Sunlight Foundation

Press Articles & Mentions Archives

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September 2008

  • Business Week - Bailout Outrage Races Across the Web

    Arun Gupta was enraged as he learned the details of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to fix the U.S. banking system with $700 billion in taxpayer funds. The 43-year-old copy editor and freelance journalist, who publishes his own alternative newspaper, The Indypendent, needed to channel his angst but couldn't find a live protest to attend. So on Sept. 22, he sent an e-mail to some politically active friends in New York. Within days, they'd planned a protest against the bailout in New York and at 80 other locations in the U.S. on Sept. 25.

  • Wired - Bailout Agreement Hits the Net -Is This Transparency?

    The White House and congressional leaders agreed to the details of the $700 billion government bailout of financial institutions late Sunday afternoon and they promptly released the bill on the internet.

  • Pittsburgh Post Gazette - Shock therapy

    The last time President Bush got a blank check from Congress, the United States invaded Iraq on bad intelligence with no game plan. No wonder the country is wary of handing his administration $700 billion in taxpayer-financed loan guarantees to fix the mess that its own love affair with deregulation helped create.

  • Las Vegas Sun - What we can expect — and whom to blame: In Washington

    Washington — As home values tank and retirement funds disappear, it’s hard not to want to find someone to blame. As in so many cases, the sins of omission can cause just as much problem as the ones actually committed, a fact that is apparent from a cursory review of the legislative record leading up to the current economic troubles.

  • The Lexington Herald-Leader - Pricey, private Davis events with finance industry fill war chest

    As the financial system began to collapse this year, U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis, R-Hebron, collected tens of thousands of dollars in campaign funds from the lobbyists, executives and political action committees of affected companies, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.

  • The Reno Gazette-Journal - Heller gets donations during luncheon hosted by financial services industry

    U.S. Rep. Dean Heller, R-Carson City, benefited from a $500-a-plate fundraising luncheon hosted by the financial services industry earlier this month, according to a non-profit organization focused on government transparency.

  • CNN Lou Dobbs - The Big Bailout

    Sunlight Foundation's Senior Fellow Bill Allison on CNN's Lou Dobbs talking about the finance industries influence on Congress.

  • CNN Lou Dobbs - Buying Influence

    Sunlight Foundation Senior Fellow Bill Allison is on CNN's Lou Dobbs talking about the financial industry buying influence in Congress.

  • USA Today - Lobbyists in feeding frenzy

    WASHINGTON — The financial services industry, which has spent billions on lobbying and campaign contributions over the last decade, is scrambling to make its case for a proposed $700 billion bailout plan amid deep public skepticism.

  • CNET - Tech activist takes on governments over copyrighted laws

    SEBASTOPOL, Calif.--From a corner of a nondescript office building at the edge of wine country, Carl Malamud is masterminding an electronic guerrilla war against governments across the nation. Most geeks tend to be a bit obsessive, and Malamud is no exception. He's devoted his life to liberating laws, regulations, court cases, and the other myriad detritus that governments produce daily, but often lock up in proprietary databases or allow for-profit companies to sell for princely sums.

  • The Washington Times - Financial lobbyists wooed negotiators

    Key House members weighing a $700 billion Wall Street bailout have filled their campaign coffers this year at more than 250 fundraising parties hosted by financial-sector lobbyists, including a beer tasting and a Washington Redskins game, according to a watchdog group.

  • Wired - Advocates Demand Congress Put Bailout Details on Internet

    The prospect of a gargantuan $700 billion Wall Street bailout agreement presents a prime opportunity for Congress, and in particular the presidential candidates, to live up to their promises of using the internet to free themselves of undue influence.

  • Business Week - Bailout Outrage Races Across the Web

    Arun Gupta was enraged as he learned the details of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to fix the U.S. banking system with $700 billion in taxpayer funds. The 43-year-old copy editor and freelance journalist, who publishes his own alternative newspaper, The Indypendent, needed to channel his angst but couldn't find a live protest to attend. So on Sept. 22, he sent an e-mail to some politically active friends in New York. Within days, they'd planned a protest against the bailout in New York and at 80 other locations in the U.S. on Sept. 25.

  • The Indianapolis Star - Financial industry fuels campaigns

    WASHINGTON -- The hundreds of millions of dollars the financial industry has spent on campaign donations and lobbying contributed to the industry crisis that taxpayers are now being asked to fix, according to government watchdog groups. "The inability of Congress to break through the wall of money built by the financial services industry in order to directly help struggling families in this country is striking," said Common Cause President Bob Edgar.

  • The Washington Post - Wall Street Scrutinized for Fraud Fat Paychecks

    The FBI's decision to investigate criminal wrongdoing at four troubled financial firms at the center of the market's dramatic shakeup represents one of the bureau's largest undertakings in years, a potentially more daunting task than the five-years-long investigation into Enron. Federal officials announced that they will probe Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and American International Group Inc., bringing to 26 the number of financial institutions under scrutiny, The Post's Carrie Johnson reports. (CNN reports that Countrywide Financial is part of the investigation, too.)

