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Continue readingIndia’s FOI Anniversary Spurs Political Finance Transparency
The eighth anniversary of India’s freedom of information law, the Right to Information Act (RTI), could become an important milestone in the country’s transparency agenda. The 2005 sunshine law has already made a tremendous impact on how Indian decision makers respond to public scrutiny efforts, and this year has seen a heated public debate around the finances of political parties with the anniversary creating momentum to rethink (and maybe even redesign) the country's current political finance transparency landscape.
Continue readingThe Landscape of Municipal Campaign Finance Data
With our new municipal focus, we were curious: What does local campaign finance disclosure look like?
Continue readingToday in #OpenGov 10/24/2013
National News
- The government shutdown has officially pushed back the first round of requirements associated with President Obama's recent open data Executive Order. The requirements, now due November 30, include enterprise data inventories and public data listings.(Project Open Data)
- President Obama looks to escape some of his Healthcare.gov related troubles by hitting the fundraising trail. Between now and the end of November he is scheduled to appear at 8 fundraisers for national Democratic groups. (POLITICO)
- FedBizOpps, a top destination for Federal contracting data, underwent a significant change this summer that may hinder open data. A significant portion of the site's information is now behind a login wall, restricting its ability to be indexed. (Fed Scoop)
- The Open Government Partnership's Independent Reporting Mechanism has weighed in on the United States' OGP progress. This is the 8th IRM report and found that, while significant progress was made by the US on a number of commitments, progress has been slow on controversial issues. (Open Government Partnership)
- Philippines is looking to launch an open data portal next month. The portal, set to go live on November 27, will host government data sets in machine readable formats. (ABS-CBN News)
- Folks in Philadelphia now have a user friendly way to browse, search, and use the Philadelphia code. The site is still working out the kinks and the organization behind it is looking for feedback. (Technical.ly Philly)
- After years worth of campaign finance scandals and drama, the Washington, DC Council is inching closer to a vote on reform legislation that would improve disclosure and shut down the avenues for some controversial donations. (Washington Post)
Obama-Sharif meeting: A look at the Pakistani lobbying that came before
As President Barack Obama prepares to welcome the sometimes controversial Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to the White House on Wednesday, U.S. officials are quietly preparing to release some $1.6 billion in aid for the south Asian nation that had been frozen ever since U.S. forces captured and killed 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden living in comfort not far from the Pakistani capital.
That raid -- which resulted in widespread anger in Pakistan against the U.S. and suspicion in the U.S. against Pakistan -- is just one of a number of thorny issues between the two ...
Continue readingToday in #OpenGov 10/23/2013
National News
- Bit Torrent site ISOHunt was forced to shut down last week as part of a conflict with the MPAA. Turns out they turned off the lights a few days early to avoid allowing their site from falling into the hands of a group of "rogue archivists," the Archive Team that aims to preserve information from disappearing websites. (TechDirt)
- Yesterday I noted that the US Chamber of Commerce spends millions of dollars every quarter on lobbying, turns out there are 20 other organizations that dropped at least $1 million on lobbying during the 3rd quarter of 2013. The big spenders included the National Association of realtors, AT&T, the Open Society Policy Center, General Electric, and more. (Roll Call)
- A new book from Peter Schweizer, a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and conservative proponent of campaign finance regulation, draws attention to the lavish tactics used by Congressional leadership PACs to raise money. (New York Times)
- A new search engine is boosting speeds and traffic at Thailands largest library of digital legislative information. The Parliament of Thailand holds documents dating back to 1932, the start of Thailand's constitutional rule. (FutureGov)
- As Michael Bloomberg prepares to cede control of New York City after years at the helm, his team is hoping to set the digital path forward for the next Mayor. The Bloomberg administration's final Digital Roadmap outlines progress on 40 initiatives that have come out of the NYC Digital Office since its 2011 inception and outlines potential priorities moving forward. (Tech President)
- An investigative report out of Wisconsin shows that Supreme Court justices in the state get gobs of campaign cash from attorney donors and rarely recuse themselves from cases involving donors. The analysis also found that justices tend to look favorably on arguments from lawyers that donated to their campaigns. (Wisconsin Watch)
- San Francisco, often a first mover on open data and technology issues, is looking to beef up their existing open data ordinance. The update would provide clearer open data standards, strengthen privacy protections, set timelines for data release, and more. (GovFresh)
Political influence by county: A new way to look at campaign finance data
Over the summer, the Sunlight Foundation partnered with Azavea, a Philadelphia-based firm that specializes in mapping and geo-spatial analysis, to create location-based analyses of the federal campaign finance data we display on InfluenceExplorer.com. The partnership produced new and more accurate ways to identify trends in political spending according to location that were previously hard to complete because of complications in the mapping process. Many of the findings were mapped.
Continue readingEmpowering The Open Data Dialogue
The first question most open data advocates hear is, “Why?” Whether you’re trying to make the case within government or coming in from the outside, many, many advocates in our space spend a lot of time justifying open data’s potential instead of playing with its possibilities. We crowdsourced ideas that can help answer questions and move the conversation along.
Continue readingHow Much Did Healthcare.gov Actually Cost?
The new healthcare exchange site has been the topic of several news stories these past few weeks. Many of them are quoting vastly different numbers for how much it cost to build. You'd think that sites like USASpending.gov or the Federal IT Dashboard1 would be able to give us some idea. But in reality, that's just not how federal spending is reported.
Much of government spending is bundled into huge contracts called IDIQs (indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity) that are meant to span many years and may go to multiple recipients. They're a lot like regular contracts except they can have very vague requirements and once the IDIQ itself has been competed, the government no longer has any requirement to compete any contract within that IDIQ. CGI Federal has one of these IDIQ contracts with the Department of Health and Human services. It was signed in 2007, long before the Affordable Care Act became law, and lasts until 2017. Within each IDIQ, the government creates purchase or task orders for specific services, which you can find in the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). You can see a list of all the task orders for the CGI Federal IDIQ here.
Given a few constraints (was the task order post-ACA? does the description sound like it might contribute to healthcare.gov?) I highlighted in blue my guesses at what task orders might be related to healthcare.gov. I think my guesses err on the over-inclusive side. Even so, if you add them up, it's about $70 million. That's not unheard of for a government website and it's certainly far lower than the $600 million cost that has been reported in some places. But the fact that we can't figure it out shows the dire state of federal spending transparency.
Announcing the Global Open Data Initiative’s New Declaration on Open Data – And Inviting Your Feedback
The Global Open Data Initiative partners are excited today to share a draft Declaration on Open Data, and would welcome comments and feedback on its contents. This post was co-authored by the Global Open Data Initiative partners, and the original can be viewed here.
Open Data has enormous unfulfilled promise to change how governments work and to empower citizenship. Even as more governments and issue experts discover new potential in the public release of data, civil society groups still need clear guidelines and mechanisms for cooperation. Global Open Data Initiative hopes to help provide both, and we hope this draft declaration will help us fill that gap.
By building on existing efforts to gather guidelines and best practices, and by building a clear, joint voice made up of outside groups, Global Open Data Initiative hopes to provide a CSO-led vision for how open data should work.
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