Super Committee

Senators Push For More Transparency For Super Committee

Susan Crabtree | September 8, 2011, 12:46PM

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA)

Republican Sens. Dean Heller (NV) and David Vitter (LA) are trying to shed some sunlight on all of the deficit super committee's activities -- including fundraising.

Even before the first super committee's Thursday morning meeting began, which was open to the public and aired on C-SPAN, Heller introduced legislation to make all of the panel's meetings, even the most informal, open to the public. Vitter introduced a companion bill that would require super committee members to disclose all campaign contributions within 48 hours of receiving them.

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Tea Party

The GOP's New Transparency Rules Might Not Be That Transparent

Brian Beutler | December 23, 2010, 10:11AM

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) with members of the Republican House leadership

Ahead of the November elections, one of the House GOP's biggest promises to its base was that it would make sure legislation was publicly available online for three days before putting it on the floor for a vote. From the Pledge to America: "We will ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives."

However, in a draft of their proposed rules for the House in the 112th Congress, they reportedly left themselves quite a loophole: the powerful Rules Committee seemingly won't be subject to the transparency requirements and can amend and even replace any bill. As Politico reported Wednesday, "That would leave GOP leaders a significant exemption to make last-minute changes without such a long period of public scrutiny."

This does not please the Tea Party.

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Visitors Logs

Latest Batch Of White House Visitors: 450k Names Now Online

Christina Bellantoni | June 25, 2010, 5:25PM

White House

It's that time again! The Obama administration released its latest batch of visitors to the White House grounds, from tourists to executives who huddled privately with the president.

This group of visitors logs covers the month of March. Take a gander, the administration has gone back to the easy to use Socrata format that allows you to search and manipulate the data.

Financial Reform

On Financial Reform, White House Frustrates Wall Street And Progressives

Brian Beutler | May 28, 2010, 1:38PM

President Barack Obama

The White House's heavy hand continues to guide financial reform negotiations as they enter their last days, creating a dynamic that has been frustrating to those who want to truly change the way business is done on Wall Street. As House and Senate principals put their heads together to iron out the differences between their two bills, the Obama administration is closing off most opportunities to impose the sorts of new rules that critics say will be needed in order to prevent another financial crisis.

And though the Obama administration is on guard against some of the flagrant efforts on the part of lobbyists to weaken the bill, it has also set strict parameters on the extent of the legislation, leaving some of the bill's supporters concerned that the overall approach simply isn't strong enough.

Perhaps the best example of this dynamic revolves around a far-reaching proposal to regulate derivatives. The White House and its lieutenants in the House and Senate are prepared to scale back or remove a provision that would require big financial firms to spin off their derivatives trading desks. And they're arguing to members that a different measure, limiting the extent to which those firms can engage in speculative trades with their profits, will accomplish the same goals as the spin off plan.

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Transparency

White House Dumps New Batch Of Visitors Logs

Christina Bellantoni | April 30, 2010, 3:49PM

White House

It's that time again -- the Obama administration just posted the latest records detailing visitors to the White House grounds in January.

As he does each month Norm Eisen, Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform, detailed the records in a blog post at White House.gov. The hundreds of thousands of records (covering everything that's been released since September) are here.

We'll be going through them but if you notice anything interesting leave a note in the comments or drop us an email.

Visitors Logs

White House Releases Latest Visitors Logs - More Than 250K Names Online

Christina Bellantoni | March 26, 2010, 3:56PM

The White House just released its latest batch of visitors logs - the names of thousands of people who came to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in December. Officials announced the latest release in a blog post.

What's interesting about this batch is that anyone who attended White House Christmas parties with President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama would appear on the list.

Check them out here. If you see anything good, let us know in the comments or email TPM.

Visitors Logs

Knock, Knock? Who's There? 75,000 Folks Who Visited The White House

Christina Bellantoni | January 29, 2010, 3:59PM

The White House

Help TPM sort through the latest batch of White House visitor logs - now totaling 75,000 names.

The records cover the month of October.

Our previous coverage can be found here.

The spreadsheet posted at WhiteHouse.gov offers the visitor's full name, date of visit, who they met with and in what room.

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Visitors Logs

Help TPM Scour White House Visitors Logs

Christina Bellantoni | December 30, 2009, 6:36PM

Today the Obama administration released a monster document with more than 25,000 names of people who visited the White House - the first time any executive branch has given a full accounting of who is there and when.

It's the very first batch since the White House fully implemented its new transparency push, and covers from Sept. 16 through Sept. 30. There also was a limited release of people who came to the White House earlier in the year as requested by news organizations and open government groups.

(More details on that here.)

Some names pop out right away, while others are more obscure or were reported earlier this year when we wrote up the limited releases.

TPM could use your help scanning the visitors logs.

You can view the spreadsheet here at WhiteHouse.gov on the bottom of the page, but it is in a fairly unwieldy format. It's probably easiest to download as a CSV file and then import into a spreadsheet program for easy sorting.

If names jump out at you, please let us know. Pop the person's full name, date they visited and who they met with into the comments section below. You can also email us here, but please put Visitors Logs in the subject line.

Bloomberg has a good write up here and the Examiner details the lobbyists who were there.

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Visitors Logs

White House Releases Name Of Every Visitor For First Time Ever

Christina Bellantoni | December 30, 2009, 3:34PM

Fulfilling one of the transparency goals of President Obama's administration, the White House today released more than 25,000 records of visitors who came through the gates at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue this year.

Check out the names here, and TPMDC will update readers as we go through the names.

The spreadsheet posted at WhiteHouse.gov offers the visitor's full name, date of visit, who they met with and in what room. These records cover from Sept. 16 to Sept. 30, and the monthly visitors logs will be a regular release going forward.

There also are records of visitors who met with Vice President Joe Biden and his staff, but the system that collects the names is not in place yet for the vice president's residence at the Naval Observatory.

Vice President Joe Biden office released for the first time the names of visitors who have come to his residence at the Naval Observatory for official events. The office also is working with Secret Service to get the automated system that collects names of visitors in place at the residence.

Those records are marked with VPR on the data sheet.

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White House

White House: Look! We're Changing Washington!

Christina Bellantoni | December 4, 2009, 10:46AM

White House

The White House is pleased with a new Congressional Research Service report showing that since taking office in January, President Obama has made "historic" change to how lobbyists interact with the executive branch.

Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, blogged today at WhiteHouse.gov a long item boasting about the report's findings.

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White House

White House Releases Names Of Some Visitors From Last Nine Months

Christina Bellantoni | October 30, 2009, 4:48PM

White House

Who has bent President Obama's ear? Or huddled with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel?

The White House just posted nearly 500 records. Check it out here, and TPMDC will update readers as we go through the names.

Norm Eisen, special counsel to Obama on ethics, detailed the release in a blog post and said the 110 requests cover from January 20, 2009 to July 31, 2009.

Eisen writes:

There's an important lesson here as well. This unprecedented level of transparency can sometimes be confusing rather than providing clear information.

A lot of people visit the White House, up to 100,000 each month, with many of those folks coming to tour the buildings. Given this large amount of data, the records we are publishing today include a few "false positives" - names that make you think of a well-known person, but are actually someone else. In September, requests were submitted for the names of some famous or controversial figures (for example Michael Jordan, William Ayers, Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright, Robert Kelly ("R. Kelly"), and Malik Shabazz). The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House. Nevertheless, we were asked for those names and so we have included records for those individuals who were here and share the same names.

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