  • TheHill.com - Transparency, accountability lessons reach beyond Wall St

    A recent Zogby poll shows 82 percent of Americans in favor of a ban on campaign contributions from lobbyists or representatives from the financial or national security industries. And with good reason. Over the past decade, the financial services, insurance and real estate industries contributed $1.6 billion to federal political campaigns. Those same industries spent $2.3 billion on lobbying Washington over the same time period. These billions of dollars acted as bait for some of the lawmakers who voted to deregulate the industry. Many of them now work on K Street, lobbying for the very companies they once freed from the oversight they now seek.

  • Politico - Online activists rise against the bailout

    Washington has been consumed for the past week with the meltdown on Wall Street and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s proposed $700 billion bailout bill, and if you were only watching the broadcast media, you might think his side was winning. After all, Paulson dominated the Sunday morning talk shows, and the administration’s representatives, from Vice President Cheney on down, were swarming Capitol Hill urging swift passage on Paulson’s terms.

  • The Minnesota Independent - The great bailout of ‘08 must-reads of the week

    Every hour of every day brings reams of fresh news reports and commentaries on the Wall Street crisis and the competing bailout proposals wending their way through Congress, but that doesn’t mean you can learn anything from most of them. David Cay Johnston, the great NYT reporter and author (Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super-Rich and Cheat Everybody Else; Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With the Bill) who has done more to illuminate the flim-flammery at the heart of the US tax code and Wall Street’s post-Reagan machinations, offered this warning to journalists yesterday:

  • CNN - Biden, Obama helped keep ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ alive

    DEWEY BEACH, Delaware (CNN) — Although Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden routinely mocks his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, for her onetime support of the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” Biden and his running mate voted to keep the project alive twice.

  • New York Times - Editorial: Just Click Send

    We suspect that most Senate Republicans know how to use a computer and all of the other devices of the electronic age. Which means there is no excuse — except a desire to slow the public’s right to know — for their ongoing efforts to block electronic filing of their reports on campaign donations.

  • Wired - jacksonville skyline

    The Web is a haven of messy democracy. (Want to see voter engagement and healthy debate? Read any Digg comment thread.) But the ideal of transparency and participation hasn't yet infiltrated another messy democracy — the US government. That insight led Ellen Miller to cofound the Sunlight Foundation in 2006. The goal was to tap some of the Net's best-known thinkers in order to make Washington as user-friendly as a Google API. Miller, who previously headed the Center for Responsive Politics, has enlisted the likes of Esther Dyson, Lawrence Lessig, and Craig Newmark to serve as advisers. "Washington politicians like the firewall they have erected," Miller says. "They will have to be dragged into the 21st century." The next president could do the pulling — if he adopts the Internet's values of openness. Miller shares some of her current projects along with grander ideas she hopes the next president will support.

  • CNN - Biden, Obama helped keep ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ alive

    DEWEY BEACH, Delaware (CNN) — Although Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden routinely mocks his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, for her onetime support of the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” Biden and his running mate voted to keep the project alive twice.

  • Wired - The 2008 Smart List: 15 People the Next President Should Listen To

    The Web is a haven of messy democracy. (Want to see voter engagement and healthy debate? Read any Digg comment thread.) But the ideal of transparency and participation hasn't yet infiltrated another messy democracy — the US government. That insight led Ellen Miller to cofound the Sunlight Foundation in 2006. The goal was to tap some of the Net's best-known thinkers in order to make Washington as user-friendly as a Google API. Miller, who previously headed the Center for Responsive Politics, has enlisted the likes of Esther Dyson, Lawrence Lessig, and Craig Newmark to serve as advisers. "Washington politicians like the firewall they have erected," Miller says. "They will have to be dragged into the 21st century." The next president could do the pulling — if he adopts the Internet's values of openness. Miller shares some of her current projects along with grander ideas she hopes the next president will support.

  • Conde Nast Portfolio.com - The Audacity of Hype

    Barack Obama was on a roll. Before a cheering crowd in Springfield, Missouri, this summer, the Democratic presidential nominee let loose with a barrage on Washington lobbyists: “So one of the things that we’ve got to do is not just change the health-care system, but we’ve also got to change our political system. And that’s why I don’t take PAC money. I don’t take money from federal registered lobbyists, because I want to answer to you when I’m in the White House. I don’t want to answer to all these fat-cat lobbyists!”

  • Denver Post - Op-Ed:Partying on at the political conventions

    This was supposed to be the year of the un-party at the Democratic and Republican political conventions. A new ethics law passed in 2007 prohibited the excesses of the past by prohibiting lobbyists from feting a specific lawmaker. Then Gustav blew in, making GOP lobbyist bashes appear unseemly and prompting Sen. John McCain to call on organizers to turn them into fundraisers for hurricane victims.

  • USA Today - Biden hires lobbyist to advise Senate run

    WASHINGTON — As Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama targets his Republican rival Sen. John McCain for hiring former lobbyists to work on his campaign, a key member of Obama's campaign is paying a Washington lobbyist for legal advice: his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden.

