Sunlight Foundation

Press Articles & Mentions Archives

February 2010

• Ventura County Star - Your letters: February 28, 2010

  Concerned owner This is an open letter to James Lentz, president and CEO, Toyota Motor Sales, USA., Inc.

• The Huffington Post - DC Hubbub and What it Means For the Climate Bill

  As I sit here writing, I have the White House Health Care Summit running in the background. This is the meeting where President Obama invited Congressional leaders to sit down at the table in front of the American public and talk about how to find common ground over what has become a very divisive, political debate about healthcare.

• The Economist - A special report on managing information The open society

  FROM antiquity to modern times, the nation has always been a product of information management. The ability to impose taxes, promulgate laws, count citizens and raise an army lies at the heart of statehood. Yet something new is afoot. These days democratic openness means more than that citizens can vote at regular intervals in free and fair elections. They also expect to have access to government data.

• The New York Times - Another Way to Watch

  There will be a plethora of ways to follow the health care meeting today and talk back live — from cable television and C-Span to live blogs and social networking sites. But there is a new entry into the media cacophony that hopes to offer something a little different. The Sunlight Foundation, which advocates transparency and open government, is entering the field with an online venue called Sunlight Live.

• PBS - How Mobile Apps Are Revolutionizing Elections, Transparency

  The importance of social media in politics was made clear by Barack Obama's 2008 presidential run. But there is a new frontier of Web 2.0 technologies that politicians and political groups are slowly starting to embrace: the smartphone app. These apps have the potential to reshape how politicians communicate, raise money and get out the vote.

• The Seattle Times - Patty Murray's Facebook friends: public option now

  WASHINGTON -- If Sen. Patty Murray listens only to her friends, here is what the Washington Democrat should do: Forget working with Republicans and pass a public option now. That was the overwhelming response when Murray asked her Facebook friends what they wanted out of the bipartisan health-care summit President Obama is hosting Thursday. The six-hour event is the Democrats' last major outreach to the Republicans before finally forging ahead with Obama's stalled domestic priority. (The Sunlight Foundation is live blogging the summit with health policy experts.)

• The Nation - Obama's Health Summit Faces Transparency, Twitter

  President Obama promised transparency in the bipartisan health care huddle at Blair House, and one open government group is doubling down on the offer. The Sunlight Foundation, a webby, nonpartisan transparency organization, announced it will route around the traditional media to provide its own interactive broadcast of the proceedings, with information that many TV channels can't (or won't) share. Jake Brewer, the group's engagement director, says that as each politician speaks, Sunlight's website will compliment video footage with "campaign contributions that the person speaking has received, their connections to lobbyists and industry, personal finances, and key votes that the leaders have made on health care in the past." Like C-SPAN meets Common Cause.

• The Atlantic - Summit Watching

  The NYT, Sargent, Frum and TPM are live-blogging. Cohn and Ezra Klein are live-tweeting. White House live-stream after the jump (Or you can watch over at the Sunlight Foundation, which is displaying politicians' health care donations as they speak):

• The Daily Caller - GOP calls on Obama to ‘renounce’ reconciliation: Live-blogging the health care summit

  5 p.m. – Boehner passes on a final statement. Obama makes his, saying it will take 10 minutes. It took 20. “This has been hard work,” the president said.

• The Hill - Sunlight Foundation live-blogs the White House healthcare summit

  I think we all want to see some accountability coming from the summit, and I'm hopeful, since we've seen that disinformation like "death panels" can be openly confronted. Also, we'd like to see where lobbyist and related money goes and what happens with it. That's the whole transparency thing the current White House and the Sunlight Foundation are about. (Disclaimer: I'm on their board.)

• The Huffington Post - Sunlight on the Health Care Summit

  We're trying something a little different today, and we hope you'll join us. As Republican and Democratic leaders have started debating health care in a televised forum today, the Sunlight Foundation is providing an alternative to the mainstream media's coverage with something we're calling Sunlight Live

• Time Magazine - Pretty Cool

  The Sunlight Foundation is streaming this health care summit. Every time someone speaks, Sunlight shows their top donors. Check it out here.

• San Francisco Chronicle - Sunlight Foundation live blogs the White House health care summit

  I think we all want to see some accountability coming from the summit, and I'm hopeful, since we've seen that disinformation like "death panels" can be openly confronted. Also, we'd like to see where lobbyist and related money goes and what happens with it. That's the whole transparency thing the current White House and the Sunlight Foundation are about. (Disclaimer: I'm on their board.)

