Since returning from the spring recess, the U.S. House of Representatives has been debating a so-called “ethics and lobbying reform” package, which they are likely to pass this week in an attempt to once again prove to the American public that they are getting tough on the issue.
Sadly, this toothless legislation amounts to little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as Congress continues to move headlong into a tidal wave of growing discontent among the public about this most critical of issues.
A recent Pew poll found that 4 out of 5 Americans think it?s common for lobbyists to bribe members of Congress. At the same time, a new bipartisan poll by Celinda Lake and Ed Goeas released last week demonstrates that voters of all political persuasions share an overwhelming support for real, verifiable reform of ethics and lobbying rules.
The public thinks so little of Congress and its lawmakers that these window-dressing reforms can only serve to harden public perception that our government is corrupt and for sale to the highest bidder.
So, you might ask, what can Congress do to change public opinion and bring about real transparency and accountability to win back the public?s trust?
The answer lies with the transformative power of the Internet and information technology.
To that end, the Sunlight Foundation was launched last week to harness the Internet and technology to bring greater transparency and accountability to Congress and its lawmakers, regardless of party or ideology.
We?re 10 years into the Internet Age, but unfortunately Congress is still living in the last century with a quill-and-ink mentality.
How unbelievable is it that lawmakers still file their personal financial disclosure forms on paper, and that Senate campaign contributions are filed the same way?
The time is now to use the Internet and new information technology to help citizens get engaged in learning more about what Congress and their elected representatives are doing each and every day, supposedly on their behalf.
Since everyday folks are smart enough to understand what is really going on in Washington ? and what?s not ? let?s give them tools and access to information so they can become frontline citizen muckrakers.
Imagine putting flashlights into the hands of thousands of citizens, bloggers and journalists, or indeed even hundred of thousands. Now imagine all those flashlights focused on Congress and its members. That kind of collective light is far brighter than anything Congress has ever been exposed to before.
It?s time to pool our collective intelligence and offer a new level of scrutiny and exposure to help reduce corruption, ensure greater transparency and accountability by government, and foster public trust in the vital institutions of democracy.
One way Sunlight is helping to achieve this goal is through the recently launched Congresspedia website. Visiting www.congresspedia.org, anyone can participate in adding to a repository of information on lawmakers. This “citizens? encyclopedia” on Congress will become, we hope, the first stop for everyone who wants to learn more about members of Congress.
Congresspedia is just one example of how Sunlight will leverage the Internet to empower citizens to bring greater transparency to Congress.
Sunlight has also created online tutorials, which can be found at www.sunlightfoundation.com/foundation/screencasts, to help ordinary citizens watchdog their local members of Congress. Sunlight will also undertake an experiment in “distributed” journalism in which the foundation will provide citizens with the tools of investigative journalism. Each of these new tools is an opportunity to draw on the shared efforts of all citizen-activists who want to become part of the solution to the problem of corruption in the halls of Congress.
The American public is tired of waiting for Congress to reform itself. While we wait for Congress to acknowledge that the public is demanding real change, citizens everywhere must work together to shine a brighter light on our lawmakers until they get the message and begin to account for their own actions.
Ellen Miller is the executive director of the Sunlight Foundation and former director of the Center forResponsive Politics and Public Campaign.
