The Hot Sheet

Important City Council update!

ACTION ALERT! Pittsburgh City Council plans to vote TOMORROW on a package of legislation that deals with lobbyist and campaign finance disclosure and no-bid contracts, introduced by Councilman Bill Peduto.

#1 Campaign Finance Reform bill would:

• limit Council campaign contributions to $1,000 for individuals, $2,000 for PAC’s
• limit Mayoral contributions to $2,000 for individuals, $4,000 for PAC’s
• require the creation of a searchable database of all campaign contributions and city contracts.

#2  No-bid contracts bill would eliminate no-bid contracts with the city valued at more than $30,000

#3 Lobbyist Disclosure Act would require all Request-For-Proposal responses to disclose finder’s fee or payments to lobbyists or consultants.

#4 Lobbyist Registration Act would require anyone engaging in more than 30 hours of paid lobbying during a three-month period to register as lobbyists with the city.
The vote is scheduled for TOMORROW, Wednesday April 29th. This would be a major step for Pittsburgh towards good government practices and policies.

Call your city councilperson and ask them to VOTE YES for Councilman Peduto’s proposed good government legislation!

http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/council/

Tags: campaign finance, city council, legislation, pittsburgh, reform, transparency, vote

Full Disclosure: the Economic Stimulus website

So today the President signed into law the hard-fought Economic Stimulus Package legislation, allowing for $787 BILLION dollars to be poured into projects that are designed to keep or make 3.5 MILLION jobs.

Those are big, fat numbers, and it’s certainly been a hot topic for debate whether it will work to boost or stabilize the economy or not.  We here at the PA League, we’re not economic experts, so hell if we know.  But what we DO know is that this is certainly the first time we, the people, will be provided with so much accessible, transparent information on where our money is going.

Check out www.recovery.gov, designed to explain the plans for the economic stimulus, give a timeline for how the money is to be allocated and reported on, and eventually report back on “how, when, and where it is spent.”  (And if you are either feeling really smart or really masochistic, you can also read the full bill as written.)

Having the background info for how the stimulus plan was put together is useful, but what will be really exciting is the updates on how the plan is actually working out.

And it’s a good-looking site too, with clear infographics (timelines, proportional circles, bar graphs– see below) that make some general comparisons at-a-glance.

If only we could have something as transparent for other federal, state, and local arenas of public spending and campaign contributions, we could pretty much count on a cleaner government and better opportunity for public discourse.

I’ll admit it; I’m impressed.  I hope it’s all it could be: a portal for the everyman –not just political in-the-knows — to better understand, participate, and give feedback to their elected government.  We’ll see; this might be THE example for government transparency efforts to come.

-Carly

Tags: accountability, economic stimulus, election, government, infographics, pa league of young voters, Pennsylvania, pittsburgh, politics, president barack obama, timeline, transparency, vote, Youth