By SUZANNE DERSHOWITZ
Yesterday, the Senate passed the House version of the STOCK Act by a vote of 96 to 3, sending the bill to President Obama for his expected signature. POGO is deeply disappointed that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) moved to force a vote without convening a conference committee to hash out the differences between the House and Senate bills. Along with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA), POGO had called for an open, transparent House-Senate conference to ensure that the best of both anti-corruption bills would be included in the law.
Unfortunately, critical provisions on political intelligence reporting requirements and public corruption prosecution improvements were scrapped from the final bill. A vocal supporter of political intelligence industry regulation, Sen. Grassley was one of the three “no” votes on the weakened bill. The New York Times reports that Grassley said rejection of the proposal was “a victory for Wall Street and a defeat for the American people — a victory for the hedge funds and big banks that like the secrecy of the status quo.”
However, POGO is pleased that the House version’s stronger executive branch coverage was included in the final text. The bill heading to President Obama strikes the right balance for more transparency in the executive branch by mandating the online posting of financial disclosure reports already required to be public under law.
The U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) has posted online helpful materials explaining how the executive branch ethics program and its financial disclosure system currently work, and the potential impact of key provisions of the STOCK Act. According to OGE’s response to the Senate Committee on the bill, there are two types of financial disclosure reports under the existing Ethics in Government Act (EIGA): public financial disclosure reports (OGE Form 278) and confidential financial disclosure reports (OGE Form 450).
In 2010, a total of 391,790 executive branch officials filed financial disclosure reports, with 363,771 filing the confidential form and 28,019 filing the public form. The number of executive branch officials who will have their financial reports posted online closely mirrors the universe of people already covered under existing law. In addition, those filing confidential forms will have to submit these electronically to OGE. These provisions will help to bring government ethics oversight into the 21st Century.
Aides to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said she was collaborating with Grassley on a standalone piece of legislation to regulate the political intelligence industry. We hope the congressional momentum for greater accountability in government will not slow down, and that this much-needed reform will have another chance to become law this year. Likewise, we hope that the “Clean Up Government Act of 2011” sponsored by Representatives James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Mike Quigley (D-IL) to improve prosecutions of public corruption will be passed.
Suzanne Dershowitz is POGO's Public Policy Fellow
The above passage of the Stock Act (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act)is a step forward. There is still much more to do. For example, I would like to see a report outlining every penny the government spend. They are using our money, the people's money.
Posted by: Minerva Rivera | Mar 23, 2012 at 05:24 PM