A coalition of watchdog groups, along with Taxpayers for Common Sense, sent a letter to the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, or the “Super Committee” urging members to voluntarily disclose campaign contributions and lobbying meetings. Read the letter below.
September 15, 2011
The Honorable Patty Murray
The Honorable Jeb Hensarling
The Honorable Max Baucus
The Honorable John Kerry
The Honorable Jon Kyl
The Honorable Rob Portman
The Honorable Patrick Toomey
The Honorable Xavier Becerra
The Honorable Dave Camp
The Honorable James Clyburn
The Honorable Fred Upton
The Honorable Chris Van Hollen
Dear Senator Murray, Representative Hensarling and Members of the Committee on
Deficit Reduction:
The undersigned are writing to urge you to immediately take steps to voluntarily
disclose the efforts of outside interests to lobby you on matters related to the
Committee on Deficit Reduction. Likewise, we urge you to also disclose the
campaign contributions you receive between now and the time the Committee
submits its final recommendations to Congress. Failure to ensure transparency of
these fundamental avenues of influence will reinforce the public’s mistrust of the
process and risks delegitimizing the Committee’s work.
Your critical work on this Committee has begun, and yet the public remains in the
dark about special interests’ attempts to influence your decision‐making process,
whether by meeting with you or donating to your campaigns. Efforts to make the
work of the Committee transparent by posting information on the Committee’s new
website are laudable, as are decisions to forego attending fundraisers during this
time period. Unfortunately, neither shines a light on who may be lobbying or
continuing to contribute to your campaigns. Because neither lobbying disclosure
reports nor campaign finance reports are required to be made public until January,
the public will not have access to the critical information contained in those reports
until long after the Deficit Committee has completed its work.
Disclosing meetings from registered lobbyists and other special interests seeking
assistance has precedent. The Obama administration required executive branch
officials to disclose meetings on the implementation of the Troubled Asset Relief
Program, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Wall Street Reform
and Consumer Protection Act. Disclosure of efforts to lobby Members of Congress
sitting on the Deficit Committee is at least as critical.
Likewise, Congress has recognized that the public has a right to know who has given
to a candidate’s campaign prior to going to the polls, and thus mandated 48‐hour
reporting of campaign contributions for contributions given within 20 days of an
election. Such reporting is standard practice for all campaigns. Similarly, the public
is keenly interested in the contributions received by members of the Deficit
Reduction Committee and should be informed of those contributions prior to the
Committee’s final recommendations.
The Committee on Deficit Reduction has unprecedented power to shape future
spending in the United States, affecting all Americans. Members of the Committee
should, therefore, take unprecedented steps to ensure that outside efforts to
influence to the committee should be transparent.
Sincerely,
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
Center for Responsive Politics
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Common Cause
Fix Congress First
The League of Women Voters of the United States
MapLight
OMB Watch
OpentheGovernment.org
Project On Government Oversight
Public Citizen
The Sunlight Foundation
Taxpayers for Common Sense
U.S. Public Interest Research Group
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