• The Hill - Adequate disclosure rules: myth the high court bought

  In the recent Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which allows corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts on political advertisements supporting candidates in elections, there was only one issue that all but one of the justices agreed upon: the importance of disclosure. In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote: “With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters.”

• The Hill - Nye, Clay raise bucks at Black Eyed Peas concert; aide Reggie Love stays out late

  The Verizon Center rocked with the hip-hop sounds of the Black Eyed Peas on Tuesday night, and two hip House members used the concert as an opportunity to raise some cash.

• The Huffington Post - Transparency in New Mexico: The 2010 Legislature

  This year brings a landmark for the Sunlight Foundation. We've been hinting for some time that we're going to make a serious play in state government, and New Mexico is one of the first where we'll focus those efforts. As my colleague Noah wrote earlier this month, the state's House of Representatives has voted to expand the presence of webcams in its proceedings. It was an early sign during the 2010 legislative session that New Mexico's lawmakers are beginning to take open government seriously. It was a also welcome sign, but when the session ended last week it was clear that open-government advocates will remain busy in the 2011 session.

• The New York Times - Introducing Version 3 of the Congress API

  In the year since we released the Congress API, we’ve learned a lot from how people have used it and from general reactions. We’re proud that various developers have used it to help build Web sites and Facebook and mobile applications, while others have created libraries for Ruby, Python and R (among others) for interacting with the API. We’ve also contributed member dates of birth to the Sunlight API.

• The Tribune-Star - STEPHANIE SALTER: An image to make one wonder: The Rx drug industry and White House in bed

  TERRE HAUTE — While politicians and the news media focus on the fate of President Obama’s version of health care reform, a fascinating (and oh-so-revealing) historical element of the proposal begs for attention: A veiled and very expensive negotiation process led to some extraordinary agreements between the White House and the pharmaceutical industry that were included in the final congressional versions of the overhaul.

• The Washington Examiner - Too early to judge Obama administration on transparency?

  President Obama has promised to make the federal government more transparent to citizens than it has ever before been, and his administration has launched a number of initiatives in the executive branch designed to achieve that goal.

• Auction Bytes - Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark Talks about Customer Service

  Craig Newmark is founder of craigslist.org and is its most famous customer service representative. In this interview, we asked Craig about customer service to see if he had advice for online sellers, and to find out more about the man behind the online-classifieds giant.

• National Public Radio - Connecting The Dots Between PhRMA And Congress

  Earlier this month, former congressman Billy Tauzin announced that he would step down from his position as president of the pharmaceutical industry's main lobbying group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — known by the shorthand PhRMA.

• The Huffington Post - New White House Health Care Proposal May Destroy PhRMA Deal

  Sunlight Foundation: This morning the White House released a new health care proposal that may be used as a blueprint for a compromise between House and Senate versions of reform. This new proposal will likely not find a receptive audience at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)-the chief lobbying arm of the pharmaceutical industry.

• PBS - The Future of News: Digital Democracy

  The Sunlight Foundation's executive director Ellen Miller appeared on PBS during a special about the future of news and the role of technology. She appeared alongside the Chief Technology Officer of the United States, Aneesh Chopra, during a taping at the Newseum in Washington, DC.

• Federal News Radio - OMB's Zients sets out steps to key productivity boom

  Office of Management and Budget chief performance officer Jeff Zients didn't sway too far from his stump speech about the core components of the Obama administration's management agenda Thursday. The strategy includes cutting or reducing programs that don't work, focusing on a handful of priorities and promoting an open and transparent government. But what Zients did differently during his speech at the Center for American Progress in Washington was peg the ability of the government to save money and improve productivity to three "unsexy" agency functions-acquisition, technology and workforce.

• Merced Sun-Star - Our View: Reform earmarks back to 1994

  U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock, a Republican who represents a district that stretches from Sacramento to Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada to the Oregon border, has been nothing if not consistent on earmarks, those funds that members of Congress request for specific projects.

• McClatchy - Senate 'holds': Where just one senator makes a majority

  WASHINGTON — The shadowy practice of Senate "holds" — the power of one lawmaker to block nominations or legislation indefinitely — is a big reason that the Senate is gridlocked. In an age when information flies across the Internet instantly, the Senate continues to conduct crucial business with this throwback to a time when gentlemen's agreements were the chief currency of the legislative process. In fact, holds appear to be more popular than ever.

