The White House Blog: Ethics
A Washington that is More Reflective of All of America
Posted by on November 9, 2009 at 4:10 PM ESTJust a quick post to report on a meeting today with a group of lobbyists and others who currently chair Industry Trade Advisory Committees (ITACs). The group had objected to the Administration's new policies barring the appointment (and reappointment) of federally registered lobbyists to agency boards and commissions. Although we have previously addressed their views here and here, we feel it important to meet with those with whom we disagree to discuss their concerns face to face. Much of the discussion focused on the arguments offered in the letter the group sent us (pdf) and our response letter (pdf). Click here (pdf) for the list of attendees.
We explained to the ITAC chairs that this issue is not about the few corrupt lobbyists or specific abuses by the profession, but rather concerns the system as a whole. For too long, lobbyists and those who can afford their services have held disproportionate influence over national policy making. The purpose of the President’s agenda to change the way business is done in Washington is to level the playing field to make sure that all Americans and not just those with access to money or power are able to have their voices heard and their concerns addressed by Washington.
We explained that in deciding to limit the ability of lobbyists to serve in government positions, including as members of agency advisory boards and commissions, we considered various arguments and counterarguments. We weighed the options, and considered the alternatives. In the end, we decided that while lobbyists have a right to petition the government, it would best serve the interests of a fairer and more representative democracy if we limited their ability to do so from special positions of privileged access within the government.
The result will be a Washington that is more reflective of all of America. We have already begun the process of recruiting new voices to advise the government through these agency boards. We believe small- and medium-sized business owners will be excited by the opportunity to help serve their country and advocate for their interests.
To make it even easier for those with valuable insight and expertise to offer to join this process from outside the Beltway, the Administration is working to develop tools to utilize internet technologies to make federal advisory committee proceedings accessible online. For example, the most recent meeting of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) was watched online by 5000 people. This Administration is committed to seeking out those voices and bringing the change they represent into the decision making process in Washington.
We explained this to the ITAC chairs and asked for their help in reaching out to broaden and diversify these boards and commissions. We informed them that while we will always seek ways to improve good policies, we do not intend to rescind this decision. The ITAC chairs, although expressing their disagreement, are willing to assist in finding qualified replacements and we thank them for their commitment to working together to make the system work better for everyone.
Finally, we also replied to a letter from the American League of Lobbyists on this subject today-ALL's letter is here (pdf) and our reply is here (pdf).
Norm Eisen is special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform
Learn more about EthicsTransparency like you’ve never seen before
Posted by on October 30, 2009 at 3:31 PM ESTToday marks a major milestone in government transparency -- and an important lesson in the unintended consequences of such vigorous disclosure.
We previously announced that the White House in December of this year would -- for the first time in history -- begin posting all White House visitor records under the terms of our new voluntary disclosure policy. As part of that initiative, we also offered to look back at the records created before the announcement of the policy and answer specific requests for visitor records created earlier in the year.
So far we’ve processed 110 disclosure requests from September that yielded nearly 500 visitor records. All of these are now available on the White House website in accessible, searchable format for anyone to browse or download. Consistent with our earlier announcement that we will only release records 90 days or older, this first batch covers the period of time between January 20, 2009 to July 31, 2009. Future batches will be posted on an ongoing basis. (You can submit a request here.)
This first release is only the latest in a series of unprecedented steps by the President to increase openness in government. They include putting up more government information than ever before on data.gov and recovery.gov, reforming the government’s FOIA processes, providing on-line access to White House staff financial reports and salaries, adopting a tough new state secrets policy, reversing an executive order that previously limited access to presidential records, and web-casting White House meetings and conferences. The release also compliments our new lobbying rules, which in addition to closing the revolving door for lobbyists who work in government have also emphasized expanding disclosure of lobbyist contacts with the government.
There’s an important lesson here as well. This unprecedented level of transparency can sometimes be confusing rather than providing clear information.
A lot of people visit the White House, up to 100,000 each month, with many of those folks coming to tour the buildings. Given this large amount of data, the records we are publishing today include a few “false positives” – names that make you think of a well-known person, but are actually someone else. In September, requests were submitted for the names of some famous or controversial figures (for example Michael Jordan, William Ayers, Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright, Robert Kelly ("R. Kelly"), and Malik Shabazz). The well-known individuals with those names never actually came to the White House. Nevertheless, we were asked for those names and so we have included records for those individuals who were here and share the same names.
