A recent Meadowlark article showed how to find the Legislative Resource Center in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, DC.
One of the pieces of information available from the LRC about each member of the U.S. House is a Financial Disclosure Report. One can search for the 2008 Financial Disclosure Reports online for any member of Congress in 2008.
One way to find these reports is to select “Kansas” as the state and then specify the district as a two digit number, which is not at all obvious from the online web page: 01, 02, 03, 04.
The searches of all four Kansas Congressional Districts show these online reports now:
- Kansas 01: Jerry Moran
- Kansas 02: Nancy Boyda
- Kansas 03: Dennis Moore
- Kansas 04: Todd Tiahrt
Updated 2009 Financial Disclosure Statements were due on Friday, May 15, 2009 at the Clerk of the U.S. House. A member of the LRC staff informed me recently that these new reports should be online by mid-June.
BUT, if one visits the LRC and does a similar search using their public access terminals, one can get a lot more information, including disclosure statements by some members of the congressional staffs, and candidates for congress. On May 6th, the internal system at the LRC showed these entries for Kansas for financial disclosure statements:
KS01
- Barker, Timothy Clark
- Bordonaro, James
- Moran, Jerry
- Murphy, Travis J
- Novascone, Todd
- Wasinger, Robert Kirk
KS02
- Boyda, Nance E
- Jenkins, Lynn
- Ryun, James R
- Ryun, Jim
KS03
- Balam, Joel
- Jordan, Nicholas M
- Moore, Dennis
- Scherer, Thomas E
- Schowen, Paul Vincent
KS04
- Betts, Donald
- Tiahrt, Todd
A search of the Internet system for “Jenkins” in Kansas returns nothing right now. While Lynn Jenkins is now the Congresswoman in KS02, her report only shows up online at the LRC and not on the Internet and available to the public. Perhaps by mid-June when the system is updated with the 2009 reports, Congresswoman Jenkins’ report will be online in addition to the report filed by former Congresswoman Nancy Boyda.
On May 6 I was told all the reports I could see at the LRC were also online and visible to the public on the Internet — but does not appear to be true. I hope to re-ask that question at the LRC in the near future and get clarification.
Because I was told incorrectly that I could download all the above reports from home for free over the Internet, I did not download all of them at the LRC. I downloaded only the report for Rob Wasinger and hoped to get the rest from home in Kansas. There is a $0.10/page fee to make copies at the LRC, and Wasinger’s report was four pages long.
Rob Wasinger has filed to run for Congress in the 1st District in Kansas. One item on his 2008 report that may generate questions in Kansas is the $92,000 he reported earning from The Magellan Group LLC in Hays, KS for “salary” in 2008. This was after he reported a salary of $89,806 for being on the staff of Senator Brownback for part of last year, and $23,652 for working for Brownback for President. Why does this position at Magellan Group LLC in Hays pay so well?
I hope to get the other Kansas reports in the near future, but I’m not sure if I will have the resources to obtain the 2009 disclosure statements if they are only online at the LRC starting in mid-June.
At the public terminals at the LRC one is required to fill in information identifying the person making the request. So, it’s possible at the LRC to search for a list of the Financial Disclosure Statements I requested on my last visit. I would like to study this information more to see how often the press has researched information about those in Congress representing us.
In the near future I hope to find out where similar information about U.S. Senators can be found, wihich is likely the Senate Printing and Document Services in the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, DC.
Franking records at the LRC will be discussed int he next article.
Related:
- The Legislative Resource Center (LRC) Offices & Services
- Open Records at the Legislative Resource Center in DC, Kansas Meadowlark, May 11, 2009.
Tags: Clerk of House, Congress, Freedom of Information (FOIA), open records, U.S. House Legislative Resource Center
