What’s the price of justice? Over the last decade, state supreme court candidates raised over $200 million for their elections, two-and-a-half times the $83 million they raised during 1990-1999, according to newly released report. The need to raise ever-increasing amounts of money prompted former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to warn of a real and growing “crisis of confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary” in her foreword to “The New Politics of Judicial Elections: 2000-2009.”

With big contributors appearing before the judges they helped elect -- the top 5 “super spenders” in 29 elections spent an average of $473,000 each -- it is no surprise that nearly half of state judges polled in 2001 agree that campaign donations influence judicial decisions. Three-quarters of American share their concerns.

We only know part of the money story. Millions of dollars have flowed into judicial elections “in ways crafted to avoid financial disclosure even as they seek to sway judicial contests,” according to the report. Challenges to campaign disclosure laws, the use of shell entities to funnel funds, and the recent decision in Citizens United to allow unlimited corporate expenditures all work to obscure the full picture.

The report’s authors -- Adam Skaggs and Jonathan Blitzer at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, James Sample of Hofstra University School of Law, Charlie Hall at Justice at Stake Campaign, and Linda Casey at National Institute on Money in State Politics -- have constructed an an incredible reference document that does a superior job of putting spending on state judicial elections in context. Don't miss their index of state supreme court TV advertisements and state-by-state contribution and expenditure profiles.

Although not part of the report, more on state-by-state and candidate-by-candidate contributions is available for download at TransparencyData.com, a joint project of the Sunlight Foundation, the National Institute on Money in State Politics, and the Center for Responsive Politics. On the site you can search by contributor, recipient, year, and many other factors to learn about the state of judicial elections in your state. Sample search results are available on the left.

Full disclosure: the Sunlight Foundation works with the three organizations that sponsored this report.

In the wake of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), and while Congress debates the massive stimulus bill,  the  Coalition for an Accountable Recovery was created to promote accountability for both federal government agencies doling out the trillions of dollars,  for the states and for the companies that benefit from recovery funds. The best way to assure taxpayers that the funds are being used responsibly is to provide "radical" transparency on stimulus spending and to make the details of the stimulus available in online, in real time.

No great surprise to here that the Coalition (of which Sunlight is a member)  is calling on Congress to require online reporting that allows the public to easily search, sort, track and download data on the use of recovery. Each state should be required to report on all funds they receive and all data should be presented in a uniform manner, making sure it is compatible with the USASpending.gov Web site. The Coalition has also state that   the newest technology should be applied to both the Recovery.gov Web site and USASpending.gov to make the information more accessible for everyone

Sunlight has joined the over 30  groups as part of the coalition, including the Center for Responsive Politics, Common Cause, National Institute for Money in State Politics, OMB Watch, OpenTheGovernment.org, Project on Government Oversight and Taxpayers for Commonsense.

When we think of lobbyists, most of us would think of the lawyers and other influence peddlers of K Street and Downtown Washington. It's easy to forget that 50 K Streets exist across the county, with hundreds if not thousands of lobbyists applying their trade in each state capital. According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, as of two years ago, 42,390 lobbyists were registered in the 50 states.

The Institute has developed Lobbyist Link, a 50-state database where you can look up all state-registered lobbyists, and their clients. Citizens can now see how much money each lobbyists have given to state lawmakers and candidates. It's a very valuable new tool. As the site says, "Lobbyists in the halls of your statehouse can access and influence those who make the laws that affect your life. But they aren't working for you; they're working for corporations, unions and special interests who have their own agenda to pursue."

Ed Bender, executive director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics, a Sunlight grantee, emailed me about a neat new function they've developed on their Web site just in time for Election Day. The function, Find My District, gives users a complete list of state candidates, from state house/assembly races up through all statewide contests, running in their district. The user inputs their physical address, and the site provides the list of candidates for that district, and it also provides a Google Map showing the user's location. The function doesn't seem to work for us forlorn and disenfranchised District of Columbia voters. (But of course, the District's not a state, just a colony. I digress, however.)

The site also provides information from each state on candidate fundraising, who's giving, ballot measures (if applicable), party committees, and data sources.

Greg Elin, one of our senior Labs gurus checked it out and thinks it's fabulous. He said he was muchly impressed by all the information the site provides. He also gave it kudos for ease of navigation.

Congratulations to Ed and his team for creating this very useful and timely Find My District tool.

A large contingent of Sunlighters are heading to Austin this week for Netroots Nation, the 3rd annual gathering of Kos bloggers and others in the progressive blogosphere (that used to be called Yearly Kos). (Get ready for all of the #nn08 hashtag tweets!)

Try to connect with us if you are there. You can find us in the exhibit hall (along with folks from the Center for Responsive Politics,  National Institute on Money in State Politics and OpenCongress.org. We'll be right up front, across from MAPLight.org's booth, so you can't miss us.

Sunlight colleagues are on a number of panels. Start your Friday morning off with one that is chaired by Sunlight consultant Micah Sifry, as he and his panelists discuss how the next administration can leverage the Web and the participatory transparent culture that goes along with it, to make our government work better.

That panel should inspire you to help improve our government. Join Sunlight's John Wonderlich to find out how. He and OpenLeft blogger Matt Stoller will give you the scoop on the future of advocacy and what political influence should look like in a networked social environment. Their panel, "Lobbying Congress: Advocacy and Digital Empowerment" will be held on Saturday@ 1:30 p.m.

Right after that panel, come learn more about how to use the sites created by our ‘transparency posse' during our workshop, "Insanely Useful Tools You Can Use to Keep Track of Congress and State Lawmakers" on Saturday @ 3pm. This will be moderated by Sunlighter, Paul Blumenthal.

While you're in Austin, you might want to test how your political trivia smarts compare to Paul's during a "Pub Quiz" organized by Dkos front pager AdamB to be held during Happy Hour on Friday at the local Champions Sports Bar. (Stop by our booth for more details.) Make sure to "study" beforehand by playing our new PoliQuiz game. We'll release all of our answers in API format so they can be mashed up with relevant data. What else would you expect?!

See you in Austin!