Sunlight Foundation

NEWS ROUNDUP:

• Ron Paul, who recently retired from Congress after mounting an unsuccessful bid for the GOP nomination last year, still has some Congressional campaign cash floating around. He's spending some of that money on other projects that he's started. Last month his campaign donated $150,000 to the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education. The group that he founded in 1976 is currently run by his wife. (Public Integrity)
• A new GAO report doesn't shed much light on the political intelligence industry. The report found that political intelligence is hard to define and complicated to regulate. The GAO might be hesitant to take a stand on the industry, but Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) are planning to introduce legislation that would institute disclosure requirements. (Federal Computer Week)
• According to a new report by the Housing and Urban Development department's IG, almost $700 million in federal aid for those hit by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is unaccounted for. Most of the discrepancies stem from failure by more than 24,000 recipients to comply with the aid terms or provide sufficient documentation. (Government Executive)
• The Federal Reserve emerged from the primordial soup of federal law the same year that Justice Louis Brandeis argued for the cleansing properties of Sunlight. A century later, the central bank is taking small, but important, steps towards transparency. (Harvard Ethics Blog)
• Outside money is starting to heat up the New York Mayor's race. A group of labor unions and Democratic activists dropped $250,000 for a three week run of ads attacking city council Speaker Christine Quinn, the races presumed front runner. (New York Times)
• Last week President Obama unveiled a $100 million initiative to map the human brain, an initiative inspired in part by the Human Genome Project. It is yet to be known if the project will provide for open access. (Open Knowledge Blog)

NEWS ROUNDUP:

• Outfits like Ushahidi spent years building and sharing tools to help track election issues in advance of recent presidential elections in Kenya, hoping that they could help stem the violence that came along with the country's last election in 2007. While they can't take all the credit for relatively peaceful polls this year, their efforts were part of broader initiatives that seem to have worked. (Tech President)
• The FBI has taken advantage of rules in the PATRIOT act that allow them to send out "national security letters" that come along with gag orders, preventing their recipients from even talking about the existence of the letters. Recently, several tech companies have successfully pushed back about this closed process. First, the Electronic Frontier Foundation successfully sued, representing an unnamed telecom company, and now Google is taking on the practice. (Ars Technica)
• The IRS mistakenly revealed the names of a number of donors to the Republican Governors Association Public Policy Committee, a "nonprofit" that is supposed to be able to hide its donor list from public view. (Public Integrity)
• The House Judiciary Committee is sending Richard Hertling, its former chief counsel and staff director, through the revolving door. Hertling, who has also worked in the Senate and at the Justice department during the Bush administration, is joining Covington & Burling government affairs team. (The Hill)
• While the National Rifle Association gets most of the press and popular attention another group, Gun Owners of America, is emerging as a major force in opposition to new gun control legislation that is winding its way through the Senate. (New York Times)
• When the U.S Chamber of Commerce and Labor Unions came to agreement on visas for low-skilled workers the lane seemed open for a slam dunk for this immigration reform legislation. But, some business groups are unhappy with the deal and, led by the construction industry, appear poised to launch a lobbying press to block the deal.(POLITICO)
• Beards are booming among groups as diverse as urban hipsters and mountain men, but facial hair has been on a long decline in America's halls of power. Now there's a PAC aiming to reverse that trend. The Bearded Entrepreneurs for the Advancement of Responsible Democracy (BEARD) PAC recently registered with the FEC. Happy Friday and enjoy the accompanying slideshow! (National Journal)

NEWS ROUNDUP:

