Recent updates to the Sunlight API data.
Continue readingEven the FEC Deserves Better
It looks like a leading champion of "voter integrity" (read "voter suppression") and the Bush Administration's chief operative on voting rights, Hans von Spakovsky, will survive the Senate confirmation process, and will be confirmed as an FEC Commissioner. The Senate Rules Committee was considering four appointments, three noncontroversial nominees as well as the highly problematic Spakovsky. The fight over Spakovsky's nomination bottled up the process for 18 months, with Sen. Mitch McConnell blocking a vote (he certainly makes a habit of that!) on the other three FEC nominees until von Spakovsky was considered as well. Spakovsky would likely survive a vote on the four collectively, but his chances to prevail on speparate votes is not good. It appears McConnell has prevailed. On Wednesday, the Rules Committee advanced the four nominations to the Senate floor for a vote without the committee's approval or disapproval. Rules Committee Chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein said it was "doubtful" there'd be a chance that the votes would be taken separately.
Continue readingEnsign Refuses to Yield, Admits Working With McConnell
Sen. John Ensign continues to transparently block the electronic filing bill by refusing to back down from a ridiculous amendment requiring outside groups filing ethics complaints to reveal their funding sources. In stating his refusal to yield Ensign also admitted that he is working with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the author of this absurd amendment, to block passage of the electronic filing bill. The Hill reports, "Ensign added that he consulted with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) before deciding on his strategy, deeming the push for the amendment 'something we did together … we discussed it. I felt it was a good idea for me to do it.'" (Emphasis added.) McConnell has stated previously, including in the last few days, that he supports the electronic filing bill. It appears that he is being far less than honest.
Ensign and McConnell should do the senatorial thing and step out of the way as Sen. Bob Bennett did when he tried to offer a poison pill amendment. Rules Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein has offered Ensign a fair hearing in her committee on his amendment in exchange for dropping his objection to electronic filing. It's time for Ensign and McConnell to stop blocking transparency legislation.
Continue readingKML in Google Maps
We came across Rep. Tom Reynolds' (NY-26) google map of his earmarks a little while ago, and it appears that someone really went above and beyond in showing info about the district. Frankly, I’m completely unfamiliar with the issues or politics of this district, and I don’t even know if this is a comprehensive list of directed spending or just a few of their favorites, but this is pretty compelling stuff (keep going, though. it gets better.) :
Continue reading
Presidential Records In the Dark
It's interesting to watch what happens in Congress when "because that's the way we've always done it" no longer becomes an option. For years, Senators have put secret holds on bills they wanted to block. These anonymous objections have been used by both parties to bring to a screeching halt legislation that has the support of a majority of the Members. Sunlight has long-championed putting that tired tradition to rest. A provision we lobbied for in the recently-enacted Honest Leadership and Open Government Act does that, more or less, by requiring Senators to come clean about their holds after five days. Ironically, we've seen the results of this provision on two important transparency related measures.
Paul Blumenthal blogged about Senator Ensign's hold on S. 223, the Senate Campaign Finance Disclosure Parity Act, earlier in the week. We have reason to wonder whether the hold was Ensign's doing all along. Similarly, Senator Jim Bunning now has an objection to moving forward with HR 1255, the Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007. The bill would overturn an outrageous Executive Order that would keep presidential records hidden from public view indefinitely.
Continue readingEuropean Transparency
Our comrades-in-arms on the Euro side of the Atlantic have their own transparency advocates and meetups. Here's an interesting one, called Berlin In August.
Continue readingRate of Return: Defense Contractors
A new bill is in the hopper aiming to increase oversight of defense contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sponsored by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va) and 21 Democratic co-sponsors, the "Commission on Wartime Contracting Act" (S. 1825) would create an eight-member panel that would review contracting procedures in the war zones, and report back to Congress on their findings within two years.
If the bill becomes law, the panel will certainly have their job cut out for them -- and not just in detecting waste, fraud and other contract abuses. Many of the contractors are generous political contributors, and have been for years.
How generous? A quick review of the 43 companies that won $1 billion or more in federal contracts during fiscal year 2007 -- most of them defense contractors -- shows they've given more than $117 million in federal campaign contributions since 1990.
Continue readingFeed Blending: Sunlight and Congress
I enjoy modifying structures responsible for the form our awareness takes, that’s one of the reasons I was initially drawn to examine the availability of public information. In making the transition to working full time on transparency advocacy, I spent a great deal of time restructuring my information consumption habits. Politics and government function through a complex information economy, and one’s profile as an information consumer (and creator) can dictate your relevance. Blogs and the Internet only increase this trend, so the information ecosystems we rely on demand more customization and cultivation.
One of the tools I rely on to stay aware is netvibes. Several similar aggregators work basically the same, and I’m accustomed to this one. Feed aggregators’ usefullness is multiplied by services like yahoo pipes, which allow multiple feeds to be combined, or even transformed with basic operations and filters. My favorite pipe is the blended Sunlight Foundation feed, an option on the left side of sunlightfoundation.com, which lets me follow every post from all of the Sunlight Foundation blogs, along with citations from Paul Blumenthal’s Ethics Watch, featuring links to ethics articles, often from the Hill and Roll Call.
Continue readingDigg EarmarkWatch
If you are a digg user, please consider helping us get the word out about our latest tool:
http://digg.com/politics/Citizens_Here_is_your_chance_to_investigate_Congress_Find_The_Pork
Continue readingEnsign Amendment Actually a McConnell Amendment
On Monday, S. 223, the Senate electronic filing bill was blocked for a third time, this time by Sen. John Ensign who offered an amendment that would require outside organizations filing ethics complaints to disclose their funding sources. This non-germane amendment did not originate from Ensign’s offices. Sunlight has learned that last week Democratic offices were given a Unanimous Consent agreement that would have allowed the Senate to move to S. 223 only if they agreed to take up a an amendment identical to the one introduced on Monday by Senator John Ensign. The consent agreement came from none other than the offices of Sen. Mitch McConnell, whom the Sunlight Foundation has targeted as a culprit in covering up the identity of the anonymous Senators previously blocking the bill. That the “McConnell amendment” is now being offered by Senator Ensign comes as no surprise to long time McConnell watchers, who are well aware that when it comes to reform, McConnell is often hiding behind the scenes, pulling all the strings. . The document shows that the effort to block S. 223 originates not from the offices of Sen. Ensign but from the Minority Leader’s office. So, McConnell wasn’t hiding the identity of a fellow senator, he was hiding himself!
Continue reading
59063
