The big story for the day, reported initially in the Dallas Business Journal -- and picked up here and here -- is that the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson has made clear that he isn't giving government contracts to businesses that don't support the president. Has the Bush administration really put out a political screen for who it awards contracts to?! As ThinkProgress notes: that would be illegal.
Continue readingImportant Meeting: May 15 in New York
I rarely attend conferences. But there's one I wouldn't miss that is sponsored by the Personal Democracy Forum in New York next Monday, May 15. This meeting of some 400 -- see here for details and how to sign up -- brings together some extraordinary cutting edge thinkers and doers on how to use technoligy to advance political and issue organizing. It's truly a bipartisan affair. I attended the first two of these meetings in '04 and '05 and each time left with a lot more information and eye-opening knowledge of how to do my own work better and smarter.
Continue readingWho’s More Skeptical? Gallup or the Public?
Gallup released a new poll today on what the public thinks about ethics and lobbying "reform" that -- despite their headline -- actually reflects our bipartisan polling that showed that voters nationwide believe that too little has been done to reform lobbying and disclosure laws. We found the Gallup analysis of their own poll rather odd because it downplays their own results. Their headline: "Americans Dubious Congress Can Curb Corruption: But less than half think it's a very serious problem" doesn't actually reflect their findings.
Continue readingLegislative Sleuths
There are really a surprising number of Websites that track legislative activity, most of them the result of enterprising individuals. Probably the database with the biggest reach is the one maintained by the Washington Post. Project Vote Smart's probably has the longest history. TechPolitics (which houses and mashes census data and other government information along with voting records and provides bill tracking) focuses on House votes and is headed by the very accomplished Ken Colburn. GovTrac, founded and run by linguistics's graduate student Joshua Tauberer,has an automated system to track bills, issue-by-issue, Congress-wide.
Continue readingThis is Reform?
I'm late in posting today because I've had to calm down after digesting what the House did and didn't do yesterday in the name of "ethics and lobbying" reform. Just how stupid do members of Congress think we are? This package of reforms doesn't pass the straight-faced test, even those provisions that deal with disclosure.
Congress is still living in the last century even though we are ten years into the Age of the Internet. Here's what I mean: Even after the passage of these "reforms" (I can't use that word without quotations to indicate what it sham they are) lawmakers still file their financial disclosure forms on travel, gifts and legal expense funds in paper form only; House members and candidates file their campaign finance data with the FEC and Senate and candidates file paper records with the Secretary of Senate, who sends the data to the FEC. The FEC hires inputters to hand-type the computer printouts into computer-readable format. Only official foreign travel by House lawmakers and senior staf reported on line and that's done in unsearchable ways. No need to rattle on about the other 18th century ways information about what lawmakers is made available. You get the point.
Continue readingGiving Money Away
We've had numerous requests -- both by phone and online -- over the past several days about how to apply for grants from the Sunlight Foundation so I wanted to take a couple of minutes today to talk about that.
First you should know that we know that there is a large community of people and organizations who are already doing amazing things when it comes to making information about Congress available and accessible. We want to encourage them to go further by digitizing more information to make it searchable more easily and to present it in a truly public-friendly fashion. Our primary example of this is a grant we have already made (to the Center for Responsive Politics) to take the Personal Financial Disclosure Forms now filed on paper (!) by elected officials and make a searchable database out of them. Another example is a grant to OMB Watch to create a searchable database out of government grants and contracts.
Continue readingDigging It Up
We're delighted to be noticed by some of the folks on the cutting edge of online citizen journalism and old fashioned investigative muckraking. As we were getting our act together we followed, in particular, the development of Josh Marshall's TPM Muckraker site. In fact one our initial "projects" - which has become our daily feature "In Broad Daylight" - was actually hatched before the Daily Muck. But he got out the door faster than we did! We don't mind the competition and I doubt he does either. Others, like David Sirota, have a similar feature, and we all have a slightly different take on the news we glean.
And we're intrigued by groups like Muckraked! that turn up some really good stuff. I mentioned this morning to our staff that I'd like to develop a list of investigative bloggers and organizations (like Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Investigative Reporting) that do this kind of shoe-leather reporting. When we have it, we'll be glad to share it. In the meantime, check out Bill Allison's blog roll for the places he checks into every day.
Continue readingInformation Mashing
Information Mashing. Don't you just love that term? It's one of the major goals of Sunlight and while we've been working on it for the past couple of months we have a ways to go before it happens in any substantial way. Our goal is simple: integrate in a user-friendly way individual data sets (like campaign contributions, lobbyists and government contracts) that makes the whole larger than the sum of its parts.
We'd like to create something we've dubbed an "Accountability Matrix." A website where, with one click you can look up a major donor and see not just their campaign contributions, but also their lobbying expenditures, the names of members who've flown on their private jet, the names of former congressional staffers they've hired, and so on.
Continue readingDay 2
Sunlight's public unveiling yesterday went fabulously. Not only did we get great stories throughout the blogging world and in the Washington Post and Roll Call (subscription required) but we have had several hundred people already register on this site. This morning, I made an appearance on C-SPAN's Washington Journal and got a terrific reception, particuarly from places in between the coasts. And we have lots of folks already getting involved in the Congresspedia, and with our assignment desk, and making comments on our blogs. We are thrilled to have you!
Continue readingIn the Beginning…..
When Mike Klein took me out to lunch last fall – and started off by quoting Justice Brandeis’ adage “Sunlight in the best of disinfectants….” I responded: “…Electric light the most efficient policeman.” If you can finish someone else’s somewhat obscure quote about “transparency” odds are you are destined to be partners.
Even though Mike and I didn’t know it at the time, it was at that moment that the idea of creating the Sunlight Foundation came into existence – the notion of creating a new institution that focuses on enabling citizens to become their own watchdogs for the express purpose of giving them the tools to shine thousands, indeed perhaps millions, of flashlights on what Congress is doing. Sunlight’s goal is to provide tools, information and resources to encourage citizens, bloggers and investigative media to explore whether and/or how their representatives influenced by money and lobbyists, to provide ways to engage their natural curiosity about who their representatives really represent and what they do in Washington, and to provide forums and interactions to build the community of people who care about our democracy.
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