Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) was found guilty on seven counts of corruption this week, but he's refusing to step down--even though politicians from both sides of the aisle have called on him to resign. Yesterday we sent an email to friends and supporters of Change Congress, asking folks to watch our "Farewell, Ted" video and sign on to a petition demanding that Senate leaders remove him from office.
Here's the text of the email, with links:
Dear Supporter,
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) was found guilty on seven counts of corruption this week[1], but, he's refusing to step down. Politicians from both sides of the aisle, including Barack Obama and John McCain, have called on him to resign. It's time to add your voice to the mix.
Click here to watch our video, "Farewell, Ted." Then sign our petition calling for Senate leaders to remove him from the Senate:
"He has broken our trust. It's time to let another Alaskan step up and represent the Last Frontier state. For this reason, we are calling on you to remove him from the Senate. Joining with both presidential candidates Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain we are requesting that you not allow a convicted felon continue to serve as a U.S. Senator."
Now that Ted Stevens has been convicted of corruption, he has no place in the Senate. The American people demand leaders who work for us, rather than abusing our trust. If Stevens does not resign, he must be removed from office.
We'll deliver copies of this petition to leaders in the Senate, including Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), whether or not Stevens is still serving next week. Help us send the message that corruption in the Senate will not be tolerated.
Ted Stevens received all kinds of gifts that he didn't disclose: A $1,000 sled dog. A $3,200 handmade stained glass window. A $2,695 massage chair. Not to mention $250,000 in labor and materials for Stevens' vacation home from Veco Corporation, an oil-field service company.[2] All this for keeping his friends at Veco in mind when he went to Washington and allocated over $88 million in earmarks to just one bill that came before Congress. [3]
Our Senators should not be for sale, whether for the price of a massage chair, a vacation home, or anything else. Click the link below to watch our video, and then help us say "Farewell, Ted" once and for all.
Japhet, Stephanie, Monica and the Change Congress Team
Sources:
1. "Stevens guilty on all counts, campaign to continue," Associated Press, Oct. 28, 2008.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5je6Pw1sViz24JRo9F0PNhoqMtzTwD94349103
Both Presidential candidates called on Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) to step down today in the wake of the senator's guilty verdict in federal court yesterday. Here are the statements:
From Obama:
"It's time to put an end to the corruption and influence-peddling, restore openness and accountability, and finally put government back in the hands of the people it serves. Senator Stevens should step down."
And from McCain:
"It is clear that Senator Stevens has broken his trust with the people and that he should now step down. I hope that my colleagues in the Senate will be spurred by these events to redouble their efforts to end this kind of corruption once and for all."
Also, from Governor Palin:
"After being found guilty on seven felony counts, I had hoped Senator Stevens would take the opportunity to do the statesman-like thing and erase the cloud that is covering his Senate seat. He has not done so," she said in a statement released afterward. "Alaskans are grateful for his decades of public service but the time has come for him to step aside. Even if elected on Tuesday, Senator Stevens should step aside to allow a special election to give Alaskans a real choice of who will serve them in Congress."
Based on Stevens' public comments, it seems like he'll stay in the race. Under current law, if he wins re-election on Tuesday he is not required to step down and instead must be removed by a full Senate vote on recommendation by the ethics committee (currently chaired by Senators Barbara Boxer John Cornyn). Regardless, a jury of his peers decided that he was guilty on all seven counts and its time for him move on. As both presidential candidates pointed out in their statements, the trust has been broken.
It's time for a fresh start. It's time for change.
The folks at MAPLight.org issued a report today titled 'Remote Control,' which shows the geographic origin, down to zip code, of campaign contributions for all members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The most surprising finding? Legislators raised about four out of every five dollars in campaign funds from outside of where their constituents live.
According to the research, members of the House of Representatives raised $700 million in campaign funds from 2005-2007. A whopping $551 million of these funds, or 79%, came from out-of-district. $146 million of these funds, or 21%, came from in-district. The remaining $3 million of campaign funds (0.5%) could not be definitively located as in-district or out-of-district. From the report:
"With out-of-district fundraising at a staggering 80%, the problem is not with a few individual House members. This report provides evidence that our campaign finance system is broken," said Daniel Newman, MAPLight.org's co-founder and executive director. "To win an election, a House candidate has to raise an average of $1.3 million in campaign funds--that's $2,500 every working day for an entire two year term. With such a herculean fundraising effort required, what time and attention do Representatives have left to address the interests of the voters they represent?"
