Here is a look at Wednesday's transparency-related news items, congressional committee hearings, transparency-related bills introduced in Congress, and transparency-related events. News Roundup:
- Three federal agencies are working together to create a web portal for FOIA requests. The portal will cost $1.3 million to implement and could save $200 million over five years if adopted government wide. (Fierce Government)
- A new site, SOPA Opera, allows users to easily visualize congressional support and opposition to SOPA and the PROTECT-IP acts. (Tech President)
- Reddit announced that they will impose a black out all day on January 18 to protest SOPA. (Yahoo/Digital Trends)
- Cecilia Munoz, a former lobbyist for the National Council of La Raza who received a waiver to join the Obama administration, was promoted to director of the Domestic Policy Council. (National Journal)
- The private equity industry has given more than $17 million to members of Congress since the start of 2007, with Democrats receiving more support than Republicans. (National Journal)
- A former senior FCC official is joining Jenner & Block's communications practice. John Flynn previously served as a senior counsel for transactions to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and led the agency's review of the Comcast-NBC Universal merger. (The Hill)
- Los Angeles, CA hasn't updated its website in 14 years. They recently launched a beta version of their new portal, lacity.org, and are seeking public input to ensure that the site will best serve city residents. (Government Technology)
- The Oregon Supreme Court is set to consider a campaign finance law passed by voters in 2006 that would limit individual political contributions. The former Secretary of State chose not to enforce the regulations. (Lobby Comply)
New Super PAC seeks expansion of role for corporate, connected PACs
Dan Backer, the attorney behind the hybrid super PAC rule that allows political action committees contributing to members of Congress and other candidates to also accept unlimited contributions to make independent expenditures, is trying to extend the favor to political action committees tied to corporate entities.
In a new Advisory Opinion Request filed with the Federal Election Commission, Backer asks the commission to allow Stop This Insanity Employee Leadership Fund, a new independent expenditure-only committee attached to the nonprofit Stop This Insanity organization, to be permitted to have separate accounts to contribute to candidates and make independent expenditures.
MORE: See ...
Continue readingFutures industry nabs former government regulator as new leader
In the latest example of a former financial regulator finding employment in the industry, the Futures Industry Association (FIA) has announced that its new president will be a former leader at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Walter Lukken was nominated to the commission by former President George W. Bush and chaired the agency's global markets advisory committee while there. From 2007-2008, when the financial crisis was at its height, he served as its acting chairman. Lukken resigned when President Obama took office in 2009.
In his current role as chief executive officer for New York Portfolio Clearing, he ...
Continue readingLet the Redesigning Continue
As some of you might have seen we're undergoing a major redesign here at the Sunlight Foundation. We started off with the building blocks, a new logo and mood board, to lay out the concept of our new look. Now, with last year's projects behind us, we're ready to share the wireframes and comps for the new site.
Before beginning a project as big as this redesign we wanted to make sure we had some evidence to back up our suspicions regarding the current Sunlight site. Our first step was to install heat map software to get a sense of where users were clicking the most and how they were navigating. As you can see from the darker-colored image, users are clicking most on certain navigation items and projects but not so much on the blog content that lives on the homepage. The rainbow colored image is what's called a scroll map, it shows how much of a particular page a user views before navigating away from it. The white color is what is viewed the most and then it goes down from yellow, orange, red, green and finally blue indicates the fewest views. For us, this shows that as soon as users hit that blog content they start navigating away from this page.
Continue readingSuper PAC Profile: Endorse Liberty helps Ron Paul — and a founder’s company
In the three weeks since Endorse Liberty Inc. formed as a super PAC with the Federal Election Commission, the group has spent nearly $1 million on ads supporting Ron Paul, $151,000 of which went to a media company owned by one of the founders of the group.
The group was put together by four businessmen. According to the group’s treasurer Abe Niederhauser, none have ties to the GOP presidential candidate.
The other three founders are Jeffrey Harmon, Ladd Christensen and Stephen Oskoui. Oskoui is the owner of Smiley Media—an Austin-based company that has made a series of ...
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 1/10/2011
Policy Fellow Matt Rumsey wrote this post. Here is Tuesday’s take on transparency-related news items, congressional committee hearings, transparency-related bills... View Article
Continue readingSunlight Drafts SUPERPAC Act to Address Hidden Money in Elections
As the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s disastrous Citizens United decision approaches, the Sunlight Foundation has drafted the Stop... View Article
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 1/9/2012
Policy Fellow Matt Rumsey wrote this post. Here is a look at this week’s transparency-related news items, congressional committee hearings,... View Article
Continue readingSECRET Government in Kansas?
Kicking of 2012 as our guest blogger is Ernestine Krehbiel. Ernestine is the president of the League of Women Voters... View Article
Continue readingSuper PAC profile: Obama supported by Priorities USA Action
Priorities USA Action defines its mission as "committed to the reelection of President Obama." The group is currently opposing Mitt Romney with media ad buys.
The following ad uses Romney quotes, mostly out of context, and the tone of an apocalyptic movie trailer to suggest that a Romney presidency that "is not a pretty picture."
The people behind Priorities USA Action are well connected to Obama and the Democratic party. The political strategist for the organization, Bill Burton, formerly served as the president's deputy White House press secretary. Before that, he was a spokesman for Obama's 2008 campagn ...
Continue reading
59063
