How do municipalities measure up to standards for releasing campaign finance data? Today, we look at Albuquerque.
Continue readingCan Crist the Democrat raise as much money as Crist the Republican?
Charlie Crist has a knack with political donors. In between campaigns, he even got a job with one of his largest political benefactors. But as the formidable fundraiser -- who raked in more than $33 million over the course of his political career -- launches his challenge to Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott this week, the question is whether he'll be able to manage an encore performance in a different role.
Elected Florida's 44th governor in 2006, Crist is running to reclaim his old job with a new resume: A one-time Republican who turned independent in 2010, he's now ...
Continue readingA Roadmap for Releasing Municipal Campaign Finance Data
We've created a Municipal Campaign Finance Data Guidebook to help local policymakers and advocates create stronger disclosure around this crucial information.
Continue readingSEC Poised to Improve Political Spending Transparency
The government shutdown. Single digit congressional approval ratings. Polarization and dysfunction. Not all that ails our democracy can be blamed on the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case, but $1.2 billion in spending by outside groups—at least $300 million of that from undisclosed donors—doesn’t help create a working democracy.
There is no shortage of possible solutions—from fixing a broken FEC and changing IRS rules, to public funding of elections and a Constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United, but in the short term, the most necessary and promising solutions come in the form of more transparency of money in politics.
And it just so happens that there is some traction developing for one transparency measure.
The Impact of Opening Up Municipal Campaign Finance Data
What kinds of information municipalities release about campaign finance and how they release it varies widely, but the impacts that come from its release are fairly universal.
Continue readingThe Landscape of Municipal Campaign Finance Data
With our new municipal focus, we were curious: What does local campaign finance disclosure look like?
Continue readingPolitical influence by county: A new way to look at campaign finance data
Over the summer, the Sunlight Foundation partnered with Azavea, a Philadelphia-based firm that specializes in mapping and geo-spatial analysis, to create location-based analyses of the federal campaign finance data we display on InfluenceExplorer.com. The partnership produced new and more accurate ways to identify trends in political spending according to location that were previously hard to complete because of complications in the mapping process. Many of the findings were mapped.
Continue readingSuggestions for the OGP National Action Plan
The Obama Administration is expected to release the second version of its Open Government Partnership National Action Plan this fall. The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is the primary multi-national initiative for open government, founded in 2011. The original US plan, released on September 20, 2011, covered a lot of ground, but also suffered a lack of detail and ignored several of the most pressing transparency issues. (Both money in politics and national security went uncovered.)
Given the US’s leadership role in the world (and in OGP), and the variety of issues the country faces, we hope the US National Action Plan will demonstrate how an administration can use transparency reform to help address some of the most fundamental challenges it faces.
The following are four Sunlight priorities for the upcoming US National Action Plan, and are priorities that we’ve often repeated to White House officials in our work.
Continue readingResources Tool Kit: McCutcheon v. FEC
OpenGov Voices: How VT Diggers is tackling state campaign finance
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Sunlight Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the 
guest blog.
In 2010, I began reporting on campaign contributions in Vermont. That year, we had an open seat in the governor’s office and there were five candidates in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. I was shocked to discover that the only information available from the Vermont Secretary of State’s office came in the form of unsearchable PDF scans of spreadsheet forms. The secretary requires that candidates use a form available in Excel on the state website. Candidates fill out the form and submit it in paper format to the secretary. It is then scanned and posted on the website.
In spite of the fact that there was no easy way to search the information, I began scouring the web for information about people, advocacy groups and businesses. I soon discovered that many businesses, political action committees and unions had direct financial connections to the candidates. I wrote a series of investigative stories about contributions from out of state, from businesses and wealthy individuals to candidates of the two major parties in statewide races.
We revealed that paving and signage companies donated thousands of dollars to a candidate for lieutenant governor who had served as chair of Senate Transportation and who owned a road construction and engineering firm. We also tracked a donor who contributed four times to Peter Shumlin, using four different LLCs. The Associated Press picked up our story about David Blittersdorf’s contributions and the more than $4 million in state tax subsidies that he garnered for his company’s solar projects.
As a result of these stories, news organizations and others pressured the secretary of state to develop a searchable campaign finance database in 2011. Though the secretary has said he is willing to take on the project, he has been unable to obtain funding. This fall, the secretary put out an RFP for the project, which would be completed in 2015 (at the earliest).
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