Tonight’s State of the Union Address raised even less transparency issues than we expected. (See the text at the end of this post.)

President Obama called for a ban on insider trading in Congress, and proposes to ban lobbyists from bundling contributions, and to ban bundlers from lobbying.

The insider trading ban is a proposal Sunlight has supported, in the form of the STOCK Act, despite some initial misgivings. Congress should create clarity about self-dealing and insider trading, and the President is right to call on Congress to address this issue.

When Obama raised the issue of money in politics in his speech, though, he raises the “corrosive influence of money in politics.” As wrong as insider trading may be, money in politics isn’t about self-dealing. Obama is closer to hitting the mark in raising the issue of bundlers, but unfortunately raises a proposal that’s unlikely to get discussed beyond tomorrow. A ban on lobbying or contributing to campaigns is unlikely to pass Congress, and unlikely to pass muster with the courts.  Even if it did, it would do little to mitigate the “corrosive influence of money in politics”, since bundlers are often just the bag men operating at others’ behest. If you’re not getting the Chris Dodds of the world, your lobbying reform plan is probably aiming a little too low.

It’s not clear why Obama is suddenly more interested in bundlers than say, lobbying disclosure (last year’s lobbying SOTU provision), although it’s possible that Obama is raising it because it will become a campaign issue, as Republican candidates have yet to release information about bundlers supporting them, as Obama has.

But this is still disappointing, since it again shows Obama relying on a flawed statutory definition of lobbyist in order to appear opposed to special interests, without actually having to do much.

Worse, though, than the lackluster vision for lobbying reform, is what’s entirely missing from the State of the Union: any mention of the flood of dark money flowing into our elections. As I noted earlier today, Obama spent most of 2010 railing against the Citizens United decision — warning us of the dangers of unlimited and secret contributions, and pushing for a legislative fix.

Since Republicans have blocked that effort, and former White House staffers started a super PAC to help Obama’s re-election bid, Obama has almost completely ignored the issue. It’s apparently too politically awkward to address when he’s the beneficiary of all that dark money he spent 2010 warning us about.

It’s good to have a President willing to raise transparency and money in politics in the State of the Union. But when insider trading and an ill-fated lunge at bundlers are all the vision he has to offer, we have to wonder whether Obama sees his old transparency platform as a political liability, rather than a vision to be perfected and implemented.

Speech Excerpt:

Some of this has to do with the corrosive influence of money in politics.  So together, let’s take some steps to fix that.  Send me a bill that bans insider trading by Members of Congress, and I will sign it tomorrow.  Let’s limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact.  Let’s make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can’t lobby Congress, and vice versa – an idea that has bipartisan support, at least outside of Washington.

Some of what’s broken has to do with the way Congress does its business these days.  A simple majority is no longer enough to get anything – even routine business – passed through the Senate.  Neither party has been blameless in these tactics.  Now both parties should put an end to it.  For starters, I ask the Senate to pass a rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days.

Tonight, President Obama will deliver his fourth State of the Union address, and we’ll be watching to see how his reform and transparency ambitions fit within this most public description of the President’s priorities. In an election year when an anti-Washington campaign theme will still be required, Obama may continue to cast his transparency work as a list of achievements, rather than an affirmative vision for accountable government.

Here are some themes from Obama’s (first) campaign, his Presidency, and previous State of the Union addresses, that could be rejuvinated tonight:

Campaign Finance Transparency:

As we noted last year, Obama directly confronted the Supreme Court Justices in 2010 (shortly after the Citizens United decision), and then avoided campaign finance transparency altogether in 2011. The 2012 State of the Union could see Obama revive the issue from the bully pulpit. Almost nothing was done by Congress during 2011, a year when Congress failed at even defending a draft Executive Order that the President requiring disclosure of political giving from government contractors. The issue is still rife for Presidential engagement, though — people hate the Citizens United decision, and it should be easy to rail against negative ads and dark money in our elections.

The issue could be awkward for Obama, whose former staffers started their own super PAC to aid in his re-election. Even if Obama and his party are to be the beneficiaries of the often secret, unlimited contributions they have warned us about in the past, the President still has a responsibility to push the issue.

Lobbying Disclosure

Obama loves to rail against lobbyists, and they’ve been a staple of previous campaign rhethoric, SOTU addresses, and White House policies. Lobbying disclosure and lobbyists will likely come up again this year, especially as cashing in on public service has become a disputed theme in the Republican presidential contest. We’ll be watching to see whether Obama articulates any kind of affirmative vision for lobbying disclosure, or whether he adopts a “we already did that” posture like he did last year.

