Transparency
Transparency is the idea that the people should know what Congress is doing. Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis remarked that "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants," meaning that corruption can be stamped out through openness. Transparency can take many forms.
Current requirements promote transparency include mandatory disclosures of the personal financial interests of Members of Congress, mandatory online reporting of those who give more than $250 to a federal campaign, and the mandatory registration of lobbyists and their clients. There are many ideas about how to increase transparency in Congress, from requiring lobbyists to disclose when they meet with legislators to requiring bills be present online in their final form for 72 hours before a vote.
Proposed reforms
There are many proposed transparency-related reforms. As well as those listed above, major proposals include:- Congress putting more public information online, like requests for earmarks (now it's up to private groups to put the information online)
- Making more information public
- Obscuring information, thereby decreasing transparency, in order to make Congress cleaner
Transparency now
Plenty of information is already public, including:
- Substantial campaign contributions by individuals
- Taxpayers for Common Sense's downloadable database of fiscal year 2008 earmarks
- The League of Women Voters has a guide to using Freedom of Information laws
Discussions of transparency
- Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society's May 2008 video of a discussion of transparency and the internet
- The State Deparment's publication about transparency in the U.S. government
