- Email: [email protected]
Opensecrets.org: The Online Source for Money in Politics Data
254
Reviews / Journal of Government Information 27 (2000) 243–281
censuses are remarkable, complex, and necessarily flawed achievements of governments. The authors start by reviewing the essential features of a census. The concept of a “census moment” is introduced—that snapshot day (April 1 in the United States) which will remain carefully studied for years. What Americans have come to think of the “big Census issues”— privacy, confidentiality, acceptance/validity of results—are also explored. Challenges are noted for enumerators who attempt to determine relationships within households, describe housing structures, or count total number of children (while considering such issues as varying definitions of foster or adopted children, children living apart from one or both parents, and how to count fetal and childhood deaths). There are cultures in which some census questions are considered inappropriate and this mandates a certain creativity in design and implementation. These recommendations will, in all likelihood, be followed faithfully by many countries, as prior editions have been. Although the Recommendations refer to the Internet, CD-ROM, videotext, and bulletin board services (BBS), there are no detailed technical guidelines for creating a digitized data product. This is one of the only weak points of this source, which can be recommended for all medium to large academic and public libraries as well as any special libraries dealing with demographic data. Cassandra Hartnett University of Washington Libraries Seattle, WA 98295-2900, USA PII: S1352-0237(00)00141-6
Opensecrets.org: The Online Source for Money in Politics Data Washington, DC: Center for Responsive Politics, 1999. ⬍http://www.opensecrets.org/home/ index.asp⬎. Visited May 1999. The influence of money on public policy formulation, and, in particular, the role it plays in the elections and actions of Congress, are the major interest of “Open Secrets,” the web site of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). The Center was founded in 1983 and describes itself as “a non-profit, non-partisan research organization.” It has published a series of books, also entitled “Open Secrets,” with the same content as its web site: profiles of politicians, PACs, congressional committees, and industries with statistical detail on who gives how much to whom. The full title of the main web page is “Open Secrets: The Online Source for Money in Politics Data.” The organization’s name is displayed in a small, white moon, which appears to be rising in a red sky over the capitol dome. The page offers three main selections: “Race for President,” which looks forward to the 2000 presidential election; “Politician Profiles,” which looks back at the previous election cycle; and “Online Survey,” an attempt to collect information about who uses the site and what they think about it. The third selection is open to change. When last visited during the review period, it had changed to “Capital Eye Newsletter,” a link to CRP’s newsletter. Fourteen other selections, located on three bars at the bottom of the page, offer access to information on PACs, donors, soft money, congressional
Reviews / Journal of Government Information 27 (2000) 243–281
255
committees, lobbyists and other topics. Below the selection bars is a subtitle identifying “Open Secrets” as the web site of the Center for Responsive Politics, contact information with phone numbers and e-mail links, and a copyright notice. A close look at the “Race for President” section reveals the density of detail offered by this site. A user first discovers a summary page with a table featuring 11 announced and unannounced presidential candidates, including the likely—Al Gore, George W. Bush, Elizabeth Dole—and the not so likely—Lamar Alexander, Pat Buchanan, Robert Smith. The table shows the total dollars raised, the total spent, and the cash on hand for each candidate, as reported to the Federal Election Commission through the latest quarterly reports. By clicking on a candidate’s name, the user jumps to the summary page for that candidate. Besides a picture and a biographical sketch, the page also offers the dollar amount and percentage of total funds raised broken into five contribution categories: small individual, large individual ($200 or more), PAC, candidate self-financing, and other. An accompanying pie chart graphs the percentages in a visually striking manner. A second pie chart and table identifies the “quality of disclosure” by the candidate (dollar totals and percentages) in three categories: full disclosure, incomplete disclosure, and no disclosure. To the left of the page, a frame offers links to more details about the candidate’s fund raising: contributions by geography (top states, metro areas, and zip codes), by sector (charts and tables showing donations from 12 economic/ideological interest areas such as Agriculture, Communications/Electronics, LawyersLobbyists, etc.), by top industries (industries that sponsor PACs and/or employ large individual contributors), by top contributors (specific firms that sponsor PACs and/or employ large individual contributors—a great way to spot major sources of “bundled” contributions), by donor lookup (a searchable database of individual donors, which can also be reached directly from the initial “Race for President” page by clicking on the “Amount Raised” link for any candidate), and finally by something called “Other Data.” For Albert Gore, the other data includes details of the Clinton/Gore 1996 campaign money, Gore’s 1990 Senate race, and a Presidential Financial Summary 1988–1996, which