The White House has certainly done a great deal on lobbying disclosure, but their work too often relies on the flawed statutory definition of a lobbyist, which is weak, easily evaded, and fails for the most important of influencers.  An affirmative vision for reform is necessary.

Earmarks

Obama pushed for Earmark disclosure in the 2010 SOTU, and then issued a flat veto threat in 2011.  Unfortunately, neither approach has worked, and the supposed ban has made earmark requests a dark art, rather than the subject of public debate. The White House has been reportedly circulating a draft EO on earmark request disclosure, which Sunlight has pushed for extensively. Today would be a great day to issue an updated Executive Order, to protect merit in spending decisions, and keep Members of Congress from strongarming agencies into supporting their pet projects, while often pretending to be opposed to money from Washington.

Working with Congress

After the last year of Continuing Resolutions, near government shutdowns, the debt limit fight, and the supercommittee, watching the heads of divided government share a dais should be entertaining. Political gamesmanship has led the leaders of both parties to break campaign promises (72 hours for all bills, or “end[ing] the practice of writing legislation behind closed doors”).

I don’t expect Obama to raise the bar on negotiating with Congress, but he should. The frustrated-with-Washington undercurrent is about a variety of different things, and party leaders’ tendency to choose each other over the public is near the top of the list. The reset button needs to be pushed for how party leaders approach divided government. The political moment of the State of the Union probably is an insufficient occasion to force such a reconsideration.

Wild Cards

If Obama wants to discuss transparency in his SOTU, there are a variety of other issues he could address in his speech. He could run through the oft-recited litany of White House achievements, like the Open Government Directive, Data.gov, the visitor logs, the Open Government Partership, and while they each have their failings, they’re still successes the White House should highlight.

National Security secrecy, transparency in the finance sector, and the ongoing struggle to strengthen the FOIA could all come up in the speech as well.

We’ll be watching, and have reactions after the address.

In addition to an analysis of who gets paid what, the news reports highlighted the fact that the reports are now provided digitally.

These staff salary reports are valuable oversight tools, but they do not include information such as assets, gifts, or travel payment. For top level executive branch staff, that information is available in the staff personal financial disclosures, which are available upon request through an online portal created by the Obama Administration. While lower level staff do submit reports as well, these are not publicly available.

‘Back to the Source’ takes a news article that makes good use of data and investigative techniques and tries to determine whether the underlying data that made the piece possible is publicly available. If you’d like to know where the data behind a particular piece can be found, please feel free to send us an email at mbuck@sunlightfoundation.com.

Throughout the last year, we’ve repeatedly pointed out that Speaker Boehner repeatedly pledged to put all bills online for 72 hours before they’re voted on, reflecting Sunlight’s call and the ReadtheBill.org campaign.

Boehner’s pledge was unambiguous and repeated often — all non emergency bills for 72 hours.  Unfortuantely, this has become a pledge that has been broken often, most recently last week with the bills rushed through the House.

For easier reference, here are the commitments on video, edited into one shorter clip.

These commitments matter. Remember when Republicans derided Pelosi for the healthcare bill, and claimed that bills were being “rammed down” their throats? Similarly, remember when (mostly) Democrats were outraged that the PATRIOT Act wasn’t read before it was passed?

When we’re pushing for important transparency reforms, like having all bills online for 72 hours before floor consideration, the minority party is often a natural ally. Each time the majority changes hands, there’s usually a rush to reform processes, and promises to run a more accountable ship. Of course, many of these promises are kept, and we make progress.

But the toughest promises to keep are often the most important, and this Congress has a very poor track record on legislative secrecy. When the most important bills are written by a tiny number of negotiators, and then foisted on the rest of Congress at the eleventh hour, we can expect dismal approval ratings and mistrust to rule the day.

While such discord in Congress is more likely under divided government like we’ve got now, perhaps Boehner (and Obama) should revisit the visions they set for their current roles before they began — Obama on Change.gov, and Boehner in the Pledge to America.

They should remember that when they run up to the last possible second to negotiate deals between party leaders, it’s not a zero sum competition. It’s not whether Republicans or Democrats gain ground, or are seen as taking the more reasonable position. When the 72 hour expectation is flaunted, our trust in government suffers, as does our sense of merit in policymaking, and our sense of self governance.

Leaders from both parties have largely turned their backs on transparency in policymaking. Whether it’s the perceived necessity of SuperPACS, or the acceptance of the ridiculous secrecy of the SuperCommittee, neither party has found solid ground to discuss transparent process.

