CQ ($ required) posted a revealing timeline of Congress' attempts at transparency, generally showing how it lags behind in opening up to the public.
The Senate seems especially resistant to its public role. It took the Senate five years to finally open its proceedings to the public in 1794. Seven years after the House began televising its proceedings - and 36 years after the first televised presidential debate - the Senate opened up to C-SPAN. And today, the Senate still does not require campaign finance reports to be filed electronically.
In some cases private entities have taken open government into their own hands, in this case charging a fee to citizens to view public records:
2006: Legistorm, an independent Web site, begins posting congressional staff salary reports online. The reports had been available only in quarterly published reports. The site subsequently provided online copies of the financial disclosure and travel reports of lawmakers and their top aides, which had previously been kept on paper in a records room.
But the official congressional record-keepers still maintain those reports on paper in a basement room.
Finally, congressional leaders resisting greater transparency should remember this:
1932: CBS and NBC are denied permission to broadcast on the radio the congressional debates on repealing prohibition; the networks secretly plant microphones in the House chamber.
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