Dear Mr. Stephen Colbert: We here at Sunlight all quite enjoyed your mock outrage at the declining level of congressional... View Article
Continue readingDear Rep. Quigley: right back at ya, re: Sunlight’s congressional speech study
Dear Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL): With this post, I offer my humble appreciation that you should deign to take to... View Article
Continue readingIs Congress getting dumber, or just more plainspoken?
(This post was prepared in collaboration with Dan Drinkard) Congress now speaks at almost a full grade level lower than... View Article
Continue readingCongress far from exemplary in SAT word proficiency
(This post was prepared in collaboration with Dan Drinkard) If you do well on your SAT test, then you will... View Article
Continue readingThe changing complexity of congressional speech
(This post was prepared in collaboration with Dan Drinkard) Congress now speaks at almost a full grade level lower than... View Article
Continue readingNews Without Transparency: House Passes Bridge BIll After an Earmark Debate
News Without Transparency: House Passes Bridge Bill After an Earmark Debate Matt Rumsey and Melanie Buck wrote this post. Earlier... View Article
Continue readingData for Better Bill Searching
I've put up a dataset on Github that maps popular search terms to bills in Congress. It's a simple, 5-column CSV designed to help people create better search engines that take in user input to search for bills. The idea is that this will be useful to, and get contributions from, the community of people out there working with legislation and building tools around them.
It's humble - I started it out with a mere 7 rows, assigning the keywords "Obamacare", "SOPA", "PIPA", and "PPACA" to the appropriate bills. There are certainly more good candidates than that, so please contribute via pull request, or if you don't know how to do that, open an issue and talk about it with words.
Continue readingWays and Means, Financial Services, and Energy and Commerce are top House fundraising committees
The analysis was conducted at the request of and in collaboration with This American Life and Planet Money public radio... View Article
Continue readingCelebrate Sunshine Week: Shine some light on secret money in our elections
Sunshine Week presents the perfect opportunity each year to recognize the importance of transparency and open government. This year, with... View Article
Continue readingCommerce Committee Vote Should Not Sound Death Knell for Broadcast Ad Transparency
Yesterday, the House Commerce Committee killed an amendment to the FCC Reform Act that would have required groups airing political... View Article
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