Here are some of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies over the past week:

CQ Politics' Richard Rubin reports how House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (N.Y.), already beset by a series of ethics investigations, recently disclosed more than $500,000 in previously unreported assets. Rubin notes that earlier this year, Bill Allison, Sunlight's senior fellow, found similar problems with Rangel’s previous disclosure reports. According to Bill’s analysis, Rangel failed to report purchases, sales or his ownership of assets at least 28 times since 1978 on his personal financial disclosure forms. Assets worth between $239,026 and $831,000 appeared and disappeared with no disclosure of when they were acquired, how long they were held or when they were sold, as House rules require. “I understand being sloppy, missing an asset once or twice,” Bill said. “But what this shows is he doesn’t take financial disclosure seriously. How else can you year after year have these inaccuracies? It doesn’t look like there is a lot of care put it into compared to other members. It makes people suspicious when all of a sudden you double your wealth. Without knowing how a member accumulated that wealth, people are going to ask questions.” The New York Times' David Kocieniewski reported on Rangel's discrepancies and quotes Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, saying the New York lawmaker’s haphazard approach to his finances had undermined his credibility in Congress. “Sloppy bookkeeping is not a valid excuse for a sophisticated member of Congress who is chairman of the committee that handles complex financial issues like the tax code,” she said. Glenn Reynolds, at his popular "Instapundit" blog, has followed the various Rangel stories and picks up on Bill's Real Time Investigations post responding to the CQ Politics report.

Halimah Abdullah, with McClatchy Newspapers, reported on a study conducted by the Center for Public Integrity that found more than half the $1.1 million in campaign contributions the Democratic Party's Blue Dog Coalition received so far this year came from the pharmaceutical, health care and health insurance industries. The report cites Center for Responsive Politics data to show how, on average, Blue Dog Democrats net $62,650 more from the health sector than other Democrats, while hospitals and nursing homes also favor them, giving, respectively, $5,680 and $5,550 more. Abdullah used Party Time data to show how coalition members are raising campaign cash at fundraisers.  McClatchy papers across the country ran the story.

Wired's "Epicenter" blog highlighted the Apps for America 2 contest finalists. Government Computer News quotes Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs' director, discussing the finalists.

Russia Today reported on ProPublica's and Sunlight's Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker, which allows anyone to search the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to quickly learn what governments are lobbying our government and about what. "It's amazing how much lobbyist really do have an impact on public policy," Bill Allison is quoted as saying. "You can follow lobbying campaigns online and see policies changing." The whole interview can be listened to here. The blog of the Legal Times also highlighted the Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker, which they write "creates ways to search those records by legislator contacted, country, lobbying firm, client and issue. Previously, the filings were only available online via a Department of Justice Web site as non-searchable .pdf files."

MAPLight.org launched Money Near Votes, "a new government transparency tool making it easy to track special-interest contributions to legislators given within a month, a week, or a day of when a vote occurred." This new tool promises a new level of transparency by honing in on the role special interests play in shaping public policy. "Never before have these 'well-timed' campaign donations been highlighted in such an exhaustive, easy-to-locate format," MAPLight asserts.

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies from the week:

Last Friday evening's June 26th program, CNN's Lou Dobbs broadcasted a piece by correspondent Louise Schiavone about the Cap and Trade Energy Bill that the House of Representatives was to vote on and pass later that evening. Schiavone interviewed Jake Brewer, Sunlight’s engagement director, who said, "This is the kind of bill that's going to affect our economy on a massive scale, our climate, our national security, and is not the kind of thing to be taken lightly. The opacity of this process is -- to be perfectly honest, it's infuriating." Schiavone then stated erroneously that Sunlight opposed the bill. For the record, Sunlight has no position on the content of the bill itself, but advocates for the Congress to put all non-emergency legislation online for 72 hours before voting on it. The transcript can be read here, and the video is below.

Along those lines, Sunlight’s advocacy for the 72-hour rule helped generate a couple of good editorials. Heather Long, deputy editorial page editor for The (Harrisburg, Pa.) Patriot-News , wrote a strong editorial in favor of the 72-hour rule. "It's so basic it should not even have to be said: Lawmakers should know what they are voting on. In order to do that, they need time to review bills, and that takes more than a few hours for things as lengthy and complex as climate change and health care."

The (Olympia, Wash.) Olympian editorializes about U.S. Rep. Brian Baird (Wash.) introducing House Resolution 554, which would require the House to honor the 72-hour rule with all non-emergency bills and conference reports. "If Congress is at all interested in restoring public trust and confidence in its operations, the members will pass Congressman Baird’s 72-hour rule," the editorial says.

National Public Radio's Don Gonyea reports on the Obama administration backtracking on openness, centering on the White House's refusal to make public its visitor logs. He quotes Melanie Sloan, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s director, "Once all the pretty speeches were over in the first couple of days, the record now isn't quite so great." Regarding the visitor logs, "Not only did the administration refuse to provide those records, we have sued them, and... they are making the same argument that the Bush administration did, that these are presidential records, even though this argument has already lost in court," Melanie said. Gonyea quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight's director, noting the positive steps taken by the administration on opening government data. "What the administration is beginning to deliver is an openness when it comes to a certain level of White House deliberations and with respect to government data. Time will tell how this all plays out, but even in the first six months of the administration, we're seeing far more openness than we've seen in modern history." Listen here

The Wall Street Journal used Center for Responsive Politics data to show how the financial industry did something quite surprising...They cut spending on lobbying and campaign contributions. In this year’s first quarter, banks and other financial institutions spent $104.7 million to lobby Congress and the administration, down 8% from the same period last year. And the industry made $19.9 million in political contributions in the first three months of 2009, which is a 65% decrease from the same period in 2007 and a 13% drop from the same period in 2005, just after the last presidential election cycle, the Journal reports. Since CRP has been keeping records, the financial industry has been the top giver of political contributions and the top spender on lobbying activities, giving $2.2 billion since 1990 and spending $3.6 billion on lobbying since 1998. This year’s decline coincides with the public’s diminished image of financial institutions. Meanwhile, the health care industry is spending the most on lobbying these days, increasing its spending in the first quarter by 12% to $127.1 million.

