Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation Press Release Archive

Press Releases for 2008

• 2008 Top Congressional Fundraiser Party Spots

  WASHINGTON, DC – A new analysis by the Sunlight Foundation's Party Time project of the top partying spots for congressional fundraisers in 2008 shows that, in addition to party-operated venues, a handful of pricey restaurants and private townhouses are the site of most of the festivities. Top restaurants included Johnny's Half Shell, with 120 events (chosen by Gourmet Magazine in 2000 as one of "America's Best Restaurants); Charlie Palmer Steak, with 83 (named by Washingtonian as one of the best 100 restaurants in 2008); and Bistro Bis (also in Washingtonian's top 100), with 79. The top 20 list is online here.

• Energy Tops Congress’ Most Commonly Used Words in 2008

  WASHINGTON, DC – Energy, health and service were the hotbed issues for Congress in 2008, according to the Sunlight Foundation’s Capitol Words, a site that converts the statements of members of Congress in the Congressional Record into data.

• New Sunlight Foundation Tariff Bills Database Shows Who's Giving and Getting Tax Breaks

  WASHINGTON, DC – In the 110th Congress, 116 members of the House introduced more than 800 bills to cut taxes on some imported goods, requested by at least 120 companies and organizations, a new experimental, work-in-progress Sunlight Foundation database of tariff suspension records shows. The bills, which would have cost the Treasury an estimated $1.1 billion in 2009 by reducing or eliminating tariffs on everything—from unicycles to storage batteries for hybrid cars and from fibers from the coats of the rare vicuna to chemicals for making rodent poison—were supported by 65 of the beneficiaries, who hired in-house or outside lobbyists that listed specific bills of tariff duty suspensions as issues they sought to influence. The database is accessible here.

• Sunlight Foundation Launches Hub for Transparency Jobs

  WASHINGTON, DC –In response to the recent commitment by the incoming presidential administration to increase government transparency, the Sunlight Foundation created Transparency Jobs to aggregate all the employment opportunities for transparency-related careers.

• The Sunlight Foundation Launches Open Senate Project with Majority Leader Reid’s Endorsement

  WASHINGTON, DC – As part of its efforts to work with Congress on how to make itself more open in the Internet age, the Sunlight Foundation is launching The Open Senate Project. This bipartisan, collaborative initiative will study the Senate’s current information-sharing practices to recommend how to improve public access to the Senate’s work on the Web.

• Sunlight Foundation Releases First Online Foreign Agent Lobbying Database

  WASHINGTON, DC - In its continuing effort to make hard to access government data accessible with the click of a mouse, the Sunlight Foundation is releasing a beta version of FARAdb, which digitizes disclosures filed by lobbyists representing 15 foreign countries required by the Foreign Agent Registration Act.

• Sunlight Foundation Petition Tells Congress to Wait 72 Hours After Posting Next Bailout Bill Before Voting

  Washington, DC - Today, the Sunlight Foundation is calling on Congress to increase legislative transparency by posting the next version of the financial bailout legislation online for at least 72 hours before bringing the bill to a vote. Citizens can sign the petition here: http://readthebillfirst.org.

• Sunlight Foundation Petition Urges Congress to Wait 72 Hours Before Voting on the Bailout Bill

  WASHINGTON, DC – As part of its ongoing effort to bring greater transparency to Congress, the Sunlight Foundation is calling on Congress to give citizens and lawmakers sufficient time to read and debate the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 before bringing the bill for a vote. Sunlight advocates for all legislation to be posted online for a minimum of 72 hours before voting can take place.

• Get Filled in on the Bailout: Sunlight Shines a Light on Lobbying, Fundraiser Parties and Secret Legislation

  WASHINGTON, DC – The Sunlight Foundation continues to trace the vested interests influencing members of Congress as they grapple with the proposed $700 billion bailout of the nation's financial industry. Sunlight's Real Time Investigations blog reveals that the in-house lobbyists and hired guns of eight major players in the financial crisis have themselves donated $380,000 in campaign cash to members of the Senate Banking Committee in the first six months of 2008. They've also given $144,000 to six key members of the House Financial Services Committee, including $63,500 to Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman.

