Calling on Super Citizens to Brainstorm Opening Super Congress Share This:

It’s time to think big: The Super Congress situation is developing at an incredibly fast rate and we want to be able to respond as fast as possible — both as an organization committed to greater government transparency and as citizens who live in a democracy.

Right now, the rules on the books say almost nothing about about how transparent this super committee’s process has to be. That means that a body of 12 members of Congress will get to operate totally above the reach of accountability (in the form of public meetings and financial and lobbying disclosure) to determine one of the most significant deals in American history: how to slice $1.5 trillion from the national debt.

We’ve written about this issue a few times (here and here, for example) and have even built a coalition of partners to support our five leading recommendations for committee openness, but now we want to hear from you.

Calls to congressional offices and district meetings with representatives are great ways to get our voices heard (and you may be hearing from us again about taking these actions), but what more can we do? America, we need to get riled up: The recommendations made by this committee will have a tangible impact our country and our lives. Now is the time to get creative.

Some (rough!) ideas we’ve thought up:

Guerrilla theatre productions of Super Congress committee meetings in public spaces

Asking folks to hold rallies in the districts of the 12 selected members of the committee

Smoke machine flash mobs. (As in “smoke and mirrors” or the smokey backroom deals of lobbyists….Get it?)

Asking business to hold their meetings outside.

Get a congressional representative to write a “Dear Colleague” letter in support of opening the Super Congress. (Oh, wait, Reps Quigley and Renacci beat us to it.)

So, got any great ideas? Got any less-than-great-but-possibly-salvageable ideas? Brainstorm with us in the comments — and be sure to like/up-vote the good ones, too!

For more updates on this campaign, join us at http://sunlightfoundation.com/opensupercongress.