On September 27, 2016, co-chairs of the Congressional Transparency Caucus Reps. Mike Quigley and Darrell Issa hosted a briefing to discuss the progress the 115th Congress has made to address transparency issues, and outline the challenges still faced.
Video of the briefing is available here:
Panelists included:
-Shanna Devine of the Government Accountability Project
-Patrice McDermott, Executive Director of Open the Government.org
-Christian Hoehner of the Data Foundation and Data Coalition
On March 22, 2016, the Transparency Caucus hosted a briefing on the implementation of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) and the broader challenge of bringing greater transparency to the federal budget process. The caucus has an in-depth recap here.
The bipartisan briefing was hosted by the caucus co-chairs, Reps. Mike Quigley and Darrell Issa. Panelists included:
-Daniel Schuman, Policy Director of Demand Progress
– Hudson Hollister, Founder and Executive Director of the Data Transparency Coalition
-Dave Williams, Former Inspector General for the Postal Service
-Sean Moulton, Open Government Program Manager for the Project on Government Oversight.
The 2014 DATA Act required Executive branch agencies to make their spending reports public (now on USAspending.gov). Several panelists noted that the law marked a huge win for executive branch transparency, but in 2016, the executive branch was already showing signs of obstructing the implementation process.
“The DATA Act promises to deliver a clearer, more comprehensive public view of how taxpayers’ money is being spent – but only if federal agencies follow the law. Our Coalition member companies are ready to use federal spending data to create new visualizations and power new analytics – but we can’t do it unless agencies adopt a consistent format across all spending, as the DATA Act requires. That’s why it’s so important for Congress to scrutinize what the agencies are doing, even after passing the law,” said Hudson Hollister, Founder and Executive Director of the Data Transparency Coalition.
Ed. note: as of March 2022, the White House still has yet to issue implementation guidance on the DATA Act. That should have been done back in the Obama administration.
On October 22, 2015, the Congressional Transparency Caucus held a briefing on making non-confidential CRS reports publicly available in observance of International Open Access Week. Reps. Mike Quigley, co-chair of the CTC, and Rep. Leonard Lance hosted the event.
The Transparency Caucus has a recap here.
Video of the proceedings is available here:
The panelists included:
-The Honorable Chris Shays, Represented the Fourth Congressional District in Connecticut from 1987-2008
-Prue Adler, Associate Executive Director, Association of Research Libraries
-Stan Brand, Senior Counsel, Akin Gump Law Firm
-Kevin Kosar, Senior Fellow and Governance Project Director, R Street Institute
-Daniel Schuman, Policy Director, Demand Progress
On June 3, 2015, Transparency Caucus co-chairs Reps. Mike Quigley and Darrell Issa held a briefing on Supreme Court justices’ disclosure of their financial interests. Currently, SCOTUS is left to regulate itself. Unsurprisingly, that’s a bad model for encouraging ethical behavior. Panelists discussed the importance of justices making full disclosures of their financial interests publicly available online so that the public can act as a watchdog of the high court.
The Transparency Caucus has a recap here.
Panelists included:
-Noah Bookbinder, Executive Director, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
-Sheila Krumholz, Executive Director, Center for Responsive Politics
-Katie Townsend, Litigation Director, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
-Kytja Weir, Project Manager and Reporter, Center for Public Integrity
-Katharine Huffman, Principal, Raben Group
On May 8, the Sunlight Foundation’s Advisory Committee on Transparency hosted a discussion on surveillance transparency and oversight featuring some leading thinkers and practitioners in the space.
We’ll be posting a deeper analysis of the event in the coming days. In the meantime, you can watch it on C-SPAN and dig deeper by reading some of the headlines that it spawned:
America is reeling over the apparent disconnect between what the public believes the intelligence community is doing, what the intelligence community believes it is authorized to do — and what the intelligence community is actually doing.
With a deadline to extend and/or reform controversial provisions of the PATRIOT Act looming, this is a critical time for Congress and the American people to know all they can about the executive branch’s intelligence activities. But how much is too much?
What should the public know? What should Congress know? What is the right vehicle for these disclosures? Perhaps most importantly, what is the effect on our democracy of inadequate public and congressional oversight? Join the Advisory Committee on Transparency and our panel of experts on Friday, May 8, 2015, from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. in room 2203 of the Rayburn House Office Building to discuss these questions and more. The event is free for all to attend.
