According to an article in today's Los Angeles Times, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice have appealed a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that would give consumers more access to Medicare healthcare data.

Specifically, the August 2007 ruling, based on a FOIA request and then a subsequent lawsuit by the advocacy group Consumers' Checkbook/Center for the Study of Services, would have allowed disclosure of a subset of Medicare billing records for four states (Illinois, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington) and the District of Columbia. The information requested would not have contained any patient identifying information, but could have potentially allowed consumers to get more understanding of the operations of Medicare and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), as well as make decisions about physician expertise and efficiency, according to the Times. As the judge's decision put it, "The public interest at stake is the interest in obtaining information that would help the public make more informed Medicare decisions and the interest in more information of how government funds are spent."

However, the American Medical Association opposed the ruling, and has also petitioned to join the appeal. The HHS appeal is based on a 1979 federal court ruling that blocked release of Medicare physician reimbursement data. HHS states that it shares the goals of Consumers' Checkbook in providing a transparent health care marketplace for consumers, but says that the 1979 ruling conflicts with the 2007 ruling. Observers quoted in the Times article said that the HHS was under pressure from the AMA to keep the data from being released and that it wasn't just a matter of conflicting legal opinions.

The HHS news release announcing its decision to join the DOJ appeal against release of Medicare data is here.

Last summer's ruling on the release of the data is here.

Recent statistics released by the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) show that consumer satisfaction with federal government websites and e-government in general have fallen in the first quarter of 2008 as compared with the final quarter of 2007. The score represents the third quarter of decline in consumer satisfaction in a row and is the lowest level of consumer satisfaction with e-government websites in three years.

There are a couple of possible factors in the decline. Consumers seem to be dissatisfied that government websites are not evolving into more than information dumps. Consumers want to see government websites that allow them to do business online, to take care of required paperwork, and to control their experiences of the website -- which is something that many commercial websites allow, at least on a limited scale. So far, that is not happening with government websites as much as consumers expect.

Another factor: presidential candidates on the campaign trail are mentioning transparency in electronic government and improving citizens' experience of e-government either minimally or not at all. Consumers aren't getting the sense that e-government is a priority, or even a secondary interest, among any of the presidential candidates.

"What used to take hours to dig up and analyze is now laid bare for you to see in seconds or minutes," so states the homepage of MAPLight.org, a new website that brings together campaign contributions and how legislators vote, creating more transparency of the connections between money and politics. This includes:

- How each legislator voted on each of the 5,000 bills in the 2003-2004 California legislative session.

- All campaign contributions made to each legislator from 2001-2004, categorized by the interest or industry of the contributor.

- Supporters and opponents of each bill, and the industries and interests those supporters and opponents represent.

- A brief description of each bill, and the subject the bill is about.

- The full text of each bill, including committee reports and amendments.

So far, MAPLight.org currently includes all 5,000 bills in the 2003-2004 California legislative session and all California campaign contributions from January 2001 through December 2004. They are seeking donations and support to extend MAPLight.org to include data for other states and U.S. Congress. This is a very promising project, so let's give them our support!

Well lookee here...a website that tracks petroleum industry campaign contributions, called Follow the Oil Money.

I did a zip code/name search, and not surprisingly, Texas and Louisiana congressmen received quite a bit of campaign funds from the oil industries and they voted for "big oil" 65-100% of the time.

And did you know that George W. Bush received $2,649,725 in oil contributions during the 2004 election campaign? John Kerry received $184,037. In 2008, Rudy Giuliani received $659,158 and Barack Obama received $163,840. The presidential races page told me so.

Their visual charts are pretty amusing. They compare them to Facebook or MySpace, "in which companies and politicians have become 'friends' by giving money".

For more information, including how they get their data, go to FAQ page.

Lawrence Lessig gave a lecture at the National Press Club on Thursday and introduced a plan designed to increase congressional transparency via the launch of Change-Congress.org.

The website provides a venue for data on earmarks, campaign financing, etc. and advocates an end to corporate and private interests. It organizes citizens to push candidates to make four commitments: No money from lobbyists or PACs, vote to end earmarks, support publicly-financed campaigns, and support reform to increase Congressional transparency.

Change-Congress.org has ambitious goals, that's for sure. Will it work? Greater transparency is needed, and this initiative will certainly help in that effort. But can "big money" every truly go away? Nevertheless, it is a noble effort, and I urge you to join their cause, take the pledge, and volunteer your efforts in contacting candidates to take the pledge!

Just a reminder that Lawrence Lessig will lecture at the National Press Club on Thursday, March 20th at 1:30 pm. The lecture will also be available via webcast. Lessig will introduce a plan designed to increase congressional transparency, called "Change Congress". More information about Lessig and this event can be found at the Sunlight Foundation website.