Norm Eisen is special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform
Learn more about EthicsWhy We Closed the Revolving Door
Posted by on October 28, 2009 at 7:01 PM ESTIn the interests of transparency we wanted to give you another update on our efforts to limit the influence of special interests on government. As we indicated here in a previous blog post, the latest chapter in the Administration's efforts is limiting lobbyists from service on government boards and commissions. Some of the lobbyists who serve on these boards objected (pdf) and we explained the rationale in this letter (pdf).
Today, we received this letter (pdf) from the American League of Lobbyists protesting this Administration's steps to end the era of undue lobbyist influence on Washington. The letter makes a number of arguments with which we disagree, and to which we will respond, but our simple point is this: the system of lobbyists holding privileged government positions needs to be changed. This Administration has of course acknowledged that lobbyists can petition government on behalf of their clients. But lobbyists who represent the views of special interests should not do so from within government. That's why we closed the revolving door that used to allow lobbyists to move freely to and from government jobs and that's why the agencies are now taking this additional step.
Just like everyone else, lobbyists will continue to be able to air their views from outside government. But the days of lobbyists arguing not to the government, but from within the government, should come to an end-that is why the agencies are taking these strong steps with respect to the composition of these boards and commissions.
Norm Eisen is special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform
Learn more about EthicsWhy We Bar Lobbyists from Agency Advisory Boards and Commissions
Posted by on October 21, 2009 at 12:03 PM ESTIn the interest of transparency, we are posting a letter we received from lobbyists and others about the Administration’s move to bar federally-registered lobbyists from federal boards and commissions. We are also publishing our response, which explains the reasoning behind this decision.
It all started with a blog post where we announced the new steps the Administration was taking to reduce lobbyist influence on these important boards and commissions:
The White House has informed executive agencies and departments that it is our aspiration that federally-registered lobbyists not be appointed to agency advisory boards and commissions. These appointees to boards and commissions, which are made by agencies and not the President, advise the federal government on a variety of policy areas. Keeping these advisory boards free of individuals who currently are registered federal lobbyists represents a dramatic change in the way business is done in Washington.
On October 19, we received this letter from a group of lobbyists (pdf) and others who serve on industry boards and commissions, expressing concern about our decision.
While we recognize the contributions some of those who will be affected have made to these committees, it is an indisputable fact that in recent years, lobbyists for major special interests have wielded extraordinary power in Washington DC, resulting in a national agenda too often skewed in favor of the interests that can afford their services. It is that problem that the President has promised to change, and this is a major step in implementing that change.
We make that point, along with others in our response (pdf).
Norm Eisen is special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform
Learn more about EthicsWhite House Counsel Guidelines for Public Outreach Meetings
Posted by on September 24, 2009 at 10:26 AM ESTWe wanted to share with you the specific guidelines for public outreach meetings that we are providing to staff at the White House and agencies around the federal government. A recent administration conference call about the arts has generated some questions about how we go about achieving our commitment to public engagement. We wanted to make these guidelines public to answer questions about our policies and to make clear the steps we are taking to ensure that there is no further cause for questions or concerns about that commitment.Along with this memo, we have also conducted a meeting with the chiefs of staff of the executive branch agencies and have held the first of a series of training sessions at the White House to discuss rules and best practices in this area. Though we have made clear that the call was made with the best of intentions and we believe public engagement is an appropriate and vital part of effective governmental functioning, certain comments on the call raised appearance issues that troubled some participants. Accordingly, we are now issuing this memo as part of our ongoing effort to make our guidelines as clear as possible and we will be conducting further training sessions and personal visits with staff here to make sure the message gets across.Bill Burton is Deputy Press SecretaryLearn more about EthicsAn Update on Waivers
Posted by on September 4, 2009 at 1:56 PM ESTWe have previously reported six limited waivers that have been granted by the White House pursuant to the President’s Executive Order on Ethics for Executive Branch personnel – the strongest ethics standards in U.S. government history. Three of these waivers involved lobbying-related issues and three did not. We blogged about them here, here, and here.Several months ago, the public interest community suggested that we also make available in a central place limited waivers granted by other federal agencies besides the White House. Today, we are releasing all ten such agency-granted waivers (none of which involve lobbying). The President’s Executive Order calls for an annual report to be completed in early 2010 that will include all waivers granted pursuant to the Order. We are, however, pleased to make all of the pledge waivers granted to date by this Administration available now--more than four months early.The ten waivers by agencies can be found here. All involve limited waivers of paragraph 2 of the President’s ethics pledge (none involve Paragraph 3, the lobbying provision). That is, they permit certain Executive Branch appointees to work on particular matters that may involve persons with which the appointees formerly had a professional relationship because there was a compelling public interest in allowing it. In each case, it was determined by an agency ethics officer after careful review that the public interest in permitting the appointee’s participation outweighed any appearance concerns.
