Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and Congressional political news.  This week I have highlights from Pennsylvania, Tennessee, New Jersey, Maryland, and Louisiana. In Pennsylvania, Policy blog describes how much the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission spent on lobbying this past fiscal year.  Is it okay for government agencies to use public funds to lobby other government agencies?

In Tennessee, Underdog looks into the lobbying expenses of the GoodYear Tire company and finds some interesting facts about what the company lobbies for and what former hill staffers are now on their pay rolls.

In New Jersey, Blog the Fifth has a great post looking into an earmark Rep. Garrett got for police training.  He makes the point that because of the lack of transparency of earmark requests and how the press sometimes refers to them as “grants” it can make the earmark look bad no matter where it goes to.  That is why we advocate for earmark request transparency.

In Maryland, Brian Griffiths uncovered that one of the appointees for Maryland’s Board of Education was an unregistered lobbyist.  This information was not disclosed to the public and Brian questions why they were given the position even though they have no previous experience in education.

In Louisiana, Between the Lines talks about how most of the members of the Louisiana ethics board resigned after changes to the rules created stricter ethical standards.