I'm glad to have just found the archive of old Web sites from members of Congress, maintained by the Center for Legislative Archives under the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). (more after the jump.)
Continue readingAnd the Biggest Winners of Earmarks Are . . . .
The top-two ranking GOP members of the Senate Appropriations Committee have secured more money in earmarks than all other individual members of Congress. The Hill, reporting on earmark data compiled by Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS), found that Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) nabbed $744 million and $502 million in earmarks respectfully. Since losing control of Congress, the GOP share of funds set aside for special projects have been cut by almost a third, yet these two Senators kept for themselves huge shares. As the paper quotes a Senate Republican aide, the two senators are "not only the kings of pork, they're outright hogs."
Democrats share access to earmarks more equitably among its members.
Continue readingSenators of Ill Repute
MyDD has a review of Senators who've come under scrutiny for questionnable activity, and wonders what's become of the so-called Senate Ethics Committee. So do we.
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Bibliographic Control, Agile Government
I found this post from the Library of Congress blog yesterday, and it has me thinking about a bunch of other things I've been intending to write about.
Continue readingUS Chamber of Commerce, Advocacy and the Internet
I had the pleasure this morning of speaking at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for a panel on Innovative Advocacy (cohosted by Adfero).
While much of the discussion centered on best practices and ideas around (what seemed to me to be) more traditional advocacy, I tried to add some of my thoughts on what might make for more effective non-traditional advocacy and outreach. Speaking in public is always useful exercise for me, and, as is often the case, my thoughts are better organized after speaking than before.
FedSpending.org’s First Anniversary
Sunlight grantee OMB Watch is celebrating the first anniversary of their FedSpending.org, a searchable database of almost $17 trillion in federal spending. It's been a big hit, and we want to congratulate our colleagues at OMB Watch for their success. FedSpending.org is a perfect example of transparency in action. It has complete federal government annual data from FY 2000 through FY 2006, and partial data available for FY 2007. It has become the standard for online disclosure of government contracts and grants. For citizens and patriots, snoops, muckrakers, and journalists its become a must. What a service! Coinciding with the anniversary, OMB Watch is releasing new, improved, and even more powerful features of the database. They also have made what they call "major functionality improvements," that includes a "mapping feature on all searches," a "SuperSearch" function for all advanced searching, and other user-friendly functions. With the new features, it appears they are closing in on a warp drive for governmental research and transparency.
Continue readingThe Good Guys Win One for Transparency
Yes! A U.S. district judge is forcing the feds to make public the lobbying records of telecom companies regarding the congressional debate over amnesty in the electronic surveillance legislation. The victory was won by our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who had made the case that the public has the right to full disclosure before Congress decides on the pending telecom amnesty proposals. In addition to the good news above, the judge ruled that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) must make the records public for a December 10 deadline. Yea, again. Timeliness is important when it comes to disclosure. This means that the disclosures will have a role in the ongoing congressional debate. So far, the House and the Senate committees dealing with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) have not yet let the telecom companies off the hook for the illegal spying on American citizens, despite a furious lobbying campaign by the administration and the industry.
Last month, EFF filed suit against the ODNI, demanding any information about telecommunications companies' lobbying efforts. "(The judge) agreed that the Administration is dragging its feet in making relevant information available and stressed that the public has a right to full disclosure before Congress acts on the pending telecom amnesty proposals," said EFF's senior counsel in a press release. "The court's order confirms our belief that aggressive use of the Freedom of Information Act is needed to challenge government secrecy."
Continue readingOpen House Project Updates
The following is an update of what I've been up to recently, in several different areas...
Continue readingChamber and NAM Fight Disclosure
Mother Jones' MoJo Blog and The Hill report on how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers are questioning the lobbying disclosure rules in the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007. (The law requires any organization actively participating "in the planning, supervision, or control" of lobbying efforts that ponies up more than $5,000 in a quarter to disclose their activities and expenditures.)
The trade groups say that the new rules violate constitutional protections of freedom of association by forcing them to open up their membership lists. So they sent a letter to the Senate secretary and the House clerk asking for a clarification in how it will be applied, charging that the law is vague and broad. Also, the fact the law imposes criminal penalties on groups that fail to accurately disclose their lobby efforts got their attention. "The price for being wrong is extremely high," said the Chamber's top legal officer as quoted by The Hill.
Continue readingNewsTrust Gets MacArthur Foundation Grant
Congratulations to Sunlight grantee NewsTrust.net. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awarded the ‘Web 2.0' news review service a hefty multi-year grant. The goal of NewsTrust.net is to help citizens find and evaluate good journalism online. Fabrice Florin, a former executive at Apple and Macromedia, founded NewsTrust.net as a response to the explosion of web-based media outlets.
Media consolidation and growing distrust of mainstream media are creating "a range of problems for democracy," Florin said in a press release released today, "(including) information overload, misinformation, mistrust and civic apathy." NewsTrust.net provides tools that allow users to filter news, evaluate news stories and reporting, and share stories with other users. The site's focus is on the quality of reporting, not popularity. The whole idea is to help citizens stay informed and engaged in the democratic process. This is a very exciting moment for the good people there. Congrats to them!
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