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

Jonathan D. Salant and Lizzie O’Leary with Bloomberg.com have an article showing how there are six lobbyists attempting to influence the health care reform debate for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate. That figure is three times the number of lobbyists registered to lobby on defense. They used data from the Center for Responsive Politics to illustrate how every one of the 10 biggest lobbying firms by revenue is attempting to influence the debate on behalf of some interest or another, spending $263.4 million on lobbying during the first six months of 2009 alone. They quote Bill Allison, Sunlight's senior fellow, “Whenever you have a big piece of legislation like this, it’s like ringing the dinner bell for K Street.” Multiple other outlets picked up the article and Bill's quote, including Kate Barrett at ABC News. And David Schechter, CNN's senior national editor, wrote a column about the lobbying feeding frenzy surrounding the health care reform debate. He lists Sunlight and OpenSecrets.org as good sources for information on the "lobbying largesse."

In light of the increasingly heated debate over how to reform health care policy, Lisa Stone at BlogHer wrote about the new partnership between BlogHer and OpenCongress, the joint project between the Participatory Politics Foundation and Sunlight, to provide a forum to move the discourse in a more civil and positive direction. They have asked Nancy Watzman, Sunlight's director of the Party Time project, to share her investigations on their site multiple times a week. Be sure to check their coverage out, which starts today.

Writing at Forbes, Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, wrote about what he calls the promise of innovation provided by Government 2.0. And he asked, "How does government itself become an open platform that allows people inside and outside government to innovate?" O'Reilly points to the Apps for America contests as an example of the "virtuous circle of citizen innovation" using the information made available through the White House's Data.gov. PC World published a piece by Grant Gross with IDB News Service on how the contest is asking developer to use the raw data released on Data.gov and elsewhere to demonstrate the power of data-publishing and number-crunching services. Gross discussed with Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs' director, about how the Labs works to assist traditional and citizen journalists with investigative reporting. "As the Obama administration begins to release more data, there aren't enough fingers on keyboards here in Sunlight Labs to handle all this," Clay said. "Has the Obama administration succeeded in making more government data available? You're talking to the guy with the most unquenchable thirst for that, who will never say that they're successful."

The Boston Globe's "Political Notebook" column makes note of two of Sunlight's closest friends, Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Center for Responsive Politics, teaming up to create a database showing campaign cash to congressional lawmakers and the earmarks that they requested. Taxpayers is providing the data showing more than 20,000 earmarks totaling more than $35 billion. And CRP has detailed $227 million in campaign donations and lobbying expenses. The article quotes Ryan Alexander, Taxpayer's president, “Earmarks and campaign contributions are part and parcel of the pay-to-play system that permeates Washington...Companies making thousands of dollars in campaign contributions get millions of earmarked taxpayer dollars from lawmakers." The database can be searched here.

Speaking of earmarks, Greenwire's Anne C. Mulkern wrote about how lawmakers, while crafting legislation meant to finance the Department of Energy, inserted $75.2 million in earmarks for research at schools and universities in their home states and districts. Mulkern quotes Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, questioning the use of earmarks to fund research. "The gold standard in academic research is peer-reviewed analysis," Ellis said. "Picking the winners and losers based on geography and not who has conducted the best research is a recipe for wasting precious taxpayer dollars."  The New York Times republished Mulkern's article.

FederalNewsRadio's Max Cacas reported on the Project on Government Oversight's (POGO) new guide, "The Art of Congressional Oversight: A Users Guide to Doing it Right." The 83-page volume contains insights into how to be a successful congressional committee investigator, Cacas writes. POGO put on paper what they've been teaching over the past three years via monthly training sessions, free lunchtime skill-building seminars designed to educate Hill staffers about their rights, responsibilities and powers working in the realm of congressional oversight. The trainings and book are part of POGO's effort to teach congressional staffers about the constitutionally-mandated jobs of Congress -- providing oversight over the cabinet-level agencies and other organizations within the executive branch.

Special note: As National Journal's "Hotline On Call" pointed out on their list of upcoming weekend public policy programming, Ellen Miller, Sunlight's executive director, will be appearing on C-SPAN's "Communicators" program Saturday evening at 6:30 p.m. (EST).

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

Alan Fram with the Associated Press wrote about how the health insurance industry is fighting to prevent the Congress from passing a health care overhaul that includes a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. Fram cites data from the Center for Responsive Politics to show how health insurers have made $41 million in campaign contributions to current congressional lawmakers since 1989, “with more than half going to lawmakers on the five House and Senate panels writing this year’s health bills.” Since the beginning of 2008, insurers have spent $145 million on lobbying.

