The U.S. House and Senate approve the spending of taxpayers’ money, but how well do members of Congress manage their own offices? How do House and Senate committees, and leadership spend money as part of their legislative jobs? In the past such information has been a bit difficult to find unless you travel to Washington, DC.
Today, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that information about how House members manage their office expenditures will soon be disclosed online and free to the public. Exactly how soon this information will be online is not clear. This announcement only applies to the U.S. House, and the U.S. Senate has not made a similar announcement.
Pelosi’s Letter
Pelosi’s letter to the Chief Administrative Officer of the House ordering the change as soon as possible gave some context for the change:
For well over 100 years the United States House of Representatives has compiled and published, on a quarterly basis, a public Statement of Disbursements documenting the expenditures of each Congressional, Committee, Leadership, and administrative office. This publication provides an accurate accounting of the manner in which the House and its Members and officers spend all of the funds appropriated for the conduct of official business.
In the past, this publication has been made available in the Legislative Resource Center or by purchase from the United States Government Printing Office. However, this means for publishing material does not allow all interested parties to review the information contained in the reports. Consistent with my goal to increase transparency and ensure greater accountability to the public, please take all steps necessary to ensure that the quarterly Statement of Disbursements be made available online free of charge to the public and on a suitable House website.
Recent report of waste by members of Congress
Why might we want to look at how members of Congress spend taxpayer dollars? A Wall Street Journal article from last week explained some of the waste by some members of the House.
WASHINGTON — Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings spent $24,730 in taxpayer money last year to lease a 2008 luxury Lexus hybrid sedan. Ohio Rep. Michael Turner expensed a $1,435 digital camera. Eni Faleomavaega, the House delegate from American Samoa, bought two 46-inch Sony TVs.
There’s likely more waste to be found.
Statement of Disbursements
The “Statement of Disbursements of the House” is a huge, three-volume, bounded set published every quarter by the U.S. Government Printing Office, which gives details about expenditures by members of Congress. Pelosi’s order today will put this information online, but it’s not at all clear how usable the information will be.
Putting the many tables of the “Statement of Disbursements” in a format allowing computations on the numbers, like an Excel spreadsheet, would be the most desirable format. Call me a cynic, but my bet is scanned documents, perhaps in PDF format, is all that will be provided to hinder analysis of the numbers. Government often provides “transparency” but often does not make analysis of that information easy.
Where can you see a “Statement of Disbursements of the House” now? If you can travel to Washington, DC the bookcase to the right as you enter the Legislative Resource Center has these statements for the past few years, as shown in the picture below:
Legislative Resource Center, Cannon House Office Building
I took the above picture from the rotunda outside the LRC in the basement of the Cannon House Office Building. A security officer told me I could take pictures in the hallways of the building, but the members of the LRC refused to give me permission to take pictures of anything after I entered.
One picture I wanted to take was a complete three-volume set of the most recent Statement of Disbursements. Sorry, that picture cannot be taken at the LRC per the rule of the Clerk of the House.
[I had planned to create a video of what information was available at the LRC, and especially the information that could be viewed on the public access computer terminals there, but that request was denied on two separate visits.]
While you can’t take pictures inside the LRC, you can make copies of documents there for $0.10/page — this is “cheap”, the Secretary of the Senate charges $0.20/page!
If you can’t travel to DC, you could search for a U.S. Government Printing Office Depository Library near you. In Kansas, the University of Kansas Anschutz Library is a “Regional depository library” and has these volumes according the KU Library Catalog. KU has the set for the last quarter of 2008, but not yet the first quarter of 2009, which likely has not yet been printed. I haven’t had time to visit the Anschutz Library to use that resource, but plan to do so.
The huge Statement of Disbursements of the House has a wealth of information. Two examples are briefly discussed below:
Members’ Representational Allowance
The Statement of Disbursements gives an overview of the formula used to compute “Members’ Representational Allowance” (MRA) — the budget for their office. One part of the formula includes the distance of the farthest point of a member’s district to Washington, DC according to the Rand McNally Standard Highway Mileage Guide — plus 10%.
The 2008 MRA for those representing Kansas was as follows:
- KS01, Jerry Moran, $1,368,873
- KS02, Nancy Boyda, $1,365,086 [note: Lynn Jenkins in now representing KS02]
- KS03, Dennis Moore, $1,388,635
- KS04, Todd Tiahrt, $1,374,607
Franking
The LRC provides files on all approved franked materials, but the paperwork for approval does not include cost figures. I recently reviewed the franking files for all Kansas members of Congress for the last three years.
Cost is the easiest way to compare franking by different members of Congress since the requests and approvals don’t indicate that information. The number of requests is not meaningful.
The Statement of Disbursements shows a table “Member of Congress Mass Mail Information, Oct 1, 2008 – Jan 2, 2009.” Boyda, Moore and Moran showed no franking expenditures during this last quarter of 2008. Congressman Todd Tiahrt spent $510 on 1239 mass mail pieces.
Future Transparency
The Sunlight Foundation’s blog today saw Speaker Peolsi’s action in positive light:
Speaker Pelosi’s move should be interpreted as a recognition that public information – even potentially embarrassing information about how Members spend public funds – should be truly accessible to the general public, which means online.
What about the U.S. Senate? The Wall Street Journal reports:
On the Senate side, Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office said it was studying whether senators’ expense records should also be available online.
See the Sunshine Review for a wealth of information about public records and freedom of information requests.
Related:
- Pelosi Orders Online Access to House Expense Reports, Wall Street Journal, June 3, 2009.
- Speaker Pelosi Announces New Expense Disclosure Policy, Sunlight Foundation, June 3, 2009.
- Speaker Pelosi Directs Statement of Disbursements Be Posted Online, Speaker Pelosi’s blog, The Gavel, June 3, 2009.
- Lawmakers Keep Expenses Off-line, Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2009.
- Lawmakers Bill Taxpayers For TVs, Cameras, Lexus, Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2009.
- Financial Disclosure Statements Filed by Members of U.S. House, Kansas Meadowlark, May 17, 2009.
- Open Records at the Legislative Resource Center in DC, Kansas Meadowlark, May 11, 2009.
- Clerk of U.S. House hides franking records from average citizens, Kansas Meadowlark, Aug. 15, 2008.
Tags: Legislative Resource Center, Members' Representational Allowance, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Statement of Disbursements of the House, U.S. Congress, U.S. House