The Boston Globe highlighted a CRP analysis that shows how consumer groups that favor health reform are being "decidedly outspent and out-lobbied by drug manufacturers, insurers, HMOs, and doctors' associations." In the first quarter of this year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the biggest spender on lobbying since 1998, and the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America together spent $22.5 million to influence the debate. In contrast, Families USA, a leading advocate for health reform from the consumer’s perspective, has spent $10,000 on lobbying this year.

Writing at The Wall Street Journal's "Digits" blog, Marisa Taylor reported on the Personal Democracy Forum conference held earlier this week in New York. She quotes Ellen from a closing panel, “I think that we’re going to look back on 2009 as the year in which the tide shifted." Rather than placing the burden of government transparency on non-profits to create online databases that track government spending, new government Web sites like Data.gov and Recovery.gov are creating a “remarkable shift in responsibility” wherein the government must explain itself to its citizenry, Ellen said. But Congress will be “the tougher nut to crack."

Sunlight Labs’ launch of TransparencyCorps at the PDF conference generated good media interest. Eliza Krigman with the National Journal quoted Ellen, "Sunlight and future partners can provide micro-tasks that when aggregated, help solve research and data analysis problems when computers alone cannot properly scrutinize government information." Columbia Journalism Review’s Clint Hendler quoted Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs’ director, “We have a problem at Sunlight. That is that our government gives us data that our computers can’t understand, and there’s nothing we can do about it but work harder.” Marshall Kirkpatrick with ReadWriteWeb wrote, "The innovative system is a pleasure to use and is being open sourced for other organizations interested in crowdsourcing similar tasks. You can honestly do something useful and important in 5 minutes or less on this site." And on his Joho the Blog site, David Weinberger, co-author of “The Cluetrain Manifesto,” highlighted both TransparencyCorps' launch and OpenCongress' redesign.

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies from the week:

CNN interviewed Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, in an article on lobbyists and the need for disclosure of their interactions with congressional lawmakers and other federal officials.

Katharine Q. Seelye at The New York Times reported on the fact that, five months into his administration, President Obama has signed two dozen bills, but he has almost never waited the five days, as he promised during his election campaign. She noted how open government and other watchdog groups have criticized the president for not living up to his pledge. Seelye quotes Ellen as saying it’s less important for the president to wait before signing a bill than it is for the Congress to wait 72 hours before voting on it. “There isn’t anybody in this town who doesn’t know that commenting after a bill has been passed is meaningless." The article also has an accompanying video.

Politico's Victoria McGrane reported on how the Senate is considering putting all their office expenses — including staff salaries — online, as well as requiring campaign fundraising reports to be published on the Web. The mere fact that the Senate leadership has conducted a whip count is an encouraging sign for the reforms' passage, McGrane writes. And she quotes Lisa Rosenberg, Sunlight’s , “They wouldn’t be talking about bringing it up for a vote if it wasn’t pretty solid."

The Washington Examiner reports on Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington calling on the Obama administration to release the names of health care executives who have visited the White House. “If you are going to criticize other people for secrecy, you better have an open door,” said Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director. “They talk about transparency more than they exhibit it.”

Brian Wingfield at Forbes.com wrote about the health care reform debate and linked to Sunlight’s senior writer Paul Blumenthal's blog post about former senators Tom Daschle and Bob Dole releasing a health care plan while being health care lobbyists.

Lisa Wangsness with The Boston Globe reported on bloggers from the medical, technology, and patient advocacy worlds organizing to win the right of patients to gain access to their computerized health records from their doctors in an electronic format. She quotes the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Deven McGraw noting that federal law already entitles patients to easy, inexpensive access to their health records in whatever format they exist. Too often, she said, patients, doctors, and hospitals are not aware of the law. She added that Congress included $19 billion in the stimulus package for electronic medical records systems. Patients and their doctors need to have a clearer understanding of that right, she said.

The New York Times picked up Anne C. Mulkern’s Greenwire piece on how money has helped to grease the skids of the Cap and Trade Energy Bill on Capitol Hill. The report used data from the Center for Responsive Politics to show how industry with a stake in the legislation has attempted to influence the vote in their favor.

Sunlight’s concern over how fast the energy bill Congress is moving the generated a number of editorials in support of our position. The (St. Paul, Minn.) Pioneer Press editorialized about the energy bill, "Has anybody read those 1,200 pages?” The editorial says "it is a big deal," and the "virtues of transparency don't apply only to the work of one's opponents. If the price of broader public understanding of major legislation is a slower process, good." And the editorial ended with, "To our friends at the Sunlight Foundation, we say: Keep the pressure on." The Chicago Tribune also editorialized about Cap and Trade. "Remember that gargantuan climate change bill we told you about last week? It's gotten bigger. Over the weekend, the bill grew from 946 pages to 1,201 pages, according to the Sunlight Foundation. It's still changing, with important amendments in flux. And The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise wrote a Cap and Trade editorial as well that used many of Sunlight's talking points.

ReadWriteWeb's Marshal Kirkpatrick wrote about the U.S. Office of Management and Budget issuing new reporting guidelines this week for recipients of the $787 billion Recovery Act. "The normally polite geek watchdog organization the Sunlight Foundation has come out swinging," Kirkpatrick wrote, referencing Ellen's blog post from yesterday where she called it a "significant failure" on the part of the administration by not living up to its promise for full and complete disclosure. Kirkpatrick also mentions how the Senate is now offering mashup-friendly XML (extensible markup language) feeds for Senate voting history. He lifted quotes from Sunlight's policy director John Wonderlich from a Politico article from April on the arguments against the chamber offering the voting history in XML. "The secretary of the Senate has cited a general standing policy that they're not supposed to present votes in a comparative format, that senators have the right to present their votes however they want to."

