Obama breaks a transparency pledge
Paul Blumenthal
White House Breaks Transparency Promise
January 29th, 2009 @ 12:24 pm
In a blog post announcing the President's signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first piece of legislation he has signed, we are informed that the bill has been posted on the White House web site and is now open for comment… after the President signed it.
For quite some time President Obama has promised that all non-emergency legislation will be open for public comment on Whitehouse.gov for 5 days before the President signs it. I am not sure what constitutes "emergency" legislation; providing emergency appropriations in response to a disaster or attack would apply. This was supposed to be a major element to the President's transparency efforts, even though the effect of it can be disputed (the bill has already passed and can't be changed). A blog post from the White House on January 20th say this:
One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the President: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.
It is too bad they let this transparency promise slip on the very first piece of legislation that hit the President's desk. After a few transparency wins for the administration, it looks like they've hit their first fail.
--
Paul Blumenthal
Senior Writer | Sunlight Foundation
Twitter: PaulBlu | 202-742-1520 ext.229
Ari Schwartz
Paul Blumenthal
Micah Sifry
As for Ari's extremely fine-grained point: Isn't the Ledbetter Act retroactive?
http://www.personaldemocracy.com
http://www.techpresident.com
http://micah.sifry.com
http://www.twitter.com/mlsif
Ari Schwartz
Ari Schwartz
Michael Stern
Is the Obama Administration claiming that this is emergency legislation? If so, I would want to understand its justification for so claiming. It seems to me that it would be nearly impossible for someone to be adversely affected by a brief delay in the signing of the legislation, but perhaps there are some grounds for contending otherwise.
If the Administration is not claiming an emergency, then the immediate question should be what reason, if any, does it have for (apparently) violating the pledge.
Mike Stern
Ari Schwartz
Chris Kinnan
legislation naming some post offices.
Michael Stern
Your point is entirely valid. I am simply observing that if there is no claim of emergency here, there is another issue that also needs to be addressed.
Ari Schwartz
offer a definition for discussion:
"An 'emergency act' is a bill that addresses an event where
individuals may be or have been placed in physical danger or harm,
such as a national security threat or a natural disaster, where prompt
resolution is necessary to avoid that harm or further harm."
Ari
Mark Tapscott
Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
The Washington Examiner
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Suite 500
Washington, D.C. 20007
202-459-4968 (Newsroom)
703-489-2306 (Blackberry)
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Proprietor,
Tapscott's Copy Desk blog
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"Tether the state in the morning and by noon it knows the full length of its tether." ---John Cotton (Paraphrased, actually)
Gary Bass
As for Ari's extremely fine-grained point: Isn't the Ledbetter Act retroactive?
Combined Federal Campaign #10201
Robert Millis
that a great deal of legislation somehow impacts a group of people in
some physical danger or harm, and those bills will often be the ones
that need public input the most. Meanwhile, some economic bills may be
considered by some to be emergency items in our current economic
climate.
I propose emergency status attachment be applied when bills are
approved, then face review by the president. In this situation, any
member can propose that a particular bill be submitted to the
president as an emergency item. If the relevant majority leader
agrees, it goes to the top of the pile and the president can then
agree to emergency approval or deny emergency status and leave it open
for public review. This would have to be a distinct procedure and
require no additional voting or debate. Not ideal, but hopefully
flexible and efficient.
Thoughts?
Hudson Street Media
http://www.CapitolHub.com
http://www.HudsonStreetMedia.com
Jones, Tom (Commerce)
Anyway, its in Sec. 251(b)(2)(A) of the Budget enforcement act of 1990. See: http://is.gd/hIFa
-----Original Message-----
From: openhous...@googlegroups.com [mailto:openhous...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ari Schwartz
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 2:30 PM
To: openhous...@googlegroups.com
Rachel Farris
"An 'emergency act' is a bill that addresses an event where
resolution is necessary to avoid that harm or further harm."
Rachel
Christoph Berendes
- Name of the bill
- Dates of comment period
- Whether or not it met the public comment requirement the WH had set for itself
- Reason provided by the WH for an "emergency" waiver
Jon Henke
If we leave the waiver option up to legislators, more and more things will become emergencies. But restrictions (such as a sunset) would minimize the incentive to force things into the emergency category. And it would ensure that even emergency legislation gets proper procedural sunlight.
That's a major rules change, of course, but it's hard to see what objections could be lodged against it beyond special pleading from legislators who don't like transparency.
