TRANSITIONS: Mike Klein, Sunlight’s co-founder and chairman of the board, shared a statement about our organization today on our blog. [READ MORE]

Here’s what you, as a valued part of our networks and community, should know: Sunlight’s board did not find a candidate for executive director. They’re now exploring potential alliances, mergers or arrangements with similar organizations that would both advance and preserve our mission to make governments and political systems more open. While that process goes forward, Sunlight will continue to meet our obligations to our funders and partners, including What Works Cities and our efforts to make the presidential transition, Congress, states, cities, campaigns and the remaining days of the Obama administration more transparent and accountable to the public.

While Sunlight remains committed to our mission, this is not a happy day in DC: we are laying off five of our wonderful staff and beginning to wind down Sunlight Labs and the databases that go along with it. We will be making every effort to find good stewards for the open source code and data that our community wishes to preserve and maintain. We also will support our remarkable colleagues as they transition. We hope you will, too: please reach out if you’re hiring or want to adopt a project or database.

John Wonderlich will continue as interim executive director while we navigate the months ahead. Everyone here is deeply grateful for the outpouring of support we’ve seen online today in the face of uncertainty. Thank you.

CAMPAIGN 2016

• Dozens of journalism associations and OpenTheGovernment.org are leading a campaign urging the presidential debate moderators to ask the candidates a question about open government. If you’d like the moderators to ask “What steps do you believe are necessary and what policies would you implement to guarantee and advance public access to government information and sources?” please encourage Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper to do so. We certainly will be! [SPJ]
• Your correspondent joined Tom Temin to talk about how to make the presidential transition more open and transparent. [Federal News Radio]
• What’s happening now with respect to Governor Chris Christie and the transition is the opposite of transparent. Selling access to the presidential transition is not a trend to be celebrated. [CNN]
• David Farenthold reported that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump paid a quarter of a million dollars to settle lawsuits out of his charity’s funds. [Washington Post]
• National security experts are urging Trump to disclose his foreign entanglements. Good idea. [New York Times]
• U.S. Senate candidate Scott Milne suggested that the Freedom of the Information Act should apply to Congress.  Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), one of the principal architects behind FOIA reform in Congress this session, said would support that, “depending on how it’s written.” So might we. [Burlington Free Press]

NATIONAL

• The White House celebrated 5 years of the Open Government Partnership in a blog post by U.S. chief technology officer Megan Smith and deputy U.S. chief technology officer Cori Zarek. The post included a progress report on our third Open Government National Action Plan including some new or expanded commitments . We’ll share more about the former tomorrow. [WhiteHouse.gov]
• The federal government released a draft national policy for automated vehicles, AKA driverless cars and trucks, and is asking for public comment. [Federal Register]
• The industry players building driverless cars on the road, the tech behind them, or pushing for rules like that new policy, face major regulatory, technical and social hurdles – and are spending money in DC and state capitols to lobby for them. [New York Times]
• The creator of the World Wide Web says that Senator Ted Cruz is mistaken about how free speech works online. We’re inclined to believe Tim Berners-Lee on this count. [Washington Post]
• The U.S. House Oversight Committee is reviewing a Reddit post allegedly authored by a server administrator asking for help redacting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email. [The Hill]

STATE AND LOCAL

• The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the fatal shooting of an unarmed man by the Tulsa Police that was record on a helicopter camera and released to the public. The nation now waits to see if that transparency will be followed by accountability. [Washington Post]
• 1 in 4 registered voters in the United States will vote on paperless machines that do not provide a paper receipt. [Reuters]

EVENTS

• Etalab and Civic Hall are co-organizing an Open Government Partnership Toolbox sprint in New York City on Sept. 21. [RSVP]
• Collections as Data, at the Library of Congress in D.C. on Sept. 27. [RSVP]
• White House Open Data Innovation Summit at Data Transparency 2016 on Sept 28 in Washington, DC. [RSVP]
• Computation and Journalism Symposium at Stanford University on Sept. 30-Oct. 1 in California. [RSVP]
• There will be an Open Data Research Symposium in Madrid on Oct. 5. [RSVP]
• The International Open Data Conference will be in Madrid from Oct. 6–7. [RSVP]
• The National Freedom of Information Coalition and the D.C. Open Government Coalition will convene a Freedom of Information summit October 7-8, 2016 in DC. [RSVP]
• TransparencyCamp will be in Cleveland, Ohio from Oct. 14-15. [RSVP]
• The Code for America Summit is in Oakland, Calif. on Nov. 1–3. [RSVP]
• There will be a workshop on Data and Algorithmic Transparency at Columbia University on Nov. 19. Proposals due Sept. 9. [RSVP]
• The Open Government Partnership’s Global Summit will be Dec. 7-9 in Paris, France. [VOTE FOR SUNLIGHT’S TECHNOLOGY AND FOI PROPOSALS!]