Speaking of the OMB’s new reporting guidelines, NextGov.com’s Aliya Sternstein noted other problems. The latest guidance does not include previous instructions from an earlier incarnation directing agencies to configure news feeds that would allow citizens to receive automatic updates. She interviewed Craig Jennings from OMB Watch, who said for standardization purposes, "it does make sense that there is some restriction to the raw data . . . to make sure [that, for example,] 'assn' equals association, 'Boeing Inc.' is the same as Boeing Incorporation."

Thanks.

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:

In Sunday's print edition, The New York Times editorialized about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordering electronic disclosure of lawmakers’ expense spending. They also encouraged the Senate to open up as well. Candidates for the Senate are the only federal candidates who fail to make their campaign finances available online in a timely fashion. "A measure to finally prod the Senate into modern times with electronic campaign filing awaits action, providing Republican obstruction can be defused. That’s not enough. It should be followed up by the Senate also putting expenses on line." Getting the Senate to pass timely online disclosure is a Sunlight priority.

Also in its Sunday edition, The Virginia-Pilot editorialized about Congress opening up its data online.  "Until recently, members of Congress have expended little effort to make their reports viewable online. But recent stories by The (Wall Street) Journal, as well as lobbying by government watchdog groups, apparently spurred lawmakers into action." The editorial notes Sunlight pointed out that (Pelosi's) plan calls for the reports to be posted in a "portable document format," or PDF, file. However, a searchable database would be much more user-friendly, allowing taxpayers to pull up and compare multiple reports.

NextGov's Aliya Sternstein reports on Sunlight obtaining and posting a version of the RFP for the Recovery.gov redesign. Sternstein quotes Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs director, "We're not in government contracting, but we're in transparency ... and it's crazy that the only place you can get this RFP" on Sunlight's Web site. "The reason that we're doing this is so we can inject ourselves into the process and expose it to the public," Clay said. "We'll be blogging about the whole thing. This Web site is supposed to serve the people, so let the people build it to their specifications."

On Tuesday, MAPLight.org and their partner the California First Amendment Coalition achieved a huge victory when the State of California agreed to give the public access to the state government database of how state lawmakers vote. In December, the two groups filed a lawsuit seeking access to legislative votes. In response, the state has set up a database of Senate and Assembly bills and votes that it updates daily. MAPLight is working to combine data on all contributions California state legislators receive with the new database of how each politician votes. “It will combine data on all money given to members of the California state legislature with the newly available database of how each politician votes, revealing patterns of money and influence never before possible,” Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, blogged about the victory for open government earlier in the week. The Berkeley, Calif., -based MAPLight constructed a similar database on Congress, which The New York Times’ Freakonomics blog highlighted on Tuesday.

Data and analysis from the Center for Responsive Politics continues to fuel important media stories. For instance, the Associated Press reported how the oil and gas industry has dramatically increased its lobbying spending in an effort to thwart new taxes and slow efforts to wean the nation away from fossil fuels. In the first three months of the year, the industry spent $44.5 million lobbying Congress and federal agencies, which puts it on pace to shatter last year's record total of $129 million. National Journal’s Hotline on Call highlighted a CRP study that found 19 of President Obama's ambassador nominees bundled $3.4 million in contributions to his presidential campaign and another $1.4 million to pay for his inauguration.

On his Instapundit blog, Glenn Reynolds highlights a blog post written by Paul Blumenthal, Sunlight’s senior writer, about how the House Ethics Committee is investigating a possible qui pro quo between Rep. Charles Rangel (N.Y.) and an oil industry executive.

The Washington Post reported on how the U.S. Treasury Department has told the special inspector general charged with overseeing the $700 billion bailout of the financial sector that the agency controls his office, “a claim that could threaten its independence.” The Post quotes Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, as saying that the Obama White House is acting like the administrations that proceeded it, trying to protect their privilege as much as possible. "I think there's been a perception that this had been a uniquely Bush-Cheney phenomenon, and I think you're seeing it [in this administration] too."

And in another disappointing story, the Politico reports that the Obama administration is adhering, “at least for now,” to the Bush administration policy of keeping White House visitor logs secret. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed suit Tuesday after the Secret Service refused their request for information on visits by coal industry executives. Paul blogged about this “disheartening” development on Tuesday.

Kevin Freking at the Associate Press reported on U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) canceling a fundraiser in her honor after an invitation to potential guests came across to some as more audacious than amusing. The invitation for the fundraiser, scheduled for Wednesday, included a play on words about the California Democrat's committee assignments. Freking quoted Nancy Watzman, director of Sunlight’s Party Time project, as saying it's common for political fundraisers to list lawmakers' committee assignments, but "others don't say it in so quite a blatant way. She was just highlighting what everyone knows. If you have business before a committee, there's an opportunity to meet-and-greet this politician in a personal way," Nancy said.

In a post about "incentive prizes" being used to spur public-private partnerships on the White House’s “The Briefing” blog, Thomas Kalil, the associate director of Science and Technology Policy for the Obama administration, mentioned and linked to Sunlight Lab’s Apps for America 2 contest as a good example.

At the Politico, Victoria McGrane wrote about U.S. Reps. Brian Baird (Wash.) and John Culberson (Texas) introducing a resolution that would require the House to post online all non-emergency legislation at least 72 hours before debate begins. She notes how Sunlight has counted more than a dozen House bills that failed the 72-hour test. Convincing Congress to honor a 72-hour rule is a priority of Sunlight. Such a rule would not only allow lawmakers the time to actually read the bills they are voting on, it would also give the press and citizens time to add their voice to the process.

