U.S. Senate might soon follow Mich.’s lead by posting expenses online

The U.S. Senate might join Michigan in posting legislators’ expenses online, if President Barack Obama signs a bill mandating transparent spending.

U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., introduced the measure to post senators’ personal office expenses as part of a legislative appropriations bill July 6. Each senator is allotted a certain amount of money for expenses such as travel and staff salaries.

Secretary of the Michigan Senate Carol Viventi said both the Michigan House of Representatives and Senate post their expenses online.

“Congress should lead by example,” Coburn’s spokesman Don Tatro said. “People have a right to know how their tax dollars are being spent.”

Currently, the information is only available on paper in Washington, D.C. If Obama signs the bill, the expenses would be posted online by 2011.

“It’s already public information,” Tatro said. “This will make it easily accessible.”

Dave Pollock, press secretary to U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said the senator supports posting expenses. Calls seeking comment from the office of U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., were not returned.

According to an Associated Press report, the bill also would provide senators with office budgets of $3.1 million to $4.9 million next year.

Tatro said Coburn’s commitment to transparency began before Obama made it a campaign issue.

“This is something he’s long been in favor of,” he said. “A transparent government is an accessible and honest government.”

Viventi said the Michigan senators started posting their expenses in April.

“It was kind of a move to let taxpayers know how the senators are spending their allocations,” she said. “It shows what each senator has done with the amount of money they are allocated. It shows things like how much they have spent on travel, or office supplies, or mailings to the district.”

She said people had requested expenses be posted. The expenses are tied into the accounting system, so when money is spent it is automatically posted to the site.

State Rep. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing, said he had gotten little feedback about posted expenditures. He said most legislative expenditures go for staff salaries.

“I think for most of the Legislature, in these tough economic times, people are pretty careful on what they spend,” he said. “To tell you the truth, there isn’t a lot to spend.”

Douglas Roberts, director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at MSU, said interest in transparency tends to come and go, with government sometimes becoming less transparent again after interest peaks.

“Sometimes you need some sort of symbol like that,” he said. “(Concern about transparency) comes more often when you have budget problems. If you’re in a program that’s being cut, you want to know what else is being cut and what they’re spending on.”

Roberts said he didn’t expect many constituents to read their senators’ expense reports, but to find out secondhand from journalists reading the reports.

“People have an opportunity to look,” he said. “If somebody is out there and has no expenditures, or has questionably extensive expenditures, that’s a story.”
Staff writer Meredith Skrzypczak contributed to this report.