The Sunlight Network -- our sister 501 c 4 organization -- was launched yesterday with great fanfare. You should check some of the initial ways we hope to create a network of citizens who are engaging in accountability work. There's a pretty neat new project you can find there that you can work on immediately. We also launched a social networking site for Sunlighters -- the commmunity of folks who want to work with us on a regular basis. The primary purpose of that site is to provide a useful forum for distributed research and activism -- to figure out together the kinds of things it makes sense to work on jointly. It enables individuals to connect one on one, as groups, and work collectively on projects. Think of it as MySpace for people who want to demand more transparency from lawmakers.
Continue readingDisclose the Earmarks
I am sorry that neither Brad Blumer of The New Republic nor Ezra Klein the American Prospect seem to really "get" the problem with earmarks. It's not that earmarks are bad - it's that they are never subjected to scrutiny, that they are part of the underbelly of the Congressional process that never sees the light of day, that there's no opportunity for the public - much less Members of Congress - to evaluate them. It's fundamentally undemocratic for a single member of Congress to allocate money without scrutiny of his colleagues and the public. The process stinks.
Continue readingAnnouncing Six New Grants
We're announcing today a combination of large and mini-grants to promote openness and citizen involvement in the work of Congress. See here for the full press release.
Each of these grants is exciting in its own way: two of the larger grants are cutting edge projects in the world of citizen journalism - one to Jay Rosen's NewAssignment.Net and the other to Dan Gillmor's Center for Citizen Media.
I feel like Jay's project is on the cusp of making some very big waves. As I said to him, if this works (and I think it will), the Washington game will never be the same again. The oh-so-cozy relationship between lawmakers and the old media will be replaced by something that is much more powerful - fearless citizens. I am certain that the establishment media will be challenged - and that's a very good thing - by this experiment's anticipated successes and perhaps they will recall that their mission to "afflict the comfortable." And one further thought: what Rosen is trying to do with NewAssignment.Net is something that media reform activists should start paying attention to since it can offer a way around the mainstream media's failure.
Continue readingSunlight At Your Service
Last week Sunlight launched a free promotional service for bloggers -- and diarists on their sites -- who are writing about what's going on in Congress. Our goal is to help bring attention to bloggers and the wisdom of the crowds who are flocking to these sites, particularly those sites that have yet to be discovered by the MSM.
While we are doing our best to monitor the blogoshere, to really make this work, bloggers and their readers have to let us know what they are writing about. So if you are a blogger, or just an avid reader of one, and you know of posts about members of Congress -- information that brings to light news about a Member of Congress that his or her constituents should know -- send us the link! We're specifically interested in information about ties between lawmakers and lobbyists, questions about Members' relationships with fundraisers or special interests, and examples of lawmakers going to bat for local special interests that remain below the radar screen of the mainstream news media. No one knows their own Congressperson the way local bloggers do.
Continue readingHow Much To Build a Grants and Contracts Database?
Sunlight's been an active analyst on what turns out to be Sen. Ted Stevens' hold on the Coburn-Obama bill and how the lack of transparency of this peculiar Senate process is a huge disservice to our democracy, even though it has long been a hallmark of how the Senate does its business. It's time has come and now, thanks to citizens' response to the blogosphere's rallying calls to find out who was at the bottom of the hold, gone. (OK. That's too optimistic, but I bet that the next time a high profile piece of legislation is moving, a Senator will think twice about putting a secret "hold" on it.)
Continue readingOur Earmarks Experiment
Sunlight's largest experiment in the world of citizen journalism unfurled yesterday with a coalitional effort asking citizens to help us explore the world of earmarks in the Labor/HHS bill. While we haven't yet been overwhelmed by the response, we are already pleased by what we've seen. Simply put: people are digging up interesting stuff. Bill Allison will keep up with what's coming into various websites and report to you.
Part of why this effort can be declared a success is that I think we are already getting people to think differently about the earmark process, including folks on the progressive end of the spectrum. I had an interesting reaction from a long-time colleague yesterday when he looked at the list of earmarks. He wrote:
Continue readingLessons from Lamont
There's one interesting interesting analysis this morning on the Lieberman loss in the Washington Post. It focuses on what turned out to be the powerful combination of the netroots and grassroots for the Lamont campaign.
Zephyr (Sunlight's National Director and the Dean campaign's Internet brain) and I talked about whether we agreed with this analysis this morning and whether there is more to be learned. (Too bad we didn't do it on IM or I would just put it here.)
We agree that the breakthrough for Lamont wasn't necessarily the use of the Internet but how he used it. Since 2004 candidates have increasingly "used" the internet, but mostly used it as an alien force, not as an aspect of every part of the campaign itself. For a campaign not to use the Internet to amplify everything you do would be like not using the telephone.
Continue readingIt Works! Information Is Power
Yesterday, long-time incumbent Rep. Bob Ney announced he wasn't going to run for reelection after all. The results of his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff finally registered on the political Richter scale (e.g. his polls) and he withdrew. (And maybe there are some other reasons too.)
It wasn't any great surprise to me, though it did take a little longer than I thought. I really believe that information is power and, as important, that as soon as people are armed with the data that it can have consequences. In short, give people the facts and let them decide. The notion that citizens could care less when it comes to political scandal is a myth perpetuated by Washington insiders. I just can't help but feel a little bit gleeful to see another member of Congress (think former Rep. Tom DeLay) finally see the handwriting on the wall. (Though it would be better for them to see it on the Internet in the form of searchable databases.)
Continue readingHidden in Plain Sight
I began this day with an IM conversation with Larry Makinson about trying to get our hands on the most recently campaign contribution reports for the Lieberman-Lamont race. It dawned on us that the records could be pretty interesting. My thought had been to simply to direct our readers to the reports that were on line and let them search around. I guess we should have known it wouldn't be that easy. Our dialogue is instructive. Imagine if two novices were trying to find this information.
Ellen (9:00:14 AM): Got a blog idea for you this morning!
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Muck Doesn’t Scare Moms
Over the years of my own mucking around in the issue of political influence I've tried a lot of ways of connecting the issue to various constituencies that I thought should have a natural interest in the undue influence of political contributors on their lawmakers. And that strategy has gained lots of adherents to the notion that big money (campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, etc.) skews national priorities and policies. Environmentalists certainly believe it. So too advocates for less oil dependent energy policies and a host of other issues where big money is lined up against the community interest.
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