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this past week:

Federal law prohibits lobbyists and those that hire them from giving gifts or campaign contributions to congressional lawmakers. No such law exists prohibiting them from spending unlimited amounts to honor lawmakers or contributing to non-profits connected to them. Quite a limitation on the distinction, if you ask me. However, Congress passed ethics rules in 2007 requiring for the first time that lobbyists must report all such payments. On Monday, USA Today's Fredreka Shouten and Paul Overberg reported on the paper's comprehensive analysis of lobbying reports that found 2,759 payments, totaling $35.8 million, were made in 2008. They quote Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, "It's another example of the many pockets of a politician's coat." The spending amounts to an "end-run" around campaign-finance laws "that are designed to limit the appearance of undue influence." National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" interviewed Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs’s director, about U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley's (Iowa) use of Twitter to criticize President Obama's call for action on health care. Grassley’s message: "Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND." Clay said, "He may not be the most prolific writer in 140 characters or less, but there's something really authentic about it."

NPR Interview

Federal News Radio interviewed Daniel Schuman about how the U.S. Supreme Court's nine-year old Web site is hard to navigate, difficult to use and in need of a significant upgrade. Daniel had blogged about the SCOTUS site last week. You can listen to the interview here.

Federal News Radio interview

Journalists used Center for Responsive Politics data to show how two important congressional battles are shaping up. With the debate over health reform intensifing, The New York Times’ Robert Pear looked at the political spending of doctors. Since the 2000 election cycle, their political action committee has contributed $9.8 million to congressional candidates with Republicans got more than Democrats in the four election cycles before 2008, when 56 percent went to Democrats. Congress is also considering legislation that would mandate the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate and approve the use of tobacco. Halimah Abdullah with McClatchy Newspapers reports that CRP data shows that among the 17 senators who voted against tasking the FDA with the tobacco regulatory role are top recipients of campaign contributions from the industry.

The Washington Post’s Paul Kane and Carol D. Leonnig researched the House lawmakers’ annual financial disclosure reports released Wednesday. They found lawmakers had significant investments in the financial institutions that took billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts at the end of last year, raising conflict-of-interest questions. They quote Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, as being critical of congressional lawmakers investing directly in companies they oversee. "You wonder if they're voting on things because it's good for the country or because it would increase their personal wealth," Melanie said.

Bara Viada at National Journal's "Under the Influence" blog reported on and links to Party Time's post about how the National Republican Campaign Committee inadvertently included a fundraising event for a Democratic lawmaker, U.S. Rep. Gary Peters (Mich.), on a list of fundraising events the party committee sent out earlier this week. Roll Call's (subscription required) Emily Heil and Elizabeth Brotherton, writing at their "Heard on the Hill" column, also report on Party Time's catch, as did Politico’s Glenn Thrush.

ProPublica’s Christina Jewett reported on the Project for Government Oversight’s call on the FDA’s inspector general to investigate the agency in light of its failure to stop contaminated syringes from reaching the market. An earlier report said the FDA’s inaction allowed 74,000 contaminated syringes to be shipped. “Authorities connected four deaths and 162 illnesses to the syringes,” Jewett wrote.

At his Joho the Blog, David Weinberger, live blogged a talk Clay participated in yesterday at the New Media Academic Summit held by public relations firm Edelman at Georgetown University. When asked how government and others can be encouraged to produce data in open formats Clay responded, "I’m more focused on just getting the data out. I don’t care about the format. We should tell them just to do it in plain text, if that’ll get it out faster. Once the government starts pumping it out we can have the debate about which standards."

InformationWeek’s Thomas Claburn reports on a court case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit over the issue of whether e-mail messages deserve the same privacy protection as telephone calls. He notes that Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU of Ohio, and the Center for Democracy and Technology filed an amicus brief in the case, Warshak v. USA, in support of added privacy protections.

T. J. Kelleher, writing at science magazine Seed’s "Week in Review" editorial, looked at Data.gov, the federal government’s site that promises to provide free access to data generated across all of its agencies. Kelleher asked, “Where’s the sunshine?” Kelleher mentions Sunlight Labs' Apps for America 2 contest, which is encouraging developers to build tools that will enable the common citizen to engage with the information Data.gov will be making available.

Federal Computer Week’s Ben Bain reported on Miriam Nisbet’s appointment to be the first director of a new office at the National Archives and Records Administration that will provide policy guidance to agencies for the handling of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and mediate disagreements about agency decisions not to grant requests. Some have referred to the new position as an “ombudsman” for FOIA, a development that open government advocates have welcomed wholeheartedly. Bain quotes Patrice McDermott, OpenTheGovernment.org’s director, as saying Nisbet has a deep knowledge of the issues and has strong ties to the open-government community. Patrice worked directly with Nisbet for four years at the American Library Association, Bain reports.

Tim Catts at AOL’s Daily Finance site reported that the ten banks cleared by the feds to buy back $68 billion in preferred stock investments they sold under the Treasury Department's rescue program aren't quite in the clear yet. They still have to settle on a price to repurchase hundreds of millions of warrants held by the government. Catts suggests his readers turn to SubsidyScope for a quick rundown of what goes into valuing a warrant.

In case you didn't see it, Jake Brewer, Sunlight’s engagement director, briefly profiles RaceTracker on The Huffington Post, the "non-partisan, fully-referenced, open-source and crowd-sourced wiki project that lists every candidate running in every U.S. Senate, House and governor's race" that soft launched yesterday.

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from the past week:

Late last Friday, National Public Radio ran a piece by Andrea Seabrook about the Obama administration’s "Open Government Initiative," a three-part process to craft recommendations on open government. Seabrook quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, saying the government should make it a priority to get the most important information up sooner. “And, in my mind, you got - priority data is the data that affects the public trust in its institutions. So, you know, personal financial disclosures, lobbying reports - there are many lobbying reports that are found in the Justice Department that have never seen the light of day. That is to say, they're not online - that being the definition of light of day in the 21st century.”