Open government is vital for public accountability. But, it also fuels tools that can make congressional staff more efficient, improve oversight activities, protect whistleblowers and more. Hear from experts in the open government field — including current and former congressional staff — as they share tools, tips, and tricks to make you more effective on the job:
On January 27, 2015, Transparency Caucus co-chair Rep. Mike Quigley and Rep. Gerald Connolly hosted a panel discussion on the importance of providing video and live audio streaming of Supreme Court proceedings — particularly in light of the upcoming same-sex marriage cases.
The Transparency Caucus has a full recap of the panel here.
Panelists included:
-David Fontana, Associate Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School
-Michelle Schwartz, Director of Justice Programs, Alliance for Justice
-Katie Townsend, Litigation Director, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
-Daniel Schuman, Policy Director, Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Editor’s note (March 2022): The Supreme Court finally made live audio streaming of oral arguments public in May 2020, mid COVID-19 pandemic. The effect on public access was widespread and immediate. POGO’s analysis of the session beginning May 2020: “Instead of the 500 to 1,000 people who would have been able to attend the session’s 10 cases in person, more than 130,000 people streamed the arguments live.” In addition to making live audio streaming permanent, the court should look into adding video live-streams to further promote transparency and accessibility.
Despite constant reports of gridlock and polarization one issue has brought Republicans and Democrats together in recent years — government transparency. In the 113th Congress alone they fought to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, changed the way the Federal government tracks and shares spending data, and adopted new protections for whistleblowers.
These improvements have been rightly celebrated, but there is more work to be done. As the 113th Congress comes to a close, it is time to identify priorities and possibilities for next year and beyond. The task of opening up the government should continue to bring the parties together in the 114th Congress.
The Advisory Committee on Transparency and the Sunlight Foundation are excited to provide a forum for a panel of experts and advocates from across the political spectrum to discuss their ideas for reforms and strategies for success. Join us on Thursday, December 11th from 12:30 to 1:30 pm in room 342 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
Panelists:
On Monday, September 22nd a group of experts joined the Advisory Committee on Transparency and the Sunlight Foundation to discuss the increasingly complicated nature of public access to law.
Laws passed by Congress and state legislatures are far from the only documents that have the power of law. Technical standards, secret court opinions, municipal regulations, complex international trade documents, and more touch every American. These are often nearly impossible, and sometimes illegal, for the public to access.
Participants in the panel discussion, moderated by the Sunlight Foundation’s Matt Rumsey, covered the full scope of this topic from the technical challenges that go along with making the law accessible to the legal arguments used by government to hide the law — and by watchdogs to open it up.
Gabe Rottman, legislative counsel and policy adviser at the American Civil Liberties Union, highlighted some of his organization’s efforts to open up legal documents that have the force of law. These documents, while never passed by a legislature or reviewed by a court, guide executive branch policy in cases related to torture, targeted killings, surveillance, and more. He used these examples to highlight a number of serious dangers associated with secret law and forcefully argued that making law in secret and withholding it from public knowledge de-legitimizes the lawmaking process and leads to bad law.
Patrice McDermott, executive director of OpenTheGovernment.org, focused on a few specific reforms that could significantly improve public access to law. She noted some simple reforms to the Freedom of Information Act, that could become law soon, may make it easier to gain access to vital executive branch legal documents. She also highlighted the troublesome issue of “access for pay” that comes up when private companies are given control over legal documents and then hide those documents behind paywalls.
Daniel Schuman, policy director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, set the historical stage by explaining that access to law has been baked into American democracy since the start of our union. While citizens have always had an expectation of easy access, the Internet changed everything by making it exponentially easier to disseminate and access information. Given technological changes and the power of our government, Schuman argued, citizen access must be proportional to the law’s ability to affect lives.
As the only government employee on the panel it might have been expected that V. David Zvenyach, general counsel to the Washington, DC City Council, would feel differently than the other panelists. But, that was far from the case. David detailed some of his efforts, both as a government employee and private citizen, to make the laws of the District of Columbia more easily available to its citizens. He particularly highlighted some of the technical — and contractual — challenges associated with making complex legal documents available online.
All of the speakers agreed that public access to law is vital to a healthy, well functioning democracy.
Unfortunately, due to some technical difficulties, we are not able to share an audio or video recording of the event. You can view a more detailed wrap up from U.S. News and World Report.