• Financial Sector Fetes Lawmakers Making Bailout Decisions

  WASHINGTON, DC – Some 258 parties, a number of them hosted by lobbyists for the finance, insurance, and real estate industries, have been thrown for members of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee this year, according to an investigation by the Sunlight Foundation’s Party Time project. Members of the House committee, along with the Senate Banking Committee, are considering the $700 billion bailout legislation for the financial sector proposed by the administration.

• Citizens can Markup Bailout Bills on PublicMarkup.org

  WASHINGTON, DC - As Congress grapples behind closed doors with the administration's unprecedented bail out of distressed financial firms, the Sunlight Foundation is providing citizens with a means of weighing in on the debate about what policies are best to steer the nation through this crisis. Sunlight has posted the two leading proposals for dealing with the crisis on its open source policy making site, PublicMarkup.org, so that anyone can review and comment on the bills.

• Millennials Talk "Money in Politics" in Washington D.C.

  Media advisory for Mobilize.org's Democracy 2.0 Entrepreneur Money in Politics Grant Summit, sponsored by Sunlight Foundation.

• Sunlight Foundation's New Party Time Web Site Documents Convention Party Circuit - and Beyond

  WASHINGTON, DC – The count of parties and events scheduled for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions is now above 400—and counting, according to the Sunlight Foundation’s new Party Time Web site, which launched today.

• Updated Convention Party Lists from Lobbying Firm Available at Sunlight's New Party Time Web Site

  WASHINGTON, DC – As part of its just launched Party Time project the Sunlight Foundation has obtained an updated list of parties and events for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, as compiled by a top Washington lobbying firm, Quinn Gillespie & Associates.

• K Street's Favorite: Former Governor Mark Warner

  In the first six months of 2008, the congressional candidate showered with the most donations from registered federal lobbyists was Virginia Senate candidate Mark Warner, an exhaustive analysis of more than 107,000 records released by the Senate Office of Public Records shows.

• August 19: Training Session: New Tools for Tracking Money-in-Politics

  WASHINGTON, DC -- The Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics are hosting a training session for reporting on money and politics in the fall elections, beginning at 9 a.m on August 19, in Zenger Room of the National Press Club. The session will focus on new online resources for covering congressional campaigns. In 2008, there's more disclosure, more sources of data, and more tools and techniques for following the money than ever before. Whether you've written on money in politics for years or are covering your first campaign, you'll get new information on what tools are out there, how to use them, stories they can help you with, and stories you can pursue based on the data

• At least 370 Parties Scheduled for the Democratic and Republican Parties

  WASHINGTON, DC – As part of its about-to-be-launched Party Time project, the Sunlight Foundation has obtained lists of 370 parties and events scheduled for the Democratic and Republican conventions, sponsored by the likes of Bank of America, the Distilled Spirits Council, Eli Lilly, AT&T, and Anheuser Busch.

• Sunlight Releases 'Beta' of its Model Transparency Bill Based on Citizen Feedback on PublicMarkup.org

  WASHINGTON, DC –Today, the Sunlight Foundation released a revised version of its model transparency legislation—the Transparency In Government Act of 2008—which incorporates suggestions posted to PublicMarkup.org during the bill’s public review period. Sunlight posted the bill online in March and invited the public to analyze and further shape the omnibus transparency bill the Foundation drafted.

• Citizens Help Tally Which Lawmakers Disclosed their 2009 Earmark Requests Online

  WASHINGTON, DC – At least 76 lawmakers have disclosed their fiscal year 2009 earmark requests online, with a majority posting their requests on their official Web sites and another 11 disclosing directly to the media. An additional 46 have foregone earmarks for fiscal year 2009, while 10 members of Congress said they will not disclose their earmark requests. All these findings are according to a collaborative study by citizen journalists organized by the Sunlight Foundation in conjunction with Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) and Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS).