Let’s hope they revisit their past rhetoric, because without solid footing, we’ll just keep sliding downhill.

Having legislation that is meaningfully public isn’t a luxury, it’s a requirement. A closed Congress is an abused process. Our leaders should remind themselves of the times they’ve agreed with that sentiment.

There are almost 27,000 people—or 1/100th of one percent of the United States population—who spent more than $10,000 to influence elections during the 2010 election cycle.

The top 10 people from this elite class of donors together spent more than $23 million on the last election. The majority of that money went to Super PACs used for independent expenditures. Eight contributed their money exclusively to Republican groups and candidates; two contributed exclusively to Democratic groups and candidates.

In total, this tiny group of relatively unknown individuals was responsible for $774 million of the $3.2 billion that poured into the hotly contested mid-term elections. That money went not only to candidate campaigns and political action committees, but to Super PACs, officially known as “independent expenditure-only committees.” After the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United and the Federal Election Commission’s two advisory opinions that followed, individuals and corporations effectively have unlimited giving potential. By giving to Super PACs, they can bypass traditional giving limits.

The group that benefited most from the top 10 mega-donors largesse: American Crossroads. That Super PAC received millions of dollars from seven of the top donors, and $7 million from just one donor, Bob Perry.

Here’s a look at who’s who among America’s top 10 most influential givers:

1. Bob Perry is the CEO of Perry Homes. Perry has been influential in politics and a prominent donor for a number of years. In 2004, he gave $8 million to a number of nonprofit political groups known as 527 committees. Most notably, $4.4 million of that money went to the political group Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, which opposed Sen. John Kerry’s presidential bid. During the 2010 election cycle, Perry donated $7.3 million to political efforts. All but a small portion of his money for the 2010 election went to American Crossroads, a group cofounded by former George W. Bush strategist Karl Rove and former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie.

2. Wayne Hughes, owner and chairman of Public Storage, Inc. According to disclosures, Hughes gave a total of $3.28 million to conservative candidates and committees, with $3.25 million going to American Crossroads. Hughes also gave $4,800 to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.

3. Fred Eshelman is the CEO of Pharmaceutical Product Development. Eshelman spent $3 million in 2010 funding his own group, RightChange. RightChange registered with the FEC as a Super PAC and spent those millions of dollars to defeat Democratic candidates including Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington.

4. Robert Rowling, CEO and Chairman of TRT Holdings, a holding company that owns Golds Gyms and Omni Hotels as well as oil and gas interests. Rowling spent $2.59 million during the last election on conservative efforts. He gave $2.5 million of that money to American Crossroads.

5. Donald Sussman is the Chairman of the holding company Paloma Partners. Sussman, who earlier this year married Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, gave $1.26 million in 2010 to Democratic candidates. He also funds the newly formed group United Republic, a group whose mission is to end huge spending by special interests to influence politics. Sussman gave a little more than $750,000 to the Super PAC Women Vote! and its parent organization Emily’s List. Those two organizations support pro-choice female political candidates.

6. John Ricketts is the founder of TD Ameritrade and still a board member there. In 2010, his total political contributions were $1.25 million. He gave to a variety of Republican candidates, including House Speaker John Boehner.

7. Jerry Perenchio is the CEO of the investment firm Chartwell Partners and former owner of the Spanish-speaking television network Univision. In 2010, he gave $1.12 million to conservative candidates and groups, including $1 million to American Crossroads.

8. Trevor Rees-Jones is the president of Chief Oil & Gas. In 2010, he gave $1.1 million to Republican efforts. $1,000,000 of that was given to American Crossroads.

9. Rachel Hunter is the Treasurer for the organization Media Matters and an heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune. She’s related to Penny Pritzker who the national finance chairwoman of the Obama campaign in 2008. In 2010, Hunter gave more than $1 million to democratic groups and candidates. The bulk of that money went to the 527 organization, Bring Ohio Back.

10. John Childs is on the Board of Directors for Club for Growth and is the founder of JW Childs Assoc., a private equity firm. In 2010, he gave a total $923,000 to Super PACs supporting Republicans and to Republican candidates directly. He gave $100,000 of that money to American Crossroads and $650,000 to his own group, Club for Growth.

For a full list of the top donors for 2010, see the embedded spreadsheet below.

Also, as a disclaimer, we think it is important to note that there are funders of the Sunlight Foundation on this list. David Bonderman and Marjorie Roswell, numbers 9 and 103 list, have donated to the Sunlight Foundation. Additionally, the founder of the Open Society Foundations, George Soros, is 134th on the list. Open Society Foundations has provided grant support to Sunlight.