The New York Times' Jack Rosenthal, in writing the paper’s “On Language” column, mentioned how Andrew Raseij, Sunlight’s senior technology advisor and co-director of Personal Democracy Forum, is pushing for a federal law that redefines “public” to mean searchable and readable online. U.S. Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.) is drafting just such legislation. Rosenthal also noted how the Senate does not disclose campaign-contribution information to the Federal Election Commission in an electronic form. “That means it must be digitized by the commission, by which time the next election may well have come and gone. Transparent? Yes, but also emasculated,” Rosenthal wrote.

Federal Computer Week’s Ben Bain wrote about how the Obama administration is asking federal agencies to gear their spending plans for science and technology in fiscal 2011 toward projects designed to drive economic growth, create energy independence, improve health, and bolster security, according to recently issued general guidance. Peter Orszag, Obama’s OMB director, outlined the new emphasis in an August 4th memo (PDF). Craig Jennings, a senior federal fiscal policy analyst with OMB Watch, said the memo is an indication that science and technology will be high priorities for the administration.

Colin Barr at Fortune magazine wrote about how skeptics are questioning a claim made by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner last Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Geithner said taxpayers have made a small profit, $6 billion, on their investments in banks via the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Barr quotes Marcus Peacock, Pew’s project director of Subsidyscope saying the government isn’t doing enough to document what’s happening with the money. Peacock said government data collection projects are often “pockmarked” with omissions and outright errors, a pattern that hasn’t been broken with the financial bailouts. Despite the administration’s public embrace of transparency, it has failed to provide full and understandable disclosure of its actions in TARP, Peacock said.

The Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer editorialized about the Blue Dog Coalition’s effect on the health care debate in Congress, using Dan Eggen’s article in last Friday’s edition of The Washington Post. The editorial notes Eggen citing Party Time’s compilation of records of political fundraisers since 2008. “America has been waiting for more than 60 years for universal health care. (The) Blue Dogs wouldn’t mind if it took another 60 years to give Americans what every other advanced nation in the world now has,” the editorial says. “This is yet another example of how our current system of legalized bribery, otherwise known as campaign contributions, distorts the democratic process.”

Beth Sussman, writing at the National Journal’s “Under the Influence” blog, OpenCongress' redesign. She quotes OpenCongress’ David Moore, “You never hear somebody at a bar talking about clause 56 in H.R. 3200.” So OpenCongress “enables peer-to-peer communication about the best information on bills in Congress.” Sussman reports how the site now has an email form, so you can send an email to contact lawmakers about legislation, a tracking tool so you can compare how you would vote on a piece of legislation with how your representative has voted and a personalized list of legislation you may support or oppose. “There was a real opportunity to bring together this confusing government data with helpful data and what people were saying about it,” David said. The site aims to “make all the information about Congress more accessible to people who aren’t necessarily Congress-buffs.”

USA Today wrote about documents made public by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) that showed how Amtrak wanted to fire its independent Inspector General, who was effectively forced to resign several weeks ago. The IG and the rail carrier had feuded since it was revealed in 2006 that Amtrak had spent more than $100 million in mismanaged fees to private lawyers over a five year period, allegedly violating Amtrak billing rules.

The Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star editorialized about the need for congressional lawmakers to read legislation they are voting on. They mentioned how Sunlight is one of a number of organizations advocating that Congress put all legislation online 72 hours before they conduct a vote. The editorial called on Nebraska’s congressional delegation to support such a proposal.

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

National Journal's Eliza Newlin Carney wrote about how the health care industry is unleashing big money as the health care debate in Congress intensifies. She notes the blog post from Paul Blumenthal, Sunlight's senior writer, about how five of Sen. Max Baucus' (Mont.) former staff members now work for a total of 27 different organizations that either represent the health care or insurance industries, or have a vested interest in the debate. She also quotes Paul, "We thought it was important to show the public that the senators aren't crafting the policy by themselves. They have all these other connections, through relationships, that have a huge stake in this legislation." Trudy Lieberman with the Columbia Journalism Review also highlighted and linked to Paul's post and the graphic he and Kerry Mitchell, Sunlight's creative director, produced. The "study shows exactly what advocates of real and substantive health reform are up against," Lieberman wrote, adding that Sunlight provides clarity on just who has the senator’s ear.

