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Accountability and Oversight, Ethics and Influence, Modernization, First Branch Forecast, Blog posts

Forecast for July 9, 2018. Coming Up This Week: the Sixth Annual Congressional Legislative Data and Transparency Conference.

By DanielSchuman July 9, 2018 6 min read

THE TOP LINE • The Supreme Court nomination fight will dominate headlines (with a live TV announcement Monday at 9 pm) and deflate other conversations except perhaps the controversy surrounding Rep. Jim Jordan. Appropriators are expected to move another minibus and the intelligence authorization bill is teed up for passage in the House. • While […]

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Congressional Workplace Fairness and Inclusion, Ethics and Influence, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

Recs on the House’s Harassment Bill

By DanielSchuman January 26, 2018 9 min read

In early December, we shared our recommendations on how Congress should address harassment. Since then, the Committee on House Administration has published a draft reform bill — the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 Reform Act — and today we are publishing our recommendations on how that bill should be further strengthened. We expect the underlying legislation will be shortly enacted into law. Members […]

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Ethics and Influence, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

Congressional Reactions to Charlottesville: An Analysis of 327 Tweets and Statements

By DanielSchuman August 16, 2017 21 min read

On Saturday, white nationalists including neo-Nazis, the KKK, and the “alt-right” held a rally/riot in Charlottesville, VA. In the immediate aftermath, President Trump said “many sides” were to blame for the violence. Again on Tuesday, Trump drew a moral equivalency between white nationalists and those who opposed them in Charlottesville. These statements were widely interpreted by many, […]

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Ethics and Influence, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

Effort Underway to Undermine the House’s Ethics Watchdog

By DanielSchuman January 2, 2017 6 min read

Update at 12:52 pm on Tuesday: After an outpouring of phone calls, emails, tweets and an avalanche of news stories, House Republicans held a secret meeting just before noon and pulled the Goodlatte amendment, which would have eviscerated the Office of Congressional Ethics. While we have won for now, members are quoted as saying they’re going […]

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Accountability and Oversight, Ethics and Influence, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

Will Sen. McConnell Finally Close the Presidential Library Golden Parachute for Ex-Presidents (and a Future One)?

By DanielSchuman August 19, 2016 3 min read

Yesterday the Clinton Foundation announced it no longer would accept donations from corporate or foreign entities should Hillary Clinton be elected president, responding to criticism for “potentially allowing donors to seek special access through [Clinton’s] government post.” Unremarked upon is the danger of having a foundation linked to a president accepting any donations during his or her term of […]

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Ethics and Influence, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

Tracking Lobbying by Foreign Governments

By DanielSchuman August 2, 2016 7 min read

In the next few months, the Justice Department’s Inspector General will release a report on lobbying by foreign powers aimed at the federal government. Unlikely lobbying by American citizens and companies, tracked by the House of Representatives and Senate, lobbying by agents of foreign powers is monitored by the Department of Justice. The law requiring reporting by foreign lobbyists — known […]

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Ethics and Influence, Rules, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

House Beats Back Effort to Weaken Office of Congressional Ethics, But It Was Ugly

By DanielSchuman June 11, 2016 5 min read

On Friday rank-and-file members of the House of Representatives beat back a last-minute amendment by Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM) to reduce proposed funding for the Office of Congressional Ethics by nearly 9 percent. In the end 137 representatives voted in favor of the cut and 270 opposed, with Republicans more-or-less evenly split and nearly all Democrats opposed. […]

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Accountability and Oversight, Ethics and Influence, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

House to Address Spending Improprieties and Improve Reporting

By DanielSchuman October 20, 2015 2 min read

Tomorrow, the Committee on House Administration will hold a markup on a resolution that governs member spending. As Politico explains, the “sweeping changes” to how Members of Congress spend money was prompted by stories on former Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL), who reportedly misspent public money redecorating his office, filing inappropriate requests for travel reimbursements, and other misdeeds. Shock is under federal […]

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Ethics and Influence, Blog posts, Reports & Analysis

Presidential Libraries: The Billion Dollar Cash Grab

By DanielSchuman September 15, 2015 3 min read

President Obama intends to raise at least $800 million from private donors — with hopes for $1 billion — for his presidential library, which will include a library, museum, office space, activity space, and probably a gift shop, too. It will be twice as costly as the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, with fundraising efforts almost entirely untouched by […]

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