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September 13, 2010 by
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Last week, Sunshine Review released a study showing over by . $6.2 million is a lot of money no matter how you look at it, and regardless of the benefits and consequences of taxpayer-funded lobbying, this information should be : governments should tell citizens upfront how much they’re spending on lobbying, why, and what they’re lobbying for.
The numbers uncovered by Sunshine Review are significant. Even more significant is the fact that they aren’t complete totals for the counties, only partial figures.
For example, one of the most open counties was . Champaign was the only county that didn’t find Sunshine Review’s request “unduly burdensome” and sent information for all of the county. Most people don’t consider the sheer size of a county: a county has several departments and agencies, not to mention offices of individual officials. And most counties wont accept a FOIA request for countywide information. But Champaign County as a county-wide request, and sent it to all of its departments and offices asking them to comply. This was the only county I did not have to negotiate my request with. For most counties, my original request was cut back greatly after several phone calls and e-mails. Champaign, however, just sent me information, including e-mails between lobbying entities and the county.
Even then, it was unclear whether has no contracts or whether they just didn’t send any. Every separate department in the county responded to the individual items I requested, but there was no general letter explaining what was and wasn’t applicable to the county. This is not a complaint about the county’s response, about which I’ve been gushing throughout this blog; rather, it’s a complaint about the complicated, convoluted nature of public records requests for items that should be public in the first place. After requesting lobbying records from counties, I should be able to answer whether a county contracts lobbyists or not. But I can’t, not conclusively.
This uncertainty makes it clear that while our report shows a good picture of lobbying in Illinois counties, it is not a complete picture. And citizens and journalists shouldn’t have to guess where their money goes: governments have a duty to report to us.
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May 27, 2010 by
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The recently wrote about the on :
[The report] found that “taxpayers paid lobbyists nearly $6.4 million to influence their own state government last year.” The money was spent by cities, counties, and other public bodies to lobby state government.
This, of course, is not the total amount of Illinois taxpayer-funded lobbying. The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform requested information from 195 political entities, excluding smaller entities. The report also focused on contracts with , not through which local governments also seek to influence legislatures and which also hire lobbyists. This, of course, means that the total for taxpayer-funded lobbying in Illinois is much greater.
This work encourages transparency in taxpayer-funded lobbying, which is important; many people aren’t even aware that the practice even exists. The Illinois Policy Institute recommends Illinois follow in the steps of Minnesota, whose auditor compiles and publishes information on each year.
At Sunshine Review, we’re hoping to do just that: to encourage local governments to be more open about where they spend taxpayer dollars, and to educate citizens on what it is that their money goes to fund. Lobbying isn’t bad, but a lack of knowledge is.
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May 6, 2010 by
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The is a little irked about . They way they describe it, the practice boils down to governments “spending tax dollars to persuade the state Legislature to give them…more tax dollars.” And NTU asks two important questions:
*Couldn’t that money be used more wisely?
*Why do towns even need these lobbyists?
Two questions governments have a duty to answer to taxpayers. NTU also noted a common : “Municipalities should be a priority for their state legislators, who are elected to represent those very towns.”
The main problem for NTU, however, isn’t necessarily government lobbying, but rather the . Laws on public lobbying are not as demanding as those on private lobbying. It therefore becomes easy to obscure the already-convuluted chain that taxpayer dollars go through in order to end up as payment to lobbying firms. The solution is better legislation. State in (D-) has introduced a bill in the that would require towns to report any lobbyists they hire, the purpose, and how much the firm was paid.
The senator, like NTU, is also confused by the practice and . “Why do they need a middle man? Municipalities are our most important clients. Towns don’t need a lobbyist to come to my office. I can’t remember a single time when I thought they were getting their money’s worth [by hiring lobbyists].”
At Sunshine Review, we’ve been working to find and compile information about taxpayer-funded lobbying and . Please in adding to public understanding about what it is that your government does.
For more New Jersey resources, see the links below. And be sure to join us at #FOIAchat on tomorrow from 2-3 pm EST, where we’ll be live chatting about FOIA in the news.
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March 16, 2010 by
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I’ve about and how that information can be. A lot of taxpayer-funded lobbying is hidden, not reported, or not acknowledged as such.
A new research paper by the clears some of that obscurity up. focuses on California while also surveying other states and gives insight as to the general nature of taxpayer-funded lobbying. The paper looks at lobbying in California for 2007 and 2008.
One interesting thing that may be generalized to taxpayer-funded lobbying as a whole is the amount of adjustments the writers of the paper had to make in order to try and get an accurate figure for taxpayer-funded lobbying. For example, of the $30.9 million reported as spent by labor unions, $8.1 million can be properly classified as taxpayer-funded lobbying. And this pattern continues in sectors “Government”; “Public Employees”; and “Education.”
It study breaks down the amount spent on taxpayer-funded lobbying in a powerful way: one in every four dollars spent on lobbying in California was taxpayer money.
