Cassidy, Speier Introduce Bill To Strengthen Online Earmark Disclosure

WASHINGTON - Today, Congressman Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA) introduced a bill to improve transparency and accountability in the earmarking process by changing House Rules to strengthen and standardize online earmark disclosures.

"Transparency, accountability, and oversight are the keys to cutting waste, fraud, and abuse in government," said Cassidy. "By strengthening online earmark disclosures, this bill will give taxpayers, the press, and Congressional watchdogs the tools they need to hold Congress accountable. I want to thank the Sunlight Foundation and Taxpayers for Common Sense for working with us to develop this proposal and for their tireless work on behalf of the American taxpayer."

"Earmark reform is neither a Republican nor Democratic issue - it is a necessity," said Speier. "While there is no shortage of important issues that members from different regions and points of view may differ on, we should at least agree that every dime of taxpayer money must be fully and openly accounted for. I am happy to be working with Mr. Cassidy and colleagues from both parties to bring common-sense reforms to the appropriations process in the United States Congress."

"If enacted, the Cassidy-Speier bill will create effective, online disclosure of earmarks in real time, with substantive detail, said Sunlight Foundation Policy Director John Wonderlich. "This bill brings this element of Congressional activity into the 21st Century, where transparency requires all public information to be posted online. This simple requirement will help to establish more trust and accountability between citizen and lawmakers."

"We applaud Representatives Cassidy and Speier for taking the transparency bull by the horns and proposing to change the House rules to make earmark requests more transparent and accountable," said Ms. Ryan Alexander, President of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "This common sense rule change is the logical next step to ensure taxpayers across the country can see where their lawmakers want to spend tax dollars."

This year, the House Appropriations Committee implemented new guidelines asking Members to disclose earmark requests on their websites. However, The Hill newspaper reported that more than 70 Members failed to comply with the new disclosure guidelines, and many who did comply were guilty of "using vague language to describe their earmark requests, burying their request links deep within their webpages and/or sprinkling each of their requests among a host of legislative issue pages."

The Cassidy-Speier bill will amend House Rules to solve these problems by:

1. Requiring Members to disclose their earmark requests on their websites and include a homepage link to their disclosures using the word "earmark;"
2. Requiring that Members maintain the disclosure link on their homepages for at least 30 days and requiring that disclosure pages remain online for the remainder of the Congressional Session;
3. Requiring any Committee accepting earmark requests to maintain a searchable online database of Members' earmark requests;
4. Prohibit consideration of legislation containing earmarks that does not satisfy the above requirements.

Under current House Rules, only earmarks that are actually included in Appropriations bills once they reach the House floor are disclosed to the public. Because it is common for House leadership to bring bills to the floor only hours after their text is released, there is often insufficient time to appropriately vet every earmark.

The Cassidy-Speier proposal will strengthen House Rules by putting every earmark request online at the time it is made, giving taxpayers, the press, and Congressional watchdogs abundant time to scrutinize each request - before Members are called to vote on them.