Legislative Transparency And Accountability Act of 2007

LEGISLATIVE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - January 11, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I understand now might be a convenient time for the Senate to consider some debate on the amendments I have just offered, Nos. 26 and 27.

I think the preeminent value, when we talk about ethics debate, that we ought to be focusing on is transparency. It has been said time and time again that the old saying is ``sunlight is perhaps the best disinfectant of all.' The fact is, the more Congress does on behalf of the American people that is transparent and can be reported and can be considered by average Americans in how they determine and evaluate our performance here, the better, as far as I am concerned.

I am proud to be a strong advocate for open government and greater transparency. Senator Pat Leahy, now the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I have been cosponsors of significant reform of our open government laws. We only had modest success last Congress. We were able to get a bill voted out of the Judiciary Committee. But it is my hope, given the sort of bipartisan spirit in which we are starting the 110th Congress and given Senator Leahy's strong commitment to open government, as well as my own, that we will be able to make good progress there.

This amendment No. 27 is all about greater transparency that is healthy for our democracy and essential if we are to govern with accountability and good faith. I offer this amendment with the goal of shining a little bit more light on the legislative process in this body and actually giving all Members of the Senate an ability to do their job better.

Specifically, this amendment would require that before the Senate proceeds to any matter, that each Senator receive a minimum of 3 days' notice and that, more importantly, the full text of what we will consider will be made available to the public before we actually begin our work on it.

What happens now is that in the waning hours of any Congress, we have a procedure--known well to the Members here but unknown to the public, perhaps--known as hotlining bills. In other words, presumably noncontroversial matters can be so-called hotlined, and that is placed on the Senate's calendar and voted out essentially by unanimous consent.

The problem is this mechanism, which is designed to facilitate the Senate's work and move relatively noncontroversial matters, is increasingly the subject of abuse. For example, in the 109th Congress, there were 4,122 bills introduced in the Senate. In the House there were 6,436 bills. Of course, many of these bills run hundreds of pages in length. The problem is, as I alluded to a moment ago, in the final weeks of the 109th Congress, I was told there were 125 matters called up before the Senate for consideration, many of which included costs to the taxpayers of millions of dollars, including an astonishing 64 bills in the final day and into the wee hours of Saturday morning before we adjourned. In fact, as the chart I have here demonstrates, in the last 5 days of the 109th Congress, there was a total of 125 bills hotlined. As I mentioned, some of these are relatively noncontroversial matters, but some of them spent millions of dollars of taxpayers' money.

I would think that at a very minimum Senators would want an opportunity to do due diligence when it comes to looking at the contents of this legislation and determining whether, in fact, it is noncontroversial and in the public interest or whether, on the contrary, someone is literally trying to slip something through in the waning hours of the Congress in a way that avoids the kind of public scrutiny that is important to passing good legislation and making good policy.

Mr. President, I have in my hands a letter in support of this amendment from an organization called ReadtheBill.org, which I ask unanimous consent be printed in the RECORD following my remarks.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

(See exhibit 1.)

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I know this perhaps seems like a small thing, but small things can have dramatic consequences.

Let me give an example. Senator X introduces a bill called the Clean Water Access Act sometime this year. For whatever reason, this bill doesn't get a hearing or the hearing is held perhaps with just a modest number of Members actually attending--in other words, it doesn't get a lot of attention. The bill is one of the thousands of bills introduced. And let's say my staff or your staff, Mr. President, or other Members' staff don't really have this bill on the list of priorities, of things to do; it is not one of the most urgent priorities because it looks as though perhaps there is not a lot of interest in the legislation. The bill never gets a vote in committee or on the floor, so Senator X decides: I have an idea. I will hotline the bill at the end of the year, at the very end of the Congress in the last few hours. What this amendment would do would be to impose a very commonsense requirement--let's give adequate notice that this is legislation which Senator X intends to move--so that the appropriate scrutiny and consideration may be given to the bill.

Of course, a notice goes out under the current rule, and the Senator's staff alerts the Senator to some concern that unless that happens, it passes by default. That is right, this is essentially an opt-out system. If the Senator does not object within an hour or two, the bill goes out by unanimous agreement.

My proposal is that there be simply a modest notice period before the Senate proceeds to a measure for Senators and their staff to review the legislation and so the American people and various groups that may have an interest in it could scrutinize it before we actually consider it and pass it in the waning hours, perhaps, of a Congress. I don't know who could really have a legitimate objection to such a requirement. I look forward to hearing from any of my colleagues who have some concerns about it, and perhaps I can address those concerns and we can work together to pass this important, although simple and straightforward, amendment.