  • Daily Progress (Virgina) - Energy focus of 5th race

    The two candidates vying for Virginia’s 5th District seat in Congress agree on one thing: the United States must free itself from its addiction to foreign oil.

  • National Journal - Earmarks: A Wonky Villain Goes Mainstream

    When budget hawk Steve Ellis was preparing for a network news interview four years ago, his hosts warned him to stay away from an obscure, inside-the-Beltway term that they said their audience would never understand: earmark.

  • Florida Times Union - Federal government: From the keyboard

    Keeping close tabs on local members of Congress isn't the exercise in frustration it used to be for the public, thanks to the Internet.

  • Naples News - Parties party on in Denver, Twin Cities

    The parties were present in Denver and Minneapolis during the past two weeks.

  • New West - Singing the Blues with Sen. Baucus at a Big-Dollar Political Bash

    So this is how I happened to stand in front of a stage in a nightclub in downtown Denver during the Democratic National Convention while Sen. Max Baucus belted out a rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.”

  • Inland Valley Bulletin - City OKs Baca welcome signs

    In what some might consider an unusual gesture of support, Rialto will spend $3,750 to adorn city welcome signs with an additional sign declaring the city as the home of Rep. Joe Baca, D-San Bernardino.

  • Colorado Independent - Conventions highlight gaps in ethics laws

    It was one of the chief vows of the Democratic Party as it took control of both congressional chambers in 2007: to sever the cozy relationships between lobbyists and lawmakers brought to light by the Jack Abramoff scandals.

  • Politico - Lobbying watchdogs on prowl at conventions

    Having tracked the intersection of money and politics from afar for years, Sheila Krumholz and Massie Ritsch slipped under the radar to watch the action up close at the two national party conventions.

  • Sunday Times - Politicians are using the internet to harness your bright ideas

    When Janet Murrells tried to get some potholes repaired a few months ago, she drove into the dead end of bureaucracy. Telephones rang unanswered. Pillars turned to posts. Nobody seemed willing to take any action about the gaping holes in the road in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, not far from where she lives.

  • Wall Street Journal - Party Police Crash the Convention

    ST. PAUL, Minn. -- When most people show up at private parties and events here, the goal is to get past the velvet rope. For Nancy Watzman, half the fun is being booted.

  • Dallas Morning News - AT&T has had big presences at both political conventions

    ST. PAUL, Minn. – AT&T's lobbying strategy at this summer's Democratic and Republican conventions? More bars in more places.

  • Washington Times - Derided lobbyists continue to party

    They've long been derided in public by John McCain as part of what's wrong in Washington. And during prime time of the Republican convention, some were even singled out for being "corrupt." But that hasn't kept special interest lobbyists and their corporate patrons from carrying on their normal business this week in the shadows of the Republican Party event, where they are hosting many of the 200 parties and receptions in the Twin Cities.

  • Pioneer Press - Party crasher sets out to expose big-money schmoozing

    The drinks were free, but more importantly, so were the mini-doughnuts.

  • Roll Call - Party Vetters Say Questions Never End

    For the past several months, ethics lawyers have faced a flurry of queries as companies, lobbyists and nonprofits have grappled with the new ethics rules ahead of the national conventions.

  • CQ Politics - Convention Watchdogs Sniffing Around Lobbyist Parties

    Nancy Watzman approached the velvet rope outside Brit’s Pub and Eating Establishment in Minneapolis. But her name wasn’t on the list to attend a reception for the Georgia delegation, and the bouncer turned her away politely from what was described as a private party.

  • ABC World News Tonight with Charles Gibson - Money Trail: He's Baaaack! Tom DeLay Hailed as GOP Hero

    Sunlight's Executive Director Ellen Miller questions why we are seeing the reappearance of former Texas Rep.Tom Delay on ABC World News Tonight with Charles Gibson. The Brian Ross Investigative Team caught Delay-poster child of the most recent area of corruption and scandal rubbing elbows with guests at Republican National Convention events.

  • Kojo Nnamdi Show - "Tweet" Wars in National Politics

    Gabriela Schneider, Communication Director at the Sunlight Foundation, talks about Let Our Congress on Kojo Nnamdi Show on NPR's WAMU 88.5. Let Our Congress Tweet is campaign to tell Congress join us where we are talking, sharing and networking-online.

  • NPR Day 2 Day - Party Time at the Political Conventions

    Party Time Project's Nancy Watzman talks on NPR's Day to Day about the loopholes The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act prohibits that allow parties sponsored by deep pockeys at this year's conventions.

  • ABC News - Money Trail: Tom DeLay Hailed as GOP Hero at Fundraiser

    Sunlight's Executive Director Ellen Miller questions why we are seeing the reappearance of former Texas Rep.Tom Delay on ABC World News Tonight with Charles Gibson. The Brian Ross Investigative Team caught Delay-poster child of the most recent area of corruption and scandal rubbing elbows with guests at Republican National Convention events.