenge, it also present an opportunity for committed agencies to institute good practices early, before bad habits and poor-quality legacy datasets can accumulate. When releasing new datasets, agencies will make numerous conscious and unconscious choices that impact developers. We hope to help agencies understand developers' challenges when making these choices.

After gathering input from the community, we plan to create a technical report based on this series of posts. Thanks to numerous readers for insightful feedback; your comments have influenced and clarified our thoughts. If any FTT readers inside or outside of government have additional comments about this post or others, please do pass them along.

Lobbyists Rush to Address Earmark Ban, 'Shrek'-hater Prison Bound and More in Capital Eye Opener: March 12

2010-03-12T16:00:04+00:00

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

LOBBYISTS SCRAMBLE TO FILL EARMARK VOID: Faster than Rep. Eric Massa could resign his congressional seat, members of the House of Representatives are this week engaged in a game of one-upmanship centered on who can slap more limits on congressional earmarks, which have delivered billions of dollars worth of no-bid contracts to thousands of companies and organizations. First, Democrats nixed earmarks for for-profit entities. Now, House Republicans promise they won't stuff spending bills with earmarks at all. Given Congress' insatiable appetite for earmarks and years-long resistance to curtailing them -- see the Center for Responsive Politics' recent earmarks project created in conjunction with Taxpayers for Common Sense -- it'll certainly be curious to see whether this is election year grandstanding or durable change. It's certainly a huge change for lobbyists. The New York Times' Eric Lichtblau reports this morning that "lobbyists and military contractors who have long relied on lucrative earmarks from Congress were scrambling Thursday to find new ways to keep the federal money flowing." And politically speaking, this may just be the greatest day in the life of Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), given that the smiling politico in part built his career on a quest to rid Congress of earmarks.

REP. JOHN CONYERS' WIFE SENTENCED TO PRISON TIME: Monica Conyers, a former Detroit City Council member and wife of House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.), appears headed to prison for 37 months after pleading guilty to bribery charges. (Monica Conyers says she will appeal the sentence.) The bombastic ex-politico admitted to taking bribes in connection with a vote on a $1.2 billion contract before the Detroit City Council. Monica Conyers had long been one of Detroit's most outspoken politicians, even long before the infamous "Shrek" incident that enshrined for eternity her reputation as a political firebrand. Roll video, please:

CRP, IN THE NEWS: Anne C. Mulkern of Greenwire, via the New York Times, cites our earmarks study produced with Taxpayers for Common Sense in this piece today about how energy- and water-related earmarks flow to politicians' campaign donors ... Other publications citing our work during the past day include the Washington Examiner, Bloomberg, Congressional Quarterly, Investor's Business Daily and the (Olympia, Wash.) Olympian.

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org.

The Transparency Campaign: Who We Are

2010-03-12T15:24:55+00:00

A few weeks back, we asked members of our community to tell us a little about themselves: What are people looking for from our government? When it comes to transparency, what is the most important priority? What’s the best way we can build movement for open government at the state level?

The first thing we asked was “What is the single most important political issue in your state?” Followed by the same question for “our country.” Many of the responses were what one might expect considering the state of the economy and the political climate—the economy, heath care, government spending, education and immigration all topped the list. In addition to the responses we might expect, though, were also a wide array of opinions on other important factors to make government more transparent like copyright reform or financial deregulation. There were some as well, who share our aims of improving access to government information and ensuring our elected officials are accountable:

“Lack of transparency in government (legislation created behind closed doors) and personal agendas.”

“TRUST in the political process and politicians again.”

“More objective, trusted and transparent information about how money is spent and decisions are made in government.”

“Our government does not represent the citizens’ interests first.”

As an organization, the Sunlight Foundation has spent more than three years trying to show not just the public, but lawmakers, reporters and opinion leaders as well, why a more open and transparent government is a good thing. But this movement is much larger than just one organization, so we also asked respondents to explain simply why “government transparency” matters to them.

Again, the range of responses was broad, but here are some that I wanted to share:

“It is important for me to know what my government is doing.”

“Ours is a representative republic. Our elected representatives need to be held fully accountable for their actions when they are entrusted with our votes. ”

“The ability to easily access information about lobbying activities and campaign donations allows the people to evaluate the influences on their representatives and decide who to support and who can be trusted.”

“Mischief grows in the dark, transparency and openness grows democracy.”

“In order for citizens to fulfill their role in a democracy, they must have timely access to the information they need to make decisions.”