_________
Jon Henke
-----Original Message-----
From: "Jones, Tom (Commerce)" <Tom_...@commerce.senate.gov>
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:09:19
To: openhous...@googlegroups.com<openhous...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [openhouseproject] Re: Proposed Definition of Emergency
Jones, Tom (Commerce)
Clay Shirky
But this gets at something much bigger: the Obama promise about
pending legislation will be, even in some Platonic ideal, not very
important, *because it's a promise by the wrong branch of Government.*
I was a small part of the conversation about this particular piece of
transparency with the transition folks, and during that time, I
advocated not making such a big deal about this because no matter what
the Executive Branch does, they can only open a window on the
legislative process, not a door.
I ran into an analogous situation in the mid-1990s, selling media
executives 'web dashboards', a kind of real-time view of various
business processes on their ecommerce sites. After the initial
excitement at seeing what was going on, the execs generally dropped
the use of the dashboard, because it was a dashboard that came without
a steering wheel. When the real-time monitor showed that people didn't
like their products, there was no simple solution available; they
would simply have to make better products. Since this was the very
same job they'd had before the dashboard, well, the whole thing seemed
a lot less appealing.
So it will be when the 5-day window opens. When the general public
sees that the President is about the sign a bill supporting the
processed food industry by outlawing the baking of apple pies at home,
they will gird their loins for battle, only to find they have no
opponent. The bill is done, and unless the White House has screwed up
pretty badly, they knew what was going to be in the bill before it got
to the President's desk, and Congress knew that the White House knew,
because they didn't want the bill to get vetoed.
There may be some extraordinary circumstance in which a bill gets
vetoed because it riles up a critical Dem lobby, and there may be some
moral suasion on the part of the Executive to keep self-dealing down,
but I'm not holding my breath. If pork has already been added to the
bailout bill, then there's obviously little appetite for the
legislature to hand the President clean legislation even in
circumstances of genuine national threat.
As a result, I think that the 5 day window will, at best, simply
highlight its own uselessness, while highlighting the need for a
*legislative* clock, where the full text of a bill must be unchanged
and visible for 48 hours before a final vote.
At worst, I'm afraid it will seem like bait and switch, once citizens
find out how little those 5 days actually buy them for almost all the
legislation posted.
-c
J.H. Snider
principle that agenda setting power is political power. If the public can
only enter the political process near the end, it forfeits its agenda
setting power. Political power is the power to create the option set under
consideration. By the time a bill is passed by Congress, the public's
option set has been reduced from countless options to just a yeah or a nay.
Through strategic manipulation, such as including a controversial clause in
a must-pass omnibus bill, that can be no option at all.
--Jim Snider
J.H. Snider, MBA, Ph.D.
President
iSolon.org
-----Original Message-----
From: openhous...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:openhous...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Clay Shirky
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 10:53 PM
To: openhous...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [openhouseproject] Re: Proposed Definition of Emergency
Micah Sifry
Jones, Tom (Commerce)
What would probably be even more helpful is if the WH asked the Hill not to enroll the bill for 5 days after passage so it could be posted on the WH website and commented on before being sent over. Heck Pelosi or Biden could do this unilaterally by refusing to sign the bills. The reason is this:
Say somebody catches something really sketchy and everyone agrees it needs to come out (I remember a bunch of years ago an approps bill gave the approps staff the right to review individual IRS records). If the bill is not enrolled ( signed by the speaker and Pres of the Senate or the PPT) the houses can do an enrolling correction and fix the problem. If the bill is enrolled and sent to the WH the constitional clock starts ticking on pocket veto or enactment w/o signature and we have to amend law which is a much bigger hassle.
Anyway just a thought. Do we know if there are any WH/admin folks on the listserv?.
From: openhous...@googlegroups.com <openhous...@googlegroups.com>
To: openhous...@googlegroups.com <openhous...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Fri Jan 30 08:51:01 2009
Jay dedman
> In general, I think Clay is right. But there are two wrinkles that make
> Obama's promise useful, I think. First, it does raise public expectations
> that "we the people" should have the ability to view and comment on pending
> legislation earlier in the process, when the comments may be more
> meaningful. Second, this promise, coupled with other Obama promises to make
> government more open and interactive, raises the possibility of developing a
> user community of citizens relating to each other and their government in a
> new way.
I think everyone's comments are hitting the points on strategy and
implementation.
As a Transparency geek, I need to work with who I can to get govt to
open up. So if the Executive branch wants to try some things, lets go
for it. It's not perfect, but we can create a set of expectations that
open up other branches since politicians move to positive attention
and/or respond to criticism.
And if we must use commercial tools at first to get things moving,
fine. I'm not going to wait for a govt agency to spend a year writing
reports, etc before implementing a clunky system. Let's create the
working example that they can imitate.
In Japan, "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down".
But in the US, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease".
