A CNN exit poll showed that 42 percent of voters said corruption was an extremely important issue in their choices at the polls yesterday. It led terrorism, economy and Iraq as the national issues that drove voters choices.
Can there be any doubt that more transparency is in order? When we launched the Sunlight Foundation, we found huge support among the public for greater disclosure of the inner workings of what goes on in Congress
The most popular proposals included: requiring public disclosure of all money raised for a campaign by registered lobbyists and creating an independent ethics commission to review complaints, conduct investigations, and report on unethical conduct by lawmakers and their staffs. Just behind were proposals requiring public disclosure of any attempts to secure earmarks in budget bills that directly benefit lobbyists or campaign contributors, requiring lawmakers to file reports on legislation they have introduced that would benefit their campaign contributors, requiring public disclosure of all contacts with regulatory agencies pressing for action that benefits campaign contributors, requiring lawmakers to report publicly all of their contacts with lobbyists, and prohibiting former members of Congress and senior staff from working as lobbyists in Washington for five years after they leave Congress. Every single one of these proposals got support of 59 percent or higher!
Continue readingSunshine Caucus
Mark Tapscott's editorial in The Examiner this morning promotes the common sense idea behind the Punch Clock Campaign, and calls for the development of a Sunshine Caucus in the next Congress that includes all advocates for more transparency for Congress. We're all for it. In fact, we like the idea so much, that I noticed that Zephyr is already referring to those involved in Sunlight's work as "The Sunlight Caucus."
Continue readingImitation is the Highest Form of Flattery
Andrew Cuomo, who is running for Attorney General in NY, issues a press release today that sounds like it came from us:
ANDREW CUOMO PROPOSES "PROJECT SUNLIGHT" TO INCREASE GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY AND DISCLOSURE
....The Attorney General's Public Integrity Unit would for the first time integrate and improve existing databases so that campaign finance data, lobbying information and state contracts can be viewed and easily searched by concerned citizens. With Project Sunlight, a citizen frustrated by high drug costs would be able to use her computer at home, type "prescription drugs" in a search box, and find out if her elected officials take money from drug companies, what drug bills they voted on, and even which companies ended up with lucrative state contracts.
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More 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 readingA 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 readingWhat Good is Transparency When it Becomes a Form of Blindness?
Brent Cunningham of the Columbia Journalism Review poses this rhetorical question at the end of a post on transparency in journalism. What he is referring to is the push by many bloggers for journalists and their publishers to provide information regarding the author’s political background, affiliations, and biases toward the story. “A reporter covering a proposed smoking ban, for example, should tell readers whether she smokes,” Cunningham writes, “The assumption being that if she smokes, we can infer that her sympathies lie with opponents of the ban, and vice versa.” Cunningham, before posing his final question, concludes by stating, “To assume that we can know what someone thinks by identifying their personal traits, habits, and predilections is a dangerous notion, and really has nothing to do with clarity.” So, can transparency in the political sphere become “a form of blindness”?
Continue readingAnnouncing Mini-Grants
The Sunlight Network, our affiliated advocacy group, is announcing today a series of "mini-grants," in the $1,000 to $5,000 range, for local or regional nonprofit organizations and non-affiliated groups that have innovative approaches to strengthening the relationship between Members of Congress and the citizens they represent. (Note that the website for the Sunlight Network is not yet live.)
We are particularly encouraging applications from existing small nonprofits, local or regional chapters of national organizations and groups of individuals. Grants are available to augment existing projects or to jumpstart new ones. Grants will be made available on a rolling basis starting July 15. Sunlight believes that open, honest, sincere representation is possible, and that engaged citizens can make it happen. These are grants designed to stimulate your action!
We'll make our decisions based on projects' creativity, their likelihood of success, and the degree to which they match Sunlight's goals. We strongly favor efforts that are themselves open and democratic in their internal structure. We are very excited to see what you come up with.
Send a one-page summary of your proposed project, a budget (including the amount requested from Sunlight) and contact information to Zephyr Teachout, National Director, Sunlight Network, zteachout at sunlightfoundation dot com.
We don't want to prejudge what might come in the door, but here are a couple of some hypothetical examples which might jump-start your thinking:
An Austin, TX website that aggregates news and commentary on local issues and blogs about it might seek a grant to expand their work to cover their Congressional delegation. The money they request is for travel, a video camera, Lexis-Nexis access.
A group of students in Miami want to investigate the placement of a controversial landfill so they ask for a grant to pay for research that seeks to show that business interests which may have supported local politicians may have distorted decision-making regarding placement of the landfill. Their grant funds the investigative report and its broadcasting on the web.
Citizen Porkbusters in Kansas wants a grant to create an online video to educate other citizens about the powerful moneyed interests behind the promotion of ethanol. They plan to place the video on YouTube.
We can't wait to hear your ideas. Send them to Nisha Thompson at nthompson at sunlightfoundation dot com.
Continue readingAnnouncing Online Poll
Today, Sunlight is posting an online poll asking the public if Congress is doing enough to address ethics and lobbying reform in the wake of recent scandals. We've posted one serious question and another one with a touch of humor: do you think it more likely that there would be a live sighting of Elvis before the current congressional leadership showed real leadership on the need for reform? (The poll is viewable here, and bloggers are encouraged to copy the source code and post it on their own sites.)
Why the cynical question? Here's a brief guide to the issue.
Continue readingSunlight Foundation Seeking New Staff Person:
The Sunlight Foundation, a new nonprofit committed to transforming citizens relationship to government, is hiring a new staff person for outreach and organizing. The ideal candidate would be a highly organized overcommunicator, good at both building spreadsheets and developing relationships with bloggers, local activists, and budding activists. The candidate must be passionate about open government and a natural extrovert, but experience is not required. Sunlight is nonpartisan. Send resume, 2 references, and a one paragraph description about why you think the job suits you to zteachout@gmail.com. Its located in DC and salary depends upon experience.
Continue readingIt Is About the Need for Reform
The Sunday Times editorial eloquently made Sunlight's point when it comes to the "scandal" of Dennis Hastert's earmarking for a local highway. It's the system that's rotten. Hastert is only one of the latest -- and most powerful -- to be caught with his hand in the veritable cookie jar. No doubt there are other stories to come along the same lines.
Hastert's early promises to clean up the system have proved to be nothing but empty rhetoric. Maybe, now that he's in the ethics spotlight, he'll be galvanized to action. The Hastert story that Bill Allison broke on his blog -- Under the Influence -- is the tip of the iceberg. As more stories are developed by bloggers, citizen muckrakers and the mainstream media, the pressure will mount to change the system in significant ways. And the good news is that none of us will be lulled into thinking that things have been improved if Congress moves forward on its current "reform" path.
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