We note that decisions to grant the limited waivers have been exceedingly rare. The six White House and ten agency waivers together apply to 16 out of approximately 1890 appointments that have been made: that is less than 1%. And out of the 1890 appointments, only 3 times has the Administration waived the ethics pledge lobbying provision – that is less than one tenth of one percent.
As we have pointed out before, and as experts agree, even the toughest rules require some flexibility. Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute said the following: "It is important and necessary to have the highest ethical standards for service in an administration-- and also appropriate and necessary to strike a balance by having a limited number of waivers to make reasonable accommodations to attract the best possible talent to serve in key government posts. The Obama White House has done just that, as this additional disclosure of ten agency waivers makes clear." Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution said: "The steps taken today by the White House to shed additional light on the use of the waiver provision of the President’s Executive Order on Ethics should reassure critics of his policy and its implementation. By disclosing the ten waivers granted by other federal agencies and documenting that it has waived the ethics pledge lobbying provision only three times, the Administration has demonstrated that its new ethics standards are not being undermined by backdoor exceptions."Norm Eisen is special counsel to the president for ethics and government reformLearn more about EthicsClosing Lobbyist Loopholes
Posted by on July 27, 2009 at 12:59 PM ESTCross-posted from the OMB blog.The President believes that a piece of legislation as important as the Recovery Act must be implemented with an unprecedented degree of transparency. That is why, in March, he imposed substantial limits on lobbyists in their communications with the Federal government about the Recovery Act. He also ordered OMB to evaluate agencies’ actual experiences with the restrictions in the first 60 days and then recommend whether any modifications were needed. That review resulted in a decision to tighten the restrictions and, on Friday, OMB updated the formal guidance on Recovery Act communications with lobbyists.We continue to demand unprecedented transparency for lobbyist contacts and, for the first time in history, we now are bringing transparency to the world of unregistered lobbyists – CEOs and others with special access who would contact an agency or department about their interest in Recovery funding. By expanding the restrictions on oral communications to apply to everybody who tries to exert influence on Recovery Act competitive funding decisions, we reinforce merit-based decision-making and transparency. Tough lines also need to be bright lines, so everyone can understand them. That’s why the updated approach focuses these restrictions on oral communications after formal applications for competitive funding have been filed and before the funds are awarded.Contacts by registered lobbyists prior to the filing of a formal application remain subject to the previously announced restrictions, which require rapid Internet disclosure of the contact. These rules are by far the toughest ever and go well beyond the minimum disclosures previously required by law. To make that disclosure more consistent, the White House shortly will provide departments and agencies with a new technology tool – so that thorough reporting and information standards will be easily accessible for anyone to see.Peter R. Orszag is Director of the Office of Management and BudgetLearn more about EthicsUpdate on Recovery Act Lobbying Rules: New Limits on Special Interest Influence
Posted by on May 29, 2009 at 4:35 PM ESTAnother update from Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, in the spirit of transparency as always:I am writing with an update on the President’s March 20, 2009 Memorandum on Ensuring Responsible Spending of Recovery Act Funds. Section 3 of the Memorandum required all oral communications between federally registered lobbyists and government officials concerning Recovery Act policy to be disclosed on the Internet; barred registered lobbyists from having oral communications with government officials about specific Recovery Act projects or applications and instead required those communications to be in writing; and also required those written communications to be posted on the Internet. That Memorandum instructed the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to review the initial 60 days of implementation of the stimulus lobbying restrictions, to evaluate the data, and to recommend modifications.Following OMB’s review, the Administration has decided to make a number of changes to the rules that we think make them even tougher on special interests and more focused on merits-based decision making.First, we will expand the restriction on oral communications to cover all persons, not just federally registered lobbyists. For the first time, we will reach contacts not only by registered lobbyists but also by unregistered ones, as well as anyone else exerting influence on the process. We concluded this was necessary under the unique circumstances of the stimulus program.Second, we will focus the restriction on oral communications to target the scenario where concerns about merit-based decision-making are greatest –after competitive grant applications are submitted and before awards are made. Once such applications are on file, the competition should be strictly on the merits. To that end, comments (unless initiated by an agency official) must be in writing and will be posted on the Internet for every American to see.Third, we will continue to require immediate internet disclosure of all other communications with registered lobbyists. If registered lobbyists have conversations or meetings before an application is filed, a form must be completed and posted to each agency’s website documenting the contact.OMB will be consulting with agencies, outside experts and others about these principles and will publish detailed guidance, but we wanted to update interested parties on the outcome of the initial review. We consulted very broadly both within and outside of government (including as reflected in previous posts on the White House blog) and we are grateful to all those who participated in the process.Learn more about EthicsEthics Update
Posted by on May 1, 2009 at 5:10 PM ESTAs he has done before in the spirit of transparency, Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, asked us to pass along this update on the President’s Executive Order on Ethics:Just a quick post to advise that we granted an authorization under Section 3 of the President’s Ethics Executive Order to Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett to lead the White House's effort to support Chicago's bid to secure the 2016 Olympics.
