Little Miss Sunshine
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Days after becoming the nation’s first female Speaker of the
House in 2006, Nancy Pelosi
pledged to create “the most honest, most open, and most
ethical Congress in history.” The statement appears ludicrous now
given Congress’ smarmy image, thanks in large part to Pelosi’s
theatrics
on a host of issues.
At the time, though, many Americans were willing to give
Democrats a shot. President Bush was wildly unpopular, and
congressional Republicans were plagued by scandal. Pelosi and her
fellow liberals rode into office on a tidal wave of
discontent.
But although Pelosi has huffed and puffed vociferously,
she’s failed to deliver on her transparency pledges.
Trillion-dollar stimulus packages and runaway spending have
afforded Democrats ample opportunity for secrecy, as have
eleventh hour amendments to health-care reform and a
lackadaisical approach to making the bill’s content available to
voters.
The result: a congressional approval
rating of 26 percent.
In that atmosphere, it’s no surprise that Pelosi’s sunshine
efforts have become more about improving Democrats’ public image
than giving Americans easy access to data on how government
operates and spends. Pelosi is only interested in sunshine if she
can shield her allies from the rays.
The latest example is her request that Congress’s
Statement of Disbursements be published online.
The massive document, prepared by the Chief Administrative
Officer of the House, traces how each member of Congress spent
their taxpayer-funded representational allowance, which ranges as
high as $1.9 million per year. Lawmakers use the funds for staff
salaries, district office rent, travel, equipment, snacks and
bottled water, and a range of other expenses.
Pelosi ordered the line-items published online after
evidence surfaced
in Great Britain that members of Parliament lived high on the hog
on the taxpayers’ dime, including reimbursements for home repairs
and pornography.
“The House is making every effort to operate in a
transparent manner and online publication of these reports will
expand accountability to taxpayers and the press,” Pelosi
said at the
time.
On Nov. 30, Congress made available a PDF of disbursements
— a cumbersome 3,404-page document — during the third quarter.
Until now, the disbursements have only been available in hard
copy format in Washington, D.C.
But while concerned citizens and reporters should be
thankful for small favors, the report lacks necessary simplicity
and detail. Researchers must download the document and do a word
search to locate their representative. An online database,
searchable by line item and representative, would be far better.
(Thankfully, the non-profit Sunlight Foundation has picked up for
Congress’s slack and provided
just such a database.
The descriptions of congressional expenditures are even
shoddier. Calling them cryptic would be too polite.
“It’s still extremely vague,” said David Williams, vice
president of public policy for Citizens Against Government Waste.
“People and taxpayers really want to know the details.
Politicians are really afraid of that.”
Indeed. It’s nice to know, for instance, that Pelosi spent
around $33,000 on food, beverages, and bottled water and $4,000
on “habitation expenses,” but it’s not useful unless we know the
specifics.
After all, MPs in Great Britain could have written off
their porn flicks as “habitation expenses,” and no one would have
been the wiser.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio,
spent nearly as much as Pelosi on drinks and munchies for his
office. Maybe some of the expenses are necessary; surely all of
them aren’t. Lawmakers tend to get careless when they know
constituents and journalists probably won’t bother to crunch the
numbers.
It gets worse, though. As Congress.org
reports, the latest disbursements report is actually
less forthcoming than older versions, despite
Pelosi’s grandstanding about transparency.
The report for the second quarter, available only in hard
copy format, contains more detailed descriptions, sometimes
getting as specific as the model number on a laptop. Both the
online and hard copy versions now lack those important
details.
Lawmakers don’t want the sordid details of their financial
doings readily available to their constituents — that’s a given.
But those tidbits are vital to the mission of holding public
officials responsible for their actions. Otherwise, they can hide
behind a cleverly worded expense code.
Although Pelosi’s latest double cross of the American
people hasn’t gotten a peep out of the most media outlets, it
should dim the lights several more notches on the Democrats’
chances in the mid-term elections. Both Republicans and Democrats
are culpable for abusing their allowances, but making that
information public is first and foremost the responsibility of
congressional leaders.
What a difference three years makes. That’s how long it’s
taken for Pelosi’s most ethical Congress in history to become one
of the least ethical.