A jury in Washington found Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (R) guilty on all seven corruption counts of lying on Senate financial forms and failing to report more than $250,000 in home renovations he received from Veco, formerly an oil company who he maintained close ties to. Stevens could face up to 5 years in prison for each count but will most likely face much less, if any.
The Senator who once referred to the internet as "a series of tubes," is still facing a tough challenger in Mark Begich, former mayor of Anchorage.
Amidst the hype of the Powell Obama endorsement, some may not know of the other Powell endorsement also getting some attention: Senator Ted Stevens
Stevens is currently on trial for concealing over $250,000 in gifts from Veco, formerly an oil-services corporation, between 2001 and 2006. Federal prosecutors grilled Stevens on Monday at his trial in Washington, D.C. before the case went under deliberation last week. It looks, as Sunlight Foundation's Ellen Miller points out, that Steven's lawyers have secured a potential victory for their client on what could be viewed a technicality. Unfortunately, the public interest appears not to be of interest to judge Emmet Sullivan.
However, the judge has a lot of interest in the hype of Powell's endorsement of Senator Barack Obama. Why? Powell was a key defense witness in the trial. Bush's former Sect. of State apparently spoke highly of Stevens' calling his character "sterling" and that he, "would never do anything improper."
In the culture of Washington politics I sometimes wonder if character is relative. Have our politicians become immune to recognizing corruption because it is so much a part of their culture? I don't doubt that many of our elected leaders are personally pure in many ways. But in Washington, you have to wonder whether a broken system has broken down their compass of integrity.
My interest has been peaked of late. What is the fate of publicly funded campaigns given the "Obama phenomenon?" A recent NPR article Did Obama Kill Public Campaign Finance? asks the question, "Is something rotten in the state of public financing for presidential campaigns?"
The article continues:
Sen. John McCain, one of the most vocal proponents of campaign finance reform, is being hoisted by his own petard by choosing to accept federal funding for his general election campaign. Meanwhile, Sen. Barack Obama, the choice of the Democratic Party — the very party that cried out for finance reform in the wake of the Watergate scandal — has chosen to bypass public funds and, as a result, is pummeling McCain in the fundraising arena.
Irony alert: The Republican standard-bearer is using federal grants, while the Democrat extols the free-market virtues of individual campaign donations.
One could argue that Obama's campaign is 'publicly funded,' after all, he and the DNC have forgone Lobby and PAC money and the majority of his campaign contributions come from small donations made by lots of people. However, the "Obama phenomenon" does not take into account an average person seeking office. This is where public funding would level the playing field so that ordinary citizens could run for office. Obama's 'star quality' and fund raising ability, plus the current political climate, cloud the argument for killing public funding.
McCain opted in to public funds, thus agreeing to cap out at $84 million for his campaign. The RNC supplements his allocated funds by raising money and they do take Lobby and PAC money. Neither candidate, in my opinion, represents 'clean money.'
No matter which candidate wins the White House, both will be faced with determining the fate of public campaign financing, in fact, both have an obligation. At Change Congress, we would also argue that the issue needs to go beyond Presidential and on to Congressional elections -- a more difficult battle.
A smart conversation took place on KQED's Forum with Scott Shafer. I encourage you all to have listen and weigh in on the conversation through our comments section. Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics is on the panel and directs people to the OpenSecrets site so you can follow the money yourself. You can listen in below:
Mississippi State and the University of Mississippi rank #1 and #2 respectively when it comes to educational earmarks from the federal government. Yet, both schools are considered Tier 3 schools in the U.S. News & World Report rankings (not the only ranking system but ultimately one of the most utilized). There is more to this story, however.
Of the $2.3 billion in federal earmarks appropriated to colleges and universities during the last fiscal year, MSU received $43 million while the University of Mississippi received $37 million. Its important, when comparing these types of numbers, to remember that alumni as well as endowments are key to figuring which schools are topping the money charts. Clearly, the Ivy League with its multi-billion dollar endowments makes competing as a state-level educational institution somewhat difficult. Indeed, over 76 colleges and universities boast endowments of over $1 billion or more.
Also, there is very little state-level support as Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the country.
Mississippi's status as one of the poorest states in the country makes funding from earmarks crucial to keeping MSU a competitive research institution, he said.