The second phase of the White House’s Open Government Initiative was a “brainstorming” session where the administration invited the public to submit ideas on how to achieve and sustain an unprecedented level of openness in government. The administration then encouraged participants to vote up or down on the ideas. They received 900 submissions and 33,000 votes on various ideas. House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (Ohio) submission to require Congress to honor a 72-hour public review period before voting on major spending bills ended up as one of the most popular, receiving nearly 1,000 votes. Roll Call (subscription required) and Federal Computer Week quote from Boehner’s statement noting Sunlight’s support for the 72-hour rule.

As normal, major press outlets depended on data from the Center for Responsive Politics to expose the power and influence of big money in Washington. The Wall Street Journal reported that in the first three months of 2009, the financial industry spent $27.6 million on lobbying and made $286,000 in campaign contributions to Congressional lawmakers. One industry goal was to get Congress to amend certain financial rules. So far, The Journal reported, they’ve succeeded in loosening one key accounting regulation and are working to get ride of it altogether. The Washington Post used CRP data to show the growing influence of tech titans Google, Microsoft, AT&T and Verizon. The same article mentions that the Center for Digital Democracy wrote to the White House protesting the Obama administration’s appointment of Google’s top lobbyist to the position of deputy technology officer. "We believe no special-interest connected person should assume a position of vital importance to the country's future," they wrote.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s directive to enforce a new level of disclosure for official expenditures from the offices of House lawmakers and to post the documents online as soon as possible generated a number of mentions of Sunlight’s support for the move. National Journal’s “Tech Daily Dose” blog links to a blog post written by John Wonderlich, Sunlight’s policy director about the matter. They mention that Sunlight called for online disclosure of the expense records in December 2008 and again last week. T.W. Farnam, writing at The Wall Street Journal’s “Washington Wire” blog, noted Sunlight’s support for expenditure disclosure. He also quotes John saying “public accountability for member expenses comes with online access, which is a big change from an underground office.” CQ Politics’ Bart Jansen, in writing about Pelosi’s directive, quoted from John’s post, “Speaker Pelosi’s move should be interpreted as a recognition that public information — even potentially embarrassing information about how members spend public funds — should be truly accessible to the general public, which means online.”

In a post titled, “Visualizing how a dirty Congresscritter turned campaign contributions into earmarks,” Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow highlights and links to a blog post written by Paul Blumenthal, Sunlight’s senior writer, and a graphic created by Kerry Mitchell, sunlight’s creative director, that illustrates U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky’s (Indiana) connection to a lobbying firm, the PMA Group, which represented many of the recipients of federal money earmarked by the congressman. Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor at The Washington Examiner, wrote in a blog post, “If this graphic doesn't persuade critics that earmarks are the key to the culture of corruption that dominates Congress, I don't know what else will.”

The Associated Press’ Andrew Miga wrote about how the spouses of congressional lawmakers and other politically-connected figures are coming under increasing scrutiny, especially those in high-profile, high-paying jobs. Miga quotes Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, saying conflicts can arise when both spouses work. "High-powered people are often likely to be married to other high-powered people."

Katharine Q. Seelye, writing at The New York Times’ “The Lede” blog, reported on the Supreme Court’s plans to redesign and update their Web site. She quotes from and links to a blog post written by Daniel Schuman, Sunlight's policy counsel, and a mock redesign of the Court's site created by Ali Felski, Sunlight Labs' senior designer. Fast Company's Cliff Kuang highlighted Ali's mockup and links to Daniel's post. Kuang also links to the mockups for USA.gov, FEC.gov, EPA.gov and Data.gov Sunlight Labs has created.

Thanks and see you next Friday!

Mike

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions on Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this past week:

Sunlight Labs’ launch of the Apps for America 2: The Data.gov Challenge in conjunction with the Obama administration’s launch of Data.gov generated a great amount of media interest. The contest is a development and visualization challenge to see who can come up with the best application and visualization for data from Data.gov. In an editorial about Data.gov, The New York Times mentioned Sunlight and the Apps for America 2 contest. The Times "Bits" blog mentioned the contest too in a post about Data.gov. The San Francisco Chronicle's "Politics Blog," in a post about Data.gov, mentions the Apps for America 2 contest and quotes Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs’ director, saying Data.gov itself is not meant for average people, but is geared more towards developers who will take the data and make it usable for the everyday person. Later in the week, Alyssa Fetini at Time magazine writes about Data.gov and the Apps for America 2 contest as well. She quotes Clay, "Government has made a move in the right direction — now it's time for us to show them what we can do."

Clay was a guest on the nationally-syndicated The Kojo Nnamdi Show, a program produced by National Public Radio-affiliated WAMU FM, where he joined a panel discussion on how non-profits and cities like Washington, D.C., are enlisting help from civic-minded developers to help make government data more open and usable. You can listen to the program here.

Peter Baker with The New York Times used data from the Center for Responsive Politics to show President Obama is continuing the practice of past presidents by awarding prestigious ambassadorships to top fundraisers. For instance, his emissaries to Great Britain and France raised respectively $550,00 and $800,000 for Obama’s election and inauguration. The Boston Globe’s Susan Milligan used CRP data to show how the business community, faced with Democratic congressional majorities, a Democratic president, and a voting public furious over Wall Street lapses, have shifted their campaign contributions dramatically toward the Democrats from the 2006 election through 2008.