Obama said he'd give people five days to comment, so let's get it. A
group of people will comment, and it wont make much difference....but
it sets precedent. People will see its useless, so demand to be
allowed to comment on the bill while in Congress. Since Congress wont
let public commenting right now and Obama's team will, lets go for it.
I'm not willing to give Obama's team any slack. They made some huge
promises and we should keep them to it. Jon Henke is very good at
pointing out that Transparency is very often allowed only when its
politically convenient. But we all know that Transparency is necessary
when it is NOT politically convenient.
I'm waiting for the example where an issue is transparent, messy,
painful, embarrassing, loud, engaging, factual....and we (politicians,
voters) all come out the other side better for it. People will then
have their own turf in the system.
Jay
Ms. Liza Sabater
> When the general public
> sees that the President is about the sign a bill supporting the
> processed food industry by outlawing the baking of apple pies at home,
> they will gird their loins for battle, only to find they have no
> opponent. The bill is done, and unless the White House has screwed up
> pretty badly, they knew what was going to be in the bill before it got
> to the President's desk, and Congress knew that the White House knew,
> because they didn't want the bill to get vetoed.
>
> There may be some extraordinary circumstance in which a bill gets
> vetoed because it riles up a critical Dem lobby, and there may be some
> moral suasion on the part of the Executive to keep self-dealing down,
> but I'm not holding my breath. If pork has already been added to the
> bailout bill, then there's obviously little appetite for the
> legislature to hand the President clean legislation even in
> circumstances of genuine national threat.
>
> As a result, I think that the 5 day window will, at best, simply
> highlight its own uselessness, while highlighting the need for a
> *legislative* clock, where the full text of a bill must be unchanged
> and visible for 48 hours before a final vote.
I was about to post a short thing about this "5 day window" making
this exact point : what's the use if we can't see the bill as it is
being cobbled? What's the point if the bill is already "did" and it's
just going to the President's desk for approval.
Yet I don't agree with your 48-hours prior. I want to go even further
into opening the process.
What we need is a SUBVENTION SYSTEM for the legislative process. We
need to create a system that will show the bills as they are being
cobbled. We need system that will name names of who's forcing changes
in wording or adding to the pork. We need a system that "We The
People" can use that we can use to hold our legislators accountable
before they shake hands on legislation in back room deals and not
after the fact.
This "five days before signing" is just a gimmick, a theater of
transparency --much like a lot of Obama's CHANGEyness. And am saying
that as one of his biggest cheerleaders in the blogosphere.
Cheers,
liza
Liza Sabater, Publisher
www.culturekitchen.com
www.dailygotham.com
MOB - 646.552.7365
AIM - cultkitdiva
Twitter
http://twitter.com/blogdiva
FriendFeed
http://friendfeed.com/liza
FaceBook
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=502696333
Peggy Garvin
Micah: The two possible benefits you describe, raising public expectations and developing a user community, would be so much more relevant and lasting if they spring from open info that can be acted on by the branch that makes it available.
I have been trying to think of any clear benefits that could come from this WH 5-day posting of enrolled bills. Tom came up with a few in the message he just sent, but these are rare exceptions. The infamous “Coconut Road” earmark, where the enrolled bill was somehow edited after Congress passed it and before went to the WH is another. We need some procedural check to catch these oddities, but I am not sure the WH 5-day promise is the best or only way to do this. The emergency exception makes the WH promise even less, well, promising. If we can’t be assured of a 5-day wait, sites like OpenCongress, etc. could simply put up an “On the President’s Desk” feature where they pull bills from THOMAS that have enrolled status but no executive action. (In my experience, citizens often don’t know to go to the enrolled bill text when they are waiting for the President’s action or waiting for the Archives to format the Public Law, so this would be helpful.)
What’s the problem with the WH just doing this anyway, as they said they would? As Clays says, “At worst, I'm afraid it will seem like bait and switch, once citizens find out how little those 5 days actually buy them for almost all the legislation posted.”
Peggy
On 1/29/09 10:53 PM, "Clay Shirky" <cl...@shirky.com> wrote:
>
> I was a small part of the conversation about this particular piece of
> transparency with the transition folks, and during that time, I
> advocated not making such a big deal about this because no matter what
> the Executive Branch does, they can only open a window on the
> legislative process, not a door.
>
> highlight its own uselessness, while highlighting the need for a
> *legislative* clock, where the full text of a bill must be unchanged
> and visible for 48 hours before a final vote.
>
> At worst, I'm afraid it will seem like bait and switch, once citizens
> find out how little those 5 days actually buy them for almost all the
> legislation posted.