covers the controversial White House Coffees, Sleepovers and the Gore telephone solicitations. At any point, a user can switch from a page of Gore financial minutiae to the comparable page for any other candidate by clicking on that candidate’s name on the frame. The notes and explanatory links offer a quick course in federal election law. From these pages one can learn that federal law requires that all contributions of more than $200 be itemized by donor’s name, address, occupation, and employer, and that in the 1996 congressional election such disclosure was not made for about 10 percent of all contributions. CRP considers such details crucial for determining which economic interests support which candidates. The 2000 presidential election race may be no more forthcoming: data through the April 1999 reports showed full disclosure of 81 percent of Gore contributions and no disclosure for 17 percent. The figures for Bush were 73 percent and 26 percent. The same density of data can be found in the “Politician Profiles” section of the site. The user can select a politician by typing in the name, by calling up an alphabetical list of all members of the House and Senate, by choosing a state, or by filling in a zip code. Once again the site offers contribution details by geography, sector, industry, and contributors. In addition, an “Election” link offers information on the incumbent’s last electoral contest, the identity of his opponent(s), and data that show the dollars raised, the dollars spent, and the per-
256
Reviews / Journal of Government Information 27 (2000) 243–281
centage of the vote received. The Politician section also provides facsimile copies of the financial disclosure forms filed by members with the House and Senate. In addition to the presidential and congressional databases, the CRP site has a variety of other treasures under the “Databases” section. Among the more interesting to this reviewer were the Lobbyist database, the PAC database, the Congressional Travel database, and President Clinton’s Legal Defense Trust. The PAC database offers total spending and Democratic/Republican percent shares as well as individual PAC listings under 12 major categories and 88 sub-categories. The Lobbyist database offers an industry-by-industry breakdown of spending, which can be pursued page by page from the broadest category, such as “Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate,” to sub-categories, such as “Commercial Banks,” to corporate entities such as “Citicorp,” the largest spending commercial bank at $4,023,000 for January–June 1998. The researcher can also explore which organizations hired which lobbying firms for how much and which individual lobbyists were used. Special features add even more value to the site. “Monday Morning Alert” offers a weekly review of a major legislative issue, such as proposals to expand Medicare to include prescription drug coverage for the elderly. After an explanation of the issue and a description of the special interests that are for and against it, the alert concludes with data on campaign finance contributions by major industry or ideological players to Republicans and Democrats in general and to the top 10 Senate and House recipients. “Congressional Committee Profiles” describes House and Senate Committee and Subcommittee jurisdictions, reviews current issues before the committees, and offers statistical reports on patterns of contributions to committee members from committee-related industries and the top contributing companies. Finally, under “Publications,” can be found an intriguing feature called the “Do It Yourself Congressional Investigation Kit.” Here, self-appointed independent counsels can select from 16 big issues (Health Care, Gun Control, Phone Rates, etc.); then scrutinize evidence gathered into three sections: “The Issues” (descriptions of the competing forces behind the issue), “The Money” (data on the dollars spent to influence the outcome), “The Votes” (colored bar graphs showing Yes/No votes by the size of donations received); and finally decide whether to indict the system. The arrangement of information is one of the major strengths of the CRP site. Data can usually be accessed from multiple points and comparisons are facilitated by clever use of frames for listing alternative candidate and data categories. In the interest of full disclosure, the site also lists its contributors, the five foundations that provided grants, with the size and duration of each grant. The figures found on the site are authoritative. “Open Secrets” draws most of the data from the Federal Election Commission, but data on travel and personal financial statements of Senators and Representatives comes from official congressional sources. The site is remarkably current, containing data from the most recent quarterly reporting deadlines of the FEC. Within three days of the dramatic May 1999 Senate votes first rejecting, then imposing background check requirements on gun sales at gun shows, the CRP site posted a special report on how each Senator voted and the total contributions received by each from gun rights groups. A few glitches interfered with information retrieval on the site. The links and search forms occasionally proved troublesome. Clicking on the “Lobbyist” database link on the “Databases” page resulted in a “404” broken link, but the “Lobbyist” link on the menu bar at the top of the
Reviews / Journal of Government Information 27 (2000) 243–281
257
