I just can't quite give it up.
Even on vacation, a story about disclosure catches my eye, In the New Mexican on Saturday, it's noted that the Santa Fe City Council wants earlier and more complete campaign finance disclosure. If the Santa Fe City Council adopts recommendations made earlier this week by the city Ethics and Campaign Review Board, candidates would have to report earlier than ever before. Many believe it would help educate the early voters. And yes, another recommendation adopted by the City Council is to encourage electronic filing.
Continue readingHow We Did It
Yesterday, Sunlight's Bill Allison revealed what House Speaker Dennis Hastert didn't (but should have). Hastert has used a secret trust to sell land to real estate developers, adding to the growth and sprawl he's cited as justifying the Prairie Parkway for which he's secured a $207 million earmark.
Hastert's spokesmen are now claiming that his disclosure forms went above and beyond the requirements of lawmakers, and that he identified the location of the properties.
Here's what Allison had to go through to find out where Hastert's land was. See for yourself whether he "...include[d] a description sufficient to permit its identification (e.g., street address or plat and map location)," as the House Ethics Manual requires.
Continue readingMo’ Money
At the end of last week the Sunlight Foundation made a number of new grants. We're really excited about the potential of each of them.
The work of ReadtheBill.org (which I've talked about before) is a hugely important effort. It could end the practice of ramming bills through Congress in the dark of night -- bills that are filled with favors for special interests, earmarks, and heaven only knows ((truly) what else. And think of what activists can cook up (particularly online) if they have 72 hours to read legislation and get citizens to weigh in. We think that ReadtheBill.org will make a huge difference in making Congress' work more transparent and in engaging citizens.
Continue reading$11.37 Millon Per Day
I've lived in Washington a long time, and worked in and around Congress for most of that time but I don't think I ever knew what it costs to run it. Now thanks to a terrific website -- This Week In Congress -- I know: $1.137 billion to operate the House, $259 million for the Capitol Police, $36 million for the Congressional Budget Office, $363 million for the Architect, $570 million for the Library of Congress, $131 million for the Government Printing Office and $488 million for the Government Accountability Office -- Congress's investigative arm. (Interesting priorities, eh?) Expenses for running the Senate arenot included in the appropriations bill that was just passed, and, perhaps, predictably, they are hard to come by. (We'll update later if we can find them.) You can drill down on these numbers for details, such as costs for salaries and expenses for leadership offices, committee employees, etc. It's really, really interesting stuff.
Good Stuff
Posting's been light this week. I spent a few days in New York meeting with other funders (JEHT Foundation and Open Society Institute), brainstorming with our far-flung staff and consultants (a virtual workplace is good, but sometimes you just have to meet face-to-face!), and talking with groups about their work. I've also been doing interviewing for new staff.
I'm quite fascinated by several groups' work that we've looked at recently. Rafael DeGennaro has created a potentially powerful populist movement over the simple notion that lawmakers ought to actually read a bill before they vote on it. His ReadtheBill.org (BTW you can find him at the YearKos convention this week), presents a positive agenda -- every piece of legislation must be posted for 72 hours before it's voted on -- that will enable citizens, activists, journalists, indeed everyone, to know more about what is going on in Congress and to express their opinions about it. Certainly one of Sunlight's goals is to not only make information available, but also to make it available in "real time" so that democracy is enlivened by civic engagement. Seems to us that DeGennaro has singled out a pretty basic element to making that happen. Following his "Mystery Bills" feature is a must.
Craig’s (Check) List
One of the great delights of my west coast trip was meeting Craig Newmark, the genius behind Craig's List. Having been introduced to Craig's List by my daughters, and used it myself to rent an apartment and sell a car, it was a personal treat to meet this Internet celebrity.
He's been a huge fan of our Congresspedia. I took notes as he rattled off ways to expand it.
Continue readingYou Gotta’ Disclose
Bill Frist was found guilty of failure to disclose a $1.44 million loan taken out jointly by his 2000 campaign and his 1994 campaign committee. Kudos to CREW for being the watchdog. Wouldn't following the disclosure rules be better for our democracy than forcing the reform community to play 'gotcha'?
Continue readingRoad Trippin’
I want to get back today to our west coast trip of last week, particularly our meeting with Mitch Kapor.
As I mentioned earlier, we really are on the same wave length with him -- 100 percent aligned on the issue of citizen empowerment and using technology as a tool for that. We agreed too that Congress is badly dysfunctional and that we must do something -- and soon -- to change that. We all believe that indeed that we have an obligation to fix the problems.
Mitch made this additional important point: in trying to fix the problems we have to refrain from doing things that make it worse - a sort of "Hippocratic Oath" for reformers. Do no harm in trying to change the system. To that end, Mitch cautioned us that an attitude of "gotcha" is the wrong direction. Instead, the direction for reform and for engaging people needs to be positive.
Continue readingTransparency for Government Contracts
When we created Sunlight we made a point to note that the issue of greater transparency for government actions was a nonpartisan issue. We saw support for it across party lines in our initial polling and we see it again today in an editorial in the conservative newspaper -- the Examiner --which endorses transparency for government grants and contracts. The paper strongly supports Sen. Tom Coburn's Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590) that would make all information about federal contracts and grants available to the public free of charge in a searchable, downloadable online format on the Internet. (Coburn is the original sponsor of the proposal, and the measure is co-sponsored by the unlikely bedfellows of Sens. Barack Obama, Tom Carper and John McCain, R-Ariz.)
Continue readingSunlight Goes West
Mike Klein, Micah Sifry and I just returned from a few days in Seattle and San Francisco -- a trip well worth the range of discussions we had about Sunlight's goals and how to achieve them. We had simulating meetings with Martin Collier at the Glaser Progress Foundation and with Bill Gates, Sr. in Seattle. And our conversations in San Francisco were chocked full of advice out of the thinking of some of the great pioneers in the technology world, namely Mitch Kapor, Craig Newmark, David Sifry to name just a few. Chris Nolan hosted a terrific evening event for us.
The longest conversation of the trip that we had was with Mitch Kapor at his Open Source Applications Foundation. Before the meeting we knew we were pretty much on the same wave length on the issue of transparency because at a conference a few years ago, Mitch talked about the issue:
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