The Associated Press’ Jim Abrams reports on a Congressional Research Service survey that found that federal employees in a wide range of agencies misuse travel cards to buy goods for their personal use, travel first-class or simply bilk the government. Abrams quotes Scott Amey, counsel with the Project on Government Oversight, "A private travel agency would be out of business running this kind of operation." Scott also said the CRS report points out the need for immediate improvements, including better oversight of all transactions and increased penalties for misuse. The Washington Times' Stephen Dinan reported on President Obama's failure to fulfill his promise to post bills on the WhiteHouse.gov for comment for five days before he signs them. Dinan notes Sunlight's push for a 72-hour waiting period for Congress, and quotes John Wonderlich, Sunlight’s policy director, saying the White House is not making it a priority to live up to the pledge. John said that Congress is where the actual changes to a bill can happen. By the time it gets to the president, he can only sign or veto it. In light of that, John said, some transparency advocates have questioned the value of Mr. Obama's five-day pledge. Michael Crowley, columnist at Reader's Digest, wrote about how leaders on Wall Street and Washington have let America down, and gives tips on what citizens can do to hold them accountable. He mentions Sunlight is a resource for keeping tabs on Congress. The (Baton Rouge, La.) Advocate editorialized about earmarks and quoted Bill Allison, Sunlight’s senior fellow, saying with 435 house lawmakers and 9,000 specific earmarks finding information about them can be difficult. The Wall Street Journal’s Amy Schatz reported on a government-advisory board that recommended the government adopt new practices and update current laws to better protect private information citizens send to government agencies or leave behind when they surf government Web sites. Schatz notes that the Center for Democracy and Technology proposed draft legislation that would help update privacy laws and regulation. Bara Vaida, writing at the National Journal's "Under the Influence" blog, highlighted a blog post by Nancy Watzman, director of Sunlight’s Party Time campaign, about health care lobbyists hosting fundraisers for lawmakers as they prepare to take up the health care reform debate next month. Nicholas Thompson at Wired's "Epicenter" blog wrote about the memo President Obama issued Wednesday on secrecy and transparency, and how he continues to reverse the Bush administration’s secrecy policies. Thompson links to a blog post written by Ellen Miller, Sunlight's director, about the memo. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Walter F. Roche Jr. reports that U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) was involved in a personal financial transaction with a federal judicial nominee, his Philadelphia neighbor whom he recommended, while the nomination was pending before his Senate committee and the full Senate. Roche interviewed Bill Allison about the matter. "Obviously the public should have known, and certainly his colleagues on the committee should have known. In a way, (Specter) pulled a fast one on them," Bill said. Roche notes that the transactions were three mortgages on a Georgetown condominium. And under a 1978 federal law and legislative ethics rules, congressional lawmakers are not required to disclose details of the purchase or financing of personal residences. Roche quotes Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, "There is no logical reason for the exemption." Melanie also pointed out that for most people, a personal residence is their biggest asset. Bob Collins at Minnesota Public Radio links to Bill's Real Time Investigations report on how New York State Veteran’s Home at St. Alban’s, in Jamaica, N.Y., is using $109.5 million in Recovery Act spending to retrofit the facility for energy efficiency. “Just curious — let’s say the improvements cut the facility’s power bills by half,” Bill wondered. “How many years will it take for those savings to equal the cost of the $109.5 million spent to achieve those reductions?” Information Aesthetics writes about The Pew Charitable Trusts’ SubsidyScope, and how it is pulling together data on the financial institutions that are receiving benefits from the various U.S. federal programs in order to understand how and where taxpayer dollars are being spent. Thanks and see you next Friday.

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:

Thursday’s launch by the Obama administration of Data.gov, the repository for all the information the federal government collects, generated a number of good press mentions. Vivek Kundra, President Obama’s new Chief Information Officer, built and manages the Web site, which developers can access data to create applications for the Web and handheld devices. The Washington Post's Kim Hart wrote about the launch and quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, saying it "demonstrates the acceptance of the notion that providing raw data is inherent to establishing trust in agencies." Ellen said that the administration is redefining public information. "To be truly public, it needs to be available online. That's a dramatic shift." Hart also quotes Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org, saying most federal agencies have not traditionally emphasized openness. "It's not what Congress has told them to do in the past, and it's not their culture. There's going to have to be some real pressure on agencies to do this." Hart also mentions Sunlight Labs' Apps for America 2 contest, and writes that it is modeled after the Apps for Democracy contest started by Kundra when he was the District of Columbia's chief technology officer. Richard Waters at the Financial Times (subscription required) wrote about the launch and the contest, and quotes Ellen saying the launch represents "a sea-change in how government views its information."

Wired's Kim Zetter and Wired Science's Alexis Madrigal both have articles about Data.gov that mention Sunlight and the Apps for America 2 contest. Madrigal also quotes Ellen, “Data.gov says that our information is your information,” and that “it represents this enormous change in attitude about what public means. It means it’s online. It’s means it’s available. I think it’s a dramatic breakthrough in the role of government.”

Federal News Radio's Jason Miller produced a story on Data.gov, and includes an mp3 of his interview with Kundra who mentions the Apps for America 2 contest. Chris Dorobek, co-anchor of Federal News Radio's afternoon drive program, interviewed Ellen about the launch and posted the audio. Jon Gordon with American Public Media's "Future Tense" interviewed Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs’ director, about Data.gov. Clay said the site represents "a good first step" by the administration.

Daphne Eviatar with The Washington Independent reported on the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) sending Congress a letter asking that it provide better supervision of the government’s $1.25 trillion mortgage-backed securities purchase program. POGO is concerned with potential conflicts of interest of having private fund managers advising the government on the program while also advising private clients on how to invest in similar assets. “(Potential) conflicts of interest could have a wide range of consequences, including financial losses for the American taxpayer, an unfair competitive advantage for the fund managers, and the continued erosion of public confidence in the government’s ability to stabilize the financial system,” POGO warns.

In a post on the blog of the Bill Moyers Journal, PBS journalists Bill Moyers and Michael Winship wrote about the influence being exerted by health industry in the debate over reforming national health policy. They cited Center for Responsive Politics data showing the health sector has spent more than $134 million on lobbying in the first quarter of 2009. Speaking of health care reform, USA Today’s John Fritze wrote about former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle (S.D.) remaining a key player in the health care debate four months after tax questions prevented him from serving as Health and Human Services secretary. Fritze quotes Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, saying Daschle’s private citizen status raises questions about what Daschle is advocating for and who he is representing when he meets with Congressional lawmakers behind closed doors. "It's like being a senator or being in the administration without having any of the restrictions," Melanie said.

