Every two years the same political phenomenon repeats itself, like a rerun of Groundhog’s Day. A new crop of congressional candidates with stars in their eyes – and money in their pockets – take aim at a coveted seat in the U.S. Congress by plugging their personal fortunes into the campaign.
If the past is any indication, come sunshine or clouds on Election Day, nearly all these self-funded candidates will lose.
The latest fillings with the Federal Election Commission show that so far this election cycle, 16 candidates have anted up $1 million or more of their personal fortunes. (You can find the list on Open Secrets.) Some 53 have given $250,000 or more.
Continue readingMore Polling In The Works
We are so pleased with the results and process of our first online polling that we are now thinking about our next steps. We'd love to dig a little deeper and ask a series of questions about specific ways to make members of Congress and their business more transparent.
We might ask some of the questions that we asked in our launch poll, like requiring disclosure of all money raised for a campaign by registered lobbyists (this idea has been picked up by Public Campaign Action Fund and Common Cause in their recentlly launched national pledge campaign), requiring specific disclosure of earmarks, or requiring lawmakers to file reports on legislation they have introduced that would benefit a campaign contributor.
Continue readingQuestion on C-SPAN and Copyright of Legislative Proceedings
We've gotten a few dozen fascinating applications for mini-grants, including one for Metavid, a project to archive, make shareable and make reusable federal legislative hearings. Sounds like a good project, sounds like something C-SPAN would try to shut down immediately, no? Here's Metavid's explanation of how to get around the C-SPAN blockade on the public debate. In brief, they argue that "the use of artificial scarcity should not be applicable to public domain source content. These restrictions and licensing agreements transform public assets into consumable objects. These consumable objects cannot be reworked, reused and mediated."
Continue readingBlocking Opaquely
Ethan Zuckerman has an important post about the growing global governmental blocking of online content, discussing recent blog-blocking by India: He writes:
That India is blocking any sites is disappointing. I’d like to see all governments - my own included - block only as an absolute last resort, and as a way to prevent access to content that’s clearly illegal, like child pornography. And I think it’s critical that governments who do block the Internet do so in a way that’s transparent, posting a page that makes it clear that a site has been blocked, offering an appeals process and makng it clear that the page isn’t inaccessible due to technical errors.... blocking blogs is a slippery slope. Blocking opaquely makes it even more slippery.Continue reading
So Clear
Kudos to ThinkProgress for this analysis and presentation of the scandal that is the hallmark of this Congress. Following all the strands of the current Congressional scandal has even defied the best of us. I don't know how many hours it took ThinkProgress' staff to put this together: it's taken a couple of years to unravel the information. If there was real time, online disclosure of trips, gifts, spousal employment, personal financial information, campaign contributions and expenditures, meetings between lawmakers and lobbyists, connections to charities, we'd be a lot better off.
A Wonderful Widget
We've been promising to introduce our Sunlight Labs more formally and today we're doing that, along with the announcement of a really neat widget that we're calling "Popup Politicians." Before you imagine the worst, like, Representative J. Dennis Hastert or Sen. John McCain or Representative John Boehner popping out of cake, take a look at what Greg Elin and Duncan Werner have developed -- a web page plug-in that links the reader to information about who's financing the lawmaker's campaign, the lawmaker's voting record, and their profile on Congresspedia. The widget appears as a small popup window when you mouse-over the little sun icon that appears at the end of the name.
Continue readingWhimsical questions about FOIA
Is there any website that collects FOIA requests made by agencies and individuals? Could the Government make public the FOIA requests made on its website? Public and searchable? I'm fumbling for the right question, but there's a large sense in which it seems that much of FOIA should not be necessary in an internet age, as so much of what is sought should be findable by default - online, searchable - and in the meantime I'd love to see a catalog of what is requested.
Continue readingA Natural Progression
If you really want to track the money in American politics, you have to start by realizing that what you’re pursuing is a moving target.
In fact, one of the oldest arguments made by opponents of campaign finance reform over the years has been is that money, like water, seeks the easiest route. If you try to dam it up in one place – through reform rules outlawing soft money, for instance – it will just change course and gush out somewhere else.
There’s an undeniable logic in that argument, though I don’t agree that it’s a good reason to scrap all reform. Rather, you’ve got to keep pursuing those natural watercourses, bending close to the ground and looking for new spots that might be bubbling up.
Continue readingSeeking volunteers
I'm looking for volunteers to volunteer to be test-volunteers for our new community site, coming soon (where people can profile themselves, search by interest area (i.e., research, birddogging congress, congresspedia), connect and generally find ways to break the old kleptocracy). Bill and Conor have some contacts with folks who they are already working with, but we're a fledgling community. If you're interested in posing as a Sunlight Citizen, please email me (zteachout at sunlightfoundation.com). Especially if you're interested in being a real Sunlight citizen somewhere along the way.
Continue readingAn Introduction: Carl Anderson
How lucky can we get? We've had another amazing person join the Sunlight team, specifically working on the Sunlight Labs effort and I want to introduce him to you.
Carl Anderson has been involved in things I can barely grasp -- agent-based modeling and complex systems. (This, of course, means he has the qualifications to understand Congress.) He's the author of more than 35 scientific journal papers and an interdisciplinary scientist. He has worked in biology (Duke; Regensburg, Germany; Aarhus, Denmark), mathematics (Sheffield, UK), and industrial and system engineering (Georgia Tech) university departments.
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