Maybe no one else will find this amusing or ironic, but I certainly did. The Washington Post published a letter to the editor of mine yesterday, but didn't post it online. It’s a little surprising that a paper with such a robust Web presence wouldn’t post online all the letters to the editor it prints on paper.
Here it is:
The Post correctly identifies pork-barrel spending "earmarks" as a major problem on Capitol Hill ["Pet Projects," editorial, July 5]. However, this issue is just one symptom of a much larger problem - the lack of transparency in Congress.
Continue reading
Politics and The Internets
A lot of attention is being paid to political efforts on the Internet lately. Every day this week the Washington Post has printed an article that in some way focuses on politics and the Internet, whether it being the use of YouTube by politicians, a flap over a picture on a campaign website, or the launch of a new online effort for bipartisanship. The Internet and politics are topics du jour in Washington this election season. Perhaps it’s because of the success of the YearlyKos convention or because the blogs and online organizing did not disappear after the 2004 elections as many in Washington expected. The answer to that is unknown but what is revealed in the media’s coverage of the Internet is a mix of bias, exuberance, and ignorance.
Continue readingNo-See-ums
later
Continue readingOverheard Only In Washington
So there I was in a very public setting today and the woman next to me was talking with a Senate staffer very loudly on her cell phone. After dropping names of the ex-Senator's top aide she said: "Tell that to the person who has 21." Then she sternly said into her earpiece, "I have one, repeat one, earmark that I need. I know that the Senator is under a lot of pressure about earmarks and lobbyists but this is just one request." Without taking a breath she then said, "Yes, $500 would be perfect. That's a very generous personal contribution."
The next series of calls had to do with various meetings she was attending and arranging for doctors, pharmaceutical companies and Big Pharma itself. She mentioned her name in one of the conversations and when I returned to the office I looked her up. A big time lobbyist, former congressional staffer, who's working for a former lawmaker's lobbying firm on behalf of pharmaceutical firms, cigarette makers, brokerage firms, and even at one time, Enron.
Continue readingDoolittle’s Leadership PAC Pays Wife
What a deal. Your husband is a member of Congress. You’re his spouse and you start up a business raising money for his leadership PAC, and collecting a 15% commission on every dollar the PAC raises.
That’s the essential scenario for Congressman John T. Doolittle (R-Calif) and his wife Julie, and the details are spelled out on the front page of today’s Washington Post. The story also dwells on expensive gifts that Doolittle’s PAC – the Superior California Federal Leadership Fund – spent money on, but I’d like to focus today on that fundraising commission.
Continue readingAnnouncing Mini-Grants
The Sunlight Network, our affiliated advocacy group, is announcing today a series of "mini-grants," in the $1,000 to $5,000 range, for local or regional nonprofit organizations and non-affiliated groups that have innovative approaches to strengthening the relationship between Members of Congress and the citizens they represent. (Note that the website for the Sunlight Network is not yet live.)
We are particularly encouraging applications from existing small nonprofits, local or regional chapters of national organizations and groups of individuals. Grants are available to augment existing projects or to jumpstart new ones. Grants will be made available on a rolling basis starting July 15. Sunlight believes that open, honest, sincere representation is possible, and that engaged citizens can make it happen. These are grants designed to stimulate your action!
We'll make our decisions based on projects' creativity, their likelihood of success, and the degree to which they match Sunlight's goals. We strongly favor efforts that are themselves open and democratic in their internal structure. We are very excited to see what you come up with.
Send a one-page summary of your proposed project, a budget (including the amount requested from Sunlight) and contact information to Zephyr Teachout, National Director, Sunlight Network, zteachout at sunlightfoundation dot com.
We don't want to prejudge what might come in the door, but here are a couple of some hypothetical examples which might jump-start your thinking:
An Austin, TX website that aggregates news and commentary on local issues and blogs about it might seek a grant to expand their work to cover their Congressional delegation. The money they request is for travel, a video camera, Lexis-Nexis access.
A group of students in Miami want to investigate the placement of a controversial landfill so they ask for a grant to pay for research that seeks to show that business interests which may have supported local politicians may have distorted decision-making regarding placement of the landfill. Their grant funds the investigative report and its broadcasting on the web.
Citizen Porkbusters in Kansas wants a grant to create an online video to educate other citizens about the powerful moneyed interests behind the promotion of ethanol. They plan to place the video on YouTube.
We can't wait to hear your ideas. Send them to Nisha Thompson at nthompson at sunlightfoundation dot com.
Continue readingRebranding Citizen Journalism
Jeff Jarvis had an interesting post the other day in which he grappled for an appropriate term for what he alternately calls citizen journalism, citizen media, networked journalism, and distributed journalism (me, I like citizen muckraking and distributed reporting, but what do I know?). Jarvis writes,
In networked journalism, the public can get involved in a story before it is reported, contributing facts, questions, and suggestions. The journalists can rely on the public to help report the story; we’ll see more and more of that, I trust. The journalists can and should link to other work on the same story, to source material, and perhaps blog posts from the sources (see: Mark Cuban). After the story is published — online, in print, wherever — the public can continue to contribute corrections, questions, facts, and perspective … not to mention promotion via links. I hope this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as journalists realize that they are less the manufacturers of news than the moderators of conversations that get to the news.Continue reading
Revolving Door Brings Well-Paid Lobbyist Back to Capitol
Jeffrey Birnbaum’s column in today’s Washington Post is a must-read for anyone who wants to see the level to which serious money has invaded the world of Washington lobbying. It’s also a reminder of the enduring importance of the revolving door that shuttles people back and forth between Capitol Hill and K Street, ground zero for Washington’s lobbyist community.
Normally the windfall for Hill staffers comes when they move from the Capitol to K Street. In this case, the windfall – amounting to nearly $2 million – was a severance package given to an ex-lobbyist moving in the opposite direction.
Continue readingElvis Is In The Building
Congress appears to agree with the voters of our online poll, Elvis will be spotted before they pass comprehensive ethics reform. It has been six months since the most flamboyant lobbyist in Washington caved under his own cupidity, seven months since [sw: Duke Cunningham] (R-Calif.) lost his Louis-Philippe commode, and more than two months since [sw: William Jefferson]’s (D-La.) congressional office was raided by FBI agents. In honor of these milestones and this Congress’ penchant for ignoring serious problems we should all remember those who have already fallen due to the unprecedented, and to lawmakers, unimportant, scandals sweeping the Capitol.
Continue readingFirst APIs Available
Already the Sunlight Mash-Up Labs announced in May is striding toward my fantasy of one-click political influence disclosure. Last week, Lab Co-director, Greg Elin, guided me through the results of a week of "hacking" with Mike Krejci, lead programmer for The Institute of Money in State Politics. Supported by a small grant from the Sunlight Foundation, Greg went to Portland, Oregon and helped Mike begin work on The Institute's "web services API".
Continue reading
59063
