Keep reading for today’s look at #OpenGov news, events, and analysis including the future of the Office of Congressional Ethics, recreating a vital federal spending dataset, attempts to crack down on Russian bloggers, and more.

National News

• Despite a slim budget and small staff, the Office of Congressional Ethics has proven valuable since its creation in 2009. It is likely to survive into the 114th Congress, but a number of reforms that have been presented to strengthen it probably won’t be adopted. (Roll Call)
• Mayday PAC, the super PAC set up to fight big money in politics, is raising some pretty big money for itself, pulling in $1.5 million since August. (POLITICO)
• Opinion: Norm Ornstein weighs in against Citizens United and the continued corrosive influence of unlimited money on American politics. (National Journal)
• In 2011 the Census Bureau stopped publishing the Consolidated Federal Funds Report, a dataset that provided a centralized look at federal spending at the state level. Three years later two nonprofits, the National Priorities Project and the Pew Charitable Trusts’s Fiscal Federalism Initiative, are independently working to provide their own versions of the data. (Washington Post)

International

• Russia recently passed a law requiring popular bloggers to register with the government, but a recent leak indicates that the state’s list only has 52 entries, mostly detailing those loyal to the Kremlin . (Global Voices)
• A case for launching digital public service corporations to provide certain services and products on the internet. (mySociety)

State and Local News

• Ad spending this election year has been heavy and some of the most expensive races haven’t been nationally relevant Senate races, but slightly more parochial gubernatorial match ups. (Public Integrity)
• Open data is spreading across the country and the next frontier appears to be small and mid-sized cities as opposed to major metropolis’s (many of which have already embraced the concept). (Code for America)

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