• The Irish Times - US public rightly sceptical of Obama's suggestion box

  GENERALLY SPEAKING, government bureaucrats aren’t particularly motivated to provide data on their actions to the outside world – especially not in a form that computers in general, and the internet in particular, can understand. Most prefer to keep their data, as the immortal Douglas Adams had it, “on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’ ”.

• Roll Call - HOH’s One-Minute Recess: Making a Weekend of It

  Sadly, the Presidents Day recess is nearly over, but some Members of Congress will spend those last few days before returning to Capitol Hill raising campaign cash in some pretty fun ways. Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) is scheduled to kick off a “ski and spa retreat” on Friday at the Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah, according to the Sunlight Foundation’s Party Time blog. Campaign donations — $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for political action committees — benefit Kind’s Badger PAC, according to the event invitation.

• Federal News Radio - Sunlight Foundation wants to take open government to the next level

  President Barack Obama shortly after his inauguration issued a memo on open government and transparency. The Sunlight Foundation has been following federal agencies and examining issues surrounding the Open Government Directive. Jake Brewer is campaign and engagement director at the Foundation and said both government and private citizens need to get on board in order to take full advantage of transparency and openness.

• PBS - New Tools for Mapping News

  Want to illustrate a story by displaying data on a map? Don't have a team of whiz kids at your fingertips? One good option has long been IBM's Many Eyes. Their maps, however, stop at the state level. Not especially helpful if you cover local politics!

• The Bristol Press - OUR VIEW: The political secrets of a group with money

  You’ve seen the commercials: U.S. House Bill 4173, already passed in the lower chamber, now headed for the U.S. Senate, is going to lead to another bailout for the fat cats. Really?

• The Washington Post - Two Democrats' remedy for the high court's campaign finance ruling

  THERE IS no simple legislative fix to the Supreme Court's unfortunate recent decision allowing corporations to spend money directly advocating the election or defeat of federal candidates. The court's 5-4 decision was grounded in the First Amendment; consequently, the congressional response is inevitably limited. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) unveiled an important proposal last week designed to address the most fixable aspects of the ruling in time for the 2010 election.

• Time Magazine - Follow The Bouncing Ball: Barack Obama and The PhRMA Deal

  Paul Blumenthal, over at the Sunlight Foundation, has done a deep dive into public records detailing the close relationship between the White House and PhRMA, the drug lobby powerhouse that Obama used as Example A of what was wrong with politics in 2008. As is the habit of modern Internet work, he introduces his journalism with an overview video.

• The Huffington Post - Michael Bennet, Betsy Markey Scheduled To Benefit From Lobbyist's Fundraisers

  Party Time Blog: Louis Dupart, a lobbyist who has successfully sought earmarks from Colorado politicians, will host a fundraising breakfast on Feb. 24 for Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., the second event for a Colorado lawmaker he's scheduled this month.The event occurs in the middle of earmark season -- the time of year when members of Congress decide on their funding requests for the next fiscal year and submit them to the two Appropriations Committees. House requests have to be submitted by March 19.

• Las Vegas Sun - Obama’s Las Vegas visit to include DNC fundraiser

  WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama's visit to Las Vegas this week will include a fundraiser that aims to raise $1 million for the Democratic National Committee, according to a source familiar with the event. Obama is expected to touch down in Las Vegas on Thursday and head to a fundraiser that evening for the DNC. The president will stay overnight in Las Vegas.

• The Sacramento Bee - Editorial: Earmark reform is a worthy cause

  Rep. Tom McClintock, a Republican who represents the congressional district that stretches from Sacramento to Lake Tahoe and from the Sierra Nevada to the Oregon border, has been nothing if not consistent on earmarks. These are funds that members of Congress request for specific projects. McClintock signed a "no earmarks" pledge in 2008, and he has kept to that.

• Times Union - A few checks on influence

  Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the floodgates on political spending by corporations and unions, the challenge is to find a way to live with the new law of the land. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer seek to do that in separate proposals that at least would force companies to fully disclose how much they spend on elections, and to whose benefit.

