Has Maxine Waters found a way around the Federal Election Campaign Act?
My colleague Lindsay Young reports on what appears to be a unique fundraising strategy employed by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.... View Article
Continue readingMaxine Waters exploits FEC rules to raise big bucks from California politicians
Longtime Democratic lawmaker Maxine Waters has perfected an unusual tactic for fundraising over the years – getting candidates, including some of California’s most prominent political figures, running for state and local offices, to pay as much as $45,000 for her endorsement on election mailers. In this election cycle alone, Waters has raised 59 percent of her campaign’s treasury through these “slate mailers.”
The Los Angeles-area representative, who faces ethics charges in the House for intervening on behalf of a bank in which her husband had invested heavily, has found a way to take large sums of money from ...
Statelight: Transparency in a Box, Pt. 3
As we set the stage for advocating on local and state transparency issues and highlight some policies issues of note,... View Article
Continue readingStates of Transparency: Colorado
The Open Government
Directive encouraged states to put valuable government data online. In this series we're reviewing each state's efforts in this direction.
This week: Colorado
Website: www.tops.state.co.us
File this under "Valiant attempts." When the state of Colorado created the government spending website TOPS (Transparency Online Project) in the fall of 2009, officials dutifully made every piece of data on the site downloadable. Unfortunately, while the idea is laudable, the execution is a little weak. The data is in XML format -- a handy format for computer programmers -- but isn't structured well enough to ...
Florida Senate candidate stands to benefit from Citizens United
Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek of Florida is seeking to move congressional offices and grab his state’s senate seat, and if he wins this Tuesday’s primary, he’ll be one step closer. In an effort to make that happen, an independent group has come to the aid of Meek’s modestly-financed campaign—relative to his competitors—and has spent $245,000 placing ads to discredit his opposition, specifically Jeff Greene, a wealthy businessman who has self-financed his run for office.
The large amount of money dedicated to running ads is keeping with what is happening in other parts of ...
Tools for Transparency: Live Streaming to the Web
For many, the “live web” was a meaningless concept until the aftermath of the 2009 Iranian presidential election when protesters... View Article
Continue readingMinnesota disclosure rules work, Target’s contribution revealed
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What’s in a name?
It’s getting towards the end of summer and we’re getting a little silly here at Sunlight. The news is full... View Article
Continue readingStatelight: Transparency in a Box, Pt. 2
As Nicole wrote last week, we’re digging into state level transparency, in order to share what we know, and to... View Article
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