Legistorm: Transparency's Sidekick

Roll Call used LegiStorm’s congressional data today to show that Chris Riley, chief of staff for Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.), had made impermissible amounts of side income from congressman's campaign. In response to Roll Call's inquiries, Riley quickly returned more than $90,000 to Deal’s campaign committee.

The Capitol Hill newspaper used our salary and personal financial disclosure data for the article. What Roll Call discovered is that because Riley made enough congressional salary to qualify as a senior staffer, he was limited to making roughly $25,000 a year on the side. Riley told Roll Call he was unaware of the limits.

Riley is the fourth chief of staff in the House so far to come under public scrutiny about matters contained in personal financial disclosures after LegiStorm released its database of personal financial disclosures in late February.

LegiStorm's release provoked outrage on Capitol Hill, especially among House chiefs of staff, who met to discuss ways to shut LegiStorm disclosures down. There was talk of a publicly financed lawsuit.

But the series of recent concerns about chiefs of staff is proof of the value in such public accessibility of this information.

Today's story followed quickly on the heels of another story Roll Call wrote yesterday which used LegiStorm's financial disclosures to highlight the lack of disclosure about a potential conflict of interest between Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) and an energy business.

Roll Call said that Pearce sold the assets of his oil services company to Key Energy, a company that testified before a panel that he co-chaired, for a reported $12 million. However, Pearce's personal finance disclosure listed the value of the company at $1 million-$5 million, and he was not required to disclose the sale at all, because it was only for the assets of the company and not the company itself.

Roll Call takes pains to point out there is no evidence Pearce has promoted any legislation specifically to benefit Key Energy. But it appears without Key Energy's SEC filings detailing the sale, there would have been no way to see the connection.