ACTION PLAN FOR STATE STIMULUS TRANSPARENCY COALITIONS Transparency, Accountability, and Clean Administration: Citizen Watchdogs Help Make the Economic Stimulus Package Work for All
The Common Cause Education Fund March 2009
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Karen Hobert Flynn, Vice President for State Operations Common Cause khflynn@commoncause.org Susan P. Schreiber Assoc. Vice President for Foundation Grants Common Cause Education Fund 1133 19 th St., NW
ACTION PLAN FOR STATE STIMULUS TRANSPARENCY COALITIONS
Transparency, Accountability, and Clean Administration: Citizen Watchdogs Help Make the Economic Stimulus Package Work for All!
The Common Cause Education Fund (CCEF) requests $750,000 from the Ford Foundation to enable a broad range of groups, community leaders, and citizens in every state to monitor the spending of funds from the federal stimulus package. Common Cause is acting now to launch a campaign that helps state and local “citizen watchdogs” mobilize and make sure the stimulus money is spent honestly and benefits all. CCEF will draw on recommendations developed by OMB Watch, Good Jobs First, and other members of the Coalition for Accountable Recovery (CAR) to identify Best Practices for ensuring transparency and accountability at the state level; build state-wide coalitions in up to 20 states to advocate for the adoption of these Best Practices; and produce materials and tools to leverage media outreach, citizen engagement, and government accountability in all of the states. PROGRAM CONTEXT AND OVERVIEW On February 17, 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Totaling $787 billion, the Act includes federal tax cuts, expansion of unemployment benefits and other social welfare provisions, and domestic spending in education, health care, and infrastructure. With the national unemployment rate now above eight percent, the goal of the Obama Administration is to move as quickly as possible to stimulate the ailing economy. Throughout this process, government at all levels must demonstrate to the public that their tax dollars are indeed being used in accordance with the purpose of the Act: “for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and state and local fiscal stabilization.” The importance of transparency and accountability throughout this process can’t be emphasized enough. Last fall, the Bush Administration pushed through a $700 billion bailout for the financial sector without requirements for how the funding was to be spent or tracked. Subsequent reports showed that banks were not using the money for the intended purpose of making loans and were unwilling or unable to say where funds were actually going. This has destroyed public confidence in the financial bailout and complicated the Obama Administration’s subsequent economic recovery efforts. At every step, tax payers must be confident that funds are being well spent and that projects are well managed. Public confidence in the new administration’s ability to turn the economy around is itself a critical factor for the success of the recovery effort. Accusations of misused funds and waste will hurt the public’s confidence in the stimulus package, resulting in negative long-term effects for the economy and the government. The stimulus plan is a key part of today’s historic moment. The success or failure of the Obama Administration’s efforts to rescue our economy will define for a generation the efficacy and necessity of our public institutions. This is a moment when people’s relationship with their government is going to change, one way or the other. We want the economic recovery program to succeed, not only because it will help our economy, but because it will emphasize the need for public institutions working in the public interest. If it fails, it will further embolden the cynics whose only goal is to shrink our government down to the size that it
Washington, DC 20036 202 736‐5776 sschreiber@commoncause.org
fails, it will further embolden the cynics whose only goal is to shrink our government down to the size that it could drown in a bathtub. The stakes are huge. PROGRAM OBJECTIVES The principal goal of Common Cause’s plan is comprehensive state- and local-level reporting on stimulus spending, opening up opportunities for advocacy to insure the best possible use of these billions of dollars. All of the stimulus funds must be trackable at every step of the process. The public should be able to follow the money from the U.S. Treasury, where the funds are initially doled out, all the way down to the subcontracting level, where the money is finally spent. A failure to “drill down” to publicly account for how the stimulus money is being used will undermine public confidence in the program, just as it has in the bank bailout. As stimulus funding begins to reach communities, it is up to state and local officials to build in transparency all the way down to the lowest level of subcontracting for projects. All recipients of federal stimulus funds, including state and local agencies and the contractors and subcontractors they hire, should be required to report information about the work they are doing with our tax dollars, including both the number of jobs created as well as the wages and benefits paid. Every state should make all of this information available in a format that is compatible with the information being reported at the federal level. Only by insisting on complete transparency will lawmakers, the press and the public be able to hold state and local government’s feet to the fire in making sure stimulus funds are doing their job. Some state governments have taken positive steps to make the economic stimulus package as transparent as possible, but have not gone far enough. Many other states do not yet have plans in place to provide the openness required for monitoring contracting at the local level, much less measuring these projects in relation to national criteria. All states