• New Sunlight Petition Declares, 'Let Our Congress Tweet'

  WASHINGTON, DC – In the hours since Sunlight launched “Let Our Congress Tweet,” the first petition to Congress based on the social networking site “Twitter,” hundreds of Americans have called on Congress to create clear guidelines about how lawmakers can use the Internet to communicate using Web services like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

• Sunlight's New PoliQuiz Asks, ‘What’s Your Political IQ?’

  WASHINGTON, DC – In celebration of Independence Day, the Sunlight Foundation today launched PoliQuiz, a new interactive political trivia game that provides a fun way for citizens to test their knowledge about their elected officials and the legislative process.

• Campaign Finance Watchdogs and Reform Groups Urge Presidential Candidates to Reveal More Donor Information

  WASHINGTON (June 25, 2008) – Eight government watchdog organizations today urged Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain to reveal more details about fundraisers for their presidential campaigns who "bundle" contributions in amounts greatly exceeding what they're permitted to contribute on their own, and to furnish additional data about their small donors.

• Capitol Words Gives Glimpse of What Congress is Discussing

  WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the Sunlight Foundation launched a new site, “Capitol Words” to provide an at-a-glance view into the daily proceedings of the United States Congress through the simplest lens available—a single word. For every day that Congress is in session, Capitol Words displays the most frequently used word in the Congressional Record.

• Sunlight’s New ‘Fortune 535’ Site Details the Growth of Lawmakers’ Net Worth

  WASHINGTON, DC - Just as members of Congress are filing their latest annual personal disclosure reports, the Sunlight Foundation today launched a new Web site-Fortune 535. This new Web site lets citizens see how much, or how little, lawmakers' wealth has grown in the past 11 years-the period of time from which lawmakers' personal financial data is available.

• Sunlight Invites Collaboration on New Transparency Bill

  WASHINGTON, DC -Today, the Sunlight Foundation launched a new Web site -- PublicMarkup.org -- to invite the public to review and further shape an omnibus transparency bill the Foundation drafted.

• Editorial Memo: What Sunshine Week Can Mean for Congress

  This Sunday marks the beginning of Sunshine Week, a national initiative organized by the American Society of Newspaper Editors to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and public information access. As the nation considers what an open government means, we should encourage Congress to become more transparent.

• Lessig to Launch beta of Change Congress Project in Sunshine Week Lecture

  Professor Lawrence Lessig, renowned expert in intellectual property, has a new mission: to combat the influence of money in American democracy. Bolstered by the recent "Draft Lessig" movement that almost convinced him to run for Congress, Lessig will further his mission by launching a new "Change Congress" project in a Sunshine Week lecture sponsored by the Sunlight Foundation and Omidyar Network.

• Citizen Journalists at the SuperDelegate Transparency Project Produce Only Fully Sourced, Detailed Reporting on SuperDelegates

  WASHINGTON, DC - The group of citizen journalists, bloggers and activists convened at the SuperDelegate Transparency Project have produced the only reporting on SuperDelegate commitments in the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination that is fully broken down by delegate, by state, congressional district and has full and transparent sourcing. No major news organization provides such detail or provides their sources.

• Sunlight Empowers Internet Entrepreneurs with Mini-grants

  WASHINGTON, DC -Today, the Sunlight Foundation is announcing new mini-grants as part of its commitment to support original ideas, tools, Web sites, and bloggers that further the organization's mission of using the Internet to foster a more open government.

• Sunlight Awarded $2 Million Grant by Omidyar Network

  WASHINGTON, DC - The Sunlight Foundation today announced an investment of $2 million from Omidyar Network, a mission-based organization established by Pam and Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay. This is the second such grant Sunlight received from Omidyar Network. Sunlight also announced that Lawrence Lessig, renowned expert in intellectual property and Stanford University Law Professor, has joined its Advisory Board.

• Sunlight Foundation Offers Mini-grants to Increase Transparency of Government Information

  WASHINGTON, DC - The Sunlight Foundation is announcing the availability of "mini-grants" of $1,000 to $5,000. These grants will fund original ideas, tools, Web sites, and bloggers that further the organization's mission of using the Internet to create a better, more dynamic relationship between members of Congress and the citizens they represent.