Speaking of Kerry's graphic art skills, The New York Times' "First Look" blog includes one of his illustrations in a post highlighting great visualizations created by designers using the Times APIs that "both beautify and clarify information." Kerry's graphic illustrates the Times' usage of the word "transparency" since 1990.

David Talbot at MIT's Technology Review, in an article how volunteers are using the Web to help make the U.S. government more accountable, highlighted Transparency Corps. Talbot quoted Clay Johnson, director of Sunlight Labs, "Government puts out a ton of data that is really interesting about what it does, but people can't understand it." Transparency Corps launch roughly coincided with the launch earlier this month of the White House's IT Dashboard, the administration's effort to chart the progress of information-technology projects in various federal agencies. The article quotes Andrew Rasiej, Sunlight's senior technology advisor and co-founder of Personal Democracy Forum, saying the dashboard may be just the tip of the iceberg heralding a new age of transparency regarding federal spending. "Once people get used to this type of information being so readily accessible, they will demand to see (it) for all other federal spending too, and then the genie will be completely out of the bottle."

Dan Eggen at The Washington Post wrote how the debate about health-care reform has been a boon to the political fortunes of the 52 members of the Blue Dog Coalition, who have become key brokers in shaping legislation in the House. Eggan used Party Time data to show show U.S. Rep. Mike Ross (Ark.), a leader of the Blue Dogs, has had a steady schedule of fundraising events sponsored by the health industry or lobbying firms that represent health-care companies. Eggen used data from the Center for Responsive Politics that showed Ross had received nearly $1 million in contributions from the health-care sector and insurance industry during his five terms in Congress. On the topic of Party Time, be sure not to miss National Journal's interview with Party Time's director Nancy Watzman.

The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise quotes data from Taxpayers for Common Sense that shows the $636 billion military spending bill passed Thursday by the House contains 1,100 earmarks totaling roughly $2.75 billion. Rep. Jerry Lewis (Calif.) inserted 19 earmarks worth more than $70 million for defense firms with Inland Southern California branches and other area institutions, according to Taxpayers.

Joe Davidson, "Federal Diary" columnist for The Washington Post, wrote about how 10 years of work paid off Wednesday when the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs advanced S. 372, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009, meant to further protect federal whistleblowers. Because of important differences between the House and the Senate on the bill, there was real concern that the legislation would flounder. But "shuttle diplomacy" conducted by the Obama White House "left those involved feeling as if they gained more than they gave up," Davidson wrote. He quoted Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, "There were genuine concerns that people worked through. It's the way you want government to work."

PC World reports on a call from the Center for Democracy and Technology to the Obama administration to answer several questions about the privacy implications of a new version of a computer intrusion detection system that can reportedly read email. On Tuesday, CDT released a report (PDF) calling on the administration to provide information about the legal authority for the so-called Einstein intrusion detection system currently being employed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Resource Shelf, a daily newsletter with resources of interest to information professionals, educators and journalists, highlighted OpenCongress' redesign. "If you or those you work with have any interest in the workings of the U.S. Congress and related matters, OpenCongress is one impressive (and free) resource," the post says. "We strongly recommend taking a look at it."

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

CQ Weekly's Maura Reynolds wrote about the Obama administration's successes and failures in achieving its transparency goals six months into the term. Reynolds quoted Ellen Miller, Sunlight's director, about how many of their transparency initiatives are still in development and how the kinks are being worked out. "A default position that government data will be accessible to the public in machine-readable format is a huge step forward," Ellen said. "Is it moving as fast as I'd like? Of course not. But I can be patient while this unfolds." Ellen also commented on some of the administration's initiatives, such as "town hall" meetings, that have been tightly controlled. "There is real transparency, and then there is transparency theater,'' she said. "I can distinguish between the two." Reynolds wrote that the more people expect the Internet to deliver the information they want, the more kinds of information they will expect to access that way. "It's kind of a genie out of the bottle," Ellen said. "The Internet has raised expectations. I fundamentally believe that the way technology pushes information out to the edges will have a powerful effect on the power structure." Reynolds reports that open government advocates praise two federal Web sites, USAspending.gov, a site that tracks all federal spending and was set up as a result of a bill co-sponsored by then-Sen. Obama, and Data.gov, the site the new administration designed as a "one-stop shop for number crunchers that consolidates statistics across federal agencies in standard, machine-readable formats." The article quotes Gary Bass, director of OMB Watch, saying the sites could be vehicles for connecting government performance to spending. "From the point of view of the average user, there has been nothing like this before. That is truly a credit to this administration." Reynolds notes that it was OMB Watch's FedSpending.org that served as the technical platform for USAspending.gov.

