Last week I blogged on the Influence Around Us and took a look at the amount of money spent by the groups and businesses on campaign contributions and lobbying right in our neighborhood.

We heard lots of positive feedback and interest from our readers who wanted to explore the influence of money in politics around them. So, to help sweeten the sleuthing, we are launching a photo contest! Take your own photo or screenshot from street view on Google Maps and tag it with data from Influence Explorer using Thinglink. We will send you a prize for your participation and if your photo is worth more than our intersection, you will win a grand prize! Send your Thinglinked photos to info@sunlightfoundation.com or post a link to your picture to our Facebook wall to enter!

For a few months now, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) has been garnering attention and support around a central frustration over the undue influence of money in politics. Wall Street (hence the OWS moniker) was targeted as the embodiment of corporate excess, economic inequality and a particularly cozy relationship with the federal government. Occupys all over the country have channeled their frustrations over government bailout of banks into catchy protest slogans like:

‘Banks got bailed out, we got sold out’ and ‘Hey, hey, ho, ho, this corporate greed has got to go’.

But the influence of money in politics is not just aggregated in the iconic buildings of Wall Street or the halls of the Capitol. Those businesses and institutions that participate in the game of influencing our federal government are all around us: from the ruby red hue of the Bank of America on the corner to your local fast food joint to the innocuous looking buildings on Wall Street, K Street or Main Street. Without a scarlet L emblazoned on the awnings of the powerful lobbying firms, it is hard to spot the influence with the naked eye (although there is a map of the top ones in DC). But with a little research it’s easy to uncover the influence.

Take for instance the intersection of Connecticut and N Street (scroll over image right) as seen from our offices by Dupont Circle. We have two banks within sight: Wells Fargo and Citibank. For data available from Influence Explorer, Wells Fargo contributed $13.8 million in campaign contributions and spent a total of $24.1 million in lobbying while Citibank dropped $31.1 million into campaign coffers and lobbied to the tune of $108.2 million.* (Just a drop in the bucket compared to the $7.77 trillion the federal government spent to save the financial system as reported recently by Bloomberg News)

But the influence isn’t limited to banks; our neighbors the National Association of Broadcasters (a group representing broadcast networks) donated $9.7 million to political candidates and matched Citibank’s lobbying efforts at $108.2 million. A little further down the street, the Western Coal Traffic League spent $1 million on lobbying efforts to protect the interest of coal product consumers. Even the American Society for Microbiology got into the influence game by throwing $2,415 at candidates and schmoozing legislators for $80,000.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but this photo is actually worth roughly $305 million in influence.

Can you spot the influence in your neighborhood?

*Influence Explorer has earliest aggregated data available from 1989 for campaign contributions and lobbying data since 1998.

Today, the Sunlight Foundation launched a new web site, Pass223.com, to harness the distributed power of the Internet to pressure the Senate into increasing disclosure of campaign contributions by passing a bill - S. 223, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act - requiring senators to file their contribution reports electronically.

We need your help to pass this bill. Please follow the link to Pass223.com and call your senators to find out where they stand on S. 223. The site has full instructions on who your senators are, how to call, what to say, and how to report back to us. For more detail on the bill, keep reading.

Currently, presidential candidates and candidates running for the House of Representatives file their campaign contributions in electronic form. Electronic filing speeds the process by which campaign contribution data reaches the public over the Internet, allowing citizens and journalists to more easily spot a conflict of interest or an inappropriate contribution. Filers in the Senate do not file electronically, delaying disclosure by weeks and possibly months.

Passage of S. 223 appears to be a "no-brainer," and isn't publicly opposed by any senator. However, at every step of the way over the past year and a half the bill has been interrupted and blocked for a variety of reasons.

Right now, Sen. John Ensign (pronounced en-sen) is blocking the bill by insisting on adding a poison pill amendment. This poison pill is meant to protect senators from legitimate ethics complaints filed by outside groups. The amendment would impose an unconstitutional burden on on charities, religious organizations and other nonprofits by forcing them to disclose their donors when they file ethics complaints against sitting senators. Ensign's amendment is opposed by a group of non-profits, religious groups, and charities from the right and the left.

For S. 223 to pass, Ensign's amendment must be defeated. And to do that, we need you help in identifying senators who OPPOSE Ensign and SUPPORT S. 223. This is a great chance to help pass a long overdue bill.

Go to Pass223.com and get started calling your senators (remember, you have two of them). Don't forget to report back so that we know where these senators stand on increasing campaign finance disclosure.

Pass223.com is a joint project of the Sunlight Foundation, Public Citizen, Public Campaign, Center for Responsive Politics, Campaign Finance Institute, Change Congress, and Open the Government.