The National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC)is an organization that “protects the public's right to oversee its government.” The NFOIC is made up of member organzations, that advocate for state level open records and first amendment laws. They have members in forty four states.
These organizations are all different some of them are run out of journalism schools while others are non profits that are coalitions of concerned citizens and journalists. They either focus on first amendment rights or open records. They tend to be places where people can find what should by available, host seminars, litigate when necessary, and educate the public on what they have a right to know.
It’s great to see so many organizations working toward more openness in government at all levels.
Continue readingBonner earmark #10
Rep. Jo Bonner and Sen. Richard Shelby joined President George W. Bush in requesting an earmark for the Mobile Tensaw Delta; the final value of the earmark, in the Interior, Environment, and related agencies appropriations bill, was $1,969,000.
It doesn't appear that the State of Alabama or the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources lobbied for the earmark.
Continue readingTed Stevens Explains Earmarks
Noted without comment. This is Part I of Stevens' PR offensive against the anti-earmark brigades. You can check out Parts II and III at his Web site. The rest is in the extended entry:
LegiStorm Posts Staffer Personal Financial Disclosures
LegiStorm - an insanely useful site of congressional information including staffer salaries and other disclosures - has, for the first time, posted PDFs of the personal financial disclosures that some staffers are required to file. For every member of Congress, at least one staffer must file a personal financial disclosure. If a staffer is making the maximum pay, as some chiefs of staff do, they must file a disclosure. Staffers hold a lot of power on Capitol Hill and are often overlooked as recipients of undue influence from outside groups. LegiStorm notes this in their press release:
Continue readingMost disclosures are relatively mundane and appear to demonstrate those staffers have no discernible potential conflicts of interest, Friedly said. However, hundreds of staffer disclosures reveal ties to interest groups and lobbying firms, either as a past job, a spouse's work or a future employment agreement. Others reveal lucrative side jobs, adding as much as $100,000 or more to their federal pay.
Trent Lott: I’m Not Under Investigation
Last week, the Wall Street Journal wrote an exclusive article (I blogged about it here) detailing that a federal investigation into Mississippi lawyer Richard "Dickie" Scruggs' bribery of local judges had expanded to include former Senator and revolving door operator Trent Lott. The Sun Herald reports today that Lott denies being under investigation and that he has simply been interviewed as a potential witness:
"I may be called as a witness," Lott said, "but I've been assured that I'm not under investigation, and rightly so because nothing was done to justify that."
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Bonner earmark #9
In the Transportation and Housing & Urban Development appropriations bill, Rep. Jo Bonner joined Sen. Jeff Sessions in securing a $735,000 earmark for the Mobile Downtown Airport for ramp rehabilitation and drain repair.
The Mobile Regional Airport Authority employed Van Scoyoc Associates to lobby Congress; according to page two of their 2007 mid-year report, Van Scoyoc lobbied on the "Transportation, Treasury, Housing & Urban Development..." appropriations, including "airport infrastructure and service issues."
As noted in this post, the employees and the PAC of Van Scoyoc Associates have contributed $18,736 to Bonner's campaigns since 2002.
Continue readingBonner earmark #8
Rep. Jo Bonner joined Sen. Richard Shelby in securing $470,000 in the Commerce, Justice & Science appropriations bill for the Mobile County Commission to acquire interoperable communications systems.
The Mobile County Commission had Washington representation -- the lobbying firm Van Scoyoc Associates. They lobbied on the "Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, FY 2008," according to page 3 of this disclosure report.
Van Scoyoc employees have contributed $16,250 to Rep. Bonner's campaigns between April 2002 and November 2007, according to Open Secrets. Van Scoyoc also has a PAC, which contributed an additional $1,472 in 2006 and ...
Continue readingBonner Earmark #7
In the Labor, Department of Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill, Rep. Jo Bonner secured a $199,000 earmark for the Fairhope Center for the Arts in Bay Minette, Ala., for arts education programs, including purchase of equipment. The Fairhope Center for the Arts doesn't seem to have hired a federal lobbyist. The organization forms 990 aren't available on Guidestar.org, so I wasn't able to double check the numbers.
I also looked up the city of Bay Minette--they had a lobbyist in 2004 but none more recently.
Sen. Richard Shelby co-sponsored the earmark.
Continue readingNew York Times Opens Archives Online
Update: For some reason it appears the Times has pulled this awesome research tool. I'll try to find out why.
The New York Times launched an amazing research tool, creating a great online browser for all their content from 1851-1922. The Times is also offering the data in API so that, if you can, you can create your own browser. The Times blog says:
"As part of eliminating TimeSelect, The New York Times has decided to make all the public domain articles from 1851-1922 available free of charge. These articles are all in the form of images scanned from the original paper. In fact from 1851-1980, all 11 million articles are available as images in PDF format. To generate a PDF version of the article takes quite a bit of work — each article is actually composed of numerous smaller TIFF images that need to be scaled and glued together in a coherent fashion."
If you do research - or are in any way in need of scanning the 1855 adverts for local New York haberdashers - this is not to be missed. Check out the TimesMachine. (There might be some kind of server problems right now.)
The article to the left references a large scale congressional investigation into lobbyist actions in an attempt to block President Woodrow Wilson's tariff bill, a key element of his New Freedom agenda. The investigation sought to discover if Senators had been bribed or received undue influence from these lobbyists and ultimately required every sitting Senator to testify to their personal finances, campaign contritbutions, and relationships with lobbyists and other company agents. This amounted to the first full disclosure by members of Congress in regards to the personal finances, their campaign contributors, and the nature of the lobby. A first for transparency in Congress.
State Transparency Roundup
While we work on more transparency for Congress it's important to note that federal efforts for openness can have a positive effect on state government. On the flip side the states can take the lead on disclosure or they can be less open this makes them great places to see how transparency is valued. Let’s see what the states are up to:
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