Despite the existence of rules requiring congressional lawmakers to disclose earmarks they request, rules do not exist requiring them to disclose items classified as "program support." The Washington Post's Carol Leonnig illustrates this problem with a report on how $160 million intended to help Mexico's police buy U.S.-made first-responder radios was tucked into the voluminous congressional plan for U.S. military spending next year. Leonnig quotes Bill Allison, Sunlight's senior fellow, "It kind of makes a mockery of the disclosure requirements we have. They will disclose the little things, the $1 million projects, but when you have the big-ticket items, you don't have members willing to take responsibility for those."

Stephanie Condon, writing at CBS News' "Political Hotsheet" column, cited a report from Taxpayers for Common Sense that found that lawmakers serving on the the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense included 1,080 earmarks worth $2.7 billion dollars in the fiscal-year 2010 defense appropriations bill they approved last week. The lawmakers specifically requested more than $1.6 billion in earmarks for their campaign contributors, entities who had donated nearly $1 million to the committee members.

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and Taxpayers for Common Sense achieved a major victory when the Senate voted to halt production of the Air Force's top fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor, as reported by The Boston Globe. POGO called it a “landmark vote" that “marks the end of business as usual, and the beginning of real reform, in Washington." And Taxpayers termed it a “giant step for fiscal sanity (that) affirms the government’s ability to stop unneeded weapons programs even when they are firmly entrenched in the American industrial and congressional base."

Tom Hamburger and Peter Nicholas at The Los Angeles Times reported on Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program, asked a simple question: What had the nation's banks done with all their bailout money? And the Treasury Department answered that they don't know. The Times reporters quoted Ellen crediting the Obama administration for making more government data public. She cited Data.gov as an example of a genuine attempt to put a wealth of government information on the Internet. But at the same time, Ellen said: "We don't see any radical changes from what we've seen in the past." The Chicago Tribune's "The Swamp" blog picked up the story, as did a number of other outlets across the country.

National Journal's Eliza Krigman reported on Cato's Jim Harper launching a contest at WashingtonWatch.com. The contest, supported by Sunlight, is meant to encourage citizens to contribute online to an earmark database to track how congressional lawmakers steer federal funds to special interests and projects in their districts. Krigman notes that the project is similar to Sunlight's Transparency Corps. Amanda Carpenter at The Washington Times, Ryan Singel at Wired's "Epicenter" blog and Nate Anderson at Ars Technica wrote about WashingtonWatch.com's earmark contest as well.

In their headlines for Monday, Democracy Now reported on a bipartisan group of centrist and conservative senators who called on Democratic and Republican leaders to put off a vote on health care reform legislation for 70 days. In the report they cite info from Paul Blumenthal's blog post on how each of these senators has raised at least $1 million from the health and insurance sectors combined over the course of their respective careers.

National Public Radio's Andrea Seabrook and Peter Overby, in a report the network broadcast on Wednesday afternoon's edition of "All Things Considered," asked the question, "Who has access to U.S. Sen. Max Baucus (Mont.), the chair of the Senate Finance Committee?" They highlight and link to the graphic produced by Paul and Kerry Mitchell, Sunlight's creative director, that traces health care lobbyists' ties to Baucus and other senators on the Finance Committee. They also interviewed Paul who said, "In Washington, relationships are part of the huge game of influence. If you don't have a relationship with someone on the Hill, then you aren't going to have the kind of access that you need for your client." And so, Paul said, these lobbyists — and their clients — have a unique brand of access to one man at the center of the health-care debate.

Anne Mulkern of Greenwire (subscription required) reported on an analysis conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics of a portion of lobbying disclosures for the second quarter of 2009 by energy companies, which show that electric utilities increased their expenditures, nearly catching up with oil and gas. While Congress debated and voted on the Cap and Trade Energy Conservation Bill, electric utilities spent $12 million, while oil and gas spent $13.9 million, attempting to influence the outcome. The New York Times republished Mulkern's piece.

The the Financial Times and Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi have picked up LittleSis.org's profiling of Bob Hormats, Obama's pick to be under secretary of state for economic, energy, and agricultural affairs. Hormats, as vice chair of Goldman Sachs (International), has dubious ties to the genocidal regime in Sudan through a Chinese oil company.