Politico's Kenneth Vogel reported on how at least a dozen lawmakers and political committees held fundraising events in conjunction with Monday night's sold-out Bruce Springsteen concert at Downtown Washington’s Verizon Center. Vogel quotes Nancy Watzman, director of Sunlight’s Party Time project, as saying rock concerts are not an uncommon venue for political fundraisers. “Democrats do it and Republicans do it. They tend to have different musical choices, though,” Nancy said, conceding Monday’s cluster of Springsteen fundraisers are “quite a number for any particular concert, but that speaks to Bruce being The Boss.” Vogel wrote that Nancy is herself a Springsteen fan, and paid about $100 to see his recent concert in Denver. “I probably didn’t get as much bang for my buck, though, because I can’t call up a member of Congress now and say, ‘Hey, remember when he played "Born to Run?" Well, I have this bill I want to introduce.’”

Jim Abrams with the Associated Press wrote two articles about the earmarks House lawmakers are requesting to add to the transportation bill they will take up this summer. In the first article, Abrams quotes Bill Allison, Sunlight’s senior fellow, saying the collective disclosure is way ahead of where it was just three years ago. “But they could still be doing it better." Bill said that the Transportation Committee process falls short of a new requirement in both the House and Senate Appropriations committees that members post earmark requests online before they submit them. Also, there is no central location for posting requests, making them difficult to find on Web sites, Abrams wrote. In the second article, Abrams reported that the lawmakers are requesting $136.3 billion in earmarks. He recounts Bill's criticism about the absence of a central location for posting earmark requests, which makes them more difficult to locate. With the help of some other Sunlight staffers, Bill had dug through the earmark disclosures last week and built a easy-to-access database. His work motivated Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor at the Washington Examiner, to name Bill "One of the unsung heroes in the nation's capital." Eliza Krigman, writing at the National Journal's "Under the Influence" blog, also highlighted Bill's work. Krigman wrote that "Sunlight's 'Real Time Investigations' staff did the yeoman's work of scrolling through member's Web sites searching for transportation earmark requests through yesterday's deadline."

Thanks and see you next Friday.

Today, May 8th, marks the 125th birthday of Harry S Truman, our 33rd president. He once said, "Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix." Amen, Mr. President.

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:

Monday morning, Tom Lee, a technology director at Sunlight, appeared on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” taking questions about Recovery.gov, the Web site set up to track spending under the federal government’s economic stimulus program. Tom is working on SubsidyScope, a project of The Pew Charitable Trusts, that looks at the role of federal subsidies in the economy. Below is the video of the segment:

Speaking of Recovery.gov, Matt Kelley with USA Today reported that the Web site won't have details on contracts and grants until October and may not be complete until next spring — halfway through the program. Kelley quotes Greg Elin, Sunlight’s chief evangelist, saying people accustomed to getting easily searchable information quickly could be frustrated. "If we have to wait until October to get the information or to the end of the year to get a powerful recovery.gov site, the Obama administration will have missed an important opportunity."

Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, in an op-ed titled "Ways to Protect Our Democracy," highlights the work of Sunlight and Sunlight Labs, and mentions the Apps for America contest. Vanden Heuvel quotes Gabriela Schneider, "This is the next generation of civic engagement…We see it as a way to revitalize democracy. The transparency work is a catalyst for the greater democracy reform movement."

The U.S. Senate announced this week that it was going to start publishing roll call votes in XML, an online format that’s easily reusable by other programs. XML allows the data to be manipulated and organized in such a way that public interest groups can get a much more thorough picture of Senate voting patterns. In writing about the move, the Politico’s  Victoria McGrane quoted John Wonderlich, Sunlight's policy director, as saying the Senate’s decision was “spectacular.” The Examiner newspapers editorialized that the move signals the Senate had finally joined the 21st Century. As encouraging and important as this step by the Senate is, I’d hold off on that designation until senators start disclosing campaign finance data online and in a timely manner.

The New York Times’ Stephanie Strom highlighted the campaign to get Congress to release to the public Congressional Research Service reports, highlighting the efforts of Open CRS, Center for Democracy and Technology, OpentheGovernment.org and Sunlight.

Jeanne Cummings at the Politico wrote about “lobbyist contact” disclosures posted on government department and agency Web sites. She made note of a review conducted by Paul Blumenthal, Sunlight’s senior writer, that found only 14 of a possible 29 departments and agencies have created Web pages to disclose lobbyist inquiries. On March 20, President Obama issued a memo to all agencies involved with the distribution of funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act requiring them to disclose all communications between lobbyists and agency officials. John Fritze with USA Today wrote that Obama’s effort to make lobbying more transparent has shed little light on the behind-the-scenes, special-interests lobbying thus far. He quotes Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, "We're looking to have more disclosure, not less. If this was supposed to give us more disclosure, why is it that you're not seeing lobbyist communications?"

Mother Jones' Jonathan Stein profiled Lisa Rosenberg, Sunlight’s government affairs consultant, terming her "K Street's worst nightmare" and "the lobbyist lobbyists hate." He wrote that Lisa is "not your average influence peddler," but does the "unthinkable" by lobbying for more oversight and regulation of lobbying. Stein quotes Lisa, "I have no friends...My lobbyist colleagues are cringing at the things that I do."

Joshua Zumbrun at Forbes.com wrote about six ways Uncle Sam can help rescue newspapers. One of his proposals is for the government to help ease newspapers into nonprofit status, citing the Center for Responsive Politics and the Center for Public Integrity as examples of nonprofit organizations that are already making an impact.

Thanks, and see you next Friday!

Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:

David Herbert with the National Journal (subscription required) wrote about the grades new media experts from across the political spectrum gave the Obama administration’s Web presence. The experts gave WhiteHouse.gov an average grade of C+. Although they mostly see it as an improvement from the previous administration's site, many noted that it remained a one-way forum and suggested it be opened to allow comments and other interactive features. Herbert quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, "This occasional use of interactive tools" is impressive, but "90 percent of the time the site is pretty straightforward, as it was under [George W.] Bush." Recovery.gov, the administration’s site where citizens can monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds, fared even worse in the Journal's poll, averaging a C. The most common gripe about the site, Herbert writes, is that it's "the view from 30,000 feet," as Micah Sifry, senior technology advisor for Sunlight and Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) co-founder, told him. Without providing on-the-the ground details, Recovery.gov offers taxpayers few tools for staying on top of where their money is going, reviewers said. Recovery.gov has competition in the form of privately-operated Recovery.org, which has "more granular data and a real search tool, which one assumes we'll eventually see on Recovery.gov," Micah explains. "I don't think it's fair to compare this site to other Web sites yet, as it's just weeks old," Micah added. "Let's take another look in three to six months, OK?"

Chris Lefkow with Agence France-Presse gained a different take by interviewing academics, technology analysts and nonpartisan groups on the administration's technology efforts. Lefkow writes that they all said the first "tech president" is off to a good start. Lefkow quotes John Wonderlich, Sunlight’s policy director, "their first pronouncements are very encouraging,” and added that the challenge, however, is going to be the implementation. Andrew Resiej, Sunlight’s other senior technology advisor and PDF co-founder, said the administration been doing as much as it can to fulfill its promises in regards to transparency and technological innovation. “However they've been constrained by decades of industrial-age rules and regulations and procurement protocols that are handicapping the speed at which they can implement that vision," he said.

Declan McCullagh at CBS News' "Political Hotsheet" blog also wrote about how President Obama's follow through on his transparency vow is receiving mixed reviews. In the post McCullagh highlights how Sunlight's Our Open Government List is allowing users to vote on what's most important to see in the 120-day review. McCullagh reports that the winner so far is formal data standards, which would allow programmers to extract government databases to be incorporated in their own applications. McCullagh also mentions that Sunlight hosted TransparencyCamp.

Dan Eggen at The Washington Post wrote about how some of the nation's largest defense contractors, labor unions and trade groups are forging an alliance to try to stop the Obama administration from cutting certain weapons programs. They are arguing that the proposed cuts would threaten 100,000 or more jobs. Eggen cites Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) data to show the defense sector’s influence in Washington, where it gave nearly $26 million to congressional candidates last year and spending $150 million on lobbying.

The New York Times republished Robin Bravender’s piece from Greenwire exploring President Obama’s regulatory actions taken during his first 100 days in office. Bravender quotes Gary Bass, OMB Watch’s executive director, "In most instances, the administration has moved away from a presumption of government secrecy to one of government openness, and Obama has scrapped some of the most damaging revisions of the regulatory process that Bush and his team imposed on the nation." The article highlighted OMB Watch’s “Advancing the Public Interest through Regulatory Reform” report (pdf), which is one of two reports, both released on Tuesday, assessing the Obama administration’s work on government transparency and regulatory reform at the 100-day mark. The second report, titled “21st Century Right-to-Know Agenda” (pdf) looked at the administration’s follow through on transparency and openness. Overall, the reports state that the president and his team have made significant progress in both the right-to-know and regulatory areas, but much more work needs to be done.

Carol D. Leonnig with The Washington Post reported that U.S. Rep. John Murtha (Pa.), chair of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, got the Pentagon to spend about $30 million on “the little-used airport named for him so it can handle behemoth military aircraft and store combat equipment for rapid deployment to foreign battlefields.” Most of the improvement, Leonnig writes, were funded through appropriations approved by Murtha's subcommittee, and have not been used for their intended purpose. The article includes comments by Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.  "Nobody wants to say no to Congressman Murtha or make him mad because he controls defense appropriations," she said. "Murtha wanted an airport, and he knew he could get one. It's like he's a billionaire, except it's not his money."

Robert O'Harrow Jr., writing at The Washington Post's "Government Inc." blog, writes about a new report from the Inspector General for TARP, which says the bailout is growing more complex and costly, and is operating with no clear leadership. O'Harrow highlights and extensively quotes from Anu Narayanswamy’s Real Time Investigations report that found the program is shrouded in secrecy, making it difficult to determine who is managing it.

USA Today published an editorial about how the federal government, when faced with the option of making information public or hiding it, is predisposed toward concealment. Federal Web sites are usually full of data, the editorial says, but are also notoriously hard to navigate. It mentions Google's new tool, Google Public Data, it launched this week to make it easier to search federal sites. Congressional sites can be even more inscrutable, they write, and mentions and links to Sunlight’s Senior Fellow Bill Allison's Real Time Investigations report regarding U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers disclosing their earmark requests, and how many responded by burying the links or posting unreadable pdf files. Kim Hart with The Washington Post also wrote about Google’s new tool, and quotes Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs director, saying he’s encouraged by it.

Joab Jackson with Government Computer News wrote about how through mashups and Web apps, third parties are remixing and making innovative use of government agencies' information. Jackson quotes Clay as saying there are a lot of developers who are eager to get access to government data. "The nongovernmental sector will likely always have more talent and artistic capability than inside the government," Clay said. The article discusses Sunlight Labs' Apps for America contest, as well as Sunlight’s role in developing OpenCongress.org, OMB Watch’s FedSpending.org, CRP’s OpenSecrets.org and EarmarkWatch.org. Jackson also highlights Josh Tauberer's work at GovTrack.

Federal News Radio interviewed Clay about Data.gov, new federal CIO Vivek Kundra's soon to launch central repository for government data and research, and links to Sunlight Labs' mock up of the site.

Thanks, and see you next Friday!