TITLE I - Access to Information About Members of Congress
Sec. 104. Enhancing public access to information about earmarks. (14 Comments)
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A Senator or Representative who requests a congressionally directed spending item, a limited tax benefit, or a limited tariff benefit in any bill or joint resolution (or an accompanying report) or in any conference report (or an accompanying joint statement of managers) shall provide a written statement to the chairman and ranking member of the committee of jurisdiction, including--
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the name of the Senator or Representative;
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in the case of a congressionally directed spending item, the name and location of the intended recipient or, if there is no specifically intended recipient, the intended location of the activity;
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Where there is an intended recipient, each member shall report, to the best of his or her knowledge, the name of the actual recipient of a congressionally directed spending item, and shall not name an intermediary.
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in the case of a limited tax or tariff benefit, identification of the individual or entities reasonably anticipated to benefit, to the extent known to the Senator or Representative;
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the purpose of such congressionally directed spending item or limited tax or tariff benefit; and
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a certification that neither the Member nor the Members immediate family has a pecuniary interest in the item.
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Each Senate and House committee shall maintain the written statements transmitted under subparagraph (a). The written statements transmitted under subparagraph (a) for any congressional earmarks, limited tax benefits or limited tariff benefits included in any measure reported by the committee or conference report filed by the chairman of the committee or any subcommittee thereof shall be published in a searchable, sortable, downloadable format on the committees or subcommittees Web site not later than 48 hours after inclusion in any measure.
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Each Member of Congress who maintains an official public Internet site shall provide a clearly presented electronic link to the Member's earmark request statements described in paragraph (a).
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Each committee or subcommittee with jurisdiction over any earmarked program for which funding is provided will provide historical funding levels for earmarked programs over the last 10 years, and will make the information available to the public in a searchable, sortable, downloadable database available through the committees Web site.
14 comments on Sec. 104. Enhancing public access to information about earmarks.
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The earmarks databases, ideally, could be unified, rather than one per committee. Also there are apostrophes missing in (b): "committees", "subcommittees".
posted by Joshua Tauberer, GovTrack.us at March 27, 2008 -
Section C. I don't think each member should be responsible for keeping their letters on their own website. This raises too many questions. Do Reps have IT resources to do this? Do Reps have the staff resources to even accomplish this in a timely manner? Who will verify that Reps are maintaining the latest list? What will be the standard format( .DOC vs. .PDF?), and verify conformity to a standard format? I'm not certain, but I would assume Committees might have better access to resources to manage these documents, and you reduce problems from having 400 different websites posting their own statements, to 1 committee and website posting ALL the statements. Then, you would simply force each committee and congress person to have a link on their website that links back to that specific page on the centralized website with the information.
posted by Matthew Castanien at April 2, 2008
Possible rewrite of subsection (c):
Each Member of Congress who maintains an official public Internet site shall provide a clearly presented "Earmark Disclosures" electronic link to the Committee/subcommittee's ( this needs to be fleshed out on a consolidated/unified website/database of the information) database/website where the Member's earmark request statements described in paragraph (a) are stored. -
I concur with Earmark Disclosures proposal by Matthew Castanien. Can the bill demand that all Senators and congressman have a website.
posted by James J. Simerville at April 4, 2008 -
It makes sense to be sure the information on earmarks is made public. It could be done on the government sites that carry the voting records, etc. of our congressmen/women. ANY bill before congress should contain all earmarks added (before voting on them) and an opportunity of all citizens to share their opinions as well by contacting their congresspeople.
posted by Nellie Tumilty - Retired at April 4, 2008
Building bridges to nowhere and studies on fruitflies in France should NOT be even considered! -
I think there have been occasions where earmarks were added after the bill was voted on. (Hastert anybody?) The text of a bill should never be substantially changed after a vote. Just not democratic.
posted by Gus HIgley at April 5, 2008
Thus somewhere in here should be a prohibition to adding earmarks after the vote. -
Gus- My understanding is that earmarks are (sometimes) added in conference reports, which occur after each chamber passed the bill, but the conference reports are then voted on as well in each chamber before the bill goes to the president.
posted by Joshua Tauberer, GovTrack.us at April 5, 2008 -
Matthew's point on section c possible rewrite is important. The main concern for me is public control. Citizen groups, watchdog groups, public agency groups could be used to oversee the adminstrative task oline. That means the government would be able to contract non-bias public advocacy groups (non-partisan). They should be groups that do not receive any money or advice from governmental entities. Public tax dollars could be allocated and set aside for the groups TBD or the groups would have to have the money and various infrastructure and access to information to allow them to perform the task.
posted by Kuumba Chi Nia, Missouri Jena Six, Chair at April 5, 2008 -
Joshua - Thank you for the comment. At least somebody is reading this stuff. You are correct in part. That is the usual route. But under Hastert and Delay, not always true. One comes to mind, where the text of a provision for highway improvements in FL was changed to require the addition of another freeway exit - that just happened to increase the value of a congressman's property. This change was made after the vote, but before the printing. Changes can be and are made to correct typos, logical errors (syntax et al), but are not supposed to be substantive. Under the last Republican leadership, heavy duty changes were made without any notice to the house or senate. There doesn't seem to be any rule or law that addresses this point, even though it clearly frustrates the orderly lawmaking process.
posted by Gus HIgley at April 7, 2008 -
Unified Earmark sites are much easier for common citizens to look at and comment on. Lets stop making things so complicated that the average person gives up in frustration.
posted by Patricia Scott - U.S.Citizen / Voter at April 13, 2008 -
All earmarks after voting should be illegal.
posted by B.Seltz at April 19, 2008 -
(a)(5) "immediate family" needs to be defined. In the lobby and ethics bill from last year (S.1) this was an element that was significantly scaled back and in the earmark section it was not defined at all. I would recommend a broad, multi-generation, "Step-" and "In-Law" inclusive definition.
posted by Steve Ellis (Taxpayers for Common Sense) at April 21, 2008
104 (b). This only requires disclosure of successful earmark requests - letters are to be published NLT 48 hours after "inclusion in any measure." I would urge requiring all requests to be disclosed not just successful ones. Successful requests could differentiated by having requested funding and funding received.
104 (d) One of the problems last year was differing disclosure methods by subcommittee. I would urge that the full Committees take the lead for maintaining disclosure. Also, I don't think requiring the Committees to pull up 10 years of funding history will be palatable to the Committees, much as I want the information, I think it may need to be prospective. -
I'm a little torn on whether earmarks should be posted on Members' Web sites or in a central place.
posted by Ari Schwartz, CDT at April 24, 2008
The advantage to a central place is that they will be universally formatted and, perhaps, that will provide more utility to those who want to use the information.
On the other hand, it would be great to require Members to use their taxpayer funded Web sites for something beyond self-promotion (although ... I can think of at least a handful of members that would proudly display their earmarks). -
Thanks for commenting, all! To clarify, (c), above was intended to get at disclosure of all requests, not just successful requests. Thanks to Steve's comments I took a second look at that provision and can see how it needs to be clarified or strengthened to do what we intended it to do!
posted by Lisa Rosenberg, The Sunlight Foundation at April 25, 2008 -
All of this is an excercise in futility. The appearance of making a difference is not the same as making a difference. If you have not seen the movie by Aaron Russo (producer of "The Rose" and many others) "America Freedom to Fascism" you need to see it as soon as possible. Best described as disturbing and frightening. Don't watch this movie if you are prone to depression.
posted by David Coker at April 28, 2008