>
> -c
On 1/30/09 8:51 AM, "Micah Sifry" <msi...@gmail.com> wrote:
In general, I think Clay is right. But there are two wrinkles that make Obama's promise useful, I think. First, it does raise public expectations that "we the people" should have the ability to view and comment on pending legislation earlier in the process, when the comments may be more meaningful. Second, this promise, coupled with other Obama promises to make government more open and interactive, raises the possibility of developing a user community of citizens relating to each other and their government in a new way. What most interested me about Change.gov's implementation of public commenting and voting on ideas was the user profile step that they required. In the first case, using IntenseDebate.com, a user was prompted to create an account that belonged to them and came with some interesting social networking tools (like user ratings and the ability to follow another commenter if you want). In the second case, using Google Moderator, the user got an account but those soc-net type features appeared to be absent, or turned off. There's a logic here that bends toward persistent identity for commenters on government websites (which can lead to user-centric community), and ideally the dot.gov <http://dot.gov> people within the Administration will embrace it. We'll see...
Clay Shirky
principle that agenda setting power is political power. If the public can
only enter the political process near the end, it forfeits its agenda
setting power. Political power is the power to create the option set under
consideration. By the time a bill is passed by Congress, the public's
option set has been reduced from countless options to just a yeah or a nay.
And not just that, but the public's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington view
of the process ill equips them to understand that when a bill gets to
the White House, that in itself is a signal that the President has
decided to sign it, in all but the most extraordinary circumstances.
I like social software as much as the next guy, and I <3 Obama along
with the rest of my chardonnay-swilling East Coast liberal tribe, but
Obama+social software will not bring us to the Elysian Fields. In
fact, involving the public more in the political process will in many
cases infuriate them, when they discover that democracies are
purpose-built to thwart anyone getting their way all the time.
This isn't an argument against public involvement -- in fact, being
forced to acknowledge the validity of other points of view is
salubrious. It's just not fun, and having public viewing before the
bill is signed carries an implicit promise of flexibility that the
Executive is constitutionally forbidden to make good on.
Through strategic manipulation, such as including a controversial clause in
a must-pass omnibus bill, that can be no option at all.
Yep. When the next Bridge to Nowhere comes along, and the public sees
that its in the bill and sees that in the 100 or so hours they have
before Obama wields his pen there is *nothing they can do about it*
because its part of some other delicately crafted compromise about
keeping the nation's widows and orphans safe from communism, it's not
going to fill them with a warm civic glow.
I could be completely wrong about this, if Executive transparency of
bills creates effective demand for Legislative transparency, which
_would_ be a huge and radical change, but given the poor history of
the Executive winning games of chicken with the Legislature, I'm
skeptical.
-c
Clay Shirky
adding back the part I was quoting:
Steven Clift
Senate recount on Twitter to #mnbudget to exchange views on our $4
billion deficit. Quite interesting:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23mnrecount
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23mnbudget
If you think of discussions on the current sessions HF203 as
"naturally" #HF203 and something you would tag HF203 in you blog as
well then comments happening across the Net can be aggregated, sorted,
and most importantly rated on a handful of sites such that the power
players and interested citizens can read what is most valued quickly.
So while it is nice that the White House is gathering comments in a
more structured way than a general comment box, ultimately we need to
think more about how to make the Internet a democracy network by
nature that reaches people on high traffic sites (major media, search
sites) just as easy on niche sites like OpenCongress. The challenge
there is that major "brands" are seeking to carve up the public space
within their commercial domains rather than competing on interface and
enhancement built on a share public base of comment and exchange.
Steven Clift
Lizzie
Politico's Ben Smith (Smith also points out that Whitehouse.gov has
yet to update the site with information on confirmed Cabinet members,
such as Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.)
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0109/An_online_promise_unmet.html
Business/Tech press : PC World, IT World, CIO Magazine report on
Paul's critique of Obama first transparency fail.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/158600/strike_one_against_white_house_transparency.html?tk=rss_news
(Be sure to ' thumbs up' this story!)
http://www.itworld.com/government/61721/strike-one-against-white-house-transparency
http://www.cio.com/article/478432/Strike_One_Against_White_House_Transparency
Lizzie Nolan
Communications Assistant
The Sunlight Foundation
www.sunlightfoundation.com
eno...@sunlightfoundation.com
202.742.1520 ext. 235
On Jan 30, 9:58 am, Steven Clift <cl...@e-democracy.org> wrote:
> In Minnesota folks are building on the #mnrecount culture in the
> Senate recount on Twitter to #mnbudget to exchange views on our $4
Jay dedman
> that its in the bill and sees that in the 100 or so hours they have
> before Obama wields his pen there is *nothing they can do about it*
> because its part of some other delicately crafted compromise about
> keeping the nation's widows and orphans safe from communism, it's not
> going to fill them with a warm civic glow.
