Dave Wenhold of American League of Lobbyists says ban on lobbyists on advisory boards could trigger a wave of lobbyist... View Article
Continue readingPublic Loves Transparency
While the country remains divided over major issues, there is one issue that the public can agree on: transparency. A... View Article
Continue readingSCOTUSBlog Interview about Sunlight’s Supreme Court Website Redesign
SCOTUSblog, a blog about the U.S. Supreme Court, published an interview with me on Sunlight’s proposed website redesign for the... View Article
Continue readingHidden ‘Bundles’ of Lobbyist Giving Show Full Court Press by Health Care Donors
Sunlight and the Center for Responsive Politics have teamed up on a collaborative investigative project that shows never-before-seen “contribution clusters”... View Article
Continue readingRevealing the “Hidden Budget”
Our colleagues at The Pew Charitable Trusts, with whom we collaborate on Subsidyscope, have produced a nine-page overview of federal subsidies -- the "hidden budget" -- that's worth a read.
The paper is packed with interesting data and useful context. For instance:
*In 2007, the federal government subsidized about $874 billion of the nation's health care.
*The first known U.S. subsidy -- which gave fishermen five cents for every barrel of pickled fish they exported -- dates to 1789.
*From 1974 to 2004, the amount of revenue lost to the government due to tax breaks tripled, from $240 billion to $730 ...
Continue readingHearing on Contractor Database Transparency
If you’ve ever tried to research federal contracts you’ll find that the databases used to house those contracts online are... View Article
Continue readingData Commons Matchbox
Earlier this year we started on the Data Commons, a project to merge open government data sets to make them more searchable and usable. Our goal for the initial release is to load state and federal campaign contribution data from The Center for Responsive Politics and The National Institute for Money in State Politics. Along with the raw transactional records, we will be taking the additional step of matching the entities (people, organizations, corporations, etc.) across the data sets. We'll have more posts soon with details about the Data Commons.
To assist us in this effort, we are developing Matchbox, a toolkit for the merging and matching of entities. We have big plans for Matchbox, but want to get feedback from the community as we improve it over the next few months.
Continue readingHigh Noon Links
Former Rep. John Doolittle and his wife were named as unindicted co-conspirators in court filings in the Kevin Ring trial.... View Article
Continue readingSenate Finance Committee Public Option Vote and Campaign Contribution Ratios
In the continuing health care debate the public option remains as the key puzzle piece in the Democrats’ health care... View Article
Continue readingSunlight Labs is Hiring!
Sunlight Labs is looking for talented people to fill two open job positions: Graphic/Web Designer and Data Visualizer. Check out our job descriptions below and apply or spread the word.
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