must adopt the same rubric and criteria for measuring the impact of stimulus funding on the economy writ large. The public is already anxious to see results from stimulus funding, as well as evidence that funds are being administered free of inappropriate influence from special interests. By creating a scaffolding for public watchdogging of stimulus spending at state and local levels, we can increase the chances that funds will be spent appropriately, which will in turn inspire greater public confidence in stimulus spending decisions, greatly benefiting each state and its efforts to spur the economy. ACTIVITIES AND OUTCOMES The Common Cause Stimulus Transparency, Accountability, and Clean Administration project is an important part of the larger collaborative effort to insure this historic government spending program benefits needy communities and promotes smart growth. Drawing on the expertise of OMB Watch, Good Jobs First, the Progressive States Network, Sierra Club, and other partners and groups like them at the state level, such as groups within the Economic Analysis and Research Network, Common Cause will promote a model for transparency, accountability, and clean administration of stimulus spending for all levels of government across the country, and develop state and local coalitions made up of diverse stakeholders to insist on full transparency of stimulus spending. Working together, environmental, labor, education, health care, and other interest groups will be able to “drill down” to assess spending in their respective areas and press policymakers and government administrators to use the stimulus money effectively. The campaign will employ four central strategies: 1. Leveraging national expertise to promote consistent transparency, accountability, and clean administration in states; 2. Building broad-based advocacy coalitions at the federal, state and local levels; 3. Creating tools for use in maximizing state-level advocacy; and, 4. Strategic investment in key states.
1. Leveraging national expertise to promote consistent transparency in states Best Practices: OMB Watch, Good Jobs First and other members of the Coalition for Accountable Recovery have created an architecture for what the federal government should report in documenting stimulus spending and its impact on jobs and on the larger economy. National Common Cause staff will work with these partners to adapt these guidelines for the states, producing a Best Practices for the specific quantitative and qualitative information states and cities should provide, including, for example, the number of jobs created or retained, wages paid for those jobs, and other benefits, as well as provisions for accounting for the benefits of other types of spending, such as grants or mandatory spending. The Best Practices will be the basis for State Report Cards, which advocates and office holders can use to measure the level of accountability and transparency of stimulus spending within each state. See Appendix for draft of Best Practices. Technical assistance: We will be providing states with as much guidance as necessary to understand the platform used by the federal government in its contract reporting system at usaspending.gov as well as recovery.gov. Consistent transparency depends on the ability of states to report information in a format compatible with other states and the federal government, in order to make comprehensive analysis of stimulus spending possible. The federal reporting systems serve as a good model for states to adopt. 2. Building coalitions at federal, state and local levels Among the national members of the Coalition for Accountable Recovery, Common Cause is unique in maintaining 36 state chapters under the umbrella of the national organization. Many of these chapters have a long history of working on government transparency and accountability issues and have established relationships with diverse organizations with whom they partner on issues of common interest. Common Cause will also continue to be a major partner in developing the new national progressive coalition for organizations with state presence, States for an Accountable Recovery (STAR), and serve on the steering committee with Progressive States Network and Good Jobs First. This new initiative should greatly enable coordination, information sharing, and development of STAR resources for grassroots, religious or community-based organizations. State government advocacy and reform coalitions: In developing the necessary “stimulus watch” activity, Common Cause will build on many exciting, existing coalition efforts at the state level. Examples of this kind of coalition are many, ready to be engaged and activated around stimulus issues. These coalitions are typically active in the areas of government ethics, election reform, lobbying reform, or legislative priorities. These include natural allies which keep an eye on the state budget process and state spending, but from a solidly “help make government work” perspective.[1] These coalitions also provide many opportunities for citizens and communities to have a say in the direction and success of the stimulus. Common Cause will work with these existing coalitions as a first strategic step in launching economic stimulus monitoring in these states, and will seek to broaden the participation in these coalitions to include even more of the human services, labor, and environmental communities. Model Stimulus coalition: Common Cause New York has already successfully organized a coalition of state groups from different issue areas around a common set of principles for transparency of stimulus spending in the state. The coalition, the NYS Stimulus Transparency
