Boehner Weekly Column: "An Open and Transparent House"

Via email:

Elvis Presley sang, “A little less conversation, a little more action, please,” and I think those are just the right words to explain how Congress has dragged its feet becoming more open and transparent. We’ve made great strides in the past decade but there’s a lot more we can do.

I recently participated in a bipartisan event organized by the Sunlight Foundation and the Heritage Foundation to unveil a report entitled “The Open House Project.” The report, as its name implies, provides suggestions for ways to use technology to open the U.S. House to more transparency and accountability. With a multitude of tools available through the internet, we should make a concerted effort to make Congressional information more easily accessible and more readily available.

When I arrived in Congress in 1990, I formed what became known as The Gang of Seven with six of my freshmen colleagues. We forced disclosure of the names of Members who bounced checks at the House bank and pushed for other reforms that would bring “sunlight” to Congress. Four years later, I became one of the main advocates of the reforms in the Contract with America that forced Congress to operate under the same laws as the rest of the country, and the reforms that ended “proxy voting” in voting that made it look as through were showing up for work when they actually weren’t.

I was also a chief advocate of requiring Congress to undergo a private audit of its books, and it was a proud moment in 1999 when former Speaker Dennis Hastert and I announced the first-ever “clean” audit of Congress. As a small business owner, I well understand the need for accountability.

We spend money. We spend your money. We should be accountable for how we spend your money. Unfortunately and despite grandiose talk to open Congress, the new Democratic leadership in Congress is moving in a different direction. Consider this: In 1994, there were 4,000 earmarks for specific projects requested by lawmakers; by 2005, there were 13,500 earmarks adding $19 billion in federal spending.

This year there are reportedly in excess of 30,000 requests for earmarks. And instead of making sure all of these requests are publicly and openly debated before taxpayer money is provided for them, some Congressional leaders have chosen to do-away with transparency. They’ve set up a process that will keep these requests secret until it is too late to stop them from being enacted, and set up a secret slush fund that will pay for them once they’ve reached that point. It doesn’t strike me as the best way to conduct an open House.

Among the early steps taken to make Congress more open and transparent was the creation in 1995 of the online database THOMAS (named for Thomas Jefferson) to provide people with, among other information, the text of bills and resolutions, the Congressional Record and treaties. I was proud to be part of the group from the 104th Congress that got this up and running to make what we do more accessible to you.

There are some simple ways in which we can make House proceedings more open and accessible:

Enhance and make THOMAS more user-friendly;

Shine a light on committees by posting hearing transcripts, making written testimony available either before the hearing or immediately following, live-stream hearings online;

Incorporate into THOMAS or the U.S. House general website an easy-to-find calendar of committee hearings and Floor action that is continuously updated;

Publish information as an RSS feed;

And real-time electronic release of voting records.

One of the most effective steps we can take toward a more open and transparent House would be to ensure any and all taxpayer-funded earmarks can be challenged and publicly debated on the Floor. For decades, Congress (conveniently) did not allow this. Last year, I supported comprehensive earmark reforms that guaranteed this right. But it was with profound disappointment that I watched the new majority in Congress repeal these reforms. In the weeks ahead, Republicans will use every available means to ensure these reforms are restored on behalf of American taxpayers.

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Boehner represents Ohio ’s 8th District, which includes all of Darke, Miami and Preble counties, most of Butler and Mercer counties, and the northeastern corner of Montgomery County . He was first elected to Congress in 1990.

Anything that can be done to make THOMAS more user-friendly would be a vast improvement...