• New Haven Register - LETTER: Dodd hypocritical on campaign financing

  I can’t believe the hypocrisy of U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., in wanting to amend the Constitution to prohibit the funding of political campaigns from various groups.

• The New York Times - The Early Word: Open for Business

  The federal government will open two hours late this morning, after its longest continuous closing since the late 19th century. Still, with limited Metro service, many of the 270,000 federal employees won’t return until after the President’s Day holiday, on Monday, when there could be more snow, according to the National Weather Service. Already this year’s snowfall — 55.9 inches — has shattered the record set in 1898-99.

• San Francisco Chronicle - Harry Reid coming to SF for fundraiser...and LIBERALS may demonstrate outside

  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is facing some serious re-election trouble in Nevada this year, with everybody from the Tea Party to the RNC targeting him for a takedown.

• National Journal - Tracking Billy Tauzin's Influence

  Given the announcement that PhRMA CEO and former Rep. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, R-La., was stepping down in June, I thought I'd point our readers to an interesting and informative Sunlight Foundation report. The Foundation's Paul Blumenthal delved into the White House visitor logs, lobbying disclosure forms and campaign finance documents to track the influence of PhRMA as Tauzin worked on health care reform over the past year.

• Salon - How the drug lobby snared Obama

  Billy Tauzin, Washington's epitome of the legislator-turned-lobbyist, resigned from his job as PhRMA’s chief hustler this week. According to the New York Times, Tauzin surrendered his lavish expense account and $2 million salary because his bosses in the pharmaceutical industry believed he had somehow failed to safeguard their interests sufficiently while killing real healthcare reform...

• Time Magazine - UPDATE: Billy Tauzin Out at PhRMA

  News broke overnight that Billy Tauzin, the Democratic congressman turned Republican turned lobbyist, was stepping down as head of the the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Tauzin led the group when it struck a mid-2009 backroom deal with President Obama and the chair of the Senate Finance Committee. The deal, according to published reports, would have limited the pharmaceutical industry to $80 billion in losses over 10 years under Democratic health care reform. In exchange, drug companies agreed to support reform and the lobby spent some $100 million on a pro-reform push that included lots of television advertisements. What Democrats really got in exchange for the deal with Tauzin, however, was a promise from PhRMA not to oppose reform.

• The New York Times - More Tools for Sifting Through Government Data

  In a blog post on Wednesday, Clay Johnson, director of Sunlight Labs, discussed the “data flood” coming out of Washington and the need for more applications to deal with the new era of government information. Sunlight Labs is part of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit organization with a goal of digitizing government data and building Web sites to help make the current data deluge more manageable. The foundation hopes to help solve some of these data overload problems with new tools, including a Web site they are currently testing: nationaldatacatalog.com. It will organize government data sets and try to give more context to this information.

• National Journal - Snow = Less Campaign Cash?

  Sunlight Foundation's Political Party Time asks a fun question related to our epic snow fall this week: Will the snow cut into lawmakers' fundraising opportunities? People often joke about the birth rate going up nine months after a big storm like Washington, DC's snowmagedden. But what about congressional fundraising? Will we see a dip in campaign contributions for this week, when candidates report them to the U.S. Federal Election Commission all too long from now?

• National Journal - She's Got A Pocket, A Pocketful Of Sunshine

  Ex-NV GOP ChairSue Lowden(R) is up with a new TV ad, produced by Strategy Group for Media Full script, "Creating Opportunity":

• USA Today - Thanks to telecommuting, snow days are no longer fun

  With more snow expected today, some businesses are extending teleworking plans. At Adaptive Marketing, an Internet marketing services company based in Norwalk, Conn., employees have been told to call a toll-free number to find out if the office will be open. If not, they can use their work-provided laptops to log in and do business from home.

• Time Magazine - Snow Day, Schmo Day. Get to Work!

  Schools are closed. Flights are cancelled. The federal government is shut down. But you? You're still expected to get your job done, just at home rather than the office. For many workers, a fun little perk—which used to come in the form of an unexpected vacation day due to a big snowfall—is long gone thanks to telecommuting. Gotta love technology.

• The St. Lucie Times - Republicans want Oompa Loompa NOW

  Much like Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, who has everything she could possibly want and hope to get, the Republicans want their Oompa Loompa now. Its not good enough that their core “common-sense” ideas are included in the Senate health care bill, they want to start over. At some point, it will be increasingly difficult to not look at our Republican politicians on the Hill as the spoiled brat Mr. Willy Wonka saw in Veruca.

