Sunlight gave Code for America its very first grant (a mere $10,000) and served as its fiscal sponsor while it organized itself.  We are amazed and pleased by the enormous progress they have made in the last 15 months.  They have a really ambitious program planned for next year and tomorrow you can tune in to the webinar they have planned (Tuesday, November 16th, 2010) at 1 pm PST/4 pm EST. It should be a great opportunity to learn more about who they are and what they're up to.

For those of you who don't know, Code for America is a project to foster better city governments by forming a more perfect union between talented and innovative developers with motivated cities. We're really excited to see the inaugural class of fellows that was announced a few weeks ago. Jennifer Pahlka, founder and executive director of Code for America, recently announced the fellows with this introduction:

Out of a pool of over 360 amazing applicants, these 20 stood out for their talent, experience, and passion. They will be the first participants in our experiment to help city governments better leverage the power of the web. Starting in January, it will be their challenge to not only build innovative apps for each of our cities, but also become the leaders of the ongoing movement to make government more open and efficient. Having gotten to know each of them over the past few months, I can assure you that they can and they will.

I hope you’re as excited as we are to see what together they can accomplish.

Sunlight grantee MAPLight.org shows the impact of campaign contributions on legislative votes via technology. And by making these connections transparent they are giving citizens the ability to better judge members of Congress.

MAPLight.org's latest tool tracks the flood of special-interest money that swamps congressional committees when they are considering a particular piece of legislation. Their new “Committee Tool” reveals campaign contributions received by each committee member from special interest groups for key bills which are before every congressional committee.

Below are two examples of how MAPLight.org's Committee Tool can reveal what's really going on in committee deliberations and debates.  The first looks at H.R. 5244, Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2008, which has been stuck in the House Committee on Financial Services since February. The bill would protect credit card holders from banks arbitrarily raising interest rates among other things. By using the MAPLight.org's program you can see how banks and other financial interests who are opposed to the bill have given over $341,000 to the committee chair and $465,000 to the committee's ranking member. Conversely, proponents of the bill gave the two members $10,000 and $2,000 respectively. Little wonder the bill is stuck in committee.

The second example deals with H.R. 5632, a bill that would prohibit importation of radioactive waste, and its tenure in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce where it's been stuck since March. The nuclear plant construction, equipment and services industry are opposed to the bill, and have given the committee chair over $45,000. Environmental and other interests in favor of the bill have given just under $3,800 to the chair. Here's wishing the bill luck.

As MAPLight.org says, they just provide the facts about campaign contributions…they leave it up to citizens to draw their own conclusions. Thanks to MAPLight.org, the process is much more transparent.