NEWS ROUNDUP:

Campaign Finance

• Whitehouse not done with campaign finance reform: Despite the failure of the DISCLOSE Act in the Senate, Sheldon Whitehouse, the sponsor of the bill, is nevertheless convinced that the Citizens United ruling will be reversed. (Los Angeles Times)
• Super PACs a mystery to a majority of Americans: Only one-quarter of Americans have heard “a lot” about increased outside spending in this year’s presidential election, and only 40% of the population could name what a super PAC was when given four choices—46% said they had no opinion—according to a new poll. (Washington Post)
• Study details extent of big money in super PACs: A new poll reveals that more than half of the money from individual donors that has gone into super PACs has come from just 47 people, confirming the suspicion that the committees are a rich man’s game. (Washington Post)
• Feature: Big money, unlike in 2008, will dominate 2012 election: President Obama’s doing just as well, if not better, with small donors as he did in 2008. Instead of winning him the election this year, however, this focus on small money could be his downfall, given the massive donations going to Mitt Romney and outside groups supporting him. (Time)

International

• New website opens Peruvian legislature: To deal with the general mistrust its citizens have for its government, Citivox, with help from others, has created 131 Voces, a site that gives citizens access to legislators’ voting records and pending legislation. (National Democratic Institute)

Open Data

• Data.gov welcomes information from four of America’s biggest cities: Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, and New York City have released a number of data sets on cities.data.gov, which puts local data from these locations on the federal data.gov website. (Government Technology)
• Opinion: Big data can—and has—been used to discriminate: Now that we’ve solved the problem of getting and using data, the focus should be on how this data’s being used, the author argues. If it’s being using improperly (in the name of “personalization”) by corporations or the government, the results could be disastrous. (O’Reilly Radar)

RELEVANT BILLS INTRODUCED:

• None.

REST OF THE WEEK:

• None.

JOB OPPORTUNITIES:

• None.

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