transparency of stimulus spending in the state. The coalition, the NYS Stimulus Transparency Working Group, continues to grow and add groups with other interests in the stimulus spending. This effort serves as our model for what we hope to initiate in other states around the country, using a similar coalition-building approach in each state and broadening the participation of these coalitions as much as possible to combine the strengths all progressive groups to influence stimulus spending decisions. Broadening State and Local Coaltions: Common Cause has reached out and become engaged in conversations with organizations and state chapters affiliated with the Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN), Working Poor Families Project, the State Fiscal Analysis Initiative, the Sierra Club and Smart Growth America to coordinate efforts and determine in which states a collaborative coalition-building effort makes sense, and to use the combined expertise and resources of these networks. Lastly, Common Cause works closely with dozens of chapters of “Democracy Matters,” the college and university student organizing network, and will leverage this program to help generate youth activity in the stimulus coalitions. 3. Creating tools for use in maximizing state-level advocacy While each state campaign will be shaped by the particular set of issues and resources in that state, Common Cause will use the expertise of national coalition partners to create a number of tools each state campaign can use for organizing and advocacy: Report Cards: The project will develop “Report Cards” for advocates to use as they assess and then advocate around the transparency, accountability, and clean administration of Recovery Act economic stimulus dollars in their specific states. Using uniform transparency requirements developed at the national level, Common Cause state chapters will assign “grades” to state and city government’s efforts based on how close they come to fulfilling Best Practices for transparency, accountability, and clean administration of recovery funds, including whether there are protections in place to prevent special interest and political insider abuse, and whether the stimulus dollars are reaching disadvantaged communities as required by law. Each report card will provide information as to how the state can improve its disclosure and use of stimulus funds, including state-by-state comparisons. The “report card” can grade performance at regular intervals in the next six to twelve months, mapping changes, progress, and successes. See Appendix for outline of “Report Card” for New York. Model legislation: Common Cause will provide samples of model legislation, drawing on model language already available, including contractor and subcontractor data collection language from Oregon’s HB 3366; online transparency language from Massachusetts’ proposed Act Relative to Transparency in State Revenues and Expenditures; and Good Jobs First’s model language for economic subsidy data collection. Press toolkit: The toolkit will include sample press outreach materials, such as op eds, editorial board memos, and letters to the editor. We have already produced sample op eds for states to begin placing in local newspapers with the basic message of the campaign. As the state campaigns evolve, national press staff can work with state coalitions to produce more press materials and organize press conferences and local events. Grassroots support:
e-advocacy: engaging Common Cause activists and getting them involved in state and national campaigns. Using targeting information provided by states, Common Cause will draw on its list of 200,000 e-activists, mobilizing citizen activists in the districts of specific members of the legislature or administration to increase grassroots pressure on officials to implement the transparency requirements set forth in the report cards. Phone banking: Common Cause will also use its ongoing, weekly phone banking operation to personally contact and engage members and activists in specific states across the country. House parties and other events: Common Cause has experience with campaign style events such as house parties as a way of bringing people together locally to meet other activists and discuss specific issues. In the past, we have organized house parties to include a conference call each party can join with a guest speaker, such as Arianna Huffington. Common Cause will develop sample materials for coalition allies including draft e-alerts, newsletter articles, flyers and press materials to encourage coalition allies to mobilize their members around specific actions. Website and use of technology: Website “widget”: Common Cause is developing a “widget” that will allow users to scroll over a map and drill down into specific congressional districts to see stimulus spending data that will soon be available in downloadable form from recovery.gov. Widgets can be copied and pasted onto the websites of other organizations and still be updated from one central location with new information. We will pair the stimulus data with other relevant data about local economies, such as employment rates or education attainment levels. Social networking sites: Common Cause will incorporate several forms of new technology to bolster coalition outreach and cultivate new “citizen watchdogs.” Using the popular free social networking sites of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, we will promote our state campaigns to potential supporters and coalition partners. Common Cause will interview lawmakers and other decisionmakers who have control over the process of distributing stimulus money and post those clips on YouTube so that people can hear about the process directly. We will use our website, action alerts, blogging and other social networking tools to drive people to hear these firsthand accounts. Using YouTube will also showcase town hall meetings and other public events to generate interest with citizens and to keep them engaged. Central clearinghouse: By working with each individual state campaign, we can create a central location on the web where all campaigns can access materials produced by other state or local campaigns.