> I could be completely wrong about this, if Executive transparency of
> bills creates effective demand for Legislative transparency, which
> _would_ be a huge and radical change, but given the poor history of
> the Executive winning games of chicken with the Legislature, I'm
> skeptical.
Choices:
--The White House dumps the five day period before signing that allows
people to comment. We fight to get Congress to enact a 5-day waiting
people for citizen comments. It'll be a long fight.
--The White House actually implements the 5-day commenting period as
they pormised. If there is a Bridge to Nowhere, people get enraged and
document it in a certian place we can all go to. If enraged enough,
Obama vetoes the bill and sends it back for renegotiation. Or Obama
accepts a huge political hit if he signs an unpopular bill that people
have documented.
Having public comment when a bill is in front of the President is not
useless IMHO. It's not perfect, but not useless.
Micah Sifry
In your book, you describe how effective action flows from public infuriation more often now than it did, say, ten years ago, thanks to nearly ubiquitous familiarity with social software. So, while I totally agree it would be better if the public comment program were built into the legislative timetable, rather than after the enrolled bill is sent to the White House, I'm happy that we have half a loaf to gnaw on. In this, I am inspired by something that Walter Karp wrote in his great book, "Indispensable Enemies: The Politics of Misrule in America":
p. 110
... there is a political reason for a reform President frustrating his own pledged reforms. It is none other than the ruling political principle in modern American politics-the preservation of party power, that power whose sole foundation is organization control of the political parties.
... the essential and inherent danger to party power is independent political ambition, the presence in public life and public office of men who ignore the interests and defy the dictates of party bosses and oligarchies. To preserve their power, party organizations must try constantly to eliminate the political condition that breeds independent ambition. That condition, in general, is the free political activity of the citizens themselves, their own efforts to act in their own behalf, to bring into the public arena issues that interest them and to encourage their activity the independent ambition of public men. The political activity of the citizenry, whether within or without the major parties, whether it be as local as a village election, is always a danger to organization control of parties, and precisely because it strengthens independent ambition. There is in this Republic, however, one great wellspring animating citizens to act in their own behalf: their own understanding that by means of politics and government what is wrong can be righted and what is ill can be cured. In a word, political hope.
The very opposite condition, the condition safest for party power, is public apathy, gratitude for small favors and a deep general sense of the futility of politics. Yet there is nothing natural about political apathy, futility and mean gratitude. What lies behind them is not "human nature" but the citizens' belief that politics and government can do little to better the conditions of life; the belief that they are ruled not by the men whom they have entrusted with their power but by circumstances and historical "forces," by anything and everything that is out of human control; the belief that public abuses and inequities are somehow inevitable and must be endured because they cannot be cured.
The condition of public apathy and futility, however, is swiftly undone by reform and even by the convincing promise of reform. Every beneficial law reminds the citizenry anew that the government-which is their government-can help them remove evils and better the conditions of life. Every law which remedies an abuse reminds the citizenry anew that other abuses can be remedied as well. Every beneficial law rips the cover of inevitability from public inequities and rouses the people from apathy. Reform in America does not bring passive contentment to the citizenry. It inspires active hope.
Karp also adds this qualifier, which is sobering:
... What is more, the national party that enacts the reforms does not benefit at all by the hope its reforms arouse. Far from it. The reforming party would find itself, among other things, attracting active citizens, ambitious men and hopeful idealists to every tight little political club of the party in every town and district and neighborhood. Such local incursions of the citizenry (which do not have to be great in size so long as they occur in many places at once would seriously threaten and even destroy organization control of local parties. The reform party would gain in strength and election victories, but the party bosses would endanger their own power. This they have no intention of doing voluntarily. It is precisely to avert this fundamental danger that both major parties in America have a reform wing and an obstructionist wing; the one to promise, the other to betray.
Excerpts are drawn from here: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Walter_Karp/Indispensable_Enemy_IE.html but they track with the hard copy of the book on my shelves. Emphases added by me.
Micah
Thomas Lord
> What we need is a SUBVENTION SYSTEM for the legislative process. We
> need to create a system that will show the bills as they are being
> cobbled. We need system that will name names of who's forcing changes
> in wording or adding to the pork. We need a system that "We The
> People" can use that we can use to hold our legislators accountable
> before they shake hands on legislation in back room deals and not
> after the fact.
That's a fun thought experiment but I don't think it can work on three
grounds.
