Incomplete Disclosures

As these examples show, ethics questions can arise even when fellows file disclosure forms. These situations can only be brought to light because the Senate has rules requiring fellows to disclose the amount of outside compensation they’ve received and its source. Unfortunately, the Senate poorly enforces these rules. Without these disclosures, it’s nearly impossible to follow the money.

In our investigation, we analyzed how often Senate fellows submitted their required disclosure reports and agreements to comply with Senate rules, as well as how complete those disclosures were. We found that even when fellows file the required forms, they’re sometimes incomplete. From April 22, 2016 to July 31, 2018, the Senate Office of Public Records received 442 reports from Senate fellows. Approximately 14 percent of forms were missing the source of income, and approximately 14 percent of forms were missing the amount of income.

This is similar to what we found looking at forms filed between 1988 and 2016, where approximately 16 percent of report forms were missing data on the source of the fellow’s compensation, and approximately 17 percent were missing data on how much the fellow was being paid.

Sometimes, unclear disclosures can undermine the transparency intent of the rule, making it difficult to know where the money originates. For example, the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS), an organization promoting Asian Pacific American political representation, sent four fellows to Congress between 2017 and 2018. According to its website, APAICS funds its Congressional fellowship program with sponsors including Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, American Airlines, Pepsi, and the American Petroleum Institute. Their fellows’ disclosure reports correctly list APAICS as their source of funding, but they don’t clarify that the money originated from another organization. We don’t know if these organizations had any financial stake in AIPACS’s work. We also don’t know what (if any) relationship these funding organizations had with fellows. There's no requirement to disclose exactly where third party fellowship programs get their funding from.

Furthermore, these disclosure forms are available in the Senate Office of Public Records, but they aren’t digitized, making it difficult for the public to view them. Unless an interested party travels to the office to look at these documents, it’s hard to use these forms for their intended purpose—public accountability and transparency. While this is a pain, it’s still better than the House, which has next to no transparency.

Key Information Missing

Our analysis of the filed forms only tells part of the story. Some organizations publish public lists of their fellows, which makes it possible to compare the names in these lists to the names of fellows that submitted their ethics forms. Doing so shows how low compliance rates are. We calculated the compliance rates for fellows from two organizations, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Political Science Association (APSA), because they publish lists of their fellows going back several years.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science works with industry and scientific organizations to place fellows in Congressional, executive, and judicial offices. It has over 30 partner organizations, including the American Nuclear Society. AAAS doesn’t select its partner organizations’ fellows or pay them, but it does help them get placed in Congressional offices and on relevant committees. On some reports, fellows put “AAAS” as their sponsor organization, rather than the actual financial-sponsoring organization, obscuring exactly which outside organization is footing the bill.

AAAS lists its fellows from 1973 to 2018 on an online alumni directory. Between 2008 and 2018, that fellowship directory contains 230 Senate placements. According to questions AAAS responded to, the directory doesn’t contain all of its fellows. When we compared that fellowship alumni directory with the available forms, we found only 42 percent of these fellows submitted at least one of the required ethics forms. Only 30 percent submitted both required forms.

In the most recently completed fellowship year (2017-2018), AAAS facilitated 26 Senate fellowships, but only 50 percent of fellows submitted both of their required ethics forms. This is a poor rate of compliance, but it’s a slight improvement from the past.

For the House, the AAAS fellowship alumni directory lists 106 fellows who worked between 2008 and 2018. Unlike the Senate, House rules do not require these fellows to publicly disclose who their sponsors are, or how much they’re being paid.

AAAS told us that it provides a general discussion of ethics during orientation and organizes a “half-day session for Congressional fellows, typically conducted by staff from the Senate Select Committee on Ethics and the House Committee on Ethics.” It also said that Hill office staff assist fellows with submitting required ethics forms.

Similarly, the American Political Science Association, which represents dues-paying political scientists, also sends fellows to Congress. We examined its publicly available list of fellowship alumni between 2010 and 2018. Of 89 Senate placements listed in this time period, 37 percent of the fellows submitted at least one of the required ethics forms. Only 26 percent submitted both required forms.

These compliance rates are unacceptable.