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2Day in #OpenGov 12/19/2011

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Here is the week's first look at transparency-related news items, congressional committee hearings, transparency-related bills introduced in Congress, and transparency-related events. News Roundup: Lobbying

  • The Volcker rule, intended to block banks from the type of trading that triggered the 2008 financial crisis, has been the target of a massive lobbying campaign as well as heavy citizen input. (Roll Call $)
  • LightSquared, the wireless firm that the GOP claims benefited from its White House relationships, have hired Patton Boggs, a leading lobbying firm. (The Hill)
  • A U.S. Chamber of Commerce staffer is heading to the hill to work for Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL). Dave Natonski will become Schock's deputy chief of staff, he previously worked as the representative's communications director before joining the Chamber. (National Journal)
Government
  • If the House stays in session through Wednesday the Judiciary Committee will resume its markup of the Stop Online Privacy Act. The markup has already stretched over two days, with opponents of the bill offering numerous amendments in hopes of changing provisions that they view as harmful to internet freedom. (The Hill)
  • Meanwhile, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) vowed to filibuster the PROTECT IP act, the Senate's version of SOPA. (Politico)
  • Starting January 1, the House of Representatives will make many of its legislative documents available online in open data format. (Tech President)
Campaign Finance
  • Five major Democratic political groups are in talks to coordinate their strategies to raise as much money as possible in advance of the 2012 presidential election. the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA and four other groups are hoping to target major Democratic donors that have, so far, stayed on the sidelines this year. (Politico)
Ethics
  • House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) has pledged to push legislation suppressing congressional corruption next year. His proposal will expand on the STOCK Act, which would only explicitly ban insider trading by members of Congress. (Politico)
  • Four sitting members of Congress may have received discounted loans through a VIP program run by Countrywide Financial. The program was used to build relationships with government officials and other well positioned clients. (Politico)

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2Day in #OpenGov 12/16/2011

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It's Friday and this is week's final look at transparency-related news items, congressional committee hearings, transparency-related bills introduced in Congress, and transparency-related events. News Roundup:

Campaign Finance
  • The FEC declined to write new rules that would require more information about donors backing political advertisements. The panel deadlocked 3-3 on the vote. (Politico)
  • A federal judge struck down Alabama's ban on PAC-to-PAC money transfers. The Alabama Democratic Conference brought the suit, alleging that the law prohibited their PAC from accepting money from other PACs to use on voter communication and turnout efforts. (Lobby Comply)
Access to Information
  • Massachusetts launched a new transparency website aimed to help users interpret state spending data. The site uses graphics and visualizations to break down the data. (Government Technology)
  • The Army's case against Bradley Manning, accused of leaking thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, has been highly opaque. It will gain a bit of transparency at a public legal hearing scheduled for today. (Politico)
Government
  • The Chairman of the Office of Congressional Ethics, Porter Goss, recused himself from the post because his son is running for Congress in Florida. He will remain on the board, but will not be involved in any investigative activities. (National Journal)
  • The joint House and Senate 2012 appropriations bill released yesterday restores some funding to the E-Gov fund and ensures that it's budget will be independent from that of the Citizen Services Fund. (Nextgov)
  • The Justice Department has recovered nearly $7 in fraud for every dollar it has spent on health care enforcement over the past three years. It also recovered more than $5.6 billion in criminal and civil fraud in the past year. (POGO)
International
  • The British Lord Chief Justice issued guidance that will allow journalists in England and Wales to tweet from court. Previously, reporters had to make an application to the individual judge overseeing a case. (BBC)

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Name Standardization: Problems and a Solution

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Name standardization, on its surface, would appear to be a primarily aesthetic problem (no pun intended). People's names can be listed "last, first" or "first last". Simple, right? Not exactly. When you're naming different things— people vs. organizations, for instance— and dealing with different ordering, capitalization styles, honorifics, suffixes, metadata or other additional info embedded in names (e.g. politicial party signifiers, company departments or locations), or just general cruft and typos, name standardization is a thorny problem. Add to that the fact that there are no universal identifiers for people or companies in many datasets, names rarely (if ever) come split into their constituent parts, and we are often expected to link data via little more than a name string, and you can see how relevant the issue is to the world of open government data.

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2Day in #OpenGov 12/15/2011

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Here is Thursday's look at transparency-related news items, congressional committee hearings, transparency-related bills introduced in Congress, and transparency-related events. News Roundup:

Campaign Finance
  • Reform groups renewed their request for the IRS to investigate if nonprofits that spend millions on political activities are eligible for their tax-exempt status. In a letter, the groups called out organizations including Americans Elect and Crossroads GPS. (Roll Call $)
  • A new report from POGO and CRP found that companies involved in the Joint Strike Fighter program contributed almost twice as much money to lawmakers who joined the newly-formed Joint Strike Fighter Caucus than they did to other lawmakers. (Government Executive)
  • The DCCC has charted an aggressive fundraising course heading into 2012. They recently erased $19 million in debt and are almost debt free as they prepare to spend on 2012 races. (Politico)
Government
  • A small language change in the defense bill sparked a large lobbying battle this week. The edit, backed by Florida lawmakers and lobbyists for Odyssey Marine Explorations, would have made it easier for the company to claim $500 million worth of treasure from a shipwreck. The Spanish government and the Obama administration opposed the language and it was eventually removed. (Washington Post)
  • Code for America got a $1.5 million grant from Google to continue their efforts at making governments work better for people. (Government Technology)
State and Local
  • California's online campaign finance database has been offline for the past two weeks and the Secretary of State doesn't know when it will be back up. (Lobby Comply)
  • A Missouri State Representative introduced a wide ranging ethics bill that would ban lobbyist gifts, strictly limit campaign contributions, and prohibit legislators from working as political consultants. (Lobby Comply)

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