As stated in the note from the Sunlight Foundation′s Board Chair, as of September 2020 the Sunlight Foundation is no longer active. This site is maintained as a static archive only.

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Congress’ family business, John Murtha edition

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From the Washington Post:

The headquarters of Murtech, in a low-slung, bland building in a Glen Burnie business park, has its blinds drawn tight and few signs of life. On several days of visits, a handful of cars sit in the parking lot, and no trucks arrive at the 10 loading bays at the back of the building.

Yet last year, Murtech received $4 million in Pentagon work, all of it without competition, for a variety of warehousing and engineering services. With its long corridor of sparsely occupied offices and an unmanned reception area, Murtech's most striking feature is ...

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Roll Call makes PMA Group articles available online

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In conjunction with the appearance of Paul Singer on C-Span's Washington Journal this morning (his bit starts about 1:03:30 in on the video), Roll Call has put online its amazing body of work tracking the PMA Group, the defunct lobbying firm under federal investigation that, along with its clients, provided oodles of campaign cash to more than 100 members of the House while securing hundreds of millions in earmarks for its clients.

Of all the stories there, this one, from March 17, still strikes me as the most interesting:

...top PMA officials also had financial stakes in ...

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Congress’ family business, Chris Dodd edition

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Edmund H. Mahony and Jon Lender of the the Hartford Courant report on Sen. Christopher Dodd's wife:

Since the low-profile family wedding on a rise above the Connecticut River in 1999, Jackie M. Clegg Dodd's income has quadrupled to the mid-six-figure range. All of the increase is due to her appointment as a highly compensated member of multiple corporate boards of directors.

Clegg Dodd, a former legislative aide and senior federal Export-Import Bank officer, was compensated at a rate of about $500,000 a year in 2007 and 2008 from seats on five corporate boards, according to the ...

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Shameless Plug: Beautiful Data

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O'Reilly is publishing a new book entitled Beautiful Data that you should buy. Why?



  1. The two authors of the book, Jeff Hammerbacher and Toby Segaran are really great people. It looks like a great book.

  2. Half the proceeds of the book go to us here at the Sunlight Foundation. The other half goes to another great organization, Creative Commons

    3. So buy the book and give us some much needed support so that we can continue liberating data and shining light in some of the darkest corners of Washington, DC. I'll sweeten the pot, too: If you're one of the first five people to buy the book and send me a picture of you with the book in your hands, I'll send you some very rare Sunlight Foundation/Labs stickers along with a very appreciative thank-you note.

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Specter, unions & Blank Rome LLP

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Just a thought about Sen. Arlen Specter's shift to the Democratic party:

In March, Specter withdrew support from the Employee Free Choice Act, the controversial "card check" bill which many labor unions list as their top legislative priority (he was the only Republican in the Senate to support the bill in a cloture vote in the last Congress, according to this newsletter from Blank Rome LLP--more on them in a moment). In his party-switching statement, Specter pointedly referred to his opposition to card check as an example of his ongoing independence.

Ron Moore, writing at a labor union site ...

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