Sunshine Week has been mentioned in previous posts but it certainly deserves its own blog post too. This national initiative is set to take place March 16th through the 22nd. Its purpose is to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Anyone can take part, as long as you do something to engage discussion about open government. For example, you could write a letter to your local newspaper, host a panel discussion at your library, hold a debate on the FOIA in your political science class, etc.

Visit the Sunshine Week website for more information on events and resources and ideas to help spread the word. Updates will be posted on the Sunshine Week blog.

So...what will you be planning to do that week or maybe for next years Sunshine Week? Care to share your ideas? (Because I'm looking for some!) I think this year I will create a daily post on my depository's blog about open government and freedom of information resources, but next year I'd like to do something more interactive and on a larger scale with the community.

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!

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!

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...

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.

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.

Last week saw the launch of a new blog, the Ideas for Development blog.  Authors include the Director General of the World Trade Organization, the President of the African Development Bank, the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, and other A-list types.  A quick scan of the posts (why are there no dates on the landing page?) shows big chunks of text with no hyperlinks.  This tells me that it's a one-way conversation.  A blog is not a memo distribution system.  A blog is an online conversation.

And speaking of conversations, James Jacobs responds to my World Library post. 

Moving on in the blogosphere,  Simon Johnson, Director of Research for the International Monetary Fund, launched a blog last week.  Yes, this is the second blog launched by the IMF in the past month.  "Strange days indeed".

Finally, a short requiem for the IFC's Innovations in Emerging Markets blog, which appears to have died over the summer.  I am sad because these folks, along with the PSD blog, were the ones who introduced blogging to our IFI community.  The fact that the IFC let this blog die tells me we still have a ways to go in convincing organizations of the benefits of blogging.     

The International Monetary Fund launched its very first blog yesterday;  the Public Financial Management blog. Some blurbage on this new blog:

The PFM blog aims at sharing the IMF staff's vast experience with PFM practitioners in Ministries of Finance and other fiscal agencies, academia, students, non-governmental organizations, as well as with the general public. It will also feature current news, resources and ideas about public financial management systems, their operation and improvement, and their contribution to economic growth and achieving national objectives, including economic and financial stability.

There will probably be more to come.  The new managing director of the IMF (Dominique Strauss-Kahn)  has been blogging since last year.  He even set up a blog for his campaign to become MD.    

I've posted about this earlier at my home blog, but I thought it was worth a revisit and fuller entry because it did not get the attention it deserved. The Sunlight Foundation, the group that has fostered Congresspedia , the Open House Project, & OpenCongress.org, held a government "mashup" competition in April. In May, the winner, Uninfluence , was announced and won $2000. What follows is a list of the winner and the top 5 finalists. The 'project descriptions' are copied from the Sunlight project page. Additional entries can also be found there.

Winner

Uninfluence
Developed by Skye Bender-deMoll and Greg Michalec.
Project Description: Uninfluence, is an interactive information visualization of state level political contribution data.
Screencast: http://sunlightlabs.com/mashupfinalists/unfluence/unfluence.html
Mashup: http://unfluence.primate.net/index.html

The Finalists

CityCon (First Runner Up)
Project Description: CityCon allows you to find detailed information about any member of the current 110th U.S. Congress.
Screencast: http://sunlightlabs.com/mashupfinalists/citycon/CityCon%20FInal.html
Mashup: http://www.tetonpost.com/citycon

OpenHearings Live (Second Runner Up)
Project Description: A mini-site of schedules for current and future Senate committee hearings. Includes links to live audio and video of hearings in progress, anRSS feed of live hearings, iCalendar schedules for all committees and hearings, and the ability to import the "Live Hearing" view into your personalized Google homepage.
Screencast: http://sunlightlabs.com/mashupfinalists/openhearingslive/OpenHearings.or...
Mashup: http://openhearings.org/live

EchoDitto's Congressional Similarity Visualizer
Project Description: Java applet that lets users explore which legislators vote most similarly to one another. (Detailed explanation on the site provides background on the statistical analysis the visualization represents.)
Screencast: http://sunlightlabs.com/mashupfinalists/Echoditto3/Echoditto3.html
Mashup: http://labs.echoditto.com/projects/sunlight/

Second Life Congressional Info
Project Description: A mashup of the Sunlight APIs with Second Life, creating an interactive info center (kiosk) at the virtual Capitol Hill - a pro-bono educational area - in Second Life. Visitors can (and do!) access the information in a venue where they can discuss the information in the context of politics, policy and place.
Screencast: http://sunlightlabs.com/mashupfinalists/secondlife4/Second%20Life4.html
Writeup: http://clearnightsky.com/node/288

State-Machine
Project Description: Data Visualization showing the relationship between members of Congress and political access committees. (Watchingscreencast and reading description highly recommended.)
Screencast: http://sunlightlabs.com/mashupfinalists/statemachine/State%20Machine%20-...
Mashup: http://state-machine.org/

-- Tim Dennis