NEWS ROUNDUP: Transparency Obstacles to open records common in almost every state: While every state has an open records law,... View Article
Continue readingOn the floor of Congress, lawmakers lionized Penn State’s Joe Paterno
How quickly a hero rises--and sometimes keeps rising, despite a fall--as was the case with Joe Paterno, who today was posthumously stripped of his record for the most wins for victories for college football coaches thanks to scandal surrounding convicted former coach Jerry Sandusky's child abuse.
Once the hero in his home state and beyond, a search of mentions of the name "Joe Paterno" on Sunlight's Capitol Words shows the peak at 88 in November 2001, soon after the coach led Penn State to break the record for NCAA division I-A victories, reaching the 324 mark, defeating Ohio ...
Continue readingGOP-aligned Super PACs raised $227 million through June 30
Right-leaning Super PACs topped their Democratic rivals by a factor of nearly three-to-one from the start of 2011 through June 30, according to a Sunlight analysis of filings made through midnight Friday. In the first eighteen months of the presidential election cycle, Republican-oriented Super PACs brought in about $230 million while Democratic-leaning super PACs raised less than $80 million.
Continue readingGun interests spend millions to influence lawmakers
In the wake of the Batman movie massacre, Colorado's second mass killing in recent memory, much is being written about the unlikeliness of the tragedy leading to the kind of gun control legislation that might have prevented another troubled young man from amassing a huge arsenal. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was quoted in the New York Times on Saturday venting his frustration at the inertia of both major party's presidential candidates.
The gun lobby is one of the most influential in Washington -- as well as state capitals -- and figures available on Sunlight's Influence Explorer describe ...
Continue readingSuper PACs raise $55 million in June
Super PACs had their biggest month ever, raising over $55 million in June.
That impressive haul brought super PAC's total fundraising since Jan 1. 2011 to more than $313 million. As of around June 30, super PAC's had about $110 million in the bank (that total includes groups filing reports due between June 27 and July 13).
Monthly filers reporting the biggest June takes were Restore Our Future ($20.7 million), which backs Mitt Romney; Priorities USA ($6.2 million) which backs Barack Obama; and American Crossroads, ($5.8 million) lead by GOP strategist Karl Rove.
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 7/20/2012
NEWS ROUNDUP: Transparency Newspaper group asks for Congressional tax returns, gets only 17: McClatchy Newspapers, who asked all 535 members... View Article
Continue readingAgency Report Transparency Bill Delayed For Technical Fixes
Markup of a bill to make agency reports to Congress transparent did not occur as planned on Thursday after the measure... View Article
Continue readingCollege Republican doubles down on super PAC
The college student whose super PAC helped propel a little-known Kentucky Republican to victory with $600,000 in outside spending has doubled down -- and then some.
John Ramsey, a 21-year-old devotee of Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, gave just over $1.7 million to the super PAC he founded, Liberty for All, in the second quarter, according to campaign finance records filed Sunday. That brings Ramsey's total contributions to about $1.9 million--meaning that the economics and finance major at Stephen F. Austin State College in Nacogdoches, Texas is the source of all but about $10,000 of the super ...
Pro-gay GOP super PAC has one donor
Last month, Republican billionaire Paul Singer made news with the announcement of a new, unlikely super PAC: American Unity Inc. It's mission, according to the New York Times, which ran a story about the PAC on June 9, is to "encourage Republican candidates to support same-sex marriage."
The super PAC was officially formed June 19, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Singer has a gay son and has given millions to support gay marriage in New York and elsewhere. He's also given to mainstream Republican causes, including $1 million last year to Restore our Future, the super PAC ...
Continue readingBig banks dominate Dodd-Frank meetings with regulators
This piece was prepared in collaboration with Drew Vogel In the two years since the mammoth Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act became law, federal regulators have heard overwhelmingly from the biggest banks, according to a new Sunlight Foundation analysis of financial regulatory agency meeting logs. The voices of reform-oriented groups have been much quieter – particularly in the past 12 months. Since July 21, 2010 (when the president signed Dodd-Frank), regulators at the three major banking regulatory agencies – Treasury, the Fed and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) – have reported meeting with 20 big banks and banking associations on average a combined 12.5 times per week – as compared to on average just 2.3 meetings with reform-oriented groups. The top 20 banks show up 1,298 times in meeting logs at the three agencies, while groups favoring tighter regulations of the financial markets show up just 242 times.
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