Catherine Holahan, writing at BusinessWeek, published a story last week on how the various presidential candidates are having tremendous success at attracting contributions from small donors, those who make gifts of less than $200. The campaigns are tapping blogs, e-mails, social networks, YouTube videos, and their own Web sites to reach into the hearts and pockets of new contributors. This year's campaigns are receiving more small donations than the campaigns in previous elections, according to the Campaign Finance Institute.
However, this year's candidates are also receiving more large money donations than ever before. And apparently the ratio of large donors to those who give $200 or less has remained relatively the same as in prior elections. So you have to wonder about the 'new' conventional wisdom that large donors means less to the candidates this year as a result of the influe of small money, and that some how the campaign finance system that allows the big donors to get their hooks into the candidates is less awful than its ever been because of the influx of small money.
Continue readingOmidyar Network Invests $2M in Sunlight
Sunlight is extremely happy to formally announce today an investment of $2 million from Omidyar Network, a mission-based organization established by Pam and Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay. This is the second such grant Sunlight received from Omidyar Network.
Omidyar Network's investment will support Sunlight's operations and grant-making to organizations that create "Web 2.0" tools that make information about the workings of Congress and the influence of money in politics more accessible to citizens. Since our founding in 2006, Sunlight has awarded more than $3.1 million to organizations who use the Internet to make Congress more open and accountable to the public. Read the full press release here.
We are also pleased to formally announce that Lawrence Lessig, renowned expert in intellectual property and Stanford University Law Professor, has joined our Advisory Board.
Round and Round They Go
Earlier this week, CorpWatch published a fascinating article by investigative journalist Tim Shorrock on a new and rapidly growing side of the military-industrial complex: space-age, technology-driven intelligence capabilities. The article centers on Steven Cambone, a former high-raking official in the U.S. Department of Defense now turned defense contractor, and how he personifies the world of high tech intelligence gathering where the distinctions between private industry and government are increasingly virtual.
Cambone has been a longtime associate of Donald Rumsfeld , under whose tenure he served as the Pentagon's top intelligence officer. In March 2003, he became the first Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. It was in this role that he and Rumsfeld succeeded at transforming the Pentagon's acquisitions away from the traditional large weapon systems like aircraft carriers "and radically increased its purchases of space-age war technologies such as communication systems, sensors, robots, low-flying satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles," Shorrock writes. When Rumsfeld stepped down in late 2006, Cambone followed soon after. He landed as vice president for strategy with QinetiQ North America, a British-owned, defense-intelligence contractor that specializes in just the type of whiz-bang gadgets and systems he and Rumsfeld placed in the Pentagon's shopping cart.
Continue readingWidget Week
Earlier this week we talked about all the cool new applications over at OpenCongress.org (which are really taking off), and today we're delighted to tell you that MAPLight.org has produced some new widgets that allow you to track fundraising for over 1,500 congressional candidates. These widgets are perfect for blogs, social networking pages, and personal Web sites, and they are completely customizable according to the candidates you are interested in.
The congressional money race widgets follow MAPLight.org's August release of presidential money race widgets that allow users to track funds raised by presidential candidates.
Continue readingtheinfo
A new site we'll be watching has been launched by Aaron Swartz, called theinfo.org. Aiming to connect data wranglers of all sorts to each others' complementary skills, he breaks data management into three areas, labeled "get", "process", and "view". As someone passionate about collaborative potential, I enjoy reading this: "We've all been helping to build a Web of data for years now. It's time we acknowledge that and start doing it together."
Many of the Sunlight Foundation's projects are built on scraped, processed, and re-presented data, giving new life to stale, siloed, or simply unavailable public information. Collaboration around the technical aspects of these pursuits is always a welcome development.
Library of Congress on Flickr
You should proceed as soon as possible to check out the Library of Congress's page on flickr, as announced this morning.
It's an awesome collection of about 3,000 images, of the quality you'd expect from the world's largest library. It's wonderful to see them available the same way we expect to share images with each other, sort of making history less of something living in a museum, and more of something available, relevant, and even sorted through tags.
If you're like me, you're likely to do nothing else for the next hour or two...
Continue readingNew Boss Same as the Old Boss
A "two-fer" is how U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) termed his $6 million earmark for a defense contractor in his home state. He placed the earmark in a defense appropriations bill that became law in November. Despite not being requested by the Department of Defense, the funds are going for unmanned military aircraft research and development. John Pruett at POGO's blog called it "Wicker's Unmanned Aerial Pork." By terming it a two-fer, Wicker was bragging how his actions accomplished the duel goals of supporting national defense and job-creation back home. What he didn't say is that his top campaign contributor was being rewarded handsomely in the deal as well. That's the real "two-fer."
Continue readingIndian Gambling Scandal Redux?
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported recently about a curious case involving four California Indian gambling interests and how they obtained federal approval for a major and lucrative expansion of their operations. The paper described the incident a "major embarrassment" for the U.S. Department of the Interior and a "potential scandal unfolding from within."
Four tribes had been pushing legislation in the California state legislature to ratify a major expansion of their gaming operations. Specifically, they are hoping to gain approval to increase dramatically the number of slot machines at their casinos, constituting "one of the largest gambling expansions in state history," according to The Union-Tribune. It would also make the casinos some of the largest in the country, and the tribes would be looking at huge future profits. A group of gambling opponents, No on the Unfair Gambling Deals, filed an initiative that is forcing a February 5th statewide vote that if passes will nullify legislation that ratified the agreements. In September, despite the pending referendum, California's secretary of state, saying that state law requires it, sent the agreements via Federal Express to the Interior Department for approval.
And this is where it gets really interesting.
Continue readingThe Face of Corruption
Matt Stoller at Open Left reveals what the face of corruption looks like: an invitation to a fundraising dinner. (They better be standing while they eat.) It's truly amazing that Verizon has a Good Government Committee. That goes above and beyond all the necessary trappings of traditional Orwellian naming conventions.
New Insanely Useful P2P Features from OpenCongress.org
With Congress returning to start a new session, our friends at OpenCongress – a project of the Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation – are making it easier than ever to track and rate what’s happening on Capitol Hill and organize support for the legislation and issues you care about.
It has never been easier to track and now rate what’s happening in your government. And it’s never been easier to meet friends and organize support for the legislation and issues you care about.
We’re very excited to unveil My OpenCongress – the first-ever social network designed for people who care about Congress. This is very cool: My OpenCongress provides a personalized view of all the information you want about the laws being made in Washington. It’s an easy-to-use, peer-to-peer way of sharing the most useful information about Congress, perfect for bloggers and membership groups. And if you want to organize a call-in day to let Congress know what you think, you can easily get in touch with other constituents in your district and mobilize your wider friends network.
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