“Government without transparency is tyranny defined.”

“I am pretty much a shut-in and I have to rely on news programs and reports on television cable, it is so much better if I can rely on information that is coming to me from a source that I can rely on and trust.”

Survey respondents were spread across the political spectrum (click for chart), but when asked about transparency issues, there was often agreement. This offers some encouragement that our issues do indeed transcend party or ideology. For example, when asked whether they thought it was important to know how Americans’ tax dollars are being spent, the vast majority of people said it was “very important.”

Another interesting breakdown is to look at the number of respondents who rely on the Internet for news. Using that data, we can see how important is it for them to have “Information on who Members of Congress are meeting with in their office and what they do day to day.”

As you can see, almost everybody who responded relies on the Internet, to some degree, for news, and they think it is either fairly or very important to know who their elected officials are meeting.

There’s one final measure I wanted to share: just how motivated these individuals are. Those who responded to the survey and signed up for the Citizens for Open Government group will form the core of this campaign, and they’re ready for action. When asked if they’d be likely to help, these are the number of people who said yes:

Call your local elected official: 76%
Distribute flyers: 65%
Participate in an event with your local officials : 76%
Participate in an event to put pressure on elected official: Yes 85%
Sign a petition: 86%
Talk to people in your community: 79%
Write a blog entry: 64%
Write letters to editor: 73%
Write letter to elected official: 88%

The campaign is already a success, because we have a foundation of Americans who not only understand the issues, but are passionate as well. We are really happy to know that this effort is being driven by such dedicated people. Or, as one respondent said:

“I hope the opportunity presented by available tools and technologies, in conjunction with the vision outlined in the Open Government Initiative, will help bring a much higher degree of accountability to government at all levels.”

I hope so too.

Good News for the Dems

2010-03-12T10:08:00+00:00

Nobody know for sure what the Parliamentarian will rule, but Politico Pulse reports that sources are telling them something very different from what Republicans were claiming yesterday:

But according to reporting by POLITICO’s David Rogers, the accounts aren’t accurate and misconstrue what the Senate parliamentarians have said. That is that reconciliation must amend law but this could be done without the Senate bill being enacted first. “It is wholly possible to create law and qualify law before the law is on the books,” said one person familiar with situation.

For example, if the big bill itself amends some Social Security statute, reconciliation could be written to do the same —with changes sought by the House. Then if reconciliation is passed and signed by President Barack Obama after he signs the larger bill, the changes made in reconciliation would prevail. This jives with what Pulse sources were saying soon after the first wave of stories hit – in essence, don’t take the reported parliamentarian’s declaration to the bank.

CQ is repoting much the same thing.

Why is this so important? Because House Democrats most likely don’t have the votes to pass the more conservative Senate health care bill (H.R.3590) without a guarantee that some of the provisions they oppose most will be fixed. The fixes will be in the budget reconciliation bill — so they need to know ahead of time that the Senate can get that past Senate Republicans and conservative Senate Democrats. The only way for them to be sure is to actually have it passed first, which, contrary to the Republicans, the Parliamentarian isn’t necessarily saying they can’t do.

The Dissemination of Culture — Axelrod (1997) Model — Now Available on Netlogo’s Community Models Page

2010-03-12T04:51:18+00:00

Robert Axelrod’s 1997 Culture Model is a complex systems classic. Several versions of the model are available including one in Repast J. Perhaps the most user friendly version has recently been posted to Netlogo’s “community models” page. Those interested in experimenting with this Netlogo version of the model can click on the image above (provided you have Java 4.1 or higher installed).

For those not previously familiar with the model … Figure 1 from the article is featured to the left and demonstrates a model run through 80,000 events. Those results are generated in the following manner:

“Patches are assigned a list of num-features integers which can each take on one of num-traits values. Each tag is called a feature, while it’s value is called the trait. The links in the view represent walls between patches where solid black walls mean there is no cultural similarity, and white walls mean the neighbors have the same culture.

The order of actions is as follows:
1) At random, pick a site to be active, and pick one of it’s neighbors
2) With probability equal to their cultural similarity, these sites interact. The active site replaces one of the features on which they differ (if any) with the corresponding trait of the neighbor.”

Those looking for the original article … here is the both the citation and a link: Robert Axelrod, The Dissemination of Culture: A Model with Local Convergence and Global Polarization, J. Conflict Res, 41, 203 (1997).