• The Change Log - Episode 0.1.3 - Civic hacking with Luigi Montanez and Jeremy Carbaugh from Sunlight Labs

  Adam and Wynn caught up with Luigi Montanez and Jeremy Carbaugh from Sunlight Labs and discussed their Python and Ruby projects, government transparency, and civic hacking - open source contributions as activism.

• WNYC - Government Transparency Online

  The Obama administration has mandated that federal agencies adhere to certain standards and deadlines for providing searchable data online. US Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and Beth Noveck, head of the White House Open Government Initiative discuss the efforts - and the pitfalls - when it comes to making government more transparent.

• The Sheboygan Press - Editorial: Let's shed more light on earmarks

  When Barack Obama campaigned for the presidency in 2008, he promised that his administration would be transparent to the American public. He has made some strides in this regard, but most notably let taxpayers down when he didn't insist that the talks between House and Senate leaders on a compromise health care bill be televised by C-SPAN.

• PBS Newshour - Getting Government Data Out to the Public: Data.gov

  Getting data out of government agencies can be difficult. It can involve FOIA requests and weeks -- sometimes months -- of waiting for a response, along with fees starting at $25. As it stands, there is a "presumption of needing to be asked for information," says Clay Johnson, director of the Sunlight Foundation's Sunlight Labs.

• NextGov - Open government site hasn't sprouted teeth yet, observers say

  A White House Web site for tracking compliance with a 2009 open government directive is not an adequate enforcement tool yet, some open government advocates said after its launch last weekend. The directive, issued to agencies by the Office of Management and Budget, established several tight deadlines for initiatives intended to make government more transparent, collaborative with industry and user-friendly for the public. The site Open Government Dashboard, was one such assignment due on Feb. 6.

• The Huffington Post - Harry Reid's CA Fundraising Blitz

  California Watch: As our friends at the Sunlight Foundation have noted in their Party Time blog, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is getting ready to embark on a California fundraising blitz, which will take him down the Pacific Coast, from San Francisco to Bel Air, early next week.

• National Journal - White House Isn't Done With Lobbyists

  Having thoroughly ticked off the K Street crowd with a string of controversial lobbying restrictions last year, President Obama has signaled that he's not done yet -- either with anti-lobbyist rhetoric or with complex new rules.

• ABC News and ProPublica - Congressional Fundraising Stays Out of the Limelight at Super Bowl

  Was it the two feet of snow that blanketed Washington during the days leading up to the Super Bowl? Or was it the unintended consequence of our Super Bowl Blitz [1], a two-week telephone survey that ProPublica conducted with the help of its readers, trying to find out which members of Congress would be attending this year’s big game?

• Newsday - Find Info Gold at Data.gov

  Inspection scores for the Glen Cove public housing projects. The number of railroad retirees living in each congressional district. The kinds of housing discrimination cases filed in Suffolk County. A trove of data recently published online by the federal government can provide numbers like these, for those with access to the Internet and the ability to use a program such as Microsoft Excel.

• Los Angeles Times - Harry Reid to hit up California for cash

  Congress may not be in the mood to do much to help California out of its budget mess, but that isn't stopping prominent lawmakers from looking to the state to keep their campaign coffers full.

• Government Technology - Online Data Sets Could Spur Innovation in High-Tech Northwest

  Following in the digital footsteps of major cities like San Francisco and New York, King County, Wash., might start publishing public data online, giving citizens access to transit information, county park events, crime data and more.

• The Mountineer - Shuler’s pork projects bypass Haywood

  Earmarked budget appropriations of more than $26 million in the past two years and key votes against eliminating pork-barrel spending and earmarks earned fiscal conservative U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-Waynsville, a “hostile” rating from the Council Citizens Against Government Waste.

• Federal Computer Week - Agencies on track to meet open gov deadline

  Most agencies will meet tomorrow’s deadline for creating an open government Web page and securing technology for engaging with the public, as required by President Barack Obama’s Open Government Directive, a General Services Administration official told Federal Computer Week. According to the Sunlight Foundation, as of Feb. 5, 10 out 20 agencies have posted open government Web pages leading up to the Feb. 6 deadline. Independent governmental organizations, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, are exempt from the directive, although many of those organizations are volunteering to participate.