First, there is a Constitutional problem. What you are after would
require constant surveillance of Congress people with open source
outputs from that surveillance. If participation were voluntary but
ubiquitous, on the other hand, then we'd be restricted in our choices of
candidates to only those who would agree to being on something like a
"Big Brother" kind of TV program - I'm pretty sure we don't want to
limit ourselves to such candidates.
Second: On the one hand, "back room deals" are how a lot of valuable
things actually get done; I'm not sure why you'd want to squelch them.
On the other hand, there is less secrecy than I think you think there
is: Congresspeople are generally happy to crow about their influence on
pieces of legislation. Accountability is already pretty good, in other
words, and where accountability is obstructed there's often a desirable
reason for that. In no small part, the challenge for citizens is to
make better use of the data Congress people already provide about their
decision making and their achievements.
Third: the right answer is for a balance. Early in the drafting and
negotiation process Congress people should "reveal" more of what is
going *because the feedback they get will be helpful*, not because an
angry mob forces them into it. In this regard, you can see the Obama
pledge to (soon enough) implement the 5-day pre-signing period as
leading by example:
For example, perhaps in the next cycle someone will challenge my
representative in the Senate or, more likely, that seat might be up for
grabs without challenge. If two ideologically similar candidates emerge
but only one is taking lessons from "change.gov" and pledging to
implement transparency in their staff office, if elected, then perhaps
that second, transparency-oriented candidate has an advantage.
-t
Clay Shirky
> --The White House dumps the five day period before signing that allows
> people to comment. We fight to get Congress to enact a 5-day waiting
> people for citizen comments. It'll be a long fight.
>
> --The White House actually implements the 5-day commenting period as
> they pormised. If there is a Bridge to Nowhere, people get enraged and
> document it in a certian place we can all go to. If enraged enough,
> Obama vetoes the bill and sends it back for renegotiation. Or Obama
> accepts a huge political hit if he signs an unpopular bill that people
> have documented.
You missed one:
--The White House implements the 5-day commenting period. There are multiple
Bridges to Nowhere, people get enraged and document them. Not enough people
are every enraged enough, and Obama signs the bills. The activists are
disillusioned,
but as they are a special interest group, they can't get enough general concern
to force Obama to take a huge political hit, just a small one, while
they themselves
become disillusioned.
> Having public comment when a bill is in front of the President is not
> useless IMHO. It's not perfect, but not useless.
True only if the two choices were 'do nothing' or 'do something and
reap something good, however minor.' That would indeed be a simple
decision to make, modulo cost.
There are however scenarios that are 'do something and reap something
bad.' (This scenario roughly describes what happened to the FISA vote
during the campaign.)
I don't care that Executive transparency of Legislative process might
be useless -- useless happens all the time. I care that it might be
actively harmful to what I regard as the appropriate goal in the
Legislature.
-c
John Wonderlich
they themselves
become disillusioned.
Activists may take stands on the yet-to-be-created "5 days of public comment" feature, only to be disappointed that their influence was late, sure. I just don't see that as a significant liability.
The bigger risk to me is if Congress enacts a 72 hour rule only because the President goads them into it, through this proof-of-concept exercise.
(btw, the 72 Hour Rule should be between public posting and consideration, not votes)
Greg Elin
I don't care that Executive transparency of Legislative process might
be useless -- useless happens all the time. I care that it might be
actively harmful to what I regard as the appropriate goal in the
Legislature.
-c
I'm late to this conversation, but have enjoyed the thread. Clay and Liza's points shifted my thinking even while I still agree with Micah's "half a loaf" position.
The Exec Branch's posting of a Bill is productive if we in the transparency community make it productive. Clay's concerns are also more likely to occur if we in the transparency community over-hype what such a posting means.
The principle advantage of *any* official branch of the Federal Government reliably putting proposed legislation online for a substantive period of time prior to a major action is that the others can reliability build services around the legislation. Practically speaking, many (most?) bills are online right now with Thomas, GovTrack, OpenCongress, and are often discussed in the Mainstream and Trade press before the bills are even official. But the process is haphazard. A mandated period for proposed legislation to be online, especially if the bill is put online in properly machine parse-able format (fingers crossed), gives all of us hook upon which we can add value.
As the line from Burning Chrome says, "..the street finds its own uses for things." Four years is an awfully long time on the Internet. The White House has more visibility than our existing legislative sites. Interesting and unexpected things could happen if bills were reliability online for a period via an official apparatus. There could be some very interesting second order effects of having bills online for 5 days just before a midterm election...
Greg
P.S. I couldn't resist: "I'm Just a Bill" on youtube" Wouldn't it be nice if "wait in a line with a lot of other bills for the President to sign" became "wait up online..."?