page functioned properly. To find data on the National Rifle Association on the “PAC” database search form, the user could enter “rifle” or “National Rifle Assn” Entering the full name or the NRA acronym did not work. Here the multiple avenues of approach saved the day. When specific names fail, it is possible to start with broad categories and drill down to specific entities. The site is also vulnerable to criticism for its claims of objectivity. While the tracking of contributions covers the gamut of liberal and conservative organizations—gun control and gun rights expenditures, for example—the site is more than an indefatigable recorder and categorizer of campaign finance data. The presentation of information is shaped by the thesis that money distorts the legislative process. The juxtaposing of spending data with voting data is meant to suggest that money causes legislators to vote the interests of those who contribute rather than those who elect. Hence, special interests prevail over the public interest. Those who regard campaign contribution restrictions as an infringement on free speech would disagree with this thesis. Everyone wants a responsive politics. What cannot be agreed on is to whom it should be most responsive. Other web sites offer similar information on federal candidates and financial contributions. The Federal Election Commission site ⬍http://www.fec.gov/⬎, and the FEC Info site ⬍http://www.tray.com/fecinfo/⬎ both offer summarized and itemized donation data, but are more difficult to use and do not offer the means for quick comparisons between candidates. FEC Info, a site launched by a former employee of the FEC, does enable the user to jump from any particular contribution to an image of the disclosure form filed with the FEC. The major contribution of CRP’s “Open Secrets” site is the wealth (excuse the term) of detailed data organized in such a clear, useable manner. Hours of meticulous coding of contributions into categories lie behind this site. But does this work succeed in documenting what economic interests are shaping American policy? Can a voter armed with such knowledge make a more informed decision at the polls? If George W. Bush and Albert Gore are the Republican and Democratic candidates in 2000, the voter informed by this site may have a problem. The top four contributing industries to the Gore campaign as of May 1999 were (1) Lawyers/Law Firms, (2) Retired, (3) Real Estate, and (4) Securities/Investment. The top four for Bush were (1) Lawyers/Law Firms, (2) Retired, (3) Securities/Investment, and (4) Real Estate. Alan Zoellner Swem Library College of William and Mary Williamsburg, VA 23187, USA PII: S1352-0237(00)00142-8
Majority Rule or Minority Will: Adherence to Precedent on the U.S. Supreme Court Harold J. Spaeth and Jeffrey A. Segal; Cambridge University Press, New York, 1999, 359 pages, hardbound, ISBN 052162424X, LCCN 98-35793, $59.95 Stare decisis Lat. To abide by, or adhere to, decided cases1. Stare decisis, a concept that is historically the basis for judicial decision making in English Law, is at the heart of what Spaeth and Segal
Reviews / Journal of Government Information 27 (2000) 243–281
censuses are remarkable, complex, and necessarily flawed achievements of governments. The authors start by reviewing the essential features of a census. The concept of a “census moment” is introduced—that snapshot day (April 1 in the United States) which will remain carefully studied for years. What Americans have come to think of the “big Census issues”— privacy, confidentiality, acceptance/validity of results—are also explored. Challenges are noted for enumerators who attempt to determine relationships within households, describe housing structures, or count total number of children (while considering such issues as varying definitions of foster or adopted children, children living apart from one or both parents, and how to count fetal and childhood deaths). There are cultures in which some census questions are considered inappropriate and this mandates a certain creativity in design and implementation. These recommendations will, in all likelihood, be followed faithfully by many countries, as prior editions have been. Although the Recommendations refer to the Internet, CD-ROM, videotext, and bulletin board services (BBS), there are no detailed technical guidelines for creating a digitized data product. This is one of the only weak points of this source, which can be recommended for all medium to large academic and public libraries as well as any special libraries dealing with demographic data. Cassandra Hartnett University of Washington Libraries Seattle, WA 98295-2900, USA PII: S1352-0237(00)00141-6
Opensecrets.org: The Online Source for Money in Politics Data Washington, DC: Center for Responsive Politics, 1999. ⬍http://www.opensecrets.org/home/ index.asp⬎. Visited May 1999. The influence of money on public policy formulation, and, in particular, the role it plays in the elections and actions of Congress, are the major interest of “Open Secrets,” the web site of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). The Center was founded in 1983 and describes itself as “a non-profit, non-partisan research organization.” It has published a series of books, also entitled “Open Secrets,” with the same content as its web site: profiles of politicians, PACs, congressional committees, and industries with statistical detail on who gives how much to whom. The full title of the main web page is “Open Secrets: The Online Source for Money in Politics Data.” The organization’s name is displayed in a small, white moon, which appears to be rising in a red sky over the capitol dome. The page offers three main selections: “Race for President,” which looks forward to the 2000 presidential election; “Politician Profiles,” which looks back at the previous election cycle; and “Online Survey,” an attempt to collect information about who uses the site and what they think about it. The third selection is open to change. When last visited during the review period, it had changed to “Capital Eye Newsletter,” a link to CRP’s newsletter. Fourteen other selections, located on three bars at the bottom of the page, offer access to information on PACs, donors, soft money, congressional
