by Julie R Butler

Created on: December 05, 2008

President Elect Barack Obama has more to do on his first day as President of the United States of America than any other president in history, even including Franklin Delano Roosevelt coming in during the midst of the Great Depression in 1933. He will certainly need to take immediate action on the financial crisis that is unfolding before us, but there will also be much more on his plate as well. In a nutshell, he has to bring transparency, moral authority, confidence, trust, and thus Democracy back to the Oval Office, a large plate, indeed, in light of the massive erosion of these qualities that the George W. Bush Administration has incurred during the past eight years.

According to his official website, barackobama.com, President Elect Obama and his team intend to "shine light" on an array of dark corners of law and policy making as an issue of ethics, in both the executive and the legislative branches. Citing Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force, where oil and gas lobbyists met secretly to set energy policy, without the input of environmentalists, climate change scientists, or alternative energy advocates, Mr. Obama has declared his intent to take action to remove the undue influence of lobbyists as well as campaign donations on our government officials. He understands that the influence of lobbyists and campaign financing are integrally tied to the concept of transparency, and so several important steps will be taken to eliminate the secrecy that has been one of the most deeply troubling characteristics of the Bush Administration as well as in the process of lawmaking in Congress.

One important step will be to "create a centralized Internet database of lobbying reports, ethics records, and campaign finance filings." As explained on the website, this would include a "Contracts and Influence" Database, and would go hand in hand with a further listing of special interest tax breaks, ending the overuse of "no-bid contracts," instituting a five-day period of public scrutiny of all non-emergency laws that come to the president's desk to be signed, and the creation of new rules that will require legislators to disclose and justify earmarks that they add to bills 72 hours before they can be approved by the full Senate.

Under the title, "Free the Executive Branch from Special Interest Influence," on the website, three promises are made, regarding the "revolving door" that has been abused by government employees and businesses, ending the practice of hiring

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