• The Economist - Of governments and geeks

  You might think that Clay Johnson, a campaigner for transparency, would be pleased to see a ferret, with a deerstalker hat and magnifying glass, pop up on his screen. This creature is the mascot for BetaDataFerrett, an online application offered by America’s Census Bureau.

• The Detroit News - Rep. Conyers hosting $5,000 Super Bowl party

  Politics is often considered a sport, so it's not surprising that during sport's biggest showcase -- the Super Bowl -- politics can be found on the sidelines. Rep. John Conyers , D-Detroit, is hosting a $5,000-a-ticket fundraiser in Miami.

• Federal Computer Week - Open gov't. groups ask for improvements in Data.gov

  Data.gov is the relatively new Web site that lists so-called "high value datasets" from agencies. But it faces criticism from open government groups, which say that the agencies are posting low-hanging fruit, not high-value data.

• The Washington Examiner - Sunlight memo to Congress: Here's how to do earmark disclosure

  President Obama's remarks during last State of the Union address included an admonition to Congress to change the way it discloses earmarks, by putting all of the information about every earmark on one web site that is easily accessible to the public.

• The New York Times - What Price Politics?

  A binge of special interest money seems inevitable unless Congress acts quickly — before this year’s election — to repair the damage from the Supreme Court ruling that ended restraints on campaign spending by corporations and unions.

• WAMU - Campaign Finance - What Next?

  Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down campaign finance rules it said violated the free speech of corporations. President Obama warned the decision would "open the floodgates for special interests" in Washington. Others hailed it a repudiation of flawed, Constitutionally-dubious regulations. We examine possible legislative responses, and the role of money in American politics.

• KUOW - Obama: President 2.0

  President Obama took questions from voters in a live YouTube chat earlier this week. Some open government activists applaud the administration for using new technologies to create a dialogue with the public. But others say the administration isn't going far enough to uphold campaign promises of transparency. Critics point to closed–door meetings and administrative foot–dragging as examples of business–as–usual politics. One year after inauguration day, how well has the Obama administration kept its promises? Can YouTube and Twitter really make government stronger, or is it just a way to make the masses feel like they have a voice? What do you think of the Obama administration's use of social media? Do you feel more plugged–in? Or left out in the cold?

• Victorville Daily Press - Let the Internet shine

  “The legislative process is one of horse trading and compromises. If you put that all on camera all of the time, nothing would get done.” -Ellen Miller

• The New American - Foreign Handouts: More Harm Than Good

  Item: Writing in his blog for the New York Times on January 6, Nicolas Kristof discussed Clinton’s remarks: “She talked about partnerships with local countries, and consulting them rather than dictating to them.”

• The Institute for Southern Studies - VOICES: A corporate full-body scan

  The one redeeming feature of the abominable Supreme Court ruling on corporate electoral expenditures is the majority's retention of the rules on disclaimers and disclosure. While opening the floodgates to unlimited business political spending, the Court at least recognizes that the public has a right to know when a corporation is responsible for a particular message and a right to information on a corporation's overall spending.

• The Knoxville News-Sentinel - Bringing Sunlight to campaign contributions

  One of seven proposals from the Sunlight Foundation: All information should be online, searchable, sortable, downloadable and machine-readable.

• The Courier-Journal - Local health care companies Humana and Kindred spend big on lobbyists

  WASHINGTON — As the health care reform debate raged last year in the nation's capital, Louisville-based Humana Inc. and Kindred Healthcare pumped more than $2.1 million into their congressional lobbying operations in an effort to influence the outcome.

• Los Angeles Times - Obama's transparency record appears cloudy

  Reporting from Washington - One casualty of President Obama's first year in office: the notion that he would transform a political system mired in gridlock and secrecy, opening a window to the legislative process. That hasn't happened. Instead of healthcare negotiations broadcast on C-SPAN, as candidate Obama famously promised, the fate of the landmark bill is being hashed out in private on Capitol Hill. And recent polls indicate that the public has lowered its expectations about the prospect of a more open government.

• Savannah Morning News - Support mounting for disclosure for newly legalized corporate and union electioneering

  Support is building for more disclosure in the wake of a major U.S. Supreme Court decision on campaign finance. The high court ruled Jan. 21 that corporations and unions may spend money to elect or defeat candidates for federal office. Corporations and unions are still barred from donating directly to candidates' campaigns or coordinating their spending with them.