Reviews / Journal of Government Information 27 (2000) 243–281
255
committees, lobbyists and other topics. Below the selection bars is a subtitle identifying “Open Secrets” as the web site of the Center for Responsive Politics, contact information with phone numbers and e-mail links, and a copyright notice. A close look at the “Race for President” section reveals the density of detail offered by this site. A user first discovers a summary page with a table featuring 11 announced and unannounced presidential candidates, including the likely—Al Gore, George W. Bush, Elizabeth Dole—and the not so likely—Lamar Alexander, Pat Buchanan, Robert Smith. The table shows the total dollars raised, the total spent, and the cash on hand for each candidate, as reported to the Federal Election Commission through the latest quarterly reports. By clicking on a candidate’s name, the user jumps to the summary page for that candidate. Besides a picture and a biographical sketch, the page also offers the dollar amount and percentage of total funds raised broken into five contribution categories: small individual, large individual ($200 or more), PAC, candidate self-financing, and other. An accompanying pie chart graphs the percentages in a visually striking manner. A second pie chart and table identifies the “quality of disclosure” by the candidate (dollar totals and percentages) in three categories: full disclosure, incomplete disclosure, and no disclosure. To the left of the page, a frame offers links to more details about the candidate’s fund raising: contributions by geography (top states, metro areas, and zip codes), by sector (charts and tables showing donations from 12 economic/ideological interest areas such as Agriculture, Communications/Electronics, LawyersLobbyists, etc.), by top industries (industries that sponsor PACs and/or employ large individual contributors), by top contributors (specific firms that sponsor PACs and/or employ large individual contributors—a great way to spot major sources of “bundled” contributions), by donor lookup (a searchable database of individual donors, which can also be reached directly from the initial “Race for President” page by clicking on the “Amount Raised” link for any candidate), and finally by something called “Other Data.” For Albert Gore, the other data includes details of the Clinton/Gore 1996 campaign money, Gore’s 1990 Senate race, and a Presidential Financial Summary 1988–1996, which covers the controversial White House Coffees, Sleepovers and the Gore telephone solicitations. At any point, a user can switch from a page of Gore financial minutiae to the comparable page for any other candidate by clicking on that candidate’s name on the frame. The notes and explanatory links offer a quick course in federal election law. From these pages one can learn that federal law requires that all contributions of more than $200 be itemized by donor’s name, address, occupation, and employer, and that in the 1996 congressional election such disclosure was not made for about 10 percent of all contributions. CRP considers such details crucial for determining which economic interests support which candidates. The 2000 presidential election race may be no more forthcoming: data through the April 1999 reports showed full disclosure of 81 percent of Gore contributions and no disclosure for 17 percent. The figures for Bush were 73 percent and 26 percent. The same density of data can be found in the “Politician Profiles” section of the site. The user can select a politician by typing in the name, by calling up an alphabetical list of all members of the House and Senate, by choosing a state, or by filling in a zip code. Once again the site offers contribution details by geography, sector, industry, and contributors. In addition, an “Election” link offers information on the incumbent’s last electoral contest, the identity of his opponent(s), and data that show the dollars raised, the dollars spent, and the per-
256
Reviews / Journal of Government Information 27 (2000) 243–281
centage of the vote received. The Politician section also provides facsimile copies of the financial disclosure forms filed by members with the House and Senate. In addition to the presidential and congressional databases, the CRP site has a variety of other treasures under the “Databases” section. Among the more interesting to this reviewer were the Lobbyist database, the PAC database, the Congressional Travel database, and President Clinton’s Legal Defense Trust. The PAC database offers total spending and Democratic/Republican percent shares as well as individual PAC listings under 12 major categories and 88 sub-categories. The Lobbyist database offers an industry-by-industry breakdown of spending, which can be pursued page by page from the broadest category, such as “Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate,” to sub-categories, such as “Commercial Banks,” to corporate entities such as “Citicorp,” the largest spending commercial bank at $4,023,000 for January–June 1998. The researcher can also explore which organizations hired which lobbying firms for how much and which individual lobbyists were used. Special features add even more value to the site. “Monday Morning Alert” offers a weekly review of a major legislative issue, such as proposals to expand Medicare to include