Access to data is improved, but not as much as promised

As a candidate, Barack Obama promised to "create a centralized Internet database of lobbying reports, ethics records, and campaign finance filings in a searchable, sortable and downloadable format." Much of this was actually implemented after passage of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which was signed by President George W. Bush in 2007 thanks to Obama's leadership in the Senate.
 
Under that law, the clerk of the House and the secretary of the Senate maintain databases of lobbying reports and campaign contributions by lobbyists and lobbyist-controlled political action committees. The databases do indeed provide lobbying and campaign contribution filings in a searchable, sortable and downloadable format, watchdogs say. In fact, many media outlets have used these databases to research investigative stories.
 
"We have put more info online than ever before, in a searchable, sortable, downloadable format," said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist with Public Citizen.

But Holman and others add that HLOGA does not fully meet the standard Obama set out in his campaign promise. The databases available do not include ethics records, and they are not a single, unified database, but rather a series of separate databases.
 
Meanwhile, the administration has made a number of improvements in other varieties of disclosure, mostly in a piecemeal fashion. Organizations seeking money from the Troubled Assets Relief Program or the economic stimulus bill must disclose their lobbying activities, for instance, and these must in turn be offered to the public electronically. Some watchdogs have said the follow-through on these initiatives has been imperfect, but the administration has at least established the rules.
 
In addition, the public can now obtain financial disclosure forms for executive branch officials -- though at least for now, the forms have to be requested individually, rather than being immediately downloadable from the Internet. Finally, the White House is now posting visitor logs on the Web.
 
Transparency advocates agree that the administration's efforts fall short of ideal -- and fall short of Obama's campaign promise. But they add that disclosure of key information is now much more extensive and more user-friendly than it was just a few years ago. And they sense that, despite the current shortcomings, the White House is committed to improving transparency. So we'll rate their efforts on this promise as In the Works.