Issue Position: Ethics and Oversight

Issue Position

Murphy has increased oversight and transparency for defense contractors. Congressman Murphy introduced the Government Funding Transparency Act, which was signed into law on June 30, 2008. The bill requires government contractors that receive 80% or more of their annual gross income from the federal government and have contracts worth more than $25 million to disclose compensation information about their most highly compensated officers. Private defense contractors have been reaping billions of dollars in taxpayer money and many of them don't have to disclose any financial information to the American taxpayer (essentially their shareholders). Murphy fought and won this increased disclosure requirement while also supporting measures that would require federal contractors to report overseas violations of criminal law - violations which have previously gone unreported (H.R. 2642, Final Vote Roll Call 432).

* Murphy introduced and pushed bipartisan legislation to make government spending more transparent to all Americans. Murphy introduced legislation, H.R. 6411, the Strengthening Transparency in Federal Spending Act of 2008, which will make improvements to www.USASpending.gov, a website created in 2007 as a portal for citizens to learn more about how their tax dollars are being spent. Murphy's legislation will introduce a host of improvements to USASpending.gov, making the site more user-friendly and expanding its breadth of available information, by including viewable copies of federal contracts, competitive bidding data, earmarks, criminal and legal violations against contractors, tax compliance, and much more. Murphy's bill is the House companion to legislation (S.3077) introduced by Senators Obama and Coburn (H.R. 6411).

* Murphy was one of the House's strongest advocates for the creation of an independent ethics panel to investigate alleged rule violations by Members of the House. In May 2007, Congressman Murphy organized a group of newly elected Freshman lawmakers to urge the Democratic Leadership to create an independent ethics panel to investigate alleged violations by Members. Shortly thereafter, Murphy introduced H.R. 4239, legislation to create an outside independent ethics panel and when the House considered legislation (H.Res.895) to create an ethics commission, Murphy pushed for an amendment to give the new ethics commission subpoena power. The House finally created this panel in April 2008 with Murphy's full support. (H.R. 4239, Roll Call 122, "Murphy Leads Freshman Class to Call on House Leadership to Clean Up Congress," "Murphy Leads Way as House Passes Historic Ethics Reform Bill")

* Murphy has consistently fought to reign in the influence of lobbyists. In the first days of the 110th Congress, Murphy supported legislation that banned Members from accepting any gifts or travel from lobbyists or organizations that employ them and required open disclosure regarding earmarks. Additionally, Murphy supported legislation to increase disclosure of lobbyists' contributions to lawmakers, establish an online, searchable public database of lobbyist disclosure information, establish an online, searchable public database of Member travel and personal financial disclosure forms, and increase penalties for violation of the Lobby Disclosure Act. (H.R. 2316, H.Res.6, Roll Call 423)

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