NEWS ROUNDUP:
- Curtis Bostic, a former Charleston County councilmember who is likely to face Mark Sanford in a runoff for the GOP nod for an open South Carolina House seat, benefited mightily from Kentucky natural gas executive James Willard Kinzer. Kinzer donated the maximum to Bostic's campaign and funelled $30,000 to a super PAC supporting him. (Public Integrity)
- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Comptroller John Lui announced that the Big Apple is going to be the first city in the country to launch a comprehensive subcontracting database to track payments made by primary contractors to subcontractors. (Tech President)
- Boris Bershteyn, the OMB general counsel and acting head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, will be leaving his post at the end of the month. (The Legal Times)
- Salomon Melgen, the Florida eye doctor whose ties to Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) are drawing scrutiny from federal investigators, also tried to court other leading politicians including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. (Politico)
- Asheville, NC, a city of 85,000, is taking small steps towards opening their data and getting inspired by the results. Asheville recently held its first hackathon-style event in October and the city is seeing fewer open records requests. (Government Technology)
- According to a new GPO report, designing official publications primarily for digital use has saved the country more than $16 million since the office started the practice in 1995. (National Journal)
- White House officials are indicating that they might be considering shifting responsibility for drone operations from the CIA to the Pentagon, where the program would be subject to different rules and, hopefully, some more sunlight. (Politico)
Immigration: Give me your poor, your tired . . . your lobbyists?
Long before the last election put new political momentum behind the stalled efforts to enact a comprehensive update of the nation's immigration laws, Washington's influence industry was teed up to make it a titanic battle, an analysis of lobbying disclosures by the Sunlight Foundation shows.
Amidst widespread reports that bipartisan groups of lawmakers in the House and Senate are hoping to unveil immigration proposals after Congress's upcoming spring recess, research shows there is an army of lobbyists ready for action. More than 3,000 people were listed as lobbyists in forms which cited immigration as an issue ...
Continue readingTransparency bills move through House Oversight Committee
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee favorably reported a number of transparency related bills at a markup earlier today.... View Article
Continue readingHouse panel tries to open the (financial) books of presidential libraries
As President Obama faces choosing between Hawaii and Chicago as the site of his presidential library, a House committee today greenlighted a bill that would make donors to the institution public.
The next step will be a vote in the full House.
The bill would require future presidential library foundations to report donors to the National Archives on a quarterly basis. The Archives would then post them online in a searchable, downloadable database. The Sunlight Foundation's policy counsel, Daniel Schuman, testified in favor of the measure last week.
The state of Hawaii wants the library near this spot in ...
2Day in #OpenGov 3/20/2013
NEWS ROUNDUP:
- The House Ethics Committee is launching its first formal investigations of the 113th Congress. It is looking into allegations surrounding Reps. Don Young (R-AK) and Rob Andrews (D-NJ). (Politico)
- Russia is dropping its investigation into the death in custody of a Sergei Magnitsky, a whistleblowing lawyer, prompting outrage and accusations of a cover up. The Kremlin's human rights council has previously said that he was probably beaten to death in prison. Authorities still plan to move ahead with a trial of the dead activist on charges of tax fraud. (Trust Law)
- Former Rep. Mary Bono Mack, who lost her reelection bid last year, has landed a job at FaegreBD Consulting. She will join the group as a senior vice president and will work on legislative and regulatory advocacy around entertainment, media, and technology. (Roll Call)
- In the process of compiling their "drone census" of public agencies using unmanned aerial vehicles MuckRock and the EFF have found that universities and other public agencies are charging hefty sums for documents related to their research and testing of drones. (US News)
- A new report from the Center for Effective Government finds that agencies provided full and complete information in response to FOIA requests at a record low rate in 2012. (Fierce Government)
- Anti-bribery legislation languishing in Brazil's legislature could damage its standing could damage its standing with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which measures how well countries meet its anti-corruption convention. (Trust Law)
- Opinion: A new Congressional Watchdog Caucus will bolster congressional commitment to oversight. The Caucus has bipartisan support. (Politico)
Donor in Menendez probe hoped for riches from government contracts
Salomon Melgen, the Florida eye doctor whose relationship with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, D-N.J., is now the subject of a grand jury investigation, has left a trail of lawsuits over bad investments, including one involving a government contract in which he had attempted to tie his money to the coattails of another prominent Hispanic official.
