NEWS ROUNDUP:
- Rockstar, Inc., the maker of Rockstar Energy Drink, has hired a team of influence rockstars to make its case in Washington. Rockstar isn't pulling punches for or its first foray into the influence game. The company signed on a team from the Podesta Group that includes at least 7 former congressional staffers. (Public Integrity)
- The SEIU is opening its wallet to support the idea of comprehensive immigration reform over the airwaves. The $300,000 ad buy is the latest in a series that the union plans to air as the debate continues in Congress. (Roll Call)
- A new report from US PIRG showing that many states made progress in how they make spending data available online over the past few years. There is still plenty of room for improvement though. PIRG only handed out 7 "A" and 9 "B" grades. (Government Technology)
- The LGBT rights lobby has made some significant strides in the past few years, including a high profile hearing in front of the Supreme Court yesterday, and they've spent accordingly. The Human Rights Campaign dropped more than $1.3 million on lobbying last year and its PAC has given to key lawmakers, including Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) who announced her support for gay marriage on Sunday. (Public Integrity)
- Organizing for Action is looking to raise as much money as humanly possible, but they're also butting into a battle for campaign finance reform currently raging in New York. On Tuesday they contacted 744,000 members in New York endorsing reforms that would include public financing of elections in the state. (Huffington Post, POLITICO, New York Times)
- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is getting into the political game with a new 501(c)(4) that will be supported by a number of other tech executives and led by Joe Green, founder of Causes.com and Zuckerberg's former roommate. The organization will focus on maintaining the US's economic competitiveness and its first issue will be immigration reform...(The Hill)
- Opinion: ...Meanwhile Micah Sifrey, a technology advisor to the Sunlight Foundation, is urging Facebook to "start taking its own civic responsibilities more seriously, especially as it comes to how Facebook implicitly influences political processes all over the world." He suggests that the company should start Facebook.org as a place to aggregate everything the company does " that affect the civic arena."(Tech President)
Finding the Leaders Behind the Data
We recently took a look at the wide variety of municipal IT structures in an effort to gain a better... View Article
Continue readingDOJ’s FOIA Metadata Strategy Makes Sense
The Department of Justice deserves some applause for its plan to improve public access to FOIA materials. This has been in... View Article
Continue readingWhat’s in a name? Republican- versus Democrat-speak on gay marriage
How something is described often affects how people react to it. So it's interesting, as the Supreme Court begins two days of arguments on how to and who can define marriage, to see how the lawmakers across the street have talked about the same issue.
A look through Sunlight's Capitol Words shows a clear partisan divide: Democrats tend to use the term "gay marriage" while Republicans prefer "same-sex marriage." As you can see in the chart above, the latter term occurs more frequently in congressional debate. The full Capitol Words analysis gives us the party breakdown: Democrats account ...
Continue readingNHL champs LA Kings visit White House, but owners wish someone else were in it
If Los Angeles Kings owners Ed Roski and Phil Anschutz had their way during last year's election, someone other than President Obama would be greeting the Stanley Cup champions Tuesday when they arrive in D.C. for the traditional White House fete.
Continue readingSunlight at PyCon 2013
A few Sunlighters took off for the west coast last week to attend PyCon, the largest annual gathering for the... View Article
Continue readingPay Attention to the Leaders Behind the Data
The branch of municipal government that oversees technology and shares information with the public plays a vital role in keeping... View Article
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 3/26/2013
NEWS ROUNDUP:
- Some of the more pragmatic Republican fundraisers see big money making opportunities as some members of the GOP begin to embrace the idea of gay marriage. In recent elections some deep pocketed Republicans kept their wallets closed due to the party's position on the issue. (POLITICO)
- The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is upping their fundraising pace as they pick up seats and influence in Congress. The Caucus' PAC has been raising larger sums of money recently and it's members have seen their clout increasing with the current immigration debate. (Roll Call)
- The budget that Congress sent to the Department of Agriculture last week bears a brand of influence from meatpackers, Monsanto, and other big farm industry players. (POLITICO)
- Michelle Bachmann is being investigated by the Office of Congressional Ethics for allegedly misusing campaign funds. The former national field coordinator for the Congresswoman's 2012 presidential campaign filed a complaint with the FEC alleging that Bachmann's leadership PAC was improperly used to pay campaign staff. (Washington Post)
- A new pro-Rand Paul PAC was registered using MyPAC, a service of DB Capitol Strategies that lets customers spend $700 to set up a hybrid PAC. Hybrid PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to run independent ads and donate directly to politicians. (Public Integrity)
- San Francisco might be feeling a little left out of all the good press that New York City has gotten recently for their open data portal and data driven governance strategies. In an attempt to put the spotlight back on their city the Mayor and Board of Supervisors president are planning to remind everyone about a law they recently passed to create a "chief data officer." (Tech President)
Newt Gingrich forms joint fundraising PAC
Seems that 2012 is the (fundraising) campaign that just won't die. We already know that President Barack Obama, despite winning what he loudly advertised would be his last campaign, is still hot on the fundraising trail. And Politico is reporting that Obama's unsuccessful GOP rival, Mitt Romney, is going to be feting donors later this spring.
Now Newt Gingrich appears to be getting into the act. Sunlight's Follow the Unlimited Money tracker turned up a registration for the not-so-modestly named "Committee for America," which has been established as a joint fundraising committee for Newt 2012, the ex-speaker ...
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 3/25/2013
NEWS ROUNDUP:
- Influence organizations avoid lobbying disclosure rules by adopting "grass-roots" strategies. For example, while working for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, the DCI group generated more than 30,000 constituent calls and connected small business owners with over 1,600 meetings with members of Congress but never had to disclose their activities. (Roll Call)
- A billionaire environmentalist is planning to move ahead with an expensive campaign against Massachusetts Senate hopeful Rep. Steven Lynch for his support of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The campaign is coming despite requests from Rep. Ed Markey, Lynch's primary opponent for the Democratic nomination, to stay out of the race. (Washington Post)
- Mitt Romney just can't seem to shake the fundraising habit. He recently invited top donors and bundlers to a $5,000, four-day "summit" in Park City, Utah this June. (Politico)
- The Senate Intelligence Committee announced a rare ray of light last week. It will now disclose how Senators vote on bills and nominations in Committee markups. The panel has had a longstanding policy of withholding its vote counts. (Roll Call)
- Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM) has a novel idea to hold Congress more accountable, and keep them safe at the same time. Last week he introduced a resolution that would create a "virtual Congress", allowing members of the House to complete their constitutional duties via videoconferencing and other electronic means. (The Hill)
- The singularity might be far away for most of us, but President Obama keeps moving closer to becoming one with Organizing for Action, the supposedly independent "nonprofit" spin-off of his campaign. His official Twitter account is now under OFA's control and he's still going to tweet from it.(Washington Post)
- Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the anti-gun group chaired by Michael Bloomberg, is planning to spend $12 million targeting Senators who may be wavering on upcoming gun control votes. (Politico, New York Times)
- Hallmark Cards is stepping up its lobbyist game to support Saturday mail delivery. They have registered their first in house lobbyist and are shifting their government affairs focus to Washington. (The Hill)
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