Sunlight Foundation

National News

• Teach For America has grown into a political powerhouse and has the money to back up their policy goals. The group, which sends recent college grads into underfunded public schools for two year stints, has a $100 million endowment, $300 million in yearly revenues, and growing leverage as their alumni take high powered positions and launch innovative ideas. (POLITICO)
• President Obama took a break from one of his favorite activities, raising money, during the government shutdown. But, now that things are back up and running, he's heading to New York to raise money for the DCCC. (Washington Times)
• Meanwhile, the DCCC wasn't feeling so hindered by the potential for a shutdown during September. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had its best non-election year September fundraising haul ever, pulling in $8.4 million as the shutdown grew closer. (National Journal)

• As a number of Balkan countries look to join the EU civil society organizations are pushing their governments, often controlled by a single party, to embrace principles of openness. (SE Times)
• Open data in development projects will not necessarily lead to better outcomes without models to put the data to use. (Open Knowledge Blog)

• As cities increasingly tune in to the advantages of releasing their data openly and in useful and attractive formats they should be thinking about ways to tie all of their various data together to give citizens a picture of the ways that various city data connects down to the neighborhood level. (The Atlantic Cities)
• San Francisco has teamed up with Google.org for a new real-time crisis map that will track a variety of emergency situations as they appear around the city. Crisis Mode is launching in conjunction with SF72, an open sourced platform that provides online resources and updates for emergency preparedness. (Government Technology)

National News

• Uber, the 21st century taxi competitor, has focused considerable effort on influencing elected officials and regulators in the various cities where it operates. But, now it's turning its lobbying efforts to the federal government for the first time by signing up with the tech lobbying firm Franklin Square Group. (The Hill)
• When political candidates find themselves with extra cash at the end of a race they have some options. Many candidates who failed to reach their goal refund donations, give money to charity, or shift the funds to other candidates. (Roll Call)
• The DSCC outraised the RSCC in September and appears to have significantly more cash on hand. But, once the Democratic committee's debt is taken into account the two are running neck and neck. (Roll Call)

• Representatives of the Romanian prime minister spent last month meeting with various agencies and other public bodies to identify datasets that are eligible to be published as part of their OGP plan. (EPSIplatform)
• Armenia is also working through its OGP commitment. Civil Society groups in the country have been monitoring implementation of the Armenian National Action Plan and have decided that, while most of the commitments were "formally" met, their implementation has been shaky. (Armenia Now)
• Open corporate data for all! The OpenCorporates corporate network platform allows for visualization of corporate networks around the world, aiming to eventually be the best place to go for this information. (Tech President)

• A FOI battle is brewing between the legislature and executive in Cleveland, Ohio where the mayor is suing a member of the city council for emails and documents. (NFOIC)
• Hawaii's public records act appears to open up a wide range of government information, but the law's fee provisions often result in charges that are too high for citizens and public interest media organizations to afford. (Huffington Post)

National News

• Big fundraising news out of Kentucky. Democratic Challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes outraised Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell during the third quarter. McConnell still has a vast advantage when it comes to cash on hand, but also has a combative primary with a self funded opponent to worry about. (POLITICO)
• The government shutdown has caused the cancellation of many political fundraisers, but it hasn't plugged the flow of hysterical fundraising emails flooding email inboxes everywhere. Both sides of the aisle are using the shutdown in their digital pitches. (Public Integrity)

• Looking for an introduction to data journalism? The European Journalism Centre has a free class for you! Registration is now open for "Doing Journalism with Data: First steps, skills, and tools." (Open Knowledge Blog)
• Recent revelations that a major British drug company avoided more than $1 billion in tax payments are leading to calls for greater transparency around company ownership. (Open Knowledge Blog)

• California's court system operates under its own Rules of Court and some of that document's public records provisions have been interpreted in ways that have citizens, and even some judges, up in arms. (Voice of San Diego)
• Looking for news about government IT issues at a state level? Look no further than this new weekly roundup, launched by statescoop, fedscoop's state level equivalent. (fedscoop)
• Chicago launched a "comprehensive" data dictionary, including information on "every data set held by city agencies and departments, how and if it may be accessed, and in which formats" data is available. The city is hailing it as the first of its kind. (govfresh)

National News

• John Paul Farmer, the man behind the unique Presidential Innovations Fellows program, is leaving the White House after three years. The program brings entrepreneurs and technologists into the White House to work on short term, high impact projects. (Fedscoop)
• Edward Snowden has been given an award by a group of former intelligence officials and whistleblowers. The group gives the Sam Adams Award every year to a like minded individual that exhibits "integrity in intelligence." (POLITICO)
• The Obama administration is trying to defend itself after a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists released a report slamming it for being afraid of the press, taking extreme measures to prevent links, and generally having a chilling effect on journalism. (POLITICO)
• A new repository, Perma CC, aims to ensure that sites linked in scholarly works and legal documents have a permanent and persistent home on the internet. Recent studies have revealed link rot to be a significant problem as legal writing and scholarly research moves into the digital age. (ars technica)

