Gary Peters Fights for Greater Transparency in Congressional Office Expenses

Press Release

Representative Gary Peters has built a reputation for transparency and fiscal responsibility, and now he wants other lawmakers to follow suit. On Tuesday evening, Peters introduced a bill to require Representatives to post details of their own Congressional office spending on their official websites.

While Congressional office expense records are currently available online in a central database, the information can be hard for many Americans to locate -- resulting in less transparency about how Members of Congress are using taxpayer money.

The most recent Congressional office expense records, covering the fourth quarter of 2010, were released yesterday afternoon.

"People have a right to know how their own Representatives are spending their money, and that information should be easy to find," said Representative Peters. "Transparency means more than making information public, it must also be accessible for the average American. If we're serious about fiscal responsibility and transparency, then Congress needs to start by being more accountable with its own spending."

For the past two years, Representative Peters has run his office so efficiently that he returned money from his office budget back to taxpayers -- and he has posted his own office expense records on his website at http://peters.house.gov/.

In 2010, Representative Peters returned approximately $180,000, or 12 percent, of his $1.48 million annual budget. In 2009, Peters returned $135,000 from his budget.

Peters' legislation, H.Res. 135, would require every Congressional office to post a link to their office expense reports on the home page of their official website.

The Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan watchdog group dedicated to improving transparency in government, applauded Representative Peters' bill.

"Rep. Peters' Holding Congress Accountable Act recognizes the importance of online transparency by making it easier for Americans to see how their representatives spend their tax dollars for office expenses. The legislation builds upon the House's new practice of disclosing these expenses online, and posts it where constituents are most likely to look -- on lawmakers' own websites," said John Wonderlich, policy director at the Sunlight Foundation.

Moving Towards Greater Transparency
Each Congressional office receives between $1.3 and $1.7 million annually to pay for all operating expenses including rent, computers, office supplies, travel and staff salaries.

The expense records for each office budget, known as Statements of Disbursements, are released quarterly by the House of Representatives. Those records have been publicly available in books located in the House Office Buildings in Washington, DC since 1964.

When Democrats took control of the House in 2007, the information moved online to a central website. However, the spending reports from all 435 Congressional offices are posted in a three-volume, 3,000 page document, and unless Americans know where to look for the data, it can be difficult for them to hold their own Representatives accountable.

Peters' legislation would mandate that the House post each Representative's office budget in a separate document with a unique web address. Each Member of Congress would then be required to post a link to their expense report on the home page of their official website -- making it easier for their constituents to be able to find the reports and hold them accountable.

A Record of Fiscal Discipline and Accountability
For Representative Peters, fiscal responsibility has always started with his own office. As a Michigan state senator, Peters returned the equivalent of a full year's operating budget during his 8 years in office.

So far in Congress, Peters has returned a total of $315,000. In 2010, Peters wrote and passed a bill to require than any unused funds from Congressional office budgets are used to pay down the national debt.

On the Web
Download the full text of Peters' bill, H.Res. 135, online at:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.RES.135:

View Rep. Peters' 2010 Statement of Disbursements at:
http://peters.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=43§iontree=13,43

View and Download all Congressional Statements of Disbursements at:
http://disbursements.house.gov/

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