In the years following its release, several important extensions or applications have been offered. These include contributions from scholars in a wide number of disciplines including applied math, political science, economics and physics. Indeed, while many more articles are available in outlets such as the arXiv … here is a subset for your consideration ….

Damon Centola, Juan Carlos González-Avella, Víctor M. Eguíluz & Maxi San Miguel, Homophily, Cultural Drift and the Co-Evolution of Cultural Groups, J. Conflict Res. 51, 905 (2007).

Konstantin Klemm, Victor M. Eguíluz, Raul Toral, Maxi San Miguel, Globalization, Polarization and Cultural Drift, J. Economic Dynamics & Control 29, 321 (2005).

Konstantin Klemm, Victor M. Eguíluz, Raul Toral & Maxi San Miguel, Role of Dimensionality in Axelrod’s Model for the Dissemination of Culture, Physica A 327, 1 (2003).

Why Transparency Beats the Earmarking Ban

2010-03-12T00:46:00+00:00

In his State of the Union address, President Obama made a strong call for Congress to make earmarking more transparent. Instead, the House of Representatives has put in place new rules that bans most earmarking altogether. The new rules have lobbyists scrambling to figure out a work-around to make sure that their clients still get a piece of the money Congress appropriates, the New York Times reports:

Jolted by a sudden tightening of the rules, lobbyists and military contractors who have long relied on lucrative earmarks from Congress were scrambling Thursday to find new ways to keep the federal money flowing. […]

Some firms talked of partnering with hospitals, universities and other nonprofit organizations in seeking federal money, an idea that Congressional officials said might not be allowed under the new rules. Others said they planned to become more aggressive about applying directly to the Pentagon and other federal departments and agencies, and not Congress, for grant money.

First of all, if the Democrats are serious about ending earmarking to corporations, they need to address the issue of for-profits piggybacking on non-profits. We’ll know whether or not they are serious by how they deal with this potential loophole in their rules.

The big warning in this article, though, is that the earmarking rules could end up being a big step backwards for transparency and an accelerant of corruption if lobbyists react by going after federal agencies more to secure funds. The Washington lobbying game could go to a deeper level of behind-the-scenes, unaccountable influence peddling.

The problem with earmarks has never been that Congress is directing the spending. Congressional earmarking advocates have a good argument when they say that they know the needs of their districts and states better than the federal agency officials that would distribute the money otherwise (remember, earmarking doesn’t increase spending, it just directs it). The problem is how members of Congress come to know what their districts need — moneyed interests that make big campaign contributions and employ lobbyists tend to have a louder voice that ordinary constituents for convincing lawmakers of what the district needs.

That’s a problem that transparency can start to take care of, and earmarking has recently been going in the direction of increased transparency, with all earmarks, sponsors and recipients being posted online last year and a strong push from the White House to make the online disclosures more useful this year. But if earmarks are banned and more lobbyists instead go straight to working with federal departments and agencies, all of the transparency progress that has been made in recent years gets lost. Plus, the federal-money-securing game goes from elected lawmakers to anonymous federal officials who are wholly unaccountable.

One more thing. In 2007, Congress rolled 9 of their 11 annual appropriations bills into one big continuing resolution, which they said they would be banning earmarks for. Technically, they stayed true to their word — the bill had no earmarks in it. But here’s what really happened — after they passed the resolution, members of Congress immediately started lobbying federal agencies and departments themselves to pressure them into directing funds to interests in their states and districts who have lobbied them. Investigative reporting canalert us to some of this activity, but this kind of insider Washington game will never be held to account the way congressional earmarks that are published online on a single website before there’s a vote, like President Obama called on Congress to do in his State of the Union.

Image used under a CC license from smlions12.

How Many In the House Want to End the War in Afghanistan?

2010-03-12T00:36:00+00:00

Earlier this week, the House voted on a resolution (H.Con.Res.248) from Rep. Dennis Kucinich [D, OH-10] directing President Obama to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan within 30 days. As expected, the resolution failed. But it failed by a larger spread than I think most would expect. Only 65 members of the 435-member, Democrat-dominated House of Representatives voted for the bill.

You can see who voted "yes " on withdrawing the troops here: 60 Democrats and 5 Republicans.

…and APPSI comes out swinging

2010-03-11T20:40:43+00:00

The government’s Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information has come out with a strong response to the OS consultation.

Headline points: look at the picture, not just at OS, resolve the “fundamental contradictions” in information policy and move towards a free data regime. “In particular, OS should not have any intellectual property rights in derived data.”

