When Todd Platts, York County's congressman, denied
our open-records request for a list of
people who'd visited his office, one of his answers to our questions piqued my curiosity.
We asked that if people couldn't see who visited his office, how would we keep track of which lobbyists were bending his ear? He replied, in part: "Lobbyists must file quarterly reports with the Clerk of the House .... disclosing their contacts with the House and Senate."
Whoa, I thought -- a list of lobbyists who had knocked on Platts' door was already out there; no need to get it from the Congressman himself.
So I went to the Clerk of the House's Web site. Sure enough, you can search online records for lobbyist activity. And you can see what lobbyists represent what clients -- for example, that the York City Sewer Authority registered a lobbyist in January with an interest in funding for sewer/water improvements; and that Wellspan Health registered a lobbyist in March 2008 to focus on, in part, "budget resolution provisions relating to medicare and medicaid funding and discretionary health care funding."
You can also see what their lobbying expenses were for a given time period, and even if they've made contributions to lawmakers.
But -- unless I'm missing it, and I am happy to be proven wrong here -- you can't see which lawmakers they've met with.
It was nice of Platts to point out that you can find out a lot about lobbyists online. Since we know that Platts doesn't accept PAC money, however, we'd really like to know which lobbyists have visited him, and concerning which issues. But, apparently, we can't know that.
our open-records request for a list of
people who'd visited his office, one of his answers to our questions piqued my curiosity.We asked that if people couldn't see who visited his office, how would we keep track of which lobbyists were bending his ear? He replied, in part: "Lobbyists must file quarterly reports with the Clerk of the House .... disclosing their contacts with the House and Senate."
Whoa, I thought -- a list of lobbyists who had knocked on Platts' door was already out there; no need to get it from the Congressman himself.
So I went to the Clerk of the House's Web site. Sure enough, you can search online records for lobbyist activity. And you can see what lobbyists represent what clients -- for example, that the York City Sewer Authority registered a lobbyist in January with an interest in funding for sewer/water improvements; and that Wellspan Health registered a lobbyist in March 2008 to focus on, in part, "budget resolution provisions relating to medicare and medicaid funding and discretionary health care funding."
You can also see what their lobbying expenses were for a given time period, and even if they've made contributions to lawmakers.
But -- unless I'm missing it, and I am happy to be proven wrong here -- you can't see which lawmakers they've met with.
It was nice of Platts to point out that you can find out a lot about lobbyists online. Since we know that Platts doesn't accept PAC money, however, we'd really like to know which lobbyists have visited him, and concerning which issues. But, apparently, we can't know that.
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