"It is important for poorer states to have the ability to go to Washington and receive funds for things, [where as] in wealthier states, it is all ready available," Schulz said.
And just like donor money, earmark money has specific deliverables. At least, they say it does, but Schulz never really referred to who is holding the school accountable.
Each earmark the school receives is closely guided and monitored to prevent any wasteful spending, he said.
"All of our projects have very specific deliverables," Schulz said. "They're not a blank check - that's sort of a misconception out there."
What would happen if this earmark process was more transparent? What if Schulz made all earmark requests public for both faculty and students to see? The school might be surprised to see a lot of the students actually care about how this money is being spent, and whether they have a say in it. And who knows, if the students had a say, maybe they'd feel empowered to do more to help the school in its struggling areas.
The overarching question is, should the Federal Government support these much less-endowed state schools and institutions so that they can at least compete with the 76 schools sitting on over $1 billion? I would think as long as the money is being tracked and the specific deliverables are being met, why not? Because of the earmark funding, MSU's Sustainable Energy Research Center has become a "competitive force in renewable energy research."
SERC Director William Batchelor said the earmarks have been rapidly used to develop new technologies, creating new renewable energy avenues in Mississippi.
"From an energy perspective, if you're trying to create a new industry, it takes large amounts of money to do so," he said. "By receiving these earmarks, we can utilize our resources that will drive this creation, especially in rural parts of our state that are looking for it," he said.
Batchelor said the earmark has helped the SERC develop three new sources of renewable energy from woody biomasses and human waste.
Our friends at the Sunlight Foundation (who seem to never sleep) have unveiled yet another terrific tool. This time it's the Open Senate Project, which is modeled on the Open House Project, and will help improve public access to the Senate's work on the Web.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has endorsed the project. From the press release:
"I welcome ideas for how the U.S. Senate can use technology and the Internet to create more transparency for the operations of the U.S. Senate, and to bring us closer to our constituents," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in response to the project's launch. "To that end, I look forward to the recommendations from the Open Senate Project, which will be an open, public collaborative effort."
The Open Senate Project will include an email list and blog, which citizens and open government leaders will use to develop their recommendations. John Wonderlich, program director for the Sunlight Foundation, will lead the nonpartisan effort. He will be joined by Josh Tauberer, creator of GovTrack.us, and Jon Hencke, a former Senate staffer who now blogs at The Next Right.com.
Sunlight encourages citizens to give their input by joining the group’s email list.
Just over 6 months ago, I agreed with Joe Trippi to help start a movement for fundamental reform in Congress. We understood that this was a long term project. But as we felt then -- and as the events of the last 6 months only confirmed -- we face, as Al Gore has put it, "a democracy crisis." And until we fix this, we won't fix any of the critical problems that face our society.
Many of you urged me to do this. And so I'm asking now for a favor in return. We've started. We've made important progress. But we need you now to help us make an important mark before this election comes to an end.
Our first project has been to get Members of Congress as well as candidates for Congress to take a stand on our issues of reform. We don't demand that they agree with any particular reform (yet). We simply call upon them to have the courage at least to say where they stand.
The five people you see pictured above are the first five Members of Congress to take a stand: Barney Frank (D-MA), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Jim Cooper (D-TN), Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), and John Tierney (D-MA). Four Democrats and one Republican have signed a pledge to support planks in our platform for reform. These 5 are joined now by more than 150 challengers who have taken a stand.
That's a start. But it's not good enough. And so I'm asking again: please help us get Members and candidates to take a stand. You can join our "pester" campaign by clicking here, and we'll make it extremely easy for you to write, or call, or email members or candidates who have not yet taken a stand.
This should be a simple thing in a democracy: Tell us, candidate, what you believe. It should be a hard thing to hide from. Yet in the politics of today, the simple thing is to hide. Help us make the simple hard.
The largest association in the state of Texas, the Texas Association of Business, pleaded guilty today to a misdemeanor charge, unlawful direct campaign expenditure, and paid $10K in fines to the state. After a six-year investigation into the campaign practices of the TAB's political action committee, this is the last lawsuit they'll have to deal with (unless 2008 turns out to be a especially corrupt election year.)
Apparently, the association's PAC was paying for the salaries of its President Bill Hammond and chief lobbyist Jack Campbell as they traveled around the state convincing voters to support state GOP candidates, attending fundraisers and speaking to the media on behalf of the candidates and their campaigns.