4. Strategic investment in key states The Common Cause Education Fund will launch full-blown campaigns in 20 states where chapter resources – including leadership, members, and coalition partnerships – are strongest. The first ten states are positioned to mobilize quickly. Another ten will roll out in the coming weeks and months. National staff will work to provide assistance and resources for all thirty six state chapters, and make
National staff will work to provide assistance and resources for all thirty six state chapters, and make materials available to the remainder of states and the District of Columbia. We will work to inform and engage all of our 400,000 members and supporters in all states to fight for transparency and accountability in the spending down of stimulus funds. Early action states: Ten Common Cause chapters are positioned to immediately launch campaigns focusing on the stimulus package. The Common Cause collaborative organizing efforts will produce, within 30 days, advocacy coalitions and initial steps toward assessing individual state’s transparency, accountability, and clean administration plans, successful forward movement, and those areas which states should improve upon. See Appendix for list of early action states and potential partners. Roll Out States: While launching the early action states, Common Cause will also be organizing campaign activities, such as the coalition development and “report card” assessments, for approximately ten other states. In these states, Common Cause will be working towards direct action and advocacy, particularly the use of the state’s “report card” within 60 to 90 days. These states include: Additional states with Common Cause chapters: It is our goal to seek a roll out of this campaign in at least 15 other states as well, depending upon resources, partners, and collaborations. States where Common Cause does not have an official presence: Materials outlined under Tools (above) will be available on the Common Cause website for use in states where Common Cause does not have an office. In addition, we will mobilize members of our e-advocacy list in coordination with other groups that do have a presence in these states. ORGANIZATIONAL MISSION AND CAPACITY The principal goal of Common Cause’s plan is to build broad coalitions of local organizations to advocate for comprehensive state- and local-level reporting on stimulus spending to open up opportunities for advocacy around the use of the stimulus money. Given our decades of experience as champions of greater openness and transparency at the national and state level, Common Cause is a natural fit to be the convener and facilitator for this process at the outset. With nearly 400,000 members and supporters, a strong presence on Capitol Hill, state chapters in 36 states, and four decades of experience and hard-won victories, Common Cause is one of nation’s most effective grassroots advocacy organizations working for government transparency and accountability. Our ability to mobilize both national and state assets to seize upon strategic opportunities creates a powerful synergy for change. Common Cause has a strong track record as a convener of often diverse partners around a set of common goals.[2] Our nonpartisan status and respected brand name give Common Cause credibility with the media. And with the creation of the Common Cause Education Fund in 2000, we have been able to expand our research and public education capacities. A quick summary of recent activities in what we have identified as Early Action States indicates the thrust and strength of our efforts at the state level: California Common Cause led a broad coalition of more than 1700 individuals and organizations to pass a ballot measure in November of 2008 establishing the nation’s strongest independent redistricting commission. Colorado Common Cause recruited and trained over 300 volunteers, ran an Election Day call center,
expanded our reach to hundreds of organizational partners inside and outside of the metro area, talked directly to voters, and helped individual voters around the state get basic information about how to vote. Connecticut Common Cause helped pass Connecticut’s sweeping public financing program for all state races in 2005. Common Cause helped the new Citizen’s Election Program get a 75 percent participation rate in its first year by promoting the program and holding dozens of educational forums around the state, with materials in English and Spanish, to educate underrepresented constituencies about the new program. Georgia Common Cause conducted an election protection campaign in October, contacting over 16,000 registered voters in rural areas potentially at risk of not being eligible to vote because their names could not be matched in the state’s driver’s license database. Indiana Common Cause led an election protection campaign in October and November 2008 that ran radio and newspaper ads to educate