Oh, and sort out the “national scandal” of the lack of a comprehensive free address register.

There’s more here. http://bit.ly/91MY2q

It’s a good read.

Political Cash Largess Doesn't Equate Success in Oscars

2010-03-11T19:25:26+00:00

Last week, the Center for Responsive Politics announced the winners of the money-in-politics Oscars, which named the top political donors from a list of Oscar nominees in the categories of best lead actor, best lead actress, best supporting actor, best supporting actress, best director and best picture.

The cash totaled at more than $400,000 with the vast majority going to Democratic candidates and organizations.

Now, after a night of accolades and touching thank-you speeches, the real question: Does a movie star's political contributions correlate with them winning an Oscar?

Hopefully, you didn't place your Oscar bets based on our report, because the answer is a resounding, "not really."

The only time that the recipient of the Center for Responsive Politics' award was the same as recipient of the real Oscar was in the category of best lead actor. The winner of both, Jeff Bridges, has donated about $64,800 to various Democratic candidates, political parties and political action committees.

In the category of best supporting actor, the money-in-politics Oscar went to Matt Damon. The winner of the real Oscar was Christoph Waltz. He has not donated to a federal-level political cause during the past two decades.

In the category of best supporting actress, the money-in-politics Oscar went to Maggie Gyllenhaal. The winner of the real Oscar was Mo'Nique. She has not donated to a political cause in the past two decades.

In the category of best leading actress, there was no money-in-politics Oscar given.
The winner of the real Oscar was Sandra Bullock. She, too, has not donated to a political cause in the past two decades.

In the category of best director, the money-in-politics Oscar went to James Cameron. The winner of the real Oscar was Kathryn Bigelow, Cameron's ex-wife. Bigelow gave $550 to federal political interests, split between a Democratic candidate and the Democratic National Committee.

In the category of best picture, the money-in-politics Oscar went to Lawrence Bender. The winner of the real Oscar was Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier and Greg Shapiro for "The Hurt Locker." Bigelow was the only one of the four to make a political donation.

Links after lunch

2010-03-11T19:23:18+00:00

1) Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick and a member of her staff are being called before a grand jury in Michigan. Details are not known, but her son, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, has faced a series of criminal charges over the past few years.

2) The House Appropriations Committee banned earmarks to for-profit companies.

3) A Washington Examiner editorial calls for more transparency, particularly around campaign contributions, from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

4) ProPublica has a terrific run-down on how the House Ethics Committee operates (or doesn’t).

Congress Links

2010-03-11T16:20:00+00:00

Here is today’s roundup of a few articles and blog posts from around the web that you should take a look at.

Leading Democrats in the White House and Congress are starting to agree on what will be in the final health care package. (The Associated Press)
But some Senate liberals don’t like the fact that they are being asked to vote against several popular measures, like a public option, for now. (Roll Call)
As the health care debate starts to focus on the Senate, the Senate parliamentarian will become more and more prominent. Here is another good profile of the current parliamentarian Alan Frumin and the role he plays. (Newsweek)
Republicans have been warning Democrats that they’ll face the wrath of voters this fall if health care passes, but recent polling shows that the public’s disapproval of the issue has started to turn in recent days. (National Journal)
Jonathan Chait further argues that Democrats should simply ignore “advice” given to them by the GOP on health care. (The New Republic)
A number of high-profile scandals have thrust the House ethics committee into the spotlight. ProPublica provides some history on the committee and explains how it does what it does. (ProPublica)
Harry Reid’s [D, NV] poll numbers indicate that he very well could be voted out of office this fall. Sen. Dick Durbin [D, IL] and Sen. Chuck Schumer [D, NY] are already jockeying to replace him as the next Senate majority leader should that happen. (Time)

NYT: E-mails Indicate Deepening of Scandal Surrounding Sen. John Ensign

2010-03-11T15:39:42+00:00

While everyone’s been running around writing about former congresstickler Eric Massa, Eric Lichtblau and Eric Lipton of the New York Times spent some time digging further into a congressional sex scandal that actually involved some kind of corruption.

Previously undisclosed e-mail messages turned over to the F.B.I. and Senate ethics investigators provide new evidence about Senator John Ensign’s efforts to steer lobbying work to the embittered husband of his former mistress and could deepen his legal and political troubles.

