There are six budget bills remaining this year: (Commerce, Defense, Financial Services, Labor/HHS/Education, Military Construction/Veterans Affairs, State/Foreign Operations, Transportation/HUD). While many predicted they would all be combined into one omnibus bill, it looks like Congress will consider the Defense spending bill separately. The other five bills were combined in a “minibus” package, filed as a conference report, and posted online yesterday.

As regular readers know, we’re big advocates of transparency and openness at the Sunlight Foundation and OpenCongress. We’ve been advocating for a 72-hour rule for a long time, and I was planning to use this post to show that the bill was not going to be available online for 72 hours before a vote. Before I could do that, it was approved in the House (by a vote of 221-202, full roll call coming soon). We don’t even have a page on the bill here on OpenCongress yet.

That the bill wasn’t online for 72 hours is, in itself, not the biggest consideration: it is a 1,000+ page piece of legislation that contains more than a trillion dollars in spending for five of the largest federal agencies in the country, plus Medicare and Medicaid. Each one of the appropriations bills that was combined have constituencies: members of the public, organizations, groups, companies, foreign policy, all are impacted by these individual bills. Each individual bill should have been debated out in the open, where stakeholders could participate in the process and members could vote on the separate pieces.

Instead, the incentives for supporting (or opposing) such a large piece of legislation change, often drastically.

The situation with the Defense spending bill will be similar—and likely much more difficult. In addition to the normal Defense budget, expect funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (including money for the troop increase recently announced by President Obama), an extension of the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program and COBRA subsidies (which I blogged about earlier this week), and according to some reports, legislation to raise the debt ceiling (which Donny touched on today). On top of all that, there’s literally no telling what else might get added at the last minute.

We’ll do our best to keep you apprised of the situation, but OpenCongress can only do so much: we need Congress to step up and do a better job of making information available to citizens.

Those stimulus benefits (also called Emergency Unemployment Compensation) have been the source of intense political wrangling during the past 18 months: House Democrats initially sought to include them in legislation in 2008, but President Bush threatened to veto any bill that contained a benefits provision. In November, Bush relented, and signed H.R. 6867. The program was then expanded in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (a.k.a. the stimulus bill) that was passed in February. More recently, Congress approved an expansion of EUC of between 14-20 weeks (depending on the level of unemployment in a particular state), but only after weeks of bickering in the Senate.

The time spent legislating that expansion is now catching up on millions of unemployed Americans, because the EUC program wasn’t extended when it was expanded. Therefore, the EUC plan enacted as part of the stimulus bill will expire on December 31. According to NELP, more than 1 million Americans will see their benefits dropped in January, and more than 3 million by March, if Congress doesn’t pass a bill extending EUC.

In addition to the EUC program, the NELP/CAP study recommended renewing additional ARRA provisions: federal funding for Extended Benefits, an $25-per-week benefit for the unemployed, a subsidy for COBRA, and tax exemptions on unemployment benefits.

Two bills have been introduced to extend the ARRA provisions: H.R. 4183 in the House, and S.2831 in the Senate. OpenCongress.org should have the text online for those bills this evening, so be sure to start tracking them.

In the spirit of that community, I thought I would use comments from the H.R. 3548 thread as the core of this blog post. In particular, I’ll single out nancym, who has done a remarkable job of tracking the legislation, contacting lawmakers and committees, and keeping her fellow users informed.

To begin, nancym writes that the legislation is being considered under “suspension of the rules,” which she describes:

What’s important is that all those bills on the list that are brought to the floor are brought up together under “suspension,” the key part of that definition being “to dispose of non- controversial measures expeditiously.” I.e., All these other relatively unimportant bills that the Speaker considers are simply a matter of paperwork and little discussion because most will agree to pass them are brought up in clusters to save time for more important bills.

HR 3548 is squeezed into this batch under suspension because it is the fastest way to get this bill out of the House, AND it would seem that the Speaker’s estimation is that the bill would face little opposition in the House. Furthermore, according to suspension rules, the time for argument is limited, as well is the opportunity for amendments. So this cannot be dragged on for days of debate.

Also the amendments rule indicates that the only way an amendment would be made to this bill that would include more states is if the person bringing the bill to the floor to propose suspension of the rules (“the manager”–not sure if this would be McDermott or some head of committee or someone else) proposes the amendment, OR if the committee has already built an amendment into the version coming out of committee.

