NEWS: This one’s not setting any records: Former Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe’s PAC, Olympia’s List, reported $480 in contributions during... View Article
Continue readingGoogle under fire for Inhofe lunch
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.
Thursday’s scheduled lunchtime fundraiser at Google’s Washington headquarters for Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., posted in Sunlight's Political Party Time, has raised a ruckus on the Internet. Lefty news outlets and environmentalists are slamming the tech giant for playing host to one of the Senate's most outspoken deniers of man-made climate change. Credo, the mobile phone company with a liberal agenda, has launched a petition asking Google not to support Inhofe.
The tech giant has cast itself as a leader in the promotion of 'green' business practices and who trumpets its highly efficient ...
Continue readingStates Lead on E-Filing, Will the Senate Catch Up?
It seems our Senators have a thing or two learn from their home states when it comes to campaign finance reporting: 31 states currently require mandatory electronic reporting ("e-filing") of their elected representative's campaign finance records -- a leap above our Senate, which has failed to pass no-brainer e-filing legislation for over a decade. Sunlight conducted a review of the current state of similar filings in the states (see chart below), and the results are pretty surprising -- in a great way. State governments across the country -- 92% of them, in fact -- require at least optional, if not mandatory electronic filing for both houses of their bicameral legislatures.
Continue readingAccessibility in Congress for iOS
The lengths we go through to make Congress for iOS accessible may surprise you.
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 6/11/2013
NEWS: Taking the long view: A decade later, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms turned out to just be a speed... View Article
Continue readingFilming OpenGov Champions: Marko Rakar, Zagreb, Croatia
You cannot hang around the global OpenGov and transparency community without running into Marko Rakar. This open data activist ended up creating so much change in his native country of Croatia that he is now a close consultant to the country’s current president in all matters of politics. His story is so inspiring that even though we focus mostly on the open government movement in the U.S. in our OpenGov Champions series, I wanted to nominate him as our next Champ. He is a great example of making big change happen through fairly simple actions.
Continue readingThe Legislation Will Not Be Televised
This map distinguishes five levels of legislative web and broadcasting comprehension on a sliding scale from “Best” (including all recommended elements: video formatting of floor proceedings and committee hearings, archived, and broadcasted via a variety of mediums) to “Worst” (missing several of these recommended elements). For more info (or to watch!) see the NCSL's original roundup here.
Open legislative data is integral to a functioning legible participatory democracy. The legislative data canopy covers everything from information about who represents you to the nuts and bolts of the legislative process to final letter of the law, with each element carrying its own series of challenges and considerations when it comes to public access. Timely and archived legislative process data (i.e. bills, amendments, committee meetings, votes, and contextual information, such as: research reports, legislative journals and lobbying information) are crucial to supporting citizen participation and informed voting. Video documentation of the legislative process represents the barebones of open and accountable legislative process data -- passive recordings of events as they happen for prosperity and public inclusion -- and yet this information is still not comprehensively available in most U.S. states.
Continue readingSunlight Calls on Senators to File Campaign Finance Reports Electronically
In an open letter to Senators, the Sunlight Foundation called for all senators to file their campaign finance information electronically... View Article
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 7/10/2013
- A challenger to Rep Mike Honda (D-CA) is already breaking fundraising records, even as a non-incumbent in a non-election year. Democrat Ro Khanna, a former Commerce Department official, raised $1.2 million in his first full quarter of fundraising - and according to his campaign, none of it came from self-funding, lobbyists, or PACs. (Washington Post)
- Say, haven't we talked about this before? A slate of Republican candidates who narrowly lost in 2012 are gearing up again for the midterm elections, including Richard Tisei (MA), Martha McSally (AZ), and Mia Love (UT). They'll be bolstered by fundraising efforts by House Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Paul Ryan. Meanwhile, the Dems have started running Pandora and Twitter ads to give Mike Obermueller (D-MN) his shot at a rematch. (POLITICO)
- A new report from the IBM Center for the Business of Government examined federal "tail spend", encompassing often-unnoticed spending outside of an agency's core operations. The report suggests that increasing budget transparency could cut costs in the neighborhood of $64 billion to $128 billion for the Defense Department alone. (FCW)
- At the last minute before a Softbank acquisition of a majority stake in Sprint, a lobbying firm involved in the merger has registered itself and one of its lobbyists. Polsinelli PC registered yesterday, and the deal is expected to close today. (Roll Call)
- The General Services Administration announced yesterday the launching of a government reverse auction site. The reverse auction works by having business offer their prices for performing a service, and the lowest bid wins.The Department of the Navy will be the first to use the new platform. (FedScoop)
Why the 2012 election was unusual — and why it wasn’t
Back in the days after the 2012 election, when it became clear that despite losing the popular House vote, Republicans had actually won a sizeable majority in the House, plenty of speculation set in as to why: Was it gerrymandering? Was it geography? Or just luck?
Thanks to data from the latest edition of Vital Statistics on Congress (a joint product of the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute that has just been posted online), we can put 2012 in better historical context. Last year marked the first time since at least 1946 (the first year for which Vital Statistics has data) that one party (the Democrats) won the pluralirty of the popular vote in U.S. House but ended up with less than the majority of seats.
While such a reversal of electoral fortune is unusual, a significant disparity between a party’s seat share and vote share is not. Historically, Democrats have benefited from distortions of apportionment much more than Republicans, especially during the 1960s and 1970s.
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