Mr. Ensign, Republican of Nevada, suggested that a Las Vegas development firm hire the husband, Douglas Hampton, after it had sought the senator’s help on several energy projects in 2008, according to e-mail messages and interviews with company executives.

Investigators are looking at a number of issues including whether Ensign aided Hampton in circumventing the one-year lobbying ban for staffers-turned-lobbyists. Considering that the F.B.I. is involved in the investigation, it is unlikely that the Senate Ethics Committee will rule on ethics violations against Ensign before the criminal investigation is complete.

On a related aside: I’m with Matt Yglesias here. If you’re a journalist covering Congress, particularly ethical malfeasance in Congress, why not spend some time covering scandals like Ensign’s or Charlie Rangel or the PMA Group (and why the Ethics Committee spiked the investigation)? Do we really need more information on tickle-parties and Eric Massa’s deranged sense of self-worth?

Obama transparency update: unions exempt from rules, data guru to advise board

2010-03-11T15:19:09+00:00

Today, the Washington Post reports that the Obama administration is rolling back rules proposed by the Bush administration that expanded the financial disclosure statements required of labor unions.

Critics note the rules were rolled back while the Obama administration was seeking more stringent regulation of corporate America. This is inconsistent, making some charge that the administration is giving “preferential treatment” to unions.
Besides that, Rep. John Kline of Minnesota notes that rescinding and revoking those rules makes it more difficult for union workers to see how their dues are spent. Mr. Kline said to Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis that Mr. Obama had “made it a point on a number of occasions to talk about this administration wanting to be the most transparent and open administration in our nation’s history.”

Mrs. Solis told the congressman that transparency was the goal, but the department did not want to “overburden a system where information that was previously asked for may not be of much importance or significance.” We’ve heard that before. The focus of transparency and open government is empowering citizens with information, not giving public officials an easy time.

Because the President has made a point to promise to claim he’ll have “the most open and transparent” administration in history,” several times, it is important for citizens like you and I to hold him to his promise and continue reminding him of it.

But all isn’t cloudy on Obama’s sunshine promises. Last week, President Barack Obama announced that he would be appointing Edward Tufte to the independent panel that advises the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. Many people are excited about this, including the nonpolitical. Tufte is a renown information designer, which means the White House’s transparency effort may see some of that innovation we’ve been waiting for.

GOP: Parlimentarian Puts Reconciliation Fix On Hold In The Senate

2010-03-11T15:12:00+00:00

Roll Call cites “senior GOP sources” as saying the Senate parliamentarian has indicated that President Obama will have to sign the Senate health care bill (H.R.3590) into law before the Senate can act on a reconciliation fix amending the bill.

One of the several options floating around to pass a health care bill is to somehow pass the budget reconciliation fix before the House votes to pass the Senate bill. This option exists to assuage jittery House Democrats who fear that the Senate bill, warts and all, may become law without the reconciliation fix.

David Waldman of Congress Matters argues that it is technically possible for the Senate to start work on a reconciliation fix for the Senate bill now since neither measure has been signed into law yet, or as he says, “although you can’t fix something that technically doesn’t exist, you’re also technically not fixing that thing until it does.”

But according to Roll Call, the Senate parliamentarian disagrees.

It’s extremely important, however, to recognize that not even the Democrats have decided on what exact route they will take to pass health care and that this ruling only affects one possible, and relative obscure, option of many. In fact, Democrats seem poised to push forward on the general frame work they’ve discussed over the past few weeks.

In a strongly worded letter to Sen. Mitch McConnell [R, KY], Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D, NV] blasts Republican attempts to stall and kill the bill and doubles down on reconciliation:

I know that many Republicans have expressed concerns with our use of the existing Senate rules, but their argument is unjustified. There is nothing unusual or extraordinary about the use of reconciliation. As one of the most senior Senators in your caucus, Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, said in explaining the use of this very same option, “Is there something wrong with majority rules? I don’t think so.”

TSA Nominee Robert Harding's Politics, New Massa Mess and More in Capital Eye Opener: March 10

2010-03-11T13:43:44+00:00

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

TRANSPORTATION SECURITY CHIEF NOMINEE NO STRANGER TO LOBBYING, POLITICAL DONATIONS: President Barack Obama's nominee to lead the Transportation Security Administration, retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert A. Harding, recently ran a defense consulting company that lobbied the federal government a bit last decade. Harding Securities Associates reported spending $10,000 in 2005 to lobby the U.S. House and U.S. Senate on a defense bill, our research indicates. Harding made at least one federal campaign contribution while running his firm, giving $1,500 to U.S. Sen. Mark Warner's campaign in 2008. A man named Robert Harding, listing the same city and zip code as the retired general, also made a $1,000 donation in September to Louis Douglass Huddleston, a Republican and former Army colonel who's running for Congress in North Carolina. It couldn't be immediately confirmed if the two Robert Hardings are indeed the same man. Harding, the general, also served on Obama's presidential transition team.