Quinn Norton at the Irish Times highlights Transparency Corps in an article about how crowdsourcing can be an effective means of getting labor-intensive work done online. Norton quotes Clay extensively, “Right now we’re just trying to keep up with the users, which is a nice problem to have.” Clay said that next up will be a project from LittleSis.org.

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

Jeff Jacoby, columnist for The Boston Globe, mentioned ReadTheBill.org in a piece he wrote calling on congressional lawmakers read legislation before they vote on it. Glenn Reynolds, at his Instapundit blog, linked to Jacoby's column. Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Daily Dish, followed by linking to Reynolds.

In Washington Monthly's July/August edition, Charles Homans wrote about the Obama administration's "experiments with data-driven democracy." The article centers on the work of Vivek Kundra, the White House's chief information officer, and mentions both the District of Columbia's Apps for Democracy contest and Sunlight's Apps for America contest. Homans quotes Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs' director, saying Kundra has his work cut out for him. "I have nothing but respect for what he’s trying to do. But it’s a hard job, and it’s going to take some time for this to actually happen right. I mean years." While discussing Kundra's launch of Data.gov, Homans again quotes Clay, "The top data source is on the world’s copper smelters, which isn’t going to tell us very much about what’s going on inside of our government."

As Ellen Miller, Sunlight's director, wrote earlier this week, "When it comes to following the money that’s flowing to power on Capitol Hill, no one does it better than the Center for Responsive Politics." For instance, MAPLight.org used CRP data to show how money watered down the energy bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (HR 2454). With Congress debating health care reform, Forbes used CRP data to show how America's Health Insurance Plans, the political advocacy and trade group for the health insurance industry, has spent nearly $10 million on lobbying Congress in the past two years. Robert J. S. Ross, writing at The Huffington Post, quotes CRP about how the insurance industry has contributed $568 million to political campaigns since 1998. CNN's Jonathan Mann used CRP data in noting how doctors have spent roughly two-thirds of a billion dollars lobbying lawmakers in the last 10 years.

Sunlight's launch of the National Data Catalog generated a number of good media mentions. Federal News Radio's Dorothy Ramienski interviewed Clay about the launch, who said the impetus for the new site is that Data.gov can't go as far as some would like because of laws that are already in place, such as the Paperwork Reduction Act. "For instance, right now Data.gov only has information around the executive branch of government. It doesn't have any information around the judicial or the legislative branch of government and we don't have any indication as to whether or not it can." Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb asked, "Can Sunlight build a one-stop-shopping destination for public data, and will people make use of that? Time will tell, but it sounds like a very important project." And Next.gov's Aliya Sternstein referred to the catalog as "a public-service Web site that pulls and repackages federal data - fulfilling the aim of the White House's 'democratizing data' campaign."

National Public Radio's Dina Temple-Raston, in a piece that aired on the network's "Morning Edition," reported how analysts at the FBI and CIA are turning to software to help find patterns among terrorists — hoping to spot clues in everything from phone calls to credit card and ATM usage. She interviewed Jim Dempsey, the director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, "There had been, over the past seven years, this sense that if you collect more and more data and put it into a powerful enough computer, shake it and bake it the right way you'll come up with the unknowns" — terrorists who aren't yet on law enforcement's radar screens, Jim said. "I think, and other people who are more technically adept than I think, that's really a fool's errand."

John Moore at Federal Computer Week wrote how Web 3.0 could help make President Obama’s dream of government transparency a reality, but he’ll need a second term to see it happen. "The Web’s traditional function is to simply present content, such as a government report posted online. The Semantic Web goes a step further by seeking to illuminate the content’s meaning," Moore wrote. While discussing the challenges, Moore lists the time and effort required to tag and describe the government’s vast data holdings. He quotes Clay expressing concern that the government might become preoccupied with formatting data rather than releasing it. “I would hate to see them get bogged down in trying to make their data Semantic Web compatible before it even sees the light of day,” Clay said. Gary Bass, director of OMB Watch, said his group would like to look at government contractors to see if they comply with Occupational Health and Safety Administration, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other agency directives. But the group would need to know that a company listed in one database is the same entity listed in others. “Semantic technology, if done properly, should be able to tell us that,” Gary said.

Veteran reporter J. Scott Orr, writing at Parade magazine, reports on how federal contracts often waste taxpayer money for lack of proper oversight. He cites an investigation (PDF) by the Government Accountability Office that found required performance assessments were conducted for less than one-third of the 23,000 contracts it surveyed. Orr quotes Scott Amey, general counsel to the Project on Government Oversight, saying the feds would save billions of dollars if they would more efficiently collect and share performance data. “Considering Uncle Sam spent over $530 billion last year,” Amey says, “a higher priority must be placed on choosing contractors that are a wise investment.”

