More states are considering "shoot first" laws, while a majority of states have varying degrees of laws that allow self-defense.
Continue readingSen. Markey’s IOUs
Long-time Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who will be sworn into the U.S. Senate today, a victory for the left-leaning coalition of bit doors who helped him win a special election last month.
Continue readingDon’t defund the E-gov fund
For the past several years we have been fighting to maintain funding for online transparency programs that the federal government supports through its E-gov fund. 2013 is no different. The fund supports important initiatives, including the IT Dashboard, Performance.gov, and more, that have been shown to improve government efficiency and accountability, saving at least $3 billion. In addition to helping the government save money, these technologies have been a boon to the private sector, creating jobs and releasing valuable information. President Obama requested $20.15 million for the E-gov fund in his FY 2014 budget request, but Congress is considering combining the fund with another fund and cutting its budget. This Wednesday, the House Appropriations Committee is going to mark up the FY 2014 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill that controls the E-gov fund's fate. If they choose to fully fund the E-gov fund, Congress will be making a smart investment in technology and transparency. We happily signed on to three letters to leaders of the House and Senate committees with the power to pay for the E-gov fund urging them to fully invest and allow these programs to thrive. You can find one, sent to the chair and ranking member of the Appropriations committee, here. The others, sent to relevant subcommittee chairmen in the House and Senate are embedded below.
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 7/16/2013
by Justin Lin, policy intern NEWS:
- Brian Schweitzer, the former governor of Montana, has declared that he will not seek a seat in the Senate. This news comes as big surprise to Democrats, who expected Schweitzer to run and now must find candidates to run for the seat. Schweitzer's decision may also encourage Rep. Steve Daines (R-MT) to vie for the Senate seat. (Washington Post)
- A GAO report criticized the construction plan of a uranium plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee that recently increased estimates of the cost of building the plant by over half a million dollars. The plant, which will not be fully functional until at least 2025, has seen its estimated maximum cost rise from $1.1 billion to $6.5 billion. (National Journal)
- Pennsylvania's voter-ID law faced trial Monday and involved three groups against the state: the Pennsylvania League of Women Voters, the NAACP, and the Homeless Advocacy Project. The law may reach the state supreme court and the rulings could hold great significance for the nation. (Washington Post)
- Senator Mark Begich (D-AL) raised over $1 million in the second quarter for his Senate re-election bid. Begich, still in his first term, faces potential GOP challengers from Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell and Joe Miller, the 2010 nominee. (Politico)
- The relationship between Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is pulling apart at the seams. Though the two have been cordial for many years, Reid is becoming increasingly frustrated with McConnell's delay of President Obama's nominations, threatening to use the "nuclear option." Meanwhile, McConnell has been piqued by Reid's willingness to violate old Senate traditions. (Politico)
- This is a man who takes college elections a little bit too seriously. Matthew Weaver, a Cal State San Marcos student, has been sentenced to one year in prison for stealing the passwords of 745 of his fellow students to rig a college election. (Yahoo)
2Day in #OpenGov 7/15/2013
by Justin Lin, policy intern NEWS:
- House Speaker John Boehner has raised over $6 million during the second quarter. Individuals from Elliott Management gave $225,000 in total to Boehner, and employees from Swisher International were close behind, giving a total of $180,000. (Roll Call)
- In addition, to Boehner, Senators and House members have been reporting second quarter donations in the past week. They include Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who is running for an open Senate seat, raising $4.5 million in the past quarter and Paul Ryan, who raised $1.1 million, surprisingly large amounts even in an age when candidates raise money so quickly. (Roll Call)
- The ceiling fan industry is turning its back on regulations it once supported, enacted by the Bush administration in 2005. Most recently, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) offered an amendment to HR 2609 (Energy-Water Appropriations) that would restrict funding specifically for writing the regulations. (Roll Call)
- The Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act, originally re-introduced by two Republican and two Democratic Senators, has passed the House by a 390-0 vote. This bill would increase transparency on the funding for foreign aid, forcing the President to provide guidelines on "goals, performance metrics, and monitoring and evaluation plans to be applied to U.S. foreign assistance activities." (Roll Call)
- Cora Carper, a secretary for the Insulators PAC in Maryland, has been sentenced to 37 months in prison for embezzling over $500,000. That's quite a significant amount of money, especially considering the PAC raises around $500,000 each election cycle. (Roll Call)
- Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.), the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has raised over $18,000 alone from employees of Northrup Grumman, a major defense contractor. It must be nice for him to receive all that money from companies that his committee oversees. (Roll Call)
Open Budget, Open Process: A Short History of Participatory Budgeting in the US
A simple twist on the traditional budgeting process has us paying attention to payoffs for transparency. Participatory budgeting (PB) is a political process that lets members of a community vote on how certain budget funds should be allocated. By including the public in decision-making, PB has the potential to be an agent of accountability, helping to demystify city budgets, to turn voters into active contributors and informed monitors of government progress, and to help support efforts for proactive budget disclosure. As it stands today, PB helps communities explore many of these opportunities, and it serves as an important gateway to engagement with local government for a wide variety of residents, especially traditionally-underrepresented groups. It’s a transformative process -- one that may cost governments almost nothing, since it just reallocates existing funds -- and it's a process we’re eager to see explored in more detail as more and more communities hold a magnifying glass to budgetary data.