MORE MASSA MESS: Last week, Eric Massa was a relatively unknown Democratic congressman from Upstate New York. This week, he resigned his seat. He acknowledged groping and engaging in tickle fights and an "orgy" with male staffers who, with a tip to sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica, he said he'd like to start "fracking." And last night, he told Fox News' Glenn Beck about fighting -- in the nude -- with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel while the men showered at a gym. (The White House denies this.) Until Massa morphed from freshman back-bencher to nationally-televised disaster, he had been one of the Democrat's fund-raising success stories, winning a seat in a decidedly Republican district and in doing so, raising significantly more campaign cash than the average House seat victor. Curiously, none of these folks were among Massa's donors. See Beck's interview with Massa below:

CRP, IN THE NEWS: Bloomberg's Jonathan D. Salant and Phil Mattingly write about how payday loan companies could get a pass from proposed congressional regulations on the nation's financial industry. Standing to benefit from this? Payday companies and their executives who have made handsome campaign contributions to Senate members, Salant and Mattingly write, citing our research ... Other journalists noting our work in the past day include Jen DiMascio at Politico, Chisun Lee at ProPublica, Arthur Delaney at the Huffington Post, Silla Brush at The Hill, Caroline Baum at Bloomberg and Jim McElhatton at NewsMax.com.

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org.

Senate Judiciary Committe Advances Crack/Powder Cocaine Bill

2010-03-11T13:13:00+00:00

Criminal penalties for crack versus powder cocaine touch on a wide range of issues from race to state budgets to overcrowding of prisons. The Senate Judiciary Committee today took on the issue by unanimously voting to advance a bill that would reduce the wide disparity in sentencing for possession of the two.

Donny earlier explained the the absurdity of the current law governing sentences for crack and powder cocaine:

Did you know that it takes only 5 grams of crack cocaine to trigger a mandatory minimum sentence of five years, but it takes 500 grams to trigger the same sentence for possession of powder cocaine? That’s a 100:1 ratio.

Sen. Dick Durbin’s [D, IL] Fair Sentencing Act decreases that ratio from 100:1 to 1:1. But an amended version of the bill passed by the Judiciary committee today reduced the ratio to 20:1.

The American Prospect’s Adam Serwer explains the racial implications of this disparity:

More than 80 percent of those arrested for crack have been black (despite the fact that most crack users are white)… More than 20 years since the passage of the law, the arbitrarily draconian penalties for crack cocaine have contributed to the increasing racial disparities in the U.S. prison system and helped swell the number of those behind bars to fully more than 1 percent of the entire U.S. population.

Significantly, the bill also eliminates the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for possession of cocaine.

Julie Stewart, president of the advocacy group Families Against Mandatory Minimums, is disappointed that the ration wasn’t reduced to 1:1, but acknowledges that Durbin’s bill represents significant progress on this issue:

This is an exciting vote, but also disappointing. We hoped the Committee would go further in making crack penalties the same as powder. There was no scientific basis for the 100:1 disparity between crack and powder cocaine created 24 years ago, and there is no scientific basis for today’s vote of 20:1. However, if this imperfect bill becomes law, it will provide some long-overdue relief to thousands of defendants sentenced each year.

A similar House bill (H.R.3245) was passed by the House Judiciary Committee last summer.

House Votes To Ban Deceptive Census Letters

2010-03-11T10:34:00+00:00

With the 2010 Census looming, many groups, including the Republican Party, have sent out fundraising mailings that are deceptively similar to the official Census form. Yesterday, the House unanimously voted to limit this practice.

Specifically, Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s [D, NY-14] Prevent Deceptive Census Look Alike Mailings Act (H.R.4621) requires anyone sending mail marked “census” to provide their name and address and to state that they are not affiliated with the government. In a rare showing of bipartisanship, two far-right lawmakers, Rep. Darrell Issa [R, CA-49] and Rep. Jason Chaffetz [R, UT-3] were also prominent sponsors of the bill.