U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy (La.) wrote a column in The Huffington Post calling for more earmark disclosure in Congress. He wrote how he and Rep. Jackie Speier (Calif.) worked with Taxpayers for Common Sense and Sunlight to introduce House Resolution 440, which would strengthen transparency and accountability in the earmarking process.

Think Progress' Matt Corley wrote about a memo GOP message guru Frank Luntz wrote defining the Republican rhetoric on health care reform. Corley quotes from and links to Sunlight senior writer Paul Blumenthal's blog post where he used Capitol Words to show how congressional Republicans are following Luntz's advice. At his Liberaland blog, Alan Colmes, the liberal commentator, syndicated radio talk show host and Fox News Channel political contributor, also linked to Paul's post and republished the infographic that used Capitol Words data to show the impact of the memo.

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 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.

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

Sunday evening, BlogTalkRadio posted an episode of “Talking Gov2.0,” where Clay Johnson, Sunlight Lab’s director, discussed Sunlight, Sunlight Labs and the Apps for America contest. Speaking of Apps for America, Clay announced the winners on Monday. And Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb wrote about the contest, and included a screencast of the winners.

Victoria McGrane with the Politico wrote about the lack of online disclosure of campaign finance data by candidates for the U.S. Senate, and the efforts to rectify this through S. 482, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act. She mention’s Sunlight’s Pass S. 482, and extensively quotes Lisa Ronsenberg, Sunlight’s government affairs consultant, about the need for the Senate to join the 21st Century.

The National Journal reported on data from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) that shows last year’s top 20 Political Action Committee contributors to federal candidates poured a combined $22 million into lobbying efforts from January through March -- an increase of nearly 20 percent over the same period in 2008.

Anne C. Mulkern with Greenwire (subscription required) used Capitol Words to look at the use of energy- and environment-related words by congressional lawmakers. The New York Times re-posted Mulkern's piece.

CongressDaily’s Carrie Dann reported (subscription required) on a new study conducted by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) that shows short-term lenders have dramatically increased their spending on lobbying and campaign contributions since 2004. The industry is trying to defeat a bill that would cap annual interest rates on consumer loans at 36 percent. The Los Angeles Times used CRP data in reporting that Sen. Christopher Dodd (Conn.), the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, has received over $44,000 from the industry in the first quarter of this year. The Times quoted Sheila Krumholz, CRP’s director, saying that it’s hardly surprising that payday lenders would be contributing heavy to Dodd now.

The Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel reported on a recently-updated Federal Contractor Misconduct Database by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) that shows Lockheed Martin Corp., the nation’s largest defense contractor, is the number one offender. The group found Lockheed linked to 50 cases of civil, criminal or administrative misconduct since 1995.

Steve Coll at The New Yorker wrote about following the stimulus funding. “Like ornithology, it turns out that stimulus watching involves a larger, more passionate subculture than might initially be expected,” Coll wrote. He highlighted OMB Watch’s budget-and-tax-policy section that “often produces wonky stimulus-related tracking.”

The May edition of the Washingtonian magazine will include a feature on the Washington, D.C., region’s technology leaders, dubbing them “Tech Titans.” The feature will include Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, as one of the region’s tech leaders. The magazine’s Web site includes a video with several short statements by the tech leaders featured, including Ellen discussing her favorite gadgets and using technology to bring government transparency.

Bara Vaida at National Journal's "Under the Influence" highlighted a blog post by Nancy Watzman, Sunlight's Denver-based consultant, about the 170 fundraising invitations for 2009 events the Party Time campaign has collected so far.

National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" aired the first of a two-part story by Andrea Seabrook on the federal government's data being opened up via technology. The first part aired Thursday, and it centered on Recovery.gov, the Obama administration's site that's tracking spending by the economic stimulus plan. For the piece, Seabrook interviewed Ellen, Clay, Greg Elan, Sunlight evangelist, and Andrew Rasiej, Sunlight technology advisor. Seabrook has lead us to believe the second installment, which is scheduled to air during this afternoon’s edition of “All Things Considered,” will center more on the work of Sunlight. The program begins at 4:00 pm (Eastern Time).

Update: Seabrook's second installment can be seen and listened to here.

Thanks, and see you next week!