At GoodbyeJim.com, a site that closely monitors the member of Congress from my district--Rep. James Moran of Virginia's 8th district--Jonathan Marks has an interesting post about a small government contractor called MobilVox. In the 2004 election cycle, the firm's employees made modest campaign contributions to a trio of lawmakers--Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Rep. John Murtha, and Moran. In fiscal year 2005, according to FedSpending.org, the Navy awarded MobilVox a contract worth $507,092. Marks wonders whether it's worth looking at MobilVox more closely.
Continue readingLast Year, New Grants
Late in December, just before our holiday break, Sunlight approved several final grants for 2006, bringing our total grantmaking to just over $1.1 million for the year. As we look back over each of the grants we made, we are impressed by the quality of work that's been produced, the openness to collaboration amongst our grantees, and to the strides being made as each of these organizations enter the world of the Web 2.0. Our investments have paid off well. And yes, to answer the obvious question, Sunlight will expand its grantmaking in 2007.
We made three final grants at the end of the year. The first one of $117,000 went to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government (CREW) to fund the launch of its "Open Community Open Document Review System." CREW had already developed a demonstration version of an online reviewing process that is a really cool tool. It lets anyone review, tag and comment on any of the thousands of pages of documents that CREW has in their possession. (CREW has thousands of pages of governement records as a result of their thorough and repeated FOIA requests.) Our grant will help them build a massive publicly searchable database of every document they receive -- a database put together by citizen journalists. Look for the beta version at the end of March.
Continue readingJumping Through Loopholes
The House is on the verge of voting to pass a new set of ethics and lobbying reforms and already the lobbying community has found a loophole to jump through:
Lobbyists and their clients would continue to fete lawmakers at restaurants, sporting events and faraway resorts as long as those events are part of campaign fundraisers. Campaign finance laws, which are distinct from House rules, permit outsiders to provide all manner of benefits to lawmakers as long as those benefits are accompanied by checks written to the lawmakers' reelection coffers.
"We would be able to take people out to lunch, but only if we give them a check while we do it," said Paul A. Miller, immediate past president of the American League of Lobbyists. "That looks more corrupting than what we have under the current system."
(Hat tip: Mike Crowley at TNR)
Continue readingA New Year, A New Database
A new Congress is sworn in today with the promise of significant reform. And as Congress is sworn in, the Center for Responsive Politics is releasing a Revolving Door database that profiles more than 6,400 individuals who have worked in both the federal government and the private sector. The practice of lawmakers and staff leaving the Hill and then plying their contacts with their former colleagues on behalf of private interests is one of the most critiqued practices on the Hill. Now we really have a full, factual picture of what's going on.
Continue readingNew Congress, Same Headache
On day one of the new Democratic Congress staffers are already finding that an old problem is giving them new headaches. Already Rep. William Jefferson - under investigation for accepting bribes and hiding $90,000 in cash in his freezer - has violated House rules by using his Congressional stationary to send a letter "asking colleagues to donate money to help him retire his campaign debt." Roll Call notes, "It’s a no-no to use taxpayer resources to raise campaign dough." One staffer jokes, "He’s got $90,000 in his freezer, why can’t he buy some stationery and stamps?" Jefferson's staff say it's a "tremendous staff error". But, hey, New Orleans you guys voted for him! (Subscription free at Political Insider.)
Continue readingLobbying, Ethics Reforms Released
The House Democrats released their proposed set of ethics, lobbying, and earmarking reforms that will be voted on early tomorrow. Over at Daily Kos new Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter put out a list of what these reforms entail, which I have cribbed below the fold. This is pretty much the set of changes that the Democrats supported during the ethics debate last year, although some stronger measures (think the earmark proposal sponsored by Rep. Chris Van Hollen and Rep. Rahm Emanuel) have been left by the wayside. Take a look and let's talk about what's missing and where the loopholes are.
Continue readingState-level Ethics and Lobbying Reform Ahead of Congress
In a little more than 24 hours the Democrats will take the reigns of power in Congress and begin their rule by enacting lobbying and ethics reform measures that are long overdue. Earmark reform, greater lobbying disclosure, bans on certain gifts and travel. It all sounds pretty good but according to the New York Times it’s nothing compared to what the states have been doing.
Continue readingTracking Local Politics
"All politics is local" goes the old saw, and the more time I've spent looking into members of Congress, the more I become persuaded that it's mostly true, just as it's also true that most political corruption is local as well. House members attend to their districts, Senators to their states, and they know the local movers and shakers quite well, and are more than willing to use their offices to keep those folks happy, even if their interests aren't in the best interests of the country. Those local relationships and the local issues they create are probably best understood by--well, locals.
Continue readingWho Bought John Edwards’s House?
Obviously, there's no shortage of things going on...Rep. John Conyers and his use of taxpayer-funded staff as babysitters, personal chauffeurs and campaign workers (read the tepid press release from the House Ethics Committee here; the Washington Examiner weighs in with a tough editorial here). House Democrats have apparently chosen to exclude Republicans from participating in the deliberations over the opening legislative agenda in the 110th Congress, according to the Washington Post--including the package of ethics reforms. I can't say I'm surprised by this, but it seems to me that if there's one subject that requires a lot of thought, debate and discussion, and requires some bipartisan consensus, it's how we fix the way our special-interest-beholden, publicly denigrated Congress goes about its business. It seems to me that the goal should be to render as transparent as possible the way that, say, a Rep. John Murtha operates. I'd be willing to wait an extra 100 hours, or even 200 hours, to get there. That said, I'm not entirely persuaded that involving House Republicans would do the trick.
Continue readingIt’s Been Almost a Year …..
Sunlight opened its doors for business less than a year ago. In our first year, we focused on planting lots of seeds: identifying key assets in the existing public interest community and assisting them in building up their web infrastructure and getting their data resources out of silos and facing outward onto the web; investing in the development of several major new data-sets that are filling in missing elements of the money-influence-accountability nexus; creating or partnering in the creation of whole new sites and tools that are geared to make this data more accessible and more widely distributed across the web as a platform; reaching out to and establishing working relationships with likeminded individuals and organizations around the country; experimenting with new ways of engaging the public in fostering transparency; and beginning a conversation with Members of and candidates for Congress about being more open and transparent.
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