“Create Open NY” is the fourth item on a list of prominent issues New York Governor Andrew Cuomo highlighted as... View Article
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 7/25/2012
NEWS ROUNDUP: International Criticizing Tajikistan’s president online could have grave consequences: With its announcement of a volunteer-run group monitoring social... View Article
Continue readingPut brakes on political nonprofits? Not so fast, taxman says
Today a federal tax official provided House Ways and Means Committee members some details about how the Internal Revenue Service will review whether the political activities of shadowy nonprofit groups conflict with their exempt status.
The answer: slowly, according to the IRS Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement Steven Miller, one of the witnesses at the hearing.
He said the IRS has decided to consider whether it would issue new guidance to the groups. And if the agency investigates groups, it looks at an entire year's worth of activity before determining whether an organization has violated tax laws, Miller ...
Continue readingPutting Romney’s tax returns in presidential context
The controversy over what’s hiding in Mitt Romney’s unreleased tax returns continues. But even without the missing filings, putting his 2010 and 2011 tax numbers in context is strikingly informative. It dramatically shows what an outlier Romney is on a few basic tax and income dimensions.
Continue readingColorado politicians magnets for gun contributions
Despite suffering two of the worst gun killings in the nation's history--Columbine and now the "Batman" shootings--Colorado, with its cowboy swagger and reputation for independence, has long been home to supporters of gun rights. And its politicians, mostly Republicans, but some Democrats as well, have been magnets for contributions from gun rights groups, benefiting from more than $3.8 million in political spending since 1989, according to a search on Influence Explorer.
In contrast, gun control groups have spent $140,342 in the state for federal and state campaigns. Of that amount, $48,000 came from the ...
Continue readingUN agency releases controversial draft on treaty revising Internet regulation
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations agency charged with information and communications policy, last Friday released a batch of proposals--some quite controversial--submitted by member organizations and states in an attempt, the organization says, to become more transparent as it demands a bigger role in governing the Internet.
Collectively known as TD64, the proposals will be reviewed at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) in December. The conference is a rare event that will update the telecommunications treaty that outlines ITU's responsibilities based on these approved proposals. The treaty, called the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITR), hasn ...
Continue readingSunlight Live to cover Senate hearing on Super PACs and Citizens United
Join us on Sunlight Live as we cover the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing examining the impact that Super PACs and the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision are having on elections. The hearing, called "Taking Back Our Democracy: Responding to Citizens United and the Rise of Super PACs," will be held by the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights and will be covered live today at 2:30p.m. today.
Chariman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., will lead the subcommittee as two panels of witnesses testify to the state of our democracy and the influence of Super PACs ...
Continue readingPenn State’s powerful political influence
(photo credit: flckr drocpsu)
Penn State University, targeted for unprecedented penalties after NCAA officials concluded that top university officials covered up child sex abuse by an assistant football coach has received more than $6 million in federal earmarks in recent years -- a sign of the school's aptitude at the political influence game.
Some critics have contended that aptitude may have enabled the scandal to go on longer than it otherwise might have. In 2008, Pennsylvania's state legislature debated whether to require the school to disclose police records, email, phone records--information that might have led to earlier detection of ...
Continue readingLaw Libraries, Government Transparency, and the Internet
This past weekend I was fortunate to attend the American Association of Law Libraries 105th annual conference. On Sunday morning,... View Article
Continue readingBusinesses give $33 million to super PACs
Businesses have given more than $33 million to super PACs since the beginning of this campaign cycle, according to a Sunlight analysis of campaign finance reports. Trade unions gave at least $15 million in the same time period.
Republican-aligned super PACs got the lion's share of business contributions, taking in just under $30 million. That dwarfed the $3.8 million that their Democratic-leaning counterparts received from business. Yet the gap may be narrowing ahead of the general election: Left-leaning super PACs raised almost $1.2 million from business in June, while super PACs siding with the GOP raised $4 ...
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