The study ends up concluding that there is a need for further research in taxpayer-funded lobbying. The authors recommend improved lobbying disclosure laws that are stricter and more transparent and making accessibility a focus of these laws. We couldn’t agree more.
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February 10, 2010 by
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In Missouri, there’s a bill that would end the practice of taxpayer-funded lobbying. would prohibit any entity that accepts tax dollars from using that money to influence the passage or defeat of legislation.
Schoeller, R-Willard, filed the legislation last year in response to the Missouri Department of Transportation sending 20 employees to the Capitol pressure legislators to pass a primary seat belt law on taxpayer time. Legislators ultimately did not support the bill, partially because the agency’s tactics annoyed them.
The bill would not outright ban recipients of tax dollars from hiring lobbyists, but the lobbyists would be forbidden from influencing legislators to vote a certain way on a bill. “You can monitor, you can educate, but you can’t advocate,” said Schoeller. The legislation would work by penalizing any registered lobbyist who accepted tax dollars to advocate a position by barring them from lobbying for up to two years, and by fining governments from $1,000 to $5,000 for using tax dollars to pay for a lobbyist.
Lobbyist Randy Scherr said it would be virtually impossible to allow lobbyists to educate a lawmaker on an issue while forbidding them from advocating a position, noting that the distinction between “education” and “advocacy” is nonexistent. It isn’t just the lobbyists that don’t think the bill will work. , R-Dixon.”I support the concept, I really do. But I don’t think it will change much.”
The doubts are consistent with the . It is difficult and next to impossible to remove influence from the legislative process, since it can take many forms. said he doubts his bill will be included in the final product. While the cause of ending the practice does seem lofty, the proposed bill has brought taxpayer-funded lobbying to the the forefront. A start would be increased transparency in the process. For example, out of the , none of them have lobbying information on their websites. If these counties were to post their lobbying information online, such as contracts with lobbyists, membership in , and check registers for payments to these, there wouldn’t even need to be legislation protecting taxpayers from overzealous governments: taxpayers could look out after themselves.
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February 8, 2010 by
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David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party in Britain and the Leader of the Opposition Party in the House of Commons, has been talking about transparency recently. In , Cameron expressed a very negative view of lobbying. The Conservative leader said that the “£2 billion industry” is too significant Westminster and in some cases MPs are approached more than 100 times a week by lobbyists.” Cameron uses an inclusive definition of “lobbying,” similar to the :
“We all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisers for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way.”
His prescription? To shine “the light of transparency” on lobbying so that the government “comes clean about who is buying power and influence.” David Miller of the welcomed Cameron’s admission that something needs to be done. He suggested the Leader introduce a mandatory register of lobbyists. This sounds like some of we have.
“Instead of locking people out of this process,” Cameron said, “we need to invite them in.” Along with lobbyist registration, Cameron hopes to institute a Public Reading Stage for bills so that the public is aware of current legislation. This is similar to propositions by American politicians, such as President Barack Obama’s .
These all sound like great ideas for moving Britain to a more transparent way of doing things. Even if Cameron does not necessarily need to commit to his ideas, there’s a good chance the spotlight he has brought to transparency will be by itself.
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October 26, 2009 by
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For , we sent information requests to Florida school districts, asking for lobbying information. You can now find our prescription for more open government on the cialis price: cialis price For the whole story, click .
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September 10, 2009 by
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The label “taxpayer-funded lobbying” means what it sounds like: government entities use public money to fund their advocacy efforts.
But sometimes, it’s more subtle.
For example, a city could become a member of the , or other taxpayer-funded lobbying associations. Throught membership in such groups, cities and other government entities receive advocacy before legislatures. These groups lobby for varying items. A few examples include:
* The Texas Association of School Boards .
* The Arizona League of Cities and Towns wants ,
* The Wisconsin Counties Association supports .
* The Florida Cities Association supports the in Florida.
This is all lobbying that is paid for by taxpayers. That’s right: you and I pay to oppose vouchers.
Another subtlety of government funded lobbying comes with legislative receptions. One way of influencing law makers is through legislative receptions. The Indian River School District, for example, hosts a .
There’s not a lot of information on taxpayer-funded lobbying out there, and there are problems with the . So join us on our quest to get more information on , or read up on .
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September 3, 2009 by
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We’ve been busy at . During the summer months, we sent Freedom of Information requests to 27 with .
Many government entities have lobbyists on staff, and many more contract-out their lobbying needs. by state and local governments, public universities, transportation authorities, and public water utilities was in 2007. This number does not include lobbying at the state and local levels, legislative receptions and gifts, or membership in taxpayer-funded lobbying associations, such as the .
Data on those activities is , so we figured we would get the ball rolling by starting with Florida school districts. The most recent results , although we’re waiting to hear back from some stragglers, and you can also read a summary of to the FOIA requests.
To learn more about taxpayer-funded lobbying and our FOIA Back-to-School Project, click .