With the end of the 2012 election season, so too comes the conclusion of a seemingly infinite number of campaign... View Article
Continue readingWhat we learned: 10 lessons from the campaign brought to you by Citizens United
For the candidates, it's all over except for the voting, but for those of us who follow money in politics, it will take months to close the books on what will be the most expensive election in history. Meanwhile, here are a few lessons we learned in the brave new world of unlimited political money:
Continue readingSunlight’s Priorities for the Next Administration
Regardless of who wins the presidential election, the next administration will have enormous power to say how open our government will be. We have organized our priorities for the next administration below, to share where we think our work on executive branch issues will be focused, in advance of the election results. From money in politics to open data, spending, and freedom of information, we'll be working to open up the Executive Branch. We'd love to hear any suggestions you might have for Sunlight's Executive Branch work, please leave additional ideas in the comments below. (We'll also be sharing other recommendations soon, including a legislative agenda for the 113th Congress, and a suite of reform proposals for the House and Senate rules packages.) Sunlight Reform Agenda for the Next Administration:
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 11/5/12
NEWS ROUNDUP:
- Watergate records unsealed: A federal judge has unsealed some of the records from the trial of two Watergate conspirators who served on President Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. (Politico)
- NY lawmaker proposes three strikes rule: A New York lawmaker is proposing a "three strikes and you're out" rule for those who fail to file campaign finance reports. Three failures to file the reports would result in prison time. (Lobby Comply Blog)
- Maryland governor's aide joins lobbying firm: Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's top legislative aide, Joseph Bryce, is leaving office to join the lobbying firm Manis Canning & Associates. (Washington Post)
Local election officials let partisan color$ $how
Thousands of dollars donated by elections officials in Ohio, Florida, and Colorado illustrates an under-appreciated fact of American political life: Election officials are often political partisans who either run for office in the same elections they supervise or owe their jobs to people who do.
Continue readingNo donors to report but $1.5 million to spend for Romney
A political action committee that so far has reported no donations in the current campaign cycle has just unleashed $1.5 million in Internet advertising to help Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
The big web buy, which features a reedy-voiced young girl accusing President Barack Obama of leaving her generation in the lurch, comes courtesy of Right Change, a committee that was active on behalf of a number of Republican House and Senate candidates in 2010 but is only now surfacing in this year's campaign.
According to the group's website, Right Change encompasses a "national movement" of more ...
Continue readingEleven House races drawing 11th-hour outside money
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It doesn't take a whole lot of money to make a big difference in some House races, and as the days dwindle down to hours before polls close on Nov. 6, some outside interest groups are trying to do just that. Sunlight's weekly survey of independent campaign expenditures found that some congressional contests that hadn't previously registered on our radar were suddenly drawing lots of outside cash late in the campaign.
Seven of ...
Continue readingLas Vegas – Average Political Ad Costs $1,000; Candidates get 40% Discount during the Final Stretch
Within 60 days of an election, every dollar spent by a candidate has the same television advertising buying power as $1.63 from any non-candidate source, according to a new analysis of advertisement contracts in the Las Vegas media market. During this period, FCC regulations mandate that TV stations charge candidates “no more per unit than the station charges its most favorite commercial advertisers” for the same ad time. As it turns out, this preferred status nets candidates a significant discount over super PACs, dark money organizations and party committees. According to this new data—collected through Sunlight’s Political Ad Sleuth—candidates enjoy an average markdown of $364 off their typical $946 price tag for a thirty second spot, which constitutes a 38.5 percent price cut. This helps to explain why, as Ezra Klein has pointed out, ads from Obama and his allies have been more frequent than ads from Romney and his allies. Because more money on the Republican side has been flowing into the election through super PACs and other outside groups, the GOP’s purchasing power is diminished.
Continue readingNew Districts in Sunlight Congress API
Good news if you were one of the users waiting on our Congress API to support the newly drawn congressional districts! As of today it is possible to pass the districts=2012 flag to the Congress API's districts.getDistrictFromLatLong method to instruct the API to return the district in effect for the 2012 elections.
As you may recall, the data wasn't previously available in a uniform format but thanks to a recent data release from Census.gov we were able to get this data loaded, with days to spare until the election.
The default will remain to return the districts in effect for purposes of representation until the swearing in of the 113th Congress in January 2013 at which point the temporary districts=2012 flag will be retired (but it will be safe to continue to pass the parameter indefinitely).
This change does not yet impact other Sunlight API methods. The Open States district methods and the ZIP code related methods will be updated as that data is available, as described in our last update.)
Continue readingChamber of Commerce funding secret but agenda public
One of the biggest “dark money” spenders in next week’s elections is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But while the Chamber's funding sources may be murky, its aims -- unlike those of some wealthy super PAC donors -- are relatively transparent.
The 100-year-old nonprofit organization has a far reaching public lobbying agenda that ranges from high profile fights like working to reverse parts of the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank financial reform law to more obscure issues like keeping flight information about corporate jets secret and opposing tighter regulation of the transportation of highly flammable lithium batteries.
Two ...
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