• Los Angeles' long awaited 311 app arrived on April 1. The free mobile app allows Los Angelenos to submit service requests, locate city services, and pay bills. (Gov Tech)
• Air shows, which provide summer time entertainment around the country, were hit hard by the sequester. Now, a trade group representing the shows is fighting back with some lobbyist firepower. The International Council of Air Shows, inc. recently hired Van Scoyoc Associates to work on its behalf, the first time the organization has ever contracted lobbyists. (Public Integrity)
• Iceland's innovative crowd-sourced constitution may be in its final days. Last fall, the document was sent to Iceland's parliament for review, but that parliament was dissolved last week in preparation for new elections on April 27. The constitution is scheduled for a referendum after April's elections, but it faces a relatively high bar for passage. (Tech President)
• President Obama took a stroll down Billionaires Row last night to raise money for the DCCC. He swung by the homes of billionaires Tom Steyer and Ann and Gordon Getty for high dollar fundraisers expected to pull in several million dollars. (POLITICO)
• Mary Schapiro and Lanny Bruer, respectively the outgoing heads of the SEC and DOJ's criminal division, failed to win major civil or criminal actions against any Wall Street executives involved in the financial collapse. Both are now leaving the administration to take jobs at firms that rely on Wall Street for much of their income. (National Journal)

NEWS ROUNDUP:

• The annual White House Easter Egg Roll escaped the sequester's axe with a mix of corporate donations and souvenir sales. The National Park Service, which oversees the event, have been allow to accept private donations for almost 100 years. This year Victoria Knight McDowell, CEO of Pine Bros. Softish Throat Drops, chipped in $25,000 after her twins told her the event could get canceled. (Washington Post)
• A new lawsuit by Christopher Horner, who previously found that EPA officials were conducting official business through private email accounts, alleges that executives at the agency also used instant messages to avoid open-records laws.(Washington Times)
• The circus is in town and it's lobbyists aren't just a side show. Feld Entertainment, the company that owns Ringling Bros., spent more than $330,000 on federal lobbying last year trying to fend off attacks from animal rights groups. (Public Integrity)
• Former US Trade Representative Ron Kirk didn't take long to swing through the revolving door. He snagged a job at the Dallas office of the law firm Gibson Dunn where he will work on "international engagements" in many markets that he had experience with during his time as USTR as well as more parochial concerns in his home state of Texas. (POLITICO)
• More than 90 million Russians could be online by the end of 2013 and the Russian government is expected to step up their regulation and censorship of the internet to match. (Tech President)
• 21 chief executives from some of America's most powerful companies are pushing Congress for comprehensive tax reform. In a letter to the leadership of both the House and Senate committees in charge of the issue, CEOs from AT&T, FedEx, Disney, and more urged changes. (Roll Call)

NEWS ROUNDUP: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released an expanded public database of federal consumer financial complaints this week. The... View Article

NEWS ROUNDUP:

• $60,000 worth of lobbying has been disclosed a mere 4 years after an Arnold & Porter partner started working for Vitreo-Retinal Consultants, the eye-care company controlled by noted Bob Menendez (D-NJ) donor Salomon Melgen. Melgen's lawyers had previously claimed that he had never hired a lobbyist for himself or his business interests. (POLITICO)
• The International Sanitation Hackathon, hosted last December by the World Bank, pulled together 1,100 participants in 40 cities and created 30 new apps dealing with sanitation issues. (Tech President)
• The nascent truce between House Oversight chairman Darrell Issa and his ranking member Elijah Cummings is facing its first major test. Cummings is seeking whistle-blower documents from Issa, but the whistleblower in question, who uncovered information related to contracting problems in the Commerce Department, is worried that Cummings might share the information with the Obama administration, setting the whistleblower up for retaliation. (Roll Call)
• The Internet Association is boosting its in house team of lobbyists with some outside help. The association, which was formed late last year, hired Kountoupes Denham and Franklin Square Group. Both firms have experience representing tech clients. (The Hill)
• A new paper out of the New America Foundation suggests that the CRS and GAO aren't enough, especially at current funding levels. Members of Congress need experts to provide them with unbiased research and the paper recommends some state level corollaries that could be adapted to help Congress. (Fierce Government)
• The beer wars are coming to Capitol Hill with a showdown over taxes. Huge brewers and craft operations are waging a proxy war through their respective trade associations, the Beer Institute and the Brewers Association, over the Small Brewer Reinvestment and Expanding Workforce (Small BREW) Act, which would lower taxes on small breweries. (The Hill)
• President Obama is turning to California's billionaires to help him raise money for the DCCC. A trip to California next week includes fundraisers with at least two billionaire bundlers(POLITICO)