• Policymakers met in Africa last week to discuss the need to crack down on corruption that funnels hundreds of billions of dollars out of the continent. (Financial Transparency Coalition)
• A unique alliance has come together to oppose a lobbying reform bill currently working its way through the UK parliament. Labor unions, professional lobbyists, and constitutional reform groups are all highly critical of the bill and have come together to oppose it in the house of Lords. (The Independent UK)
• The Egyptian government is turning to high profile K street names in an effort to convince the US to reopen the recently shut off aid flow to the embattled country. Egypt hired the Glover Park Group after more than a year without counsel on K street. (The Hill)

• Oakland, California is seeking a new Chief Information Officer, presumably to help them compete with San Francisco and keep up recent open gov and technological improvements. (GovFresh)

National News

• A phenomenon called link rot is gaining public attention recently following a report that many links contained in Supreme Court decisions are dead. Now, it turns out that the Federal government may have one of the worst cases of link rot. (FedScoop)
• Senator and former comedian Al Franken (D-MN) might not be laughing after his Republican challenger announced a big fundraising quarter. Mike McFadden, one of several potential challengers, raised $700,000 and has nearly $1.2 million on hand, which is impressive but doesn't match Franken's war chest. (Roll Call)
• President Obama talked about the McCutcheon v FEC decision during a press conference earlier this week, throwing a bone to his liberal base, but leaving much unsaid. (Public Integrity)

• Kenya launched an open data portal in the summer of 2011 and after a great deal of initial fanfare has settled into stagnancy. Update's have slowed to a trickle, traffic is stagnant, and it is losing clout. But all is not lost. (Opening Parliament)

• Every year New York's community boards put together wish lists of capital projects in specific neighborhoods, but they don't necessarily consult the community. A new mapping tool aims to give more people a bigger voice in these conversations. (Open Plans)
• The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission continued a program launched last year to detail and release data on energy usage in close to 450 municipal buildings, including over 130 controlled by the school district. (eWallstreeter)
• Ex-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced to 28 years in prison for a variety of corrupt activities that took place during his tenure. One of the toughest public corruption sentences handed down in recent years comes for charges that Kilpatrick rigged contracts, accepted bribes, and more. (Yahoo/AP)

National News

• A Louisiana state Public Service Commissioner, and former member of the House, is tapping the utility industry that he regulates as he attempts to return to Washington. Former Rep. Clyde Holloway (R) counts a large number of utility related donors among his bankroll. (Roll Call)
• The Democratic and Republican National Committees are probably concentrating pretty hard to avoid drooling over news reports coming out of the Supreme Court as it hears arguments in McCutcheon v FEC. If the court strikes down aggregate limits on political giving to federal candidates and committees, which many expect it will, the DNC and RNC could stand to gain back some of the fundraising clout that they lost after the Citizens United decision opened the floodgates of dark money. (POLITICO)

• Democratic systems thrive when voters can see what their elected representatives are doing. This statement suggests that parliamentary broadcasting should be a priority, which in many countries may be true. (UN University)
• Singapore's National Environment Agency has an electrifying new app. Lightning@SG aims to provide users with a real time look at lightning strikes on the island nation. The data is pulled from the NEA's four lightning detection sensors.(Future Gov)

• Vermont is the latest state to test the open data slopes. After a recent Open Data Summit, the state is launching a pilot project aimed at compiling and opening data from its local governments. (CivSource)
• It is taking states and local governments almost a year to release audited financial statements. Regulators are looking to them to speed up the process as they try to help municipal bond investors get timely information. (Reuters)
• A group of campaign and government ethics regulators from across the country are coming together to launch a new website that provides information about campaign disclosure. The States Unified Network (SUN) Center will display legislation, news, enforcement cases, and more from states aas diverse as New York, California, Idaho, Montana, and Washington. (Lobby Comply)

National News

• Many members of Congress decided it was best to cancel their fundraising events during the first week of the government shutdown. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is apparently not one of those members. He reportedly attended a fundraiser in Massachusetts on Friday before making it back to DC. (POLITICO)
• Lawyers and Lobbyists are questioning decision's by several key regulatory agencies to take their websites completely offline during the government shutdown, closing access to regulations, filings, and other documents. The FCC, FTC, and others have gone completely offline. (The Hill)
• Tobacco companies have a new, lucrative, and growing way to keep people hooked on their wares and they are fighting hard to keep it free of government regulation. E-cigarettes are growing fast and may overtake real cigarettes in market share within the next decade. (Washington Post)
• Cory Booker has faced some roadblocks in, what many initially thought would be an easy, trip to the Senate. Some bad press and a lackluster campaign have allowed Booker's Republican rival to close a once insurmountable gap, but Booker has been able to rely on friends in shiny places, specifically Tinsletown, to keep his well funded campaign rolling. (Roll Call)

• Politician's have repeatedly hit on campaign themes around ending corruption, but often candidate's fail to follow through once they are elected to office. This post highlights a few prime examples as well as ways that citizen's can hold their politician's accountable. (Transparency International)
• The European Commission and Parliament are digging into potential changes to lobbying regulation in the European Union. A two year old transparency register has been criticized by activists for being voluntary and failing to capture information about lobbyists that operate in the dark. (EurActiv)

• The new Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti is taking some baby steps towards pulling the City of Angels into the 21st century. Notably, the city recently launched an open data pilot project. The project uses ESRI's ArcGIS platform, but includes a survey that allows people to request other types of data be made open. (E Pluribis Unum)