By now, most Americans think Congress is incredibly unproductive and remarkably polarized. But if we look at the hard data on our 2013 lawmakers, a slightly different story emerges.
Continue readingDry-weather drone maker rains cash on Congress
Northrop Grumman supports lawmakers by pouring cash into their coffers. And now Congress had something to offer Northrop Grumman: further support for the company's troubled Global Hawk drone.
Continue readingOpenGov Voices: How an Open Source Candidate can Save the US House of Representatives
House members need a low-cost way to get elected, that also increases their bargaining power to deal with special interests. We can achieve this today, through the Open Source Candidate pledge and ProxiCast voting technology.
Continue readingWhat Happens to .gov in a Shutdown?
Supreme Court Could Snuff Out Last Ember of the Campaign Finance System
On Oct. 8, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a case in which the plaintiff, Shaun McCutcheon, joined by the Republican National Committee, is challenging the constitutionality of the overall limit on contributions to federal candidates and political parties. If the court rules in favor of McCutcheon and the RNC, it might as well tie a big bow around Congress and deliver it to a tiny percentage of the very, very rich.
Plutocracy anyone?
The Library of Congress Really Really Does Not Want To Give You Your Data
It's 2013, and the Library of Congress seems to think releasing public data about Congress is a risk to the public.
The Library of Congress is in charge of [THOMAS.gov](http://thomas.loc.gov/), and its successor [Congress.gov](http://congress.gov). These sites publish some of the most fundamental information about Congress — the history and status of bills. Whether it's immigration law or SOPA, patent reform or Obamacare, the Library of Congress will tell you: *What is Congress working on? Who's working on it? When did that happen?*
Except they won't let you download that information.
What’s New in the Sunlight Congress API
In January, Sunlight [released a new Congress API](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sunlightlabs/r-evxgtFXRw). It's been a huge help to [our own products](http://congress.sunlightfoundation.com/), and seen a great deal of use by the community (such as today's [DefundTheNSA campaign](http://defundthensa.com/)). In the time since, we've released some new data, some new developer-friendly features, and seen lots of community contribution. Here's what's been added over the last few months:
Continue readingIntroducing Congress for iOS
As Congress returns for their July session, the Sunlight Foundation is excited to announce our free Congress app for iOS devices that allows anyone to get the latest from Washington. Download it here.
Continue readingWhat lobbyists in the 1 percent of the 1 percent want (Hint: a lot)
In the 2012 election 28 percent of all disclosed political contributions came from just 31,385 people. In a nation of 313.85 million, these donors represent the 1% of the 1%, an elite class that increasingly serves as the gatekeepers of public office in the United States.
Compared to other big campaign donors, lobbyists spread their money around. And because they seek access to lawmakers to push for their clients’ interests, they give more of their contributions directly to candidates as opposed to party committees and super PACs. That’s according to a new Sunlight Foundation report on the lobbyists in the “one percent of the one percent,” the rarefied group of about 31,385 well-heeled insiders that give at least $12,950 to political campaigns. So what do these lobbysits want to get done? In particular, what about ones giving the most? Of all the players in Washington’s influence business, here is a list of the 10 who gave more than anyone else in the 2012 election. Continue reading
Are the 1% of the 1% pulling politics in a conservative direction?
In the 2012 election 28 percent of all disclosed political contributions came from just 31,385 people. In a nation of 313.85 million, these donors represent the 1% of the 1%, an elite class that increasingly serves as the gatekeepers of public office in the United States.
The more conservative the Republican, the more dependent that Republican is likely to be on the nation's biggest individual donors, a new Sunlight Foundation analysis of campaign finance data finds. By "biggest individual donors," we are referring to a group we named “the 1% of the 1%” after the share of the U.S. population that they represent. These wealthy donors may be pulling Republicans to the political right, acting as a force for a more polarized Congress. The polarizing effect for Democrats, meanwhile, is unclear. If anything, more liberal Democrats depend a little less on 1% of the 1% donors than conservative Democrats. As we explored in our big-picture look at the 1% of the 1%, the biggest donors in American politics tend to give big sums of money because they want one party to win. Approximately 85 percent of the top individual donors in U.S. politics contributed at least 90 percent of their money to one party or the other. By contrast, less than four percent of these donors spread their money roughly equally between the two parties (a 60-40 split or less).
Figure 1.
The above figure treats all Democrats and Republicans as equivalent. In reality, both parties contain some moderates and some extremists. Some -- Ezra Klein, most prominently -- have argued that while small money exerts a polarizing tug on the parties, big money is consensus-oriented and centralizing. At the time, I responded that if big money was consensus-oriented, it was doing a terrible job of building consensus. I went further to hypothesize that big money might also be polarizing. Turns out I was more right than I knew then.
Continue reading
59063
