LegiStorm: Transparency's Sidekick

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband lost between $100,001 and $1 million on an investment in American International Group according to her 2009 personal financial disclosure.

The revelation was the main focus of a number of news stories published after LegiStorm announced we had posted the disclosures for members of the House yesterday, two days before the schedule release.

The Washington Post, USA Today, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal were among the outlets that looked at the files on LegiStorm and wrote about what they found.

Earmarks are getting some renewed attention, and reporters are finding fresh examples of Washington's addiction to pork.

Roll Call has a story today about millions of dollars in earmarks requested by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) for his alma mater Tougaloo College. Problem is, the college doesn't know what the earmarks are for and it's not apparent it could provide the engineering services Thompson wants to fund since it has no discernible engineering program.

The story comes on the heels of the Washington Post's look this weekend at earmarks requested by Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.). The Post highlighted the John Murtha Airport in Murtha's hometown of Johnstown, Pa., a lightly-used airport which has been kept afloat largely due to earmarks requested by Murtha.

When congressional staffers get in trouble, newspapers often cite LegiStorm. Aides rarely do good in the media - if they do, their elected bosses take the credit. 

The Washington Post cited our employment data in reports that one such aide, Jeffrey Rosato of Sen. Barbara Boxer's (D-Calif.) staff, was arrested last Friday on charges of receiving and distributing child pornography. Boxer fired him immediately upon learning of the charges.

The past year has led to several other such news announcements about congressional aides, minors and pornography.

Vice President Dick Cheney might head his own fourth branch of government, as his critics have noted of his unusual legal claims to be outside the disclosure laws of the other branches of government, but some of his staff's salaries are reported with the legislative branch. Just not all of them.

So we are reminded by a piece by Dan Froomkin on today's Washington Post website, which points out that our web site has salaries for 33 Office of the Vice President staffers by virtue of its "mostly ceremonial role as president of the Senate." But "top Cheney aides such as chief of staff David S. Addington and national security adviser John Hannah, who are paid out of the vice president's executive appropriation, don't show up anywhere in the public domain."

It must be nice to avoid such kind of scrutiny.