The old Washington habit of using government positions and relationships to a land a lobbying gig continues to make news.
Continue readingShadow lobbyists, ex-lobbyists, give to Obama inaugural committee
Lucky for longtime lobbyist Mickey Ibarra, the president of his own lobbying and strategy shop, he could buy that champagne flute with the presidential inaugural seal.
That's only because, months before, Ibarra had technically deregistered as a federal lobbyist -- on the advice of counsel, he said, even though he continued doing some lobbying. Others in the influence business -- including one lobbyist who told Sunlight she was denied inaugural tickets she had already purchased because of her job -- had more difficulty being part of the inaugural festivities.
But an analysis by the Sunlight Foundation raises questions about just how meaningful ...
Continue readingIntroducing: OpenGov Voices — Sunlight’s guest blogging program
For a while now, we have been encouraging folks from across the nation who are either directly or indirectly involved in opening up their governments -- through the work that they do -- to write about their experiences. In our guest blogging program, we have heard from several individuals including technologists, civic hackers, journalists, educators and transparency activists. By opening up the Sunlight platform, for other similar voices to be heard, we have nurtured a spirit of collaborative action that says: You are not alone in the OpenGov movement. 
Are you doing unique work in your community to make your government more transparent? Maybe you are actively involved in creating special projects that are opening up your local government. We believe that you can spur transparency in your hometown by taking action to demand for openness.
Write a guest blog and share your experience with us and the rest of the world. Some of our guest bloggers are citizen activists, website developers, teachers, journalists and local bloggers like you who are unlocking their governments through the work they are doing.
Our guest blogging program was created to reach out to the growing yet diverse community of government transparency advocates -- as a way of sparking national discussion on the issues that are shaping their democracy. With that in mind, several folks have written inspiring accounts of how they helped make their leaders more accountable.
2Day in #OpenGov 1/25/2013
NEWS ROUNDUP:
- Raymond Baker, founder and director of the advocacy group Global Financial Integrity, argues for financial transparency by explaining how illicit capital flows destabilize economies, threaten security, and hinder human rights. (Trust Law)
- Makers of popular energy drinks Red Bull and Monster are turning to K street for a jolt of influence on Capitol Hill as regulators look at the possible health risks associated with their products. Both brands signed on with powerful lobbying firms for the first time near the end of 2012, spending over $100,000 in the year's waning months. (The Hill)
- While an informal ban on earmarks has ruled congress with a frugal fist over the past few years, a bipartisan team of Senators wants to make it official policy. Senators Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced a measure to permanently ban the practice. A similar bill failed to pass during the 112th Congress. (Roll Call)
- Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is playing host to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at a fundraiser at his California home. The two have had a relationship since Zuckerberg donated $100 million to Newark, NJ public schools in 2010. (National Journal)
- Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are pushing President Obama to nominate an Inspector General for the State Department as the Senate considers John Kerry as the agency's next head. State has been without a permanent IG since 2007. (Government Executive)
- A new report ranks the states on how well they provide online access to government spending data. Today, almost every state has a transparency website with state spending information, but some are better than others. (US PIRG)
- The House Ethics Committee announced stricter disclosure requirements on Wednesday. Members and senior staffers will now have to disclose underlying assets in certain investment funds and accounts. (Roll Call)
Biden pitches gun control in NRA country
When Vice President Joe Biden travels to Richmond, Va. today to participate in a roundtable about gun violence, he'll be visiting a state where the legislature largely has beaten back proposals to regulate guns, and where politicians have gotten $2.2 million in support from gun rights groups over the past two decades.
Most of that money—$2 million—came from the National Rifle Association, according to Sunlight Foundation's Influence Explorer. By contrast, groups that support stronger restrictions on guns, such as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, reported spending a mere $183,000 in Virginia over ...
Continue readingUtah Introduces Open Data Bill, Invites Public Into the Drafting Process
What if the information that you usually have to “FOIA” or ask your government for under your state’s public records... View Article
Continue readingGabrielle Giffords: From gun victim to gun control lobbyist?
As the debate over President Barack Obama's proposed gun legislation heats up on Capitol Hill, gun control advocates have a potential ace in the hole: Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., the victim of a horrific incident of gun violence that interrupted a once-promising political career, is about to become eligible to lobby.
For Giffords, tomorrow marks the end of the official one-year "cooling off" period that former House members face when they leave office before they can lobby their former colleagues, according to Sunlight's post-employment lobbying tracker. Should she wish, she will be permitted to register as a ...
Continue readingNRA gives more than $2 million to support politicians in Texas, New Mexico
During the past two decades, the National Rifle Association has contributed more than $2 million to support politicians in New Mexico and Texas, where the nation's latest outbreaks of gun violence occurred this week.
Both are among the majority of states that provide broad protections for gunowners privacy, according to information compiled by the Sunlight Foundation.
MORE: For data on the gun debate, see the Sunlight Foundation's resource page.
Data pulled from Influence Explorer, a Sunlight Foundation database that tabulates federal campaign contributions from the Center for Responsive Politics and state contributions from the National Institute of Money ...
Continue readingRoe v. Wade at 40: Abortion debate fuels multi-million-dollar influence effort
Friday's annual March for Life will bring thousands of anti-abortion protesters to the Supreme Court, marking this week's 40th anniversary of the justices' Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The event underscores the continuing intensity of a debate that has spawned well-financed lobbies on both sides at the federal and state level.
Although the 113th Congress has been in session less than a month, the issue of abortion already is on the docket. A search using Sunlight Foundation's Scout, which allows users to track issues in Congress, the 50 state legislatures and the Federal Register ...
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 1/24/2013
NEWS ROUNDUP:
- Nonprofit Common Crawl is following in Google's footsteps by indexing large amounts of the internet, over five billion pages so far. But, there is one important difference; they're making their database available for free. (Technology Review)
- NextBus, a popular app that provides real-time transit information for Washington, DC, went down recently after the company behind it failed to update their API to a standard format promoted by the regional transit authority. (Slate)
- Google dropped nearly $17 million on lobbying in 2012 as it fought anti-trust investigations and argued for internet freedom. The total is nearly double what the tech giant spent in 2011. (The Hill)
- Former Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) is making nearly $1 million in his new career. As chief executive of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, he doesn't plan to lobby the government. He is technically allowed to lobby the administration now, but has to wait two years before making a decision about lobbying Congress. (The Hill)
- New York City is launching a new searchable, machine-readable, programmatically accessible database of city financial data. Checkbook NYC 2.0 is an upgraded version of an existing tool. (Tech President)
- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has invested significant resources from his personal fortune to advocate for new gun control measures. He has spread his largess between Mayors Against Illegal Guns and his very own super PAC, Independence USA PAC. (NPR)
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