Home » Posts tagged 'transparency' (Page 12)
Tag Archives: transparency
What the candidates are saying about FOI
The Sunshine Week website created a page entitled: "What the Candidates Are Saying About Open Government and FOI" based on the the Sunshine Week survey responses and analysis of articles, speeches, and debate transcripts that give insight into the candidates' thoughts on government access to information. They state: "Only New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards responded, and only Richardson answered all the questions. The remaining four leading major party candidates were re-surveyed following Super Tuesday in February. To date, none has replied". They mention Obama's Senate co-sponsorship of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which went into effect on New Years Day '08 with the launch of USAspending.gov, a site that "gives people access to information on government contracts, grants and other awards". Speaking of which, USAspending.gov is based on the software that runs Fedspending.org. I'm going to examine both these sites and see how the differ, but so far, the only difference I'm seeing is that USAspending.gov has a lengthy privacy policy which dotgovwatch.com claims is different from their previous warning! Continue reading
Public Dissatisfied with Government Financial Transparency
The Association of Government Accountants published a report entitled "Public Attitudes Toward Government Accountability and Transparency 2008", based on their first annual survey of public attitudes toward government financial information transparency and accountability. It is a part of AGI's "Advancing Government Accountability" campaign, which they hope will educate the government and the public on the benefits of government transparency, particularly in reporting government financial information. Not a big surprise here...the survey findings show that people are deeply dissatisfied with the availability of government financial information and how it is delivered to the public: "...among those who do receive information about governments’ generation and spending of money, there is a strong dissatisfaction with the information that they receive. The strongest dissatisfaction is with the information about the federal government’s financial management (Federal, 60%; State, 46%; Local, 38%). Only 5% are satisfied with what they receive from the federal government". To view more of the survey's findings, view or download the PowerPoint file. Librarians can learn from this...know where to retrieve government financial information and make this known to your patrons and your community! Continue reading
Government Transparency and Ethics Reform in Louisiana
An issue that is near and dear to my heart, considering that I live in Louisiana, is that of recent government ethics reform initiatives from Governor Bobby Jindal. He was the focus of a recent New York Times article mentioning the "extensive package of ethics bills" passed recently. One such bill includes House Bill 1 which "Enacts personal financial disclosures for the vast majority of elected and appointed officials in state and local government for the first time in Louisiana’s history". Not everyone is happy about these changes. My favorite quote in the New York Times article: "The volume of grumbling suggested real change was afoot. 'This is huge,' said D. W. Hunt, a veteran lobbyist at the Capitol. 'This is a sea change. This will seriously, dramatically change things. The meta-theme is the transparency.' " Can you see the sweat on his forehead? Louisiana is considered to rank low nationally on state ethics, but according to a statement issued by The Center for Public Integrity, these bills may put Louisiana in the top tier of states with tough ethics rules. Hopefully this will be the case, but we shall have to wait and see... Continue reading
Proposals for Transparency From Barack Obama
Note: This posting should not be construed as an endorsement of Barack Obama for President. - Daniel
Senator Barack Obama has made some intriguing proposals on government transparency that seemed worthy of sharing with our readers. The following proposals are taken from the 64 page pamphlet "Blueprint for Change", which is available at http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf:
(From page 4): Shine the Light on Federal Contracts, Tax Breaks and Earmarks
Create a Public “Contracts and Influence” Database: As president, Obama will create a “contracts and influence” database that will disclose how much federal contractors spend on lobbying, and what contracts they are getting and how well they complete them.
Expose Special Interest Tax Breaks to Public Scrutiny: Barack Obama will ensure that any tax breaks for corporate recipients – or tax earmarks – are also publicly available on the Internet in an easily searchable format.
End Abuse of No-Bid Contracts: Barack Obama will end abuse of no-bid contracts by requiring that nearly all contract orders over $25,000 be competitively awarded.
Sunlight Before Signing: Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.
Shine Light on Earmarks and Pork Barrel Spending: Obama’s Transparency and Integrity in Earmarks Act will shed light on all earmarks by disclosing the name of the legislator who asked for each earmark, along with a written justification, 72 hours before they can be approved by the full Senate.
Bring Americans Back into their Government
Hold 21st Century Fireside Chats: Obama will bring democracy and policy directly to the people by requiring his Cabinet officials to have periodic national broadband townhall meetings to discuss issues before their agencies.
Make White House Communications Public: Obama will amend executive orders to ensure that communications about regulatory policymaking between persons outside government and all White House staff are disclosed to the public.
Conduct Regulatory Agency Business in Public: Obama will require his appointees who lead the executive branch departments and rulemaking agencies to conduct the significant business of the agency in public, so that any citizen can watch these debates in person or on the Internet.
Release Presidential Records: Obama will nullify the Bush attempts to make the timely release of presidential records more difficult.
These all seem like worthy goals we hope that any eventual President will embrace.
Please share what you know about other candidate's stands on transparency issues. There is some information from an August 2007 Reason Magazine article suggesting that Obama and Ron Paul were two of the strongest candidate advocates for greater transparency, but perhaps more have made proposals by now.
Continue reading
New CRS Report on Senate Holds
We've written about how secret Senate holds have blocked transparency legislation that had wide bipartisan support. Last month the Congressional Research Service came out with this report on the subject of holds:
RL34255
Senate Policy on "Holds": Action in the 110th Congress
November 20, 2007
"When the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (S. 1, 110th Congress) was signed into law on September 14, 2007, Section 512 of that statute specifically addressed the issue of secret "holds." Holds are a longstanding custom of the Senate that enabled Members to provide notice to their party leader of their intent to object on the floor to taking up or passing a measure or matter. Their potency as a blocking, delaying, or bargaining device is linked to Senators' ability to conduct filibusters or object to unanimous consent agreements or requests. The new holds process outlined in Section 512 is designed to constrain the frequency of anonymous holds and promote more openness and transparency with respect to their use. Ultimately, it is up to the majority leader of the Senate -- who sets the chamber's agenda after consulting various people -- to decide whether, or for how long, he will honor a colleague's hold. This report will be updated if circumstances warrant a revision."
--------------------------------
So the next time there is a secret hold, the main chap to complain to will be:
Reid, Harry- (D - NV)
528 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-3542
Web Form: reid.senate.gov/contact/email_form.cfm
--------------------------------
Thanks to the Open CRS project at http://opencrs.com for getting ahold of this report and making it available to the public. Their work is very important because Congress has prevented its research arm from making CRS reports available to the public, even though they are in the public domain and unclassified. Most of the arguments we've heard not releasing CRS reports apply equally well to the Government Accountability Office, which has released all of its non-classified information products for many years.
Continue reading
Latest Comments