Melgen, who has a port security firm in the Dominican Republic that Menendez denies he tried to help and a medical practice in Florida that the senator admitted he aided, has filed numerous lawsuits over other business dealings that went sour ...
A Sunshine Week Call for Greater Transparency
As part of Sunshine week, I had the opportunity to testify at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing to share a few of Sunlight's ideas about making the executive branch more transparent. Video and text of my opening statement are below. It almost goes without saying that we're very interested in the transparency bills the Oversight Committee will be marking up this Wednesday.
Share your experience, be a TransparencyCamp Ambassador
We here at the Sunlight Foundation could not be more excited about our upcoming TransparencyCamp! We have done this -- and had a blast -- with the rest of the transparency community for the last 4 years, and this year’s event is slated to be bigger and better than ever.
But since both TCamp and our community has expanded over the years, we realized that some may appreciate an introduction to the transparency world and the unconference experience. Additionally, we know that many people have great tales to share from their participation over the years.
That's why we are launching a new Ambassadors Program at this year’s TCamp. Ambassadors will be matched with attendees who may be new to the open gov and open data community or unconferencing with TCamp veterans and established members of the transparency world. Participants in the ambassadors program get the opportunity to connect with each other prior to the event, reach across transparency issue areas and meet exciting new people. We are thrilled about the potential of this program to help forge new and stronger ties amongst TCamp attendees, and make our community more accessible to new people.
Interested in learning more? Sign up below.
In South Carolina special election full of characters, donors are just as colorful
As voters go to the polls in today's primary contests for a South Carolina special congressional election that has garnered attention for its share of colorful candidates, the donors appear just as just as worthy of a second look.
That's not just because the donors are, in most cases -- the candidates themselves. They also include a diverse range of out-of-staters from infamous dark money man David Koch to comedian Stephen Colbert's wife, as Sunlight has reported.
In the final days before polls opened, donations continued to pour in. We're keeping tabs using our Follow the Unlimited Money alert service that sends us emails every time one of the committee's we're watching files with the Federal Election Commission.
Most of the late cash has gone to former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who is trying to make the political comeback of a lifetime just two years after departing office in disgrace. Revelations of Sanford's extra-marital affair with his Argentine lover (now fiance) ended his marriage but not, it now appears, his once-promising political career. By late last month, Sanford was already the dollar frontrunner in the contest to replace Tim Scott, a Republican appointed to the Senate this year. That financial momentum has only continued to build with more late contributors jumping on the frontrunner's bandwagon.
In the 20-day period before today's primary, Sanford raked in $80,050 in contributions of $1,000 or more, bringing him to a total of at least $414,447, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Combined, the six leading Republicans and the Democrat most likely to win her primary, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, have raised over $3 million so far in the race.
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 3/19/2013
NEWS ROUNDUP:
- This week, the Research Data Alliance is launching a major open data initiative and looking to facilitate scientific data sharing between institutions worldwide. (Tech President)
- Former members of Congress trying to walk through the revolving door to K street are facing a relatively week hiring market this year. With revenues continuing to decline, many lobbying shops can't afford the high salaries commanded and demanded by former members of Congress... (Roll Call)
- ...but some former members have still managed to score high profile gigs. Most recently, former Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT), who lost his senate bid to Sen. John Tester (D-MT) last year, is joining Mercury/Clark & Weinstock as a co-chairman. (The Hill)
- Last year, the Justice Department opened an investigation into allegations that employees working for the Wall Street Journal in China bribed Chinese officials for information. (Wall Street Journal)
- State legislatures often lack the effective rules or oversight necessary to stop legislators from acting or voting in their own interest. One expert noted that state legislators are often not paid well enough to discourage unethical behavior. (Public Integrity)
- A new, internet focused, political party has sprung up in Argentina. The Partido de la Red takes many cues from the Pirate Party that has sprung up around Europe and is starting by aiming for seats in the Buenos Aires legislature. (Global Integrity)
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