college students about Indiana’s Voter ID law, the strictest in the nation. CC/IN also recruited and trained 50 Voter Advocates to work at 150 targeted polling locations in Indianapolis and Gary, Indiana. Voter Advocates provided assistance to both voters and poll workers and helped connect those with problems to the 1-866-OUR VOTE hotline. Massachusetts Common Cause led the effort to get municipalities to post important documents and meeting notices on the web in mid-2006. Since the first year, Common Cause has helped push 90 communities to post out their governing body’s agenda, minutes, bylaws and budgets online. New Mexico Common Cause led successful campaigns to pass public financing of municipal elections in Albuquerque and Santa Fe in 2006 and 2008 and spearheaded the statewide election protection effort for the 2008 election. Pennsylvania Common Cause successfully championed a major overhaul of the state’s open records laws, moving Pennsylvania from among the bottom three states in the nation to the top half of states providing citizens access to public records. Early in the year, Common Cause opened a chapter office in Philadelphia and is working to do the same in Pittsburgh. New York Common Cause successfully spearheaded the statewide effort leading to state certification of reliable optical scan voting machines by the state Board of Elections, turning back lobbying efforts by companies that manufacture paperless touchscreen systems, and was a leading voice in debate in New York City regarding City Council modification of a voter-adopted term limits law. Wisconsin Common Cause finally pushed through the Government Accountability Board which passed an administrative rule that will require the disclosure of donors and regulation of the funding of outside groups engaged in electioneering through the utilization of campaign communications masquerading as issue advocacy. An important factor in our ability to mobilize at the state level in a coordinated campaign is that Common Cause is one single organization. All state staff are Common Cause employees. State budgets are part of the overall organizational budget, and functions such as fiscal management, fundraising and technology are administered at the national level in order to free up state leadership to focus on education, organizing and advocacy. CONCLUSION State and local officials have as much of a responsibility as the Obama Administration in making sure our tax dollars are being spent in a transparent, accountable, and clean way. We are in the midst of a recession that promises to be long and deep unless the stimulus spending delivers all it promises to do and helps the people it needs to help. The only way we can make sure this happens is through an engaged citizenry, following the money being spent through better, timely reporting at the federal, state and local level. With support from the Ford Foundation, Common Cause will be able to capitalize on its strong presence and expertise in the states to lead a comprehensive effort aimed at leveraging the financial policy expertise of
expertise in the states to lead a comprehensive effort aimed at leveraging the financial policy expertise of members of the Economic Analysis and Research Network as the basis for a series of effective campaigns at the state level to ensure that the public, the media and the wide array of interest groups in each state can track how stimulus funds from the federal government are spent. In doing so, we believe we will significantly improve the chances that the program will ultimately succeed in helping our economy -- and that success will serve as an historic example of how open and transparent government coupled with citizen engagement can tackle even the most profound national crisis.
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[1] Examples of such coalitions led by Common Cause include that in North Carolina, where Common Cause is a leader in the North Carolina NC Coalition for Lobbying & Government Reform, a high-profile bipartisan coalition of over 50 organizational members that Common Cause North Carolina helped build and which led the way to some of the toughest lobbying and ethics laws in our history; and in Wisconsin, where Common Cause Wisconsin has helped line up dozens of organizations from nurses to students to business leaders to support major reform. An example of state government reform and government spending coalitions Common Cause is involved in include the Better Choices for Connecticut coalition. [2] In 2005, for example, the Common Cause Education Fund launched the Media and Democracy Coalition, made up of more than 25
organizations working for open and accessible media. Common Cause co-convenes the National Coalition for Public Financing, and has been a key leader in the movement to strengthen the voting system, as well as serving as a player in a number of other coalitions strategically related to Common Cause issues.