The President promised during the campaign that staff would not work on contracts or regulations directly related to their former employers. We have captured that promise in Paragraph 2 of our revolving door rules, which applies to non-lobbyists. Valerie previously served as Vice Chair of Chicago 2016, the non-profit entity responsible for the Chicago bid. Although Chicago 2016 was not her "former employer" in traditional terms, the term "former employer" in the President's Order encompasses entities that appointees served as directors or officers, as Valerie did here. (To be clear, Valerie was not a lobbyist for Chicago 2016, and this waiver has nothing to do with lobbying.)We decided that a waiver of Paragraph 2 was in the public interest in order to help bring the Olympics back to the United States. Valerie’s past experience with Chicago 2016 makes her ideal to work with the city and its bid committee to help win the Olympics for the U.S., with the many benefits that would bestow. In her time working with the City of Chicago on its bid, she developed knowledge about the process that will make her a powerful advocate and liaison. Although Valerie previously volunteered with Chicago 2016, she has no continuing financial relationship with them. Since the Administration already plans on vigorously supporting the United States’ sole 2016 Olympic bid, we felt that letting Valerie lead our efforts was strongly in the public interest. The authorization can be found here (pdf).
As I have previously noted on this blog, the availability of waivers in appropriate cases has been praised by ethics experts and commentators alike:- Norman Ornstein, a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute stated that "This tough and commendable new set of ethics provisions goes a long way toward breaking the worst effects of the revolving door. There are many qualified people for the vast majority of government posts. But a tough ethics provision cannot be so tough and rigid that it hurts the country unintentionally. Kudos to President Obama for adding a waiver provision, to be used sparingly for special cases in the national interest. This is all about appropriate balance, and this new executive order strikes just the right balance."
- Thomas Mann, Senior Fellow of Governance Studies and the Brookings Institution said that "The new Obama ethics code is strict and should advance the objective of reducing the purely financial incentives in public service. I applaud another provision of the EO, namely the waiver provision that allows the government to secure the essential services of individuals who might formally be constrained from doing so by the letter of the code. The safeguards built into the waiver provision strike the right balance."
- The Washington Post editorialized that the President had "adopted a tough ethics policy . . . sweeping in time and scope." The editorial board wrote that "The president's rule ensures that any conflicts will be carefully watched, and his flexibility despite certain criticism signals an ability to make hard but reasonable calls."
Learn more about Ethics"Words and Deeds"
Posted by on April 29, 2009 at 11:10 AM ESTNorm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, drops by to talk about progress on ethics and transparency since the President was sworn in.The President promised across-the-board change in Washington and all of us in the White House have been pleased to help deliver. In the ethics and government reform arena, we have worked hard to help the President impose strict new ethics rules for all employees; foster a culture of compliance and respect for the law; promote greater transparency (including through our first-ever instant electronic release of personal financial disclosure forms); and implement historic revolving door limits for lobbyists and others.
But don't just take our word for it. Members of the government reform community have issued a statement praising the President for the "groundbreaking government integrity reforms he has put in place" and recognizing that "the President has demonstrated in his first hundred days through words and deeds that he is serious about changing the rules of the game in Washington and increasing the voice of citizens in the governing process."Click through and read the complete statement by members of the government reform community acknowledging the administration's historic opening efforts.Learn more about Ethics