Earlier this year, the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee were criticized for sending out fundraising letters marked “2010 CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT CENSUS” and “Official Document.” The letters, which imply but don’t directly claim an affiliation with the U.S. Census Bureau, are legal.

Ironically, the NRCC letter was written in the name of House Republican leader John Boehner [R, OH-8], who also voted in support of Maloney’s bill. Sen. Tom Carper [D, DE] promises to push the idea in the Senate.

Meet Sen. Corker's Payday Lender Friend

2010-03-11T08:55:00+00:00

Last month, when bipartisan financial reform negotiations where breaking down in the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Bob Corker [R, TN] stepped up from out of nowhere and volunteered to take over for Ranking Member Sen. Richard Shelby [R, AL] on representing the Republicans at the negotiating table. By all accounts, he has in fact managed to keep the bipartisan negotiations alive. He and Sen. Chris Dodd [D, CT] are reportedly ready to introduce their bill to the full Senate imminently.

The New York Times reported yesterday that one of the concessions Corker has won from Dodd is a special exemption in the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency’s (CFPA) enforcement powers for payday lenders and other nonbank credit dealers. These are generally the most predatory of lenders, commonly charging interest rates as high as 400 percent. Corker’s exemption would allow the CFPA to create rules to regulate the payday loan industry, but it would’t give the agency any power to enforce the rules like it could for banks and mortgage dealers.

Talking Points Memo yesterday ran a profile W. Alan Jones, Bob Corker’s payday loan shark/multi-millionaire friend and political supporter, and how he may have influenced Corker’s decision to fight for the regulatory exemption for his industry:

Meet W. Allan Jones, who in 1993 founded Check Into Cash, a pay-day lending chain that says it now has 1,100 stores in 30 states. The company offers short-term loans designed to tide customers over until their next paycheck. But the interest rates can be as much as 400 percent on an annualized basis, meaning that they lead many borrowers to end up digging themselves deeper into debt.

Lately, Congress has been mulling how to structure a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), so as to avoid a repeat of the financial crisis. And reform advocates have argued that increased regulation of pay-day lenders is an essential piece of the puzzle. But after lobbying by an industry group that Jones helped establish, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) acted to thwart the new agency’s ability to effectively monitor Jones’s industry.

As Harper’s noted in a story on the pay-day lender industry last year entitled “Usury Country,” “a payday loan essentially becomes a lien against your life, entitling the creditor to a share of your future earnings indefinitely.”

“It’s the craziest business,” Jones told a reporter in 2008. “Consumers love us, but consumer groups hate us.”

The business has been good to Jones, 56, however. In 2005, a Tennessee business magazine put his net worth at $500 million — high enough to put him on a list of the state’s richest 20 people, alongside FedEx founder Fred Smith and Thomas Frist Jr., the hospital entrepreneur and father of former Senate leader Bill Frist.

And Jones hasn’t been shy about displaying that fortune. According to the magazine, Jones’s 400-acre home boasts an air-conditioned muscle car garage, which includes a $300,000 Maybach; an on-site greenhouse with a full-time horticulturist; a three-story tree house; and — get this — a regulation-sized football field with lights, a scoreboard and supporting field house and stand, which he used to host the first-ever private college football game, raising $100,000 for University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.

[…]

Corker’s intervention came after intense lobbying from the Community Financial Services Association (CFSA), a trade group of pay-day lenders created in 1999 by Jones and others in the industry. In the last three months of 2009, CFSA spent $500,000 lobbying Congress on the financial regulatory reform and other issues affecting regulation of the pay-day loan industry, according to disclosure records examined by TPMmuckraker. (One of the top Washington lobbyists hired by CFSA, Wright Andrews of Butera & Andrews, was also the prime lobbyist for the sub-prime mortgage industry earlier this decade.)

Jones is a longtime backer of Corker — as well as of several other lawmakers, from both parties, on the Banking committee. Since 2001, Jones, his relatives, and his employees, have contributed $31,000 to the campaigns of Corker, a former Chattanooga mayor, according to the New York Times.

The pay-day lenders say it was the banks, not them, that caused the financial turmoil, so they shouldn’t be penalized for it. But consumer groups, and their allies in Congress and the Obama administration, argue that the competitive pressure on the banks from less regulated sectors like the pay-day lenders prompted the banks to lower their lending standards, helping to create the mortgage crisis. And they add that the predatory practices of the pay-day lenders merit greater regulation in their own right.