I believe this amendment is certainly common sense and a good government and open government approach, which is conducive to allowing us to do our job better. So I ask my colleagues for their enthusiastic support, and maybe if not their enthusiastic support, at least their vote in support

of this amendment at the appropriate time.

AMENDMENT NO. 26

Mr. President, I have also offered Senate amendment No. 26. This is another amendment designed to offer greater sunshine and this time on the earmark process. This is an amendment which I have offered in the spirit that Senator DeMint, the junior Senator from South Carolina, has offered but with a little bit of additional twist that I would like to explain.

The current bill requires that all future legislation include a list of earmarks and the names of the Senators who requested them. Again, I know we talk in terms of legislative-ese and, of course, an earmark is something not otherwise provided for within the Federal appropriations bills but is specifically requested by a Member of Congress--a Senator or a Congressman--to be included.

Frankly, there are some earmarks that are very positive and very much in the public interest, but there are others that have been the subject of abuse, and I don't need to go into that in any great detail.

It is a fact that the American people have grown very concerned about the abuse of earmarks here, again, primarily because there is not adequate scrutiny, adequate sunshine on this process, causing them grave concerns about the integrity of the entire appropriations process.

My amendment would add a requirement that the budgetary impact for each earmark be included, as well as a requirement that the total number of earmarks and their total budgetary impact be identified and disclosed. The goal is that when we are considering legislation, we will have a summary document that details the number of earmarks, the total cost of those earmarks, and a list of the earmarks, along with their principal sponsor. I believe this will allow us, again, to do our job more diligently and with greater ease.

We will also create a fixed baseline from which we can proceed in the future and will further allow the American public, as well as our own staff, to be able to analyze the impact of these earmarks on the budgeting process.

Consider that the Congressional Research Service studies earmarks each year and identifies earmarks in each appropriations bill. Through that study, one can see both the total number of earmarks and the total dollar value of those earmarks have grown significantly over the last decade. The total number of earmarks, for example, doubled from 1994 to 2005, and the number appears to likely go up in 2006 as well. The problem is that getting this data after voting on the legislation is not particularly helpful after the fact. By requiring that all legislation contain a list of each earmark, the cost of each earmark, and the total number and cost of earmarks in the legislation as a whole, we empower our staffs and, more importantly, the American people, and ourselves to make better decisions.

As I said, this is not a broadside attack against all earmarks. Some earmarks are good government, but not all earmarks are good government. What this would do is give us the information we need to evaluate them, to have some empirical baseline we can use to evaluate how this impacts Federal spending and the integrity of the appropriations process.

There is one other little element of this amendment I would like to highlight. This amendment would also require an explanation of the essential governmental purpose for the earmark or a targeted tax benefit or targeted tax tariff benefit, including how the earmark targeted tax benefit or targeted tariff benefit advances the general welfare of the United States of America. This requirement--again, something I think most people would assume would be part of the analysis and deliberative process Congress would undertake anyway--is an important reform for the Congress, and it is certainly appropriate on the subject of ethics reform.

Take, for example, these situations: In the fiscal year 2004 budget, there was a $725,000 earmark for something called the Please Touch Museum; $200,000 of Federal taxpayers' money was appropriated by an earmark for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Even those who like rock and roll may question the appropriateness of taxpayers' money being spent to subsidize the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Mr. President, $100,000 was spent for the International Storytelling Center.

In 2005, $250,000 was spent in an earmark for the Country Music Hall of Fame. I myself am partial to country music. I like country music, but I think many might question whether it is appropriate that Federal taxpayers' dollars be spent by an earmark, here again largely anonymous because it is not required to be disclosed who the Senator is under current law, who has requested it, but a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayers' money has been spent for that purpose.

Another example: $150,000 for the Grammy Foundation and $150,000 for the Coca-Cola Space Science Center.

These are just a couple of quick examples, but I think they help make the point; that is, under the status quo, there is simply not enough information, not enough sunshine shining on the appropriations process and particularly the earmark process which has been the subject of so much controversy, and yes, including some scandal leading up to this last election on November 7. If there is one certain message I think all of us got on November 7, it is that the American people want their Government to work for them and not for special interests.

One of the best things we can do, rather than passing new rules, is to shine more sunlight on the process. With more sunlight comes greater accountability, and I think in many ways it provides a self-correcting mechanism. In other words, people are not going to be doing things they think they can sneak through in secret out in the open. So it has the added benefit of sort of a self-policing or self-correcting mechanism as well.

So I would commend both of these amendments for the Senate's consideration. At the appropriate time, I will ask for a vote, working, of course, with the floor managers on this bill.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

http://thomas.loc.gov/