prescription drug coverage for the elderly. After an explanation of the issue and a description of the special interests that are for and against it, the alert concludes with data on campaign finance contributions by major industry or ideological players to Republicans and Democrats in general and to the top 10 Senate and House recipients. “Congressional Committee Profiles” describes House and Senate Committee and Subcommittee jurisdictions, reviews current issues before the committees, and offers statistical reports on patterns of contributions to committee members from committee-related industries and the top contributing companies. Finally, under “Publications,” can be found an intriguing feature called the “Do It Yourself Congressional Investigation Kit.” Here, self-appointed independent counsels can select from 16 big issues (Health Care, Gun Control, Phone Rates, etc.); then scrutinize evidence gathered into three sections: “The Issues” (descriptions of the competing forces behind the issue), “The Money” (data on the dollars spent to influence the outcome), “The Votes” (colored bar graphs showing Yes/No votes by the size of donations received); and finally decide whether to indict the system. The arrangement of information is one of the major strengths of the CRP site. Data can usually be accessed from multiple points and comparisons are facilitated by clever use of frames for listing alternative candidate and data categories. In the interest of full disclosure, the site also lists its contributors, the five foundations that provided grants, with the size and duration of each grant. The figures found on the site are authoritative. “Open Secrets” draws most of the data from the Federal Election Commission, but data on travel and personal financial statements of Senators and Representatives comes from official congressional sources. The site is remarkably current, containing data from the most recent quarterly reporting deadlines of the FEC. Within three days of the dramatic May 1999 Senate votes first rejecting, then imposing background check requirements on gun sales at gun shows, the CRP site posted a special report on how each Senator voted and the total contributions received by each from gun rights groups. A few glitches interfered with information retrieval on the site. The links and search forms occasionally proved troublesome. Clicking on the “Lobbyist” database link on the “Databases” page resulted in a “404” broken link, but the “Lobbyist” link on the menu bar at the top of the
Reviews / Journal of Government Information 27 (2000) 243–281
257
page functioned properly. To find data on the National Rifle Association on the “PAC” database search form, the user could enter “rifle” or “National Rifle Assn” Entering the full name or the NRA acronym did not work. Here the multiple avenues of approach saved the day. When specific names fail, it is possible to start with broad categories and drill down to specific entities. The site is also vulnerable to criticism for its claims of objectivity. While the tracking of contributions covers the gamut of liberal and conservative organizations—gun control and gun rights expenditures, for example—the site is more than an indefatigable recorder and categorizer of campaign finance data. The presentation of information is shaped by the thesis that money distorts the legislative process. The juxtaposing of spending data with voting data is meant to suggest that money causes legislators to vote the interests of those who contribute rather than those who elect. Hence, special interests prevail over the public interest. Those who regard campaign contribution restrictions as an infringement on free speech would disagree with this thesis. Everyone wants a responsive politics. What cannot be agreed on is to whom it should be most responsive. Other web sites offer similar information on federal candidates and financial contributions. The Federal Election Commission site ⬍http://www.fec.gov/⬎, and the FEC Info site ⬍http://www.tray.com/fecinfo/⬎ both offer summarized and itemized donation data, but are more difficult to use and do not offer the means for quick comparisons between candidates. FEC Info, a site launched by a former employee of the FEC, does enable the user to jump from any particular contribution to an image of the disclosure form filed with the FEC. The major contribution of CRP’s “Open Secrets” site is the wealth (excuse the term) of detailed data organized in such a clear, useable manner. Hours of meticulous coding of contributions into categories lie behind this site. But does this work succeed in documenting what economic interests are shaping American policy? Can a voter armed with such knowledge make a more informed decision at the polls? If George W. Bush and Albert Gore are the Republican and Democratic candidates in 2000, the voter informed by this site may have a problem. The top four contributing industries to the Gore campaign as of May 1999 were (1) Lawyers/Law Firms, (2) Retired, (3) Real Estate, and (4) Securities/Investment. The top four for Bush were (1) Lawyers/Law Firms, (2) Retired, (3) Securities/Investment, and (4) Real Estate. Alan Zoellner Swem Library College of William and Mary Williamsburg, VA 23187, USA PII: S1352-0237(00)00142-8
Majority Rule or Minority Will: Adherence to Precedent on the U.S. Supreme Court Harold J. Spaeth and Jeffrey A. Segal; Cambridge University Press, New York, 1999, 359 pages, hardbound, ISBN 052162424X, LCCN 98-35793, $59.95 Stare decisis Lat. To abide by, or adhere to, decided cases1. Stare decisis, a concept that is historically the basis for judicial decision making in English Law, is at the heart of what Spaeth and Segal