We know that the bill is likely to easily pass the House, but just what does it do? The short of it: provides an additional 13 weeks of unemployment benefits for workers who have been out of a job for extended periods of time, and whose benefits about to expire. But which workers will qualify? Nancym to the rescue, this time with a comment on the legislation itself:

This refers to the [Insured Unemployment Rate] written into the original [Emergency Unemployment Compensation] bill. So any state over 8.5% [Total Unemployment Rate] OR any state over 6% IUR would qualify for an extra 13 weeks. That is why press reports and Rep. McDermott’s own press release list Pennsylvania as included in the list of states this will help immediately.

So, states with very high rates of unemployment will benefit from this bill. She narrows the scope even further:

What they MEANT to say is that 300,000 people will run out of benefits by the end of September. All those people AND anyone exhausting benefits, either now, earlier, or anytime later until the provisions of the bill expire will receive 13 extra weeks if their state qualifies in an extended benefit period.

This bill is basically an extension of Emergency Unemployment Compensation provided in the stimulus bill adopted at the beginning of the year. According to nancym, this extension also pays for itself:

The actual bill is a bit open-ended; I don’t see a cutoff date, though that may be indicated in the original bill for which this is essentially an amendment. The cutoff mentioned in the bill is just that we each get only one shot at the 13 weeks (in this bill at least).

The bill gives that to anyone in a state that gets into that EB period, even though the funds are EUC. But of much interest to legislators is the fact that the bill pays for itself with an ongoing tax on employers that’s existed for 30 years but was about to expire. So the bill is “deficit-neutral.”

Thanks to nancym, we now know the following:

1. The legislation will provide extended unemployment benefits in 26 states (those with TUR of 8.5% or greater, and Pennsylvania, with an IUR greater than 6%.
2. Individuals who have exhausted their unemployment benefits will be eligible for an additional 13 weeks of benefits.
3. The House will quickly approve the bill today.

She also writes that the next step (after the Senate approves H.R. 3548) for those out of working and requiring an extension would be H.R. 3404, which would extend many of the benefits through 2010:

Right now they are trying to plug a small hole in a giant dyke that might be about to burst. Hopefully they will change this bill by the time it gets to final passage. But even if it doesn’t change, there is pending legislation in HR 3404 and in the Senate that will be needed to extend these entire programs into 2010, for which they need more time to debate because of the billions needed to pass them.

It’s being put through via an emergency process to cover the projected 1.5 million who will be exhausting benefits in the states that have the most dismal rates. I agree it’s not fair at all, and hopefully they will change it. But if they had added more, it can trigger concerns about more spending which could hold up the legislation.

Some states will actually qualify later this year or early January if things keep getting worse, so even though these states are not included now, they are eventually covered by this law if the rate goes to 8.5 (or 6 insured rate).

Now, a lot of this information is available elsewhere on the Internet, but I can’t help but think that nancym and the other incredible users like her are using OpenCongress to spread the word about these types of bills for a reason. We strive to bring all of this information into one place, and give people the tools to organize around an issue and engage with their elected representatives easily. It seems to be working in this particular situation.

If you’re interested in participating in OpenCongress, please sign up or shoot me an e-mail: avelino@opencongress.org.

The federal Transportation Department data, listing the status through Aug. 7 of approved road and bridge projects in all 50 states, show a huge disparity in progress nationwide.

New Mexico is the furthest ahead when it comes to green-lighting projects, having issued a notice to proceed for all its approved projects.

According to Michel, the coming wave of construction is the big take away:

But in most cases, approved projects were still in the pre-construction phase, the Spot Check reporters found. “Construction is supposed to begin the first week of August, but I have yet to see any progress beginning,’’ wrote Coulter Jones, who looked into a $3 million paving project in Luzerne County, Pa.

Reports from the field came in over a two-week period in late July, so it’s possible some have advanced in the meantime. Coulter checked back last week, for instance, and found that work had begun on the Pennsylvania project.

In some cases, construction delays appeared to be the result of contractors’ schedules rather than red tape.

Looks like there’s some construction coming your way (no matter where you live).

For example, there’s an e-mail going around that mentions sections of the bill and refers to the page number where the point is located:

PG 427  Lines 15-24 Govt mandates program for orders for end of life
The Govt has a say in how your life ends

As the above makes clear, it’s still a struggle to easily “compare notes” on legislation. You’d have to find a PDF of the bill, download it, read the section, and then send an e-mail back. Adding to the difficulty is what happens when the bill is marked up in committee or amended on the House floor. Now you’re dealing with another PDF entirely, so the page numbers you were referring to earlier don’t line up anymore.