--
Greg Elin
Chief Evangelist for Sunlight Foundation (http://sunlightfoundation.com)
Sunlight Labs (http://sunlightlabs.com)
ge...@sunlightfoundation.com
gr...@fotonotes.net
http://twitter.com/gregelin
skype: fotonotes
aim: wiredbike
cell: 917-304-3488
Clay Shirky
<johnwon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ...with the policy fight they were fighting, and become interested in
> process. That strikes me as a the natural arc of activist disillusionment
> -- insurmountable obstacles lead to appeals to the more fundamental. (or
> appeals to that which makes the other possible)
This is happy-talk. Bad scenarios, when identified, don't always come
to pass, but they are easier to avoid when you've considered them.
So imagine a future scenario that lets you complete this sentence: "In
hindsight, making bills visible 5 days before signing did more harm
than good because..."
I know how I'd finish that sentence, but if you think you have a
sure-fire, works every time, what could possibly go wrong scenario for
improving Government, you're just not being imaginative enough about
possible downsides.
-c
Clay Shirky
> community make it productive. Clay's concerns are also more likely to occur
> if we in the transparency community over-hype what such a posting means.
Sing it.
> The principle advantage of *any* official branch of the Federal Government
> reliably putting proposed legislation online for a substantive period of
> time prior to a major action is that the others can reliability build
> services around the legislation.
That's interesting -- what uses could the street put to
(well-marked-up) Legislative data from the Executive? Would it be
possible to link spending extraneous to the bill back to the
Legislators who proposed it? This would be about creating feedback
loops for the *next* bill, even as this one goes through...
-c
Tim Cullen
Greg Elin
That's interesting -- what uses could the street put to
(well-marked-up) Legislative data from the Executive? Would it be
possible to link spending extraneous to the bill back to the
Legislators who proposed it? This would be about creating feedback
loops for the *next* bill, even as this one goes through...
-c
Maybe there's a small hack we can which makes threading legislation trivial, too. GovTrack's work linking legislation to US Code may be one starting point
The code is open source, right Josh? Maybe if we all adopt a standard "threading" mechanism, we can get Thomas and Exec Branch to also do so. We start with references to US Code and then see if we can extend to other aspects?
Greg
John Wonderlich
A few other points:
The SCHIP bill is posted before its final passage. Is this just bonus time, or way around the 5 day pledge? "It was up for 5 days" would ring pretty hollow if the clock started before final passage.
Do comments left on whitehouse.gov on a specific bill count as a new legislative history item, relevant for court challenges that lead to research into legislative intent? Might that possibility give public commentary some real weight, despite their having little potential impact on passage? (not being snide, that's a real question.)
Michael Stern
Politifact is scoring this as Obama’s first broken promise. This was just covered on CNN.
With regard to John’s question, I don’t see how public comments after a bill has passed Congress could be considered relevant legislative history. If the comments or a response thereto were incorporated into the President’s signing statement, then one would get into the controversial issue of whether and to what extent such signing statements are relevant to statutory interpretation.
Mike Stern
From: openhous...@googlegroups.com [mailto:openhous...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Wonderlich
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009
9:40 AM
To: openhous...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [openhouseproject] Re:
Proposed Definition of Emergency
I don't know of any direct questioning, or any reply.
Peggy Garvin
http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing_room/LillyLedbetterFairPayActPublicReview/
The bill is in XML, pasted into the WH web template.
In the case of SCHIP, a WH blog post links to the THOMAS Bill Summary & Status menu for the bill—probably because there is no enrolled version to point to.
It appears to me that the WH is still figuring out how to implement the pledge.
Peggy
On 2/2/09 8:51 AM, "Tim Cullen" <tim.c...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all--
I'm also late to this conversation (although I've also enjoyed catching up on it), but please pardon me if this question has been asked/answered already:
Has anyone asked anyone at the Whitehouse (either informally or otherwise) for an explanation of what happened with regard to posting the Lilly Ledbetter Act? Was there an answer?
Thanks, and apologies again if this has already been covered.
Best,
Tim
On Feb 1, 2009, at 9:51 PM, Greg Elin wrote:
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 4:03 PM, Clay Shirky <cl...@shirky.com> wrote:
I don't care that Executive transparency of Legislative process might
be useless -- useless happens all the time. I care that it might be
actively harmful to what I regard as the appropriate goal in the
Legislature.
-c
I'm late to this conversation, but have enjoyed the thread. Clay and Liza's points shifted my thinking even while I still agree with Micah's "half a loaf" position.
The Exec Branch's posting of a Bill is productive if we in the transparency community make it productive. Clay's concerns are also more likely to occur if we in the transparency community over-hype what such a posting means.
