In 2009, lobbying, public relations and other firms that represent some 328 clients —foreign governments, political parties and government-controlled entities including some for-profit corporations—reported receiving more than $60 million in fees—down by about $25 million from the total in the previous year, an analysis of disclosures required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) shows. The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group has digitized and made searchable data from FARA disclosures.
While some countries continued their lobbying efforts from previous years, including a group of African nations working towards receiving better trade benefits, others pushed for earmarks or attempted to ...
Continue readingCoups, nuclear deals and Gitmo detainees featured in 2009 FARA filings
Denounced by their Latin American neighbors, the Obama administration and world opinion following the removal from power and immediate exile of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, the acting Honduran government turned to Washington lobbyists to launch a media and lobbying campaign on Sept. 19, 2009, to regain legitimacy in the United States.
Two months earlier, President Manuel Zelaya, who was democratically elected, was deported after the country’s Supreme Court endorsed a lower court order finding a referendum Zelaya called for would violate the country’s constitution. The Supreme Court ordered the military to remove Zelaya, and Roberto Micheletti, the next ...
Continue readingTools for Transparency: GovSM
For the next month, we’ll be hosting special guest bloggers for our Tools for Transparency series. Today we introduce Josh Shpayher, founder of GovSM.com, a wiki website that keeps track of all the social media accounts of government, from congressional representatives to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. GovSM believes that having a comprehensive catalogue of all the governmental use of social media will help government and the open gov community learn more about and improve their own social media practices to benefit their constituencies. By now, we’ve all heard about the social media wave and most of us have heard about Gov2.0 and governmental use (or their feeble attempts to use) social media. Though there have been many discussions amongst “good gov” people about government officials’ best practices for using social media, what has been lacking is a clearly defined method of determining how a government office or official can use social media to benefit their constituents. If a system of rating social media use can be widely circulated (similar to Golden Mouse rankings of congressional websites), I believe that the quality of government use of social media will rise dramatically.
Continue readingIntroducing Briefing Book
At Sunlight, we spend a lot of time following the money in an attempt to measure influence in the legislative process. While we obviously believe in the benefit of shining a light on these connections, the truth is that it's only part of the story. With our next experiment, a briefing book application, we aim to provide citizens with access to research and opinions that influence legislation currently under consideration by Congress.
Continue readingSunlight’s Political Action Committee (PAC) Name Generator
American Freedom. Patriots for Truth. Citizens for a Brighter Future. The Alliance for Children & Families. Champions of American Freedom. Common Sense in America. These names are so agreeable, so reasonable, so inclusive, so damned American.
Continue readingSunlight Blogger Round-up: Utah Transparency Report Card
The quest for "Sunshine" is not a one time venture. Indeed the summary of the blog posts below shows that the journey may begin with citizens questioning the activities of public officials as is the case with Hawaii's Ryan Kawailani Ozawa who probes the state's selective publication of government employee salaries. But it certainly does not end at initiating ways to boost transparency even with innovative tools such as websites. Instead, we see that constant evaluation and assessment of these tools provide room for improvement and help us determine what worked and what didn't just as Utah's transparency report demonstrates.
Continue readingFederal Reserve releases financial crisis data sets
The Federal Reserve released a series of key data sets today as required under the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The... View Article
Continue readingOrszag to Citigroup?
Bloomberg.com is reporting that Peter Orszag, formerly director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama administration, is in talks with Citigroup to join its investment banking division. Orszag wouldn't be the first former government official to land at Citigroup, as our friends at the Center for Responsive Politics show.
The Bloomberg article makes for interesting Poligraft fodder.
Continue readingTwo groups file as Super PACs
The mid-term elections are over and the 2012 contest is 23 months away, but the independent groups that played an outsized role in the former are already gearing up for the next contest. Protecting America's Retirees and America's Next Generation filed letters last month with the Federal Election Commission declaring their intent to take unlimited contributions from any source.
Protecting America's Retirees, which an AFL-CIO blog post identifies as an "independent project of the Alliance for Retired Americans," disclosed modest expenditures of $157,000 in the midterms aimed at six House races, backing the winner in three ...
Continue readingThe Decline of Private Laws
Sunlight's Policy Intern, Melanie Buck, wrote the following article.
Because of a quirk in the law, Adela Bailor was ineligible for compensation for the brutal attack she suffered at the hands of a felon in federal custody. A court concluded that it had no power to hold the government responsible for her attack, even while noting her case “raise[d] serious questions about the moral responsibility of the government to protect its citizens.” In its opinion, the court suggested that she had one last resort: Congress.
Congress has the power to enact “private laws,” a type of legislation narrowly targeted to provide benefits to specifically identified individuals (including corporate bodies) when “no other remedy is available.” Claims of ill treatment and unfair circumstances have prompted many of the 107 proposed private laws currently pending in Congress.
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