Continue readingOpenGov Voices: Bringing Senate Campaigns into the 21st Century
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone. Sunlight Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy 
of any of the information within the guest blog.
Jon Tester is the junior Senator from Montana. He and his wife, Sharla, still farm the 1,800 acres his grandparents homesteaded in 1912.
With the NSA’s secrets spilling into the news, folks around the country – including U.S. Senators – are demanding more transparency and accountability from the federal government. I fully support these calls for reform.
Transparency matters in the legislative branch, too. My fellow Senators must not neglect their own backyards. My colleagues need to hold themselves accountable to the American people and join me in lifting the veil that hides how Senators and Senate candidates report the money that funds their campaigns.
The Senate’s reporting system is stuck in the Dark Ages, and it’s hurting our democracy.
Continue readingObama’s nonprofit gets more big donors
President Obama's nonprofit group released its donors for the second quarter on Friday, and the group is leaning more heavily on the megarich than it did in the first quarter, when it was launched.
The group also raised more money, bringing in $8.2 million in the second quarter compared to $4.8 million last time. Here is a downloadable .csv file of all the donors, though only those who gave $250 or more are included.
Continue readingAbortion restrictions going viral?
As state lawmakers in Texas and North Carolina move towards enacting tough new limits on abortions, Sunlight decided to use some of our data tools to see how far the trend is spreading nationwide. To do so, we lifted key phrases from four of the most restrictive abortion bills that have either been enacted or considered recently and ran those terms through our Open States database, which surveys activity in all 50 state legislatures.
Restrictive abortion bills on the move in 2013
OpenGov Voices: Open Government is About Raising People’s Opinions
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Sunlight Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight 
Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest blog.
Lucas Dailey is a UX designer and Chief Innovation Officer at political social network MyMaryland.net. You can follow him on Twitter @lucasdailey.
The mechanism for citizen interaction with government doesn’t start and end at the ballot box. An essential goal of our fight for greater government openness and transparency is to give citizens’ opinions greater power. For government to be responsive it must have a fast, easy means to understand how constituents feel about any given issues. Ultimately, government itself is a relationship between the institutions that constitute a polity and its citizens.
MyMaryland.net wants to bridge the gap between voters and their representatives because we believe people’s voices matter. MyMaryland.net connects verified Maryland voters with their elected officials in democracy’s first 24/7 online Town Hall.
Participation: a two-sided problem
One of the keys to a vibrant representative democracy is an informed and engaged citizenry. Yet only 10% of Americans contact their elected officials between elections. We can do better by lowering the hurdles to participate and raising the political value of opinions.
Members of Congress get hundreds or thousands of emails every day. It takes a considerable amount of staff resources to separate constituents from non-constituents, and when they’re finally separated only a very small percentage of messages are from actual voters in their districts.
With MyMaryland.net we prescreen all users through the Maryland voter registration file then connect them with their actual elected officials. Since elected officials know all messages and votes in their MyMaryland.net Town Hall are from their registered voters then they don’t need to spend the time to verify them.
Voters can show their support or opposition to a post simply by voting it up or down instead of writing their own message, thus saving time for citizens and legislative staff. Legislative staff also save time by writing a single response to each post instead of multiple responses to numerous similar messages.
With MyMaryland.net voters and elected officials are able to convey more opinions in less time.
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