Earlier in 2007 District Judge Mike Lynch dismissed two indictments of TAB after the association spent over $1.7M on mailers and television ads on behalf of state GOP candidates. But now, with Texas redistricting on the table for the 2008 and 2010 state legislatures, the temptation to flood swing districts with political ads is hard to ignore. This latest decision by the district court will (hopefully) keep some of the corporate PAC money out of the airwaves and off voters' front stoops. Let's be honest, however, in today's stock market, paying $10K for pumping over $1.7M into local political races is a steal. Now, these business leaders have a host of state legislators in their back pocket. At least, that is how the public will perceive it. The return on investment is better than owning stock in Google (at least a couple months ago anyway). TAB obviously understood this after they moved their headquarters to the state capitol in 1990.
A closer look at the Texas Association of Business shows, once again, a revolving door between elected officials and lobbyists. Hammond, now President, was formerly a four-term member of the Texas House of Representatives. While there, he authored the Texas Education Agency Sunset Bill that was criticized heavily for opening up failing public schools to control by private entities (corporations, universities, non-profits could all essentially manage a public school under the bill). Two years later, after Hammond had left public office, his old boss, the Speaker of the Texas House, named him to lead the Commission on Higher Education and Global Competitiveness.
This, all while aggressively advocating for specific TAB-endorsed candidates around the state of Texas.
In a rather pathetic show of guilt, TAB lawyer Joe Turner complained that the laws around campaign finance law are just too confusing:
Association attorney Joe Turner called upon the Legislature to clarify "this treacherous area of the law," which he said can be confusing for people like Hammond who must wear multiple hats: salaried employee, representative of a political action committee and citizen.
"This is an accounting nightmare," Turner said.
Ok, i understand that the law might be confusing. But I don't tell the state that the reason I didn't pay any taxes for nine years was because, "Gosh, tax law is just really confusing." It is, but you find someone to guide you through it.
Here's another idea: how about individuals like Hammond and Campbell don't wear four different hats, all of which have severe legal implications if ever worn at the same time. The fact that they knew they had to wear different hats shows they understood the vague, but existent, legal divisions created between each one.
I highly doubt TAB understood that it was breaking the law. Perhaps they thought they were bending it. And ignorance is rarely a ticket out of guilt, which is why TAB agreed to pay the $10K fine and move on. Regardless, they are under the reform microscope for the next few cycles.
As you probably know, the Federal Elections Commission requires political committees to disclose information about all donors who contribute over $200, including their name, address, occupation, and employer. (There are some great sites, like OpenSecrets.org and FundRace.org, that help make sense of this data.) But this is just a minimum -- campaigns can do more. John McCain has been disclosing his sub-$200 donors and he recently criticized Barack Obama for not dong the same.
By looking at the disclosed records, the RNC and other Obama critics have found donations that Obama isn't legally permitted to accept -- contributions from overseas, contributions over the legal limit, contributions under apparently-fictitious names. Presumably, McCain thinks that if Obama opens up the rest of the data, they'll find even more. Obama has received contributions from literally millions of people, so it's a lot of data to look thru.
To put the pressure on, the RNC has released RNCDonors.com, which provides a near-real time search interface to all sub-$200 contributions to the RNC. (Why only sub-$200?) Very little data is disclosed about each contribution, but it's still fun to type in the names of Republican friends and see if they donated. So far Obama and the DNC haven't responded to these tactics.
We wanted to be sure everyone knew about a new organization in Canada that is mirroring the work Change Congress is doing. I Believe in Open Canada is building off of the Change Congress model tailored to their own government. The goal is to pressure Canadian politicians to adopt 5 pledges:
1. Support reforms that increase government transparency and accountability. (?)
2. Make campaign promises specific and measurable, and report progress on promises and their metrics at least semi-annually.
3. Publish the content of his or her daily schedule, including meetings with lobbyists and special interest groups.
4. Support reforms allowing free access to scientific and survey data gathered by government institutions.
5. Support reforms that make it easier for Canadians to obtain government information they have a right to know.
A very well put together site and one that we'll be glad to reflect as time goes on. The real goal with the Change Congress effort is to share this idea and technology with everyone and let them use it as they wish in their own governments. So, Canada, you've got some new change-makers on the map.