Fortunately, we’ve made it pretty easy to debate specific sections of legislation here at OpenCongress.

Check out the text of HR 3200, and you’ll notice there are “Comment” and “Permalink” buttons whenever you mouseover a section or clause. Those permalinks let you reference a specific section or clause of the bill. So, say you wanted to blog about the specific section mentioned in the quote above. That’s easy! Here’s a link:

A program for orders for life sustaining treatment for a States described in this clause is a program that[...]

And what if you want to debate the point? Just register for an OpenCongress account, and you can comment on this and every bill in Congress, section-by-section.

We’ll have more on this later, but I encourage you to check out the permalink feature when you’re referring to specific sections of the bill.

(P.S. For the record, OpenCongress doesn’t include page numbers on bills because the Library of Congress doesn’t publish bills that way.)

Cross-posted at OpenCongress.org

The video is via David Waldman over at Congress Matters (which you should be reading if you’re not already), who aptly describes why this shouldn’t be as funny as it is:

Look how uncomfortable they are even addressing the “question” of whether or not Barack Obama was born in the United States, lest their wack-a-doodle “base” become insulted and threaten to teabag them, or whatever the hell it is they’re so afraid of.

You think they’re gonna grow a spine on an actual issue of substance? What are you, a damn idiot?

When the Senate gives away the farm on health care reform, remember it’s because we’re trying to appease these Representatives so they’ll sign onto a “bipartisan” bill.

While the struggle to pass health-care reform legislation continues as the biggest story in Congress right now, that other “news” story just won’t seem to die:

Dem Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii is going to introduce a resolution on the House floor today that seems designed to put House GOPers who are flirting with birtherism in a jam.

The measure Abercrombie will introduce commemorates the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood. But here’s the rub, his spokesman tells me: It describes Hawaii as Barack Obama’s birthplace.

There’s been a lot of discussion on OpenCongress of late regarding natural born citizens, and whether President Barack Obama meets the criteria. But a few months ago, another piece of legislation also ruffled some feathers: the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009 (H.R. 1868). Our summary of the legislation says, “This bill would eliminate birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants in the United States. Current U.S. law automatically recognizes any person born on American soil as a natural born citizen.”

This description was challenged by several readers, who argued there are very specific circumstances required for “natural born” classification. Mario Apuzzo wrote a lenghty post on the subject:

There is a critical difference between a “natural born Citizen” and a “citizen.” The Constitution itself does not tell us what a “natural born Citizen” is. Hence, we simply cannot just apply the term to a given situation. Rather, we have to construe from the Constitution itself and other extrinsic sources such as historical events, constitutional debates, congressional debates, case law, statutes, and any other relevant information what the Framers meant by the term. The Constitution uses both “natural born Citizen” and “Citizen of the United States.” It uses “Citizen of the United States” in Article II’s grandfather clause, giving such a citizen the right to be President, but only if born prior to the adoption of the Constitution. It even says that a President must be a “natural born Citizen” (implying from birth) and a Senator or Representative need only be a “Citizen of the United States” for 9 and 7 years, respectively (a fortiori showing that he/she could be a naturalized citizen). Basic rules of constitutional construction tell that the terms are not interchangeable. These rules also tell us that in construing the Constitution, special meaning must be given to the words “natural born.” We must give meaning to the Framer’s use of the words “natural born.”’

The Supreme Court ruled back in 1897 that citizens born on American soil, including those born to foreigners, are indeed citizens. The United States vs. Wong Kim Ark opinion contains a number of choice quotes regarding citizenship, pulling from English and French common law (and, it appears, contradicting the “international law” or “Law of Nations” mentioned by Apuzzo). Much of the language uses the terminology “natural born” or “native born.” For starters:

“It was contended by one of the learned counsel for the United States that the rule of the Roman law, by which the citizenship of the child followed that of the parent, was the true rule of international law, as now recognized in most civilized countries, and had superseded the rule of the common law, depending on birth within the realm, originally founded on feudal considerations.”

“But at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States in 1789, and long before, it would seem to have been the rule in Europe generally, as it certainly was in France, that, as said by Pothier, ‘citizens, true and native-born citizens, are those who are born within the extent of the dominion of France,’ and ‘mere birth within the realm gives the rights of a native-born citizen, independently of the origin of the father or mother, and of their domicil.’”