The principle advantage of *any* official branch of the Federal Government reliably putting proposed legislation online for a substantive period of time prior to a major action is that the others can reliability build services around the legislation. Practically speaking, many (most?) bills are online right now with Thomas, GovTrack, OpenCongress, and are often discussed in the Mainstream and Trade press before the bills are even official. But the process is haphazard. A mandated period for proposed legislation to be online, especially if the bill is put online in properly machine parse-able format (fingers crossed), gives all of us hook upon which we can add value.
As the line from Burning Chrome says, "..the street finds its own uses for things." Four years is an awfully long time on the Internet. The White House has more visibility than our existing legislative sites. Interesting and unexpected things could happen if bills were reliability online for a period via an official apparatus. There could be some very interesting second order effects of having bills online for 5 days just before a midterm election...
Greg
P.S. I couldn't resist: "I'm Just a Bill" on youtube" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEJL2Uuv-oQ> Wouldn't it be nice if "wait in a line with a lot of other bills for the President to sign" became "wait up online..."?
Paul Blumenthal
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/AWonderfulDay/
They had also linked to the bill on THOMAS in another blog post 4 days prior to the bill being signed, but without a public comment form.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/now-comes-lilly-ledbetter/
Paul Blumenthal
Senior Writer | Sunlight Foundation
Twitter: PaulBlu | 202-742-1520 ext.229
Nancy Scola
There's a risk of looking at the five-day comment period burdened by
all the otherwise-useful knowledge we as close observers have about
how government works today. Instead, let's try thinking about it from
the perspective of both those inside the loop -- the New White House
staffers and Hill staff/members who aren't all that sure about how the
new push for transparency and participation plays out -- and those
outside the loop, that is, a public who has gotten a taste of Obama-
brand open government and liked what they've found.
A good case can be made for holding them to the promised period
between passage and signature because, hell, they promised it. In a
way, White House staff is testing the waters as much as any of the
rest of us are. If they take from the experience that they public
isn't even willing to demand that they stick to the least restrictive
form of letting us all in on the process, then we're guilty of causing
some bad learned behavior. We're already at risk of that. We let
Ledbetter pass without raising much of a stink, and some of us (myself
included) are guilty of treating a bloody link to THOMAS some sort of
meaningful advance.
From the perspective of legislators, a five-day commenting period
could function like a useful boogie man. That's a working week during
which their Bridges to Nowhere and teapot museum earmarks are ripe for
the mocking. Knowing that your bill may well have a wide audience
could serve as a preemptive corrective. Bad ideas might not ever see
the light of day.
As for the people, well I'm of the opinion that it's about time that
the public realize that how convoluted and messy the legislating
process is. It's a complicated world, and we're past the point where
the most important legislation was understandable by the average lay
person. If the five-day period serves as a time for reflection upon
cases where the legislature isn't serving our needs, which in turn
serves as a kick in the pants to find other ways to shape the
governing process, that seems like a net positive.
-Nancy
------------------------------
Nancy Scola
techPresident.com
nancyscola.com
twitter.com/nancyscola
202-257-8511
On Feb 2, 1:41 pm, Paul Blumenthal
> The White House linked to the Fair Pay Act Public Review page in a blog post
> announcing the signing of the bill:http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/AWonderfulDay/
>
> They had also linked to the bill on THOMAS in another blog post 4 days prior
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 1:29 PM, Peggy Garvin <pe...@garvinconsulting.com>wrote:
>
>
>
> > It's odd; the bill was posted to the WH site, but I can't find a link to
> > it from any other WH web content. Perhaps a better sleuth can find it.
>
>
> > In the case of SCHIP, a WH blog post links to the THOMAS Bill Summary &
> > Status menu for the bill—probably because there is no enrolled version to
> > point to.
>
> > It appears to me that the WH is still figuring out how to implement the
> > pledge.
>
> > Peggy
>
>
> > Hi all--
>
> > I'm also late to this conversation (although I've also enjoyed catching up
> > on it), but please pardon me if this question has been asked/answered
> > already:
>
> > Has anyone asked anyone at the Whitehouse (either informally or otherwise)
> > for an explanation of what happened with regard to posting the Lilly
> > Ledbetter Act? Was there an answer?
>
> > Thanks, and apologies again if this has already been covered.
>
> > Best,
> > Tim
>
> > On Feb 1, 2009, at 9:51 PM, Greg Elin wrote:
>
Greg Elin
Peggy Garvin
Peggy
nancyscola.com <http://nancyscola.com>
twitter.com/nancyscola
202-257-8511 <http://twitter.com/nancyscola%0A202-257-8511>