A recent report on how states are doing in their subsidy programs has been blog-fodder nationwide. But some of the... View Article
Continue readingThe Senate Should Change its Rules for Easy Transparency Fixes
At the beginning of each new Congress, both the House and the Senate have the opportunity to update their respective... View Article
Continue readingSunlight Weekly Round-up: Commissioners Reject Code of Ethics Proposal
Since we started this aggregation of blog posts, different bloggers have expressed interest in sharing their thoughts on issues revolving around transparency and accountability in government. We continue to support this interest. I am particularly excited about furthering the transparency blogging platform and this is why I am inviting other transparency bloggers to join Transparency bloggers - our Sunlight Foundation Google group. For now, we understand that openness is an issue for both sides - as Amy Laff illustrates. But tracking transparency can be a challenge especially in cases such as North Carolina's government officials who rejected a proposal for a revised Code of Ethics.
Continue readingSmall banks continue lobbying winning streak at FDIC
When the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation proposed new rules in early November that would hit big banks harder than small ones when assessing fees for the exhausted deposit insurance fund, community bankers--who had aggressively lobbied first Congress and then in recent months the independent agency--declared victory.
"The FDIC today took an important step in leveling the playing field for the nation's community banks," said Jim McPhee, chairman of the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) in a statement at the time. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) meeting logs show that Independent Community Bankers of America representatives met four times with agency officials since August, when the agency first put meeting records on-line in a bid to increase transparency.
Continue readingTools for Transparency: GovSM
For the next month, we’ll be hosting special guest bloggers for our Tools for Transparency series. Today we introduce Josh Shpayher, founder of GovSM.com, a wiki website that keeps track of all the social media accounts of government, from congressional representatives to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. GovSM believes that having a comprehensive catalogue of all the governmental use of social media will help government and the open gov community learn more about and improve their own social media practices to benefit their constituencies. By now, we’ve all heard about the social media wave and most of us have heard about Gov2.0 and governmental use (or their feeble attempts to use) social media. Though there have been many discussions amongst “good gov” people about government officials’ best practices for using social media, what has been lacking is a clearly defined method of determining how a government office or official can use social media to benefit their constituents. If a system of rating social media use can be widely circulated (similar to Golden Mouse rankings of congressional websites), I believe that the quality of government use of social media will rise dramatically.
Continue readingSunlight Blogger Round-up: Utah Transparency Report Card
The quest for "Sunshine" is not a one time venture. Indeed the summary of the blog posts below shows that the journey may begin with citizens questioning the activities of public officials as is the case with Hawaii's Ryan Kawailani Ozawa who probes the state's selective publication of government employee salaries. But it certainly does not end at initiating ways to boost transparency even with innovative tools such as websites. Instead, we see that constant evaluation and assessment of these tools provide room for improvement and help us determine what worked and what didn't just as Utah's transparency report demonstrates.
Continue readingFederal Reserve releases financial crisis data sets
The Federal Reserve released a series of key data sets today as required under the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The... View Article
Continue readingSunlight Blogger Round-up: Judgeship Applications to be disclosed
Carol Geiger, Steve Hall and Kathy Posner all have one thing in common. To see their government held accountable and ... View Article
Continue readingDemocratic activists, donors plan separate paths for disclosed and undisclosed money in 2012 election
Just announced chairwoman of Democratic Super PAC American Bridge Kathleen Kennedy Townsend: “American democracy has to be based on transparency,... View Article
Continue readingSuper PAC Sleuths: The Addresses Behind the Ads
The 2010 elections might be over, but the job of finding out who spent what for which candidate is just... View Article
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