And then there’s this citation in the opinion, from an English case on citizenship:

“By the common law of England, every person born within the dominions of the Crown, no matter whether of English or of foreign parents, and, in the latter case, whether the parents were settled or merely temporarily sojourning, in the country, was an English subject, save only the children of foreign ambassadors (who were excepted because their fathers carried their own nationality with them), or a child born to a foreigner during the hostile occupation of any part of the territories of England. No effect appears to have been given to descent as a source of nationality.”

The court also strived to clarify how citizenship applied to persons born abroad to an American parent:

“These opinions go to show that, since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, the executive branch of the Government, the one charged with the duty of protecting American citizens abroad against unjust treatment by other nations, has taken the same view of the act of Congress of 1855, declaring children born abroad of American citizens to be themselves citizens…

Finally, the court stated the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to clarify, once and for all, the citizenship question in the United States, and ruled thus:

The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution … contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two only: birth and naturalization.

Of course, the issue still hasn’t been “settled,” more than 100 years after that decision was reached.

Cross-posted at OpenCongress. Photo (used under a Creative Commons license) by Justin Sloan.

According to the article, in addition to the high costs to develop and build each plane, the Air Force is seeing the cost to maintain the jets increase over time:

The Air Force says the F-22 cost $44,259 per flying hour in 2008; the Office of the Secretary of Defense said the figure was $49,808. The F-15, the F-22′s predecessor, has a fleet average cost of $30,818.

What’s so striking to me, about this entire story, is the lack of information. The figures above come from two different sources, but which is correct? The Air Force seemingly wants to continue ordering F-22s (Air Combat Cmdr. John D.W. Corley said 381 are necessary; Sec. Gates put the number at 187), and might that be the reason behind the lower figure? I don’t know who to believe.

And what about Congress? What is their role in the situation? Well, last month the House Armed Services Committee voted to continue F-22 production to the tune of $369 million, for 12 planes, in FY 2011. They included the funding in the FY 2010 Defense Appropriations bill (H.R. 2647), which the full House approved on June 25. This is where things get interesting for the concerned citizen.

Say you want to know which members of the House Armed Services Committee voted to approve the F-22 funding? If it were a full House vote, like the one above, OpenCongress would have the data. But since the vote took place during committee mark-up, it’s up to the committee to decide how to publish the information. Unfortunately for citizen sleuths, this particular roll-call is tucked into a Committee Report on H.R. 2647, which was published as a PDF. The vote, as you can see below, is definitely not in a searchable format, and not something you could export and run through other tools easily:

That’s a razor-thin margin to resurrect a program that neither the Secretary of Defense nor the President of the Unites States wants to continue. Travis Sharp did a great job of looking at the context behind the six Democratic “Aye” votes on the amendment, but what if we took that research a little further? I used a new Sunlight Foundation tool called Congrelate to look into the fundraising behind the members of the House Armed Services Committee (Congrelate is still in alpha testing, but here’s a link to that data, which you can also find on each member’s individual OpenCongress profile page).

Of those Democratic Representatives who voted for the F-22 funding, five received campaign contributions from the “defense aerospace” industry during 2008: Rep. Bobby Bright received $5,000; Rep. Joe Courtney, $29,000; Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, $27,750; Rep. James Marshall, $30,000; and Rep. Mike McIntyre, $11,000.

I guess this is a round about way of saying that, while we’ve come along way in recent years to putting data and information about Congress at your fingertips, we’re still a long way off. OpenCongress and Congrelate are both pretty cutting edge tools when they have data to work with, but information like committee votes is still buried in PDFs.

My colleague Paul Blumenthal describes what’s happening in more detail, but the basic gist of the situation is thus: the House will debate H.R. 2998 as a substitute amendment to the original bill, H.R. 2454. Complicating matters is the sheer length of the bill — H.R. 2454 weighed in at 1091 pages. The substitute bill that was dropped this week is 1200 pages long! And, as if to add insult to injury, there are 300 pages of material included today based upon committee action yesterday.

I wrote last week that OpenCongress can be an incredible resource for citizens, reporters and activists looking for information on Congress, but cautioned that this is only true when Congress makes that information available. With the case of the American Clean Energy And Security Act, this simply wasn’t possible. Members of the House were given precious little time to determine the policy outcomes of this legislation, due to its size, the different versions released, and the time frame provided for action (Speaker Nancy Pelosi had sought a vote before next week’s 4th of July recess). Members of the public were given even less time.

My colleagues at the Sunlight Foundation argue that lawmakers should be required to post legislation online for 72 hours before voting. That would ensure everybody — from Senators and Representatives to bloggers, reporters and citizens — would have time to read the bill.

Cross-posted at OpenCongress.