An article in the Politico today describes just how much money former Capitol Hill staffers can make working as lobbyists on K Street. The salaries are pretty shocking.
While dozens of lawmakers and senior aides are trading their congressional badges for lobbying registrations, some holdouts are resisting the call--even with salary offers of $350,000 to $500,000.
These stubborn governing junkies are among the most coveted by K Street. They are the insiders’ insiders and policy whizzes, whom top officials at lobbying shops and major corporations believe could add significant talent and expertise to their already deep benches.
It still shocks me when people talk about buying access in such frank terms. The article describes the trade--cash for access--in a matter-of-fact way, as if it's completely unsurprising.
For lobbying shops, a big risk in hiring a congressional aide is betting they can perform on the outside as well as they have on the inside.
But "performing" on behalf of an entirely different cause.
According to Rasmussen, the American public is ready to hit the Congressional "Reset" button. In a recent poll 59% of voters said they would like to "throw them [Congress] all out and start over again." Only 17% felt that they should keep their jobs. This is a frightening statistic, especially for the 440 members of Congress who are up for re-election in a mere 29 days. Oh, and it gets better:
Only half (49%) believe that the current Congress is better than individuals selected at random from the phone book. Thirty-three percent (33%) believe a randomly selected group of Americans could do a better job and 19% are not sure.
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So, hey, you wanna run for Congress? The hardest part is getting your foot (Ferragamo or not) in the door.
More than 90% of Congress will most likely (barring a revolution) retain their positions as the people that speak for us this November 4th. The power of incumbency is tough to beat, especially when gerrymandering allows members of Congress to effectively pick their own voters, not the other way around. Mix in some high name recognition, full staffs funded by tax-payer dollars, easy access to news coverage and an unmatched money machine, and suddenly running for office is reserved for those who are either very wealthy or very crazy (read "courageous"). Seriously, we have a better chance at winning scratch-off tickets than winning a seat for Congress.
As the article notes, the nation's founders believed that Congress should (and would) have a 50% turnover rate, and indeed, for the first 150 years the House of Representatives experienced exactly that. But ever since the 1940's Congress' turnover has been dropping to what it is today, somewhere in the single-digits.
Combine this with the back-to-back approval rating of 9% and you have to admit, it's not a good year to be a member of Congress.
The Sunlight Foundation
launched a campaign earlier this year to encourage members of Congress to change their rules around internet use and include the ability to “Tweet.”
Twitter,
a way to inform people in 140 characters or less of an important topic or event taking place in real time, is now being used by our members of Congress. This gives you the ability to track what your Congressperson is doing at any given moment. This is your chance to hold Congress accountable! To find out which members of Congress are “tweeting” you can upload the widget here.
Monica caught this story in The Hill today about the public backlash against the proposed $700 billion federal bailout of the banking industry. We've got excerpts below, but the story can pretty much be summed up in three words: people are angry.
As Kelly Williams and Laura MacCleery write:
It has been a long time since there has been such an outpouring of voter outrage on Capitol Hill. Although partisans are busily pointing fingers across the aisle about the defeat of the hurried, behind-the-scenes bailout deal in the House on Monday, the failures are so fundamental that it is increasingly clear that Washington will never be the same again. The bailout is stirring an intensely populist backlash across the political spectrum, and that much anger will not dissipate anytime soon.
They go on to present a scathing picture of how lobbyist and PAC money influences politics--and how that kind of money got us into this mess in the first place:
Wall Street routinely doles out large campaign contributions to members of Congress. In the current election cycle, the financial services sector (which includes insurance and real sector), contributed more money to candidates for Congress, the presidency and political parties than did any other sector, totaling $339.6 million from 2007 through today. Both chambers’ banking committees also benefit handsomely. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, PACs and employees of the securities and investment industry are the second largest source of cash for members of the Senate Banking committee. During the 2008 election cycle, these contributors raised $11.7 million for the 21 members of that Committee. Banking Committee Chairman Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) received about $4.3 million since 2003, or half of all contributions to his campaign coffers.
Does campaign cash influence legislation and regulation? When Congress last debated regulation (or rather, de-regulation) of the financial industry in 1999, a study by the Center for Responsive Politics showed that members of Congress who supported the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act received twice as much money from commercial banks, investment banks, and insurance companies as those who opposed the measure. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was the product of many years of lobbying by the financial industry and allowed for the loosening of bank regulations that had been in place since the Great Depression.
