The America Forward PAC's street address (1831 Bay St. SE, Washington, DC -- see here) is the same as that of Evans & Katz LLC, a firm that specializes in campaign finance. They don't list their clients on the site, but I'll give them a call tomorrow to ask who's the leader of the America Forward Leadership PAC (that's the official name on the FEC filing)...
Continue readingUpdate on Penguin PAC
As I noted at Sunlight's main site, the Penguin PAC is indeed Rep. Tim Ryan's leadership PAC.
Continue readingTell Your Congressman to Support the OTA
In 1995 Congress defunded the Office of Technology Assessment, a nonpartisan scientific and technology research arm of Congress. Today, two congressmen are trying to bring it back. Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Rep. Michael Castle (R-DE) need your help to reinstate this important institution in Congress. The OTA would provide nonpartisan research on technology issues ranging from energy independence to net neutrality. Here at Sunlight we are especially excited about the reinstatement of OTA as it would provide members of Congress with assessment of the technology infrastructure within Congress itself. The OTA would also put all of its research online for everyone to access.
On Monday, the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee will hold a markup that will address the OTA. We need you to call your member of Congress and tell them to 1) support the reinstatement of the OTA and 2) to sign the Dear Colleague letter that they received from Reps. Rush Holt and Michael Castle and return it to Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Zach Wamp. When Congress defunded the OTA one of its supporters, Rep. Amo Houghton (R-NY), said, "Members of Congress are deluged with advice from many quarters, but it is often tinged with the underlying bias and political agenda of the bearer. ... We are cutting off one of the most important arms of Congress when we cut off unbiased knowledge about science and technology." It's time to bring back the OTA and unbiased research on science and technology. Call your congressman now!
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Democrats Living Up to Their Pledge
The Politico reports that even when it appears to be against their fundraising interests, the Democrats felt pressured last week to live up to their anti-corruption pledge that swept them into the office in the last election.
"The most important thing for our new members is to be able to go back to their constituents and say they were part of changing the direction in Washington, and that includes holding Congress accountable and holding members accountable," Rep. Van Hollen, DCCC chairman said.
Jeanne Cummings concludes her column by saying:
Continue readingOne Fewer Mystery PAC
A quick update to Paul's post on CRP's invitation to track mystery PACs. The Penguin PAC, one of the 31 political action committees that our friends at the Center for Responsive Politics listed as an "anonymous" leadership PAC, does indeed belong to Rep. Tim Ryan. I called Fraioli & Associates to confirm what their Web site seemed to indicate, that Ryan had a connection to Penguin PAC. And here's a few suggestions on tracking these things if searching for the name of the PAC doesn't turn up anything:
Continue readingSen. Jon Kyl: Afraid of Open Government
Sometimes senators admit that they are holding a particular piece of legislation. In this case, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) admitted that he is the one blocking passage of the OPEN Government Act, a FOIA improving bill cosponsored by Sens. Pat Leahy (D-VT) and John Cornyn (R-TX). Kyl states that the bill would require the Justice Department to release sensitive data related to law enforcement and that the "uncharacteristically strong" opposition to the bill from Justice is reason enough to block the bill. According to the AP, the Justice Department is concerned about "a section that would eliminate exemptions allowing the government to deny access to privileged or law-enforcement sensitive information." Sen. Leahy assailed the hold that Kyl is using to block the bill, "This is a good government bill that Democrats and Republicans alike can and should work together to enact. It should be passed without further delay." The same goes for the Senate Campaign Disparity Act (S. 223). If Kyl can fess up to holding an open government bill then Mitch McConnell can cough up the names of the anonymous senators blocking S. 223 from passing.
Continue readingHelp Identify Mystery PACs
Got some spare time? Want to get involved in a little open source watchdogging project? Our friends at the Center for Responsive Politics are asking users to research a list of "mystery PACs," or leadership political action committees that appear to be affiliated with a member of Congress but do not explicitly say so. Leadership PACs do not have to disclose the identity of an affiliated member of Congress. There's a bill in Congress, HR 347, sponsored by Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), that would end this secretive process. While we wait for this bill to get a hearing in the House you can research these PACs yourself. If you need a little help in getting started, Bill Allison, at the Real Time Investigations blog, writes up a good summary of how he researched one of mystery PACs. And if you're feeling in a good mood and want to contribute your findings to another resource, Congresspedia has a great page on political action committees that lists many of the leadership PACs currently active. Feel free to add your findings to the list. Definitely go and help out CRP uncover the members of Congress behind these mystery PACs.
Continue readingPeople Powered Politics or People Powered Governance?
I’d be remiss to fail to mention Liza Sabater’s pre-PDF Conference blog post, “The Cluetrain Manifesto for People Powered Politics.” In her post Sabater aims to do for politics what the Cluetrain Manifesto did for the business community. Writing, “Gone are the days in which engagement is only mediated by an elite ‘entrusted’ by the masses with every single policy and political decision making that will end up affecting their lives,” Sabater highlights a point that I find to be instrumental in understanding the changes that an Internet-enabled open and transparent government will enable. While Sabater focuses on the realm of elections, I’d like to take a look at her “Manifesto” in terms of governance. “Constituencies are conversations,” and they can be empowered to affect the legislative and governing process as well as direct the political process.
Continue readingFindings in the FARA Database
Two quick items I came across while browsing through the FARA database: the first is the articles of incorporation of the Alexander Strategy Group, the lobbying firm run by former Tom DeLay staffer Edward Buckham, which was implicated in the Jack Abramoff scandals. In January 2006, Buckham told the Washington Post that the firm was closing up shop in because "reports in the press have made it difficult to continue as a lobbying/political entity."
The second: An agreement between Levick Strategic Communications and Sheikhs Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum and Hamdan bin Rashid al Maktoum of Dubai relating to ...
Continue readingSunlight Partners Win!
I've been out here in California this week attending the second annual NetSquared Conference, a very stimulating presentation of 21 different projects that were selected by the community out of a 120 or so to be presented in front of an assembled group of 350. The end goal? Not only to win a share of a $100,000, but also exposure to a wealth of technical and business expertise that was assembled to help nurture and develop these web entrepreneurs.
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