Sunlight's largest experiment in the world of citizen journalism unfurled yesterday with a coalitional effort asking citizens to help us explore the world of earmarks in the Labor/HHS bill. While we haven't yet been overwhelmed by the response, we are already pleased by what we've seen. Simply put: people are digging up interesting stuff. Bill Allison will keep up with what's coming into various websites and report to you.
Part of why this effort can be declared a success is that I think we are already getting people to think differently about the earmark process, including folks on the progressive end of the spectrum. I had an interesting reaction from a long-time colleague yesterday when he looked at the list of earmarks. He wrote:
Continue readingGo ahead, tell me what you really think…
One of the safest assumptions in politics these days is that Americans don’t much care for Congress. A whole raft of opinion polls tell the story – only about one person in four thinks Congress is doing a good job. But those are just percentages. When I spent two months on the road last year talking to people along U.S. Route 50 – from California to Maryland – one question I asked them was to give me a word or a short phrase to describe Congress as they saw it. I make no bones about this being a scientific sample. These were just people I walked up to in small towns and big cities across the middle of the country – though I did keep it even between Democrats and Republicans. I’ve divided their answers into three sections: responses that were given by more than one person, short answers that were unique, and longer answers. Each group is arranged in alphabetical order.
Continue readingConverging on Earmarks
The early returns to the Exposing Earmarks effort are in, and some people are asking incredibly good questions. Over at Here is a curious one in my state (Florida): $150,000 for "Convergent Knowledge Solutions, LLC, for rural healthcare delivery in Alaska". This one caught my eye because it seemed odd to me that a Florida company would be involved in rural healthcare delivery in ALASKA! I did a little research. Convergent Knowledge Solutions has a web site and they are involved in medical-related stuff (see http://www.convergent-knowledge.com/Products/Medical/index.html) but it seems a long stretch from what CKS does to rural health care delivery 4000 miles away.
Jay Rosen on Networked Journalism
Jay wrote an incredible post on this project and networked journalism over at Pressthink:
Today marks a key moment in the evolution of the Web as a reporting medium. The first left-right-center coalition of bloggers, activists, non-profits, citizens and journalists to investigate a story of national import: Congressional earmarks and those who sponsor and benefit from them.And a good discussion below. Continue reading
Craig Newmark on Distributed Earmark Hunting
One of my heros, Craig Newmark, has this to say about this Exposing Earmarks project:
This has significance beyond exposing a little corruption, it's a next step in a process where professional and citizen journalists work together to expose bad guys.Thanks Craig! And if you blog about this, send it to us! We're sitting here at the Sunlight offices discussing how to do this better next time, because this is just the beginning -- how to create a good network of people for ongoing investigations like this one, investigations that have lots of hurdles and empty answers, but are still critical to pursue. Continue reading
Pork-hunting goes local
Room 8 has a new post up asking for New Yorkers to try to figure out if any of their earmarks (and they have quite a few, 157 items in the Labor HHS bill) is pork. This seems like perhaps the most productive way to dig into the 1800 plus earmarks -- local groups getting at local representatives when they are at home. Call their offices while your members of Congress are home on recess. Let them know that this matters to you, that you deserve to know, and that while equipment for a new hospital may be a good idea, any decisions made in secrecy like this are not.
Continue readingMore Exposing Earmarks Links
There are a bunch of great blogposts this morning on what we're calling the Exposing Earmarks project. Here are just a few... You must visit NZ Bear's great Porkbusters webpage on the earmarks. It has visual views of state-by-state earmarks, dollars per capita, and even dollars per keyword. Brilliant. (NZ also gave extremely helpful advice on the design of our google map of earmarks). Captain Ed writes:
Continue readingWe Need Help Exposing Earmarks!
Whether you're a blogger, a curious citizen, a citizen journalist, a muckraker, or a journalist, we need your help. There are more than 1,800 earmarks in the 2007 appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (see the map). That's over 1,800 appropriations that have never been publicly debated -- and probably never will be -- and we don't even know where they came from. An earmark is a line-item that is inserted into a bill to direct funds to a specific project or recipient without any public hearing or review. (Read the Earmarks FAQ.)
Continue readingWhat People Expect
Every once in a while it’s good just to step back a bit from the daily mishmash of political news in Washington to get a broader perspective on where we are, where we’re going, and what the American people expect of the people they elect to public office. When I took to the road last year and spent two months talking with people along U.S. Route 50, one of the things I asked was that very question: What do you expect of your representatives in Washington? “Not much” was a common first reaction, but upon reflection there were some very perceptive observations, some common themes, and a lot more shared expectations among Democrats and Republicans than we’re used to hearing about in Washington. Here’s a sampling of the answers:
Continue readingThe Dream
In many a congressman’s heart there is a dream, a dream to one day use the contacts and friendships you’ve created on Capitol Hill and turn them into a million-dollar career as a lobbyist exploiting the system for earmarks and personal wealth. These congressmen fall asleep pondering when they will visit the pearly revolving door and how much better life will be when spin through it. For those with the dream there is nothing worse than ripping it away from them. Fear of facing constituents that want to turn your head into an ornament on Col. Kurtz’ front yard doesn’t faze you. Nor does the fear of an imminent indictment in a wide-ranging public corruption case involving the very people you wish to be. No, for one dreamer (and he’s not the only one), Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), what drove him to forgo reelection was the fear of losing his chance to cash out.
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