Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation Press Release Archive

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Press Releases for March 2010

  • "Stupak 11" Request Over $4.7 Billion in Earmarks After Changing No-to-Yes Votes on Health Care Bill

    THIS STORY HAS BEEN CORRECTED. View the correction. Washington, DC -Today, the Sunlight Foundation’s Reporting Group published a story that found that a day after Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), and ten other House members compromised on their pro-life position to deliver the necessary yes-votes to pass health care reform, the "Stupak 11" released their fiscal year 2011 earmark requests, totaling more than $4.7 billion. This is an average of $429 million worth of earmark requests for each lawmaker. The story is online here.

  • The Sunlight Labs Announces Design for America Competition

    WASHINGTON, DC –The Sunlight Labs, Sunlight Foundation’s open source development team, announced Design for America, an innovative contest that challenges artists and designers to use government data in exciting new ways. Contest winners will be announced on May 27 at a reception at the Gov 2.0 Expo, sponsored by O’Reilly Media and TechWeb. Competitors will compete for 1st place prizes of $5,000 each in several categories. Sponsors include The Adobe Corporation, Google, O’Reilly, TechWeb and the Gov2.0 expo.

  • Advisory: Sunlight Foundation's Executive Director Ellen Miller to Testify Before the United States Senate Today

    WASHINGTON, DC – Ellen Miller, Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Sunlight Foundation, will testify before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security today. Ellen’s testimony will focus on the need for greater government transparency and the need for government to rethink how it makes data and information available to the public. The hearing on government transparency will begin at 2:30 PM and feature two panels.

  • Sunlight Foundation Goes to Testify, Gets Cut Off by Procedural Move

    Washington, DC - The Sunlight Foundation’s Executive Director Ellen Miller went before the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security, in order to testify on the need for greater government transparency and the need for government to rethink how it makes data and information available to the public. Around thirty seconds into her testimony, the hearing was suddenly canceled due to an unexpected procedural move, which forced all Senate hearings to immediately cease.

  • Help The Center’s Data Mine Liberate Gov’t Records During Sunshine Week

    WASHINGTON, D.C., March 17, 2010 — As part of Sunshine Week, March 14-20, The Center for Public Integrity and the Sunlight Foundation are looking for help with The Data Mine, a new online series identifying inaccessible or difficult to use information from the federal government.

  • Congressman Steve Israel Introduces Landmark Transparency Bill

    WASHINGTON, DC - Congressman Steve Israel (NY-02) introduced a banner piece of legislation today in an effort to make public government information available to all Americans online. This bill, the Public Online Information Act (POIA), is an effort to remedy the fact that significant quantities of government data sets are designated as "public," but are hard to find, and sometimes difficult to read. POIA will ensure that government information from across all agencies will be available to everyone within a few keystrokes on a computer.

  • Advisory: Sunlight Foundation to Announce National Public Equals Online Campaign This Thursday

    WASHINGTON, DC – The Sunlight Foundation will kick off a national campaign for transparent government this THURSDAY, March 18, 2010. The “Public=Online” campaign will be an ongoing effort by the Sunlight Foundation to harness public support for accountability and transparency in order to build a grassroots movement that works to hold elected officials accountable on the local, state and federal level.

  • Advisory: Congressman Steve Israel to Introduce Landmark Transparency Legislation

    WASHINGTON, DC – During Sunshine Week next week, Congressman Steve Israel (NY-02) will introduce The Public Online Information Act (POIA), a banner piece of legislation to require that all public government-held information be available to all Americans online. Congressman Israel will announce his plans for POIA at the press conference next TUESDAY, March 16, 2010 at the United States Capitol. Congressman Israel will be joined by Ellen Miller, executive director and co-founder of the Sunlight Foundation and Andrew Rasiej, founder of the Personal Democracy Forum.

  • Sunshine Week 2010: Editorial Board Memo

    Every day, the federal government releases vast amounts of useful information about every aspect of our nation and how government works. This public information has a deep impact on almost every aspect of American life. Some of it can be used to hold our elected officials accountable for their actions, or have a profound effect on health, economic development and commerce. The problem is, much of this government information is too often hard to find, difficult to understand, expensive to obtain in useful formats, and available in only a few locations.

  • Sunlight Foundation Updates Its Databases of Congressional Expenditures and White House Visitor Logs

    WASHINGTON, DC – This past Friday, both the U.S. House of Representatives and the White House delivered on their promise to release more information online. The House posted its quarterly Statement of Disbursements, which tracks how members of Congress use their official budget, and the Obama administration released a new set of White House visitor logs online. The Sunlight Foundation added both these data sets to previously existing databases.