This morning, the Supreme Court issued an opinion in the major campaign finance and transparency case Citizens United. We are... View Article
Continue readingTime Running Short to Meet First OGD Deadlines
Executive branch departments and agencies are under tight deadlines to comply with President Obama’s high-profile Open Government Directive [PDF], with... View Article
Continue readingThe Irony and the Solution of Lobbying Disclosures
If you read Monday’s New York Times story about how many lobbyists are de-registering in the face of new filing... View Article
Continue reading48 hours = six days?
Disclosure of campaign contributions and expenditures hold candidates accountable -- but after the votes are in, it's often too late for the scrutiny of watchdogs (and opponents) to make a difference. That's why in addition to quarterly reports, candidates must report large contributions made in the final days of the campaign within 48 hours of receiving them.
In the Massachusetts special Senate election, Martha Coakley and Scott Brown were required to file reports for contributions larger than $1,000 between December 31 through January 16. As of today, January 20, however, the most recent contributions available were made on ...
How to Manage Large Volunteer Hackathons
Here at Sunlight, we've handled lots of hackathons for the developer community-- especially around Open Government. Some have been productive, some have not. By now, I think we've gotten it down to a particularly good set of principles and ideas to share. Below is a collection of those ideas that will help you run your event more smoothly, and hopefully get the most out of your event.
Remember: hackathons are not social engagements or consensus driven activities. They're about doing work. Habitat for Humanity, for instance, doesn't get bunches of people together to talk about how they should build a house at the beginning of the day. They identify skillsets and put people to work as quickly as possible, often times before the volunteer event starts, and have a plan for what roles people can play before they get there.
Your attendees will show up eager to work, and more than likely they've sacrificed some of their time so that they could feel useful. It is your job to make them leave there feeling useful. That means being able to put them directly to work. That means:
Continue readingEvening Links
1) Arthur Delaney does a good job explaining lobbyist deregistrations. 2) Sen. John Ensign’s love affair and subsequent pay-off, cover-up... View Article
Continue readingEvaluating /Open pages
Right now, we're focused on one thing: watching agencies put up their /Open page. We built a little tool that allows us to check in with each agency daily and notify us when it is up. When we put it up, agencies like the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Agriculture quickly put up placeholder pages to get a green check-box next to their name. Silly.
The point of the Open Tracker not to evaluate, it's to let us know when we can start evaluating and to encourage federal agencies to meet the deadline they're directed to meet.
Continue readingCrisisCamp DC Wrapup
While Haitian relief isn't core to Sunlight's mission, we decided it was OK to step out of bounds for a weekend to help out. This weekend, we saw around 150 people show up in our small office space and quickly get to work. To read about the projects that were worked on and where they're at, check out CrisisCommons.org.
The media picked up on it quite a bit-- getting across the point we've been driving at for over a year now: Developers have skills that can help all kinds of volunteer efforts, and they're willing to help out. Check out the story that American Public Media's Marketplace radio ran: Devising aid programs on their laptops.
We got a lot accomplished-- through a very driven and regimented development routine, 10 projects got strong starts, though the work isn't through yet. There's still so much to do and room for lots of your participation. So if you're free this weekend, consider contributing some of your time to one of the great projects at CrisisCommons.org.
Continue readingThe Little Things We Take For Granted
So, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer announced that they were going to place the final health care bill online for... View Article
Continue readingCivic Hackers for Haiti
The systems and information infrastructure that the entire network of relief requires for a place like Haiti, however, is also something that often needs building and supporting in times of disaster, and "civic hackers" as we often refer to them are answering the call.
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