Roughly 143 hours after releasing our latest citizen journalism project, we're approaching the half way mark: 265 members have been investigated by citizen journalists, 271 remain to be done. The average score has crept up over to a hair over 31 (the precise figure is 31.0471), while the average time to complete an investigation is remaining steady at seven minutes. Of the various citizen journalism projects we've launched, this one seems to require a little more patience and effort on the part of researchers, and I think I can safely say that I speak for all my colleagues here when I thank everyone who's taken on part of this project. We greatly appreciate your efforts.
Continue readingAre Congressional Web Sites Tools for Transparency? — 2nd Update
We've crossed the 200 barrier--200 member Web sites investigated, and 335 (actually, 336 now that we've added D.C. delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton to the list) to go. Some interesting stats--the average time for completion is 7 minutes, the average score remains a hair under 30 (29.9319 for those who prefer precise numbers). Some 65 unique users have taken part so far, and 89 of the 200 completed investigations were submitted anonymously. As of this writing, a citizen journalists have begun (but not yet finished) three investigations, including one of the Web site of Rep. Mary Bono. Just a footnote--when we were developing this project, I spent a little time looking at several members' sites, including hers. And after looking at it, I toyed with the idea of including a section on "unintended transparency."
Continue readingAre Congressional Web Sites Tools for Transparency? — 1st Update
Some 148 congressional Web sites have been researched in the first 28 hours or so since we launched our latest citizen journalism project (which needs a much snappier title than I've given it -- how about "Investigating Congress's Internet," or "How Open is Congress Online," or even, "Mirror mirror on the wall, whose congressional Web site is the most transparent of them all?"). The average score for members' Web sites is just under 30--which is actually a little bit higher than I would have guessed, although lower than some of my colleagues expected (and less, obviously, than a passing grade).
Continue readingSome Member Page Transparency
What are you finding in the search for Member page transparency? Give a spin around and you're bound to find something interesting. We all now know about Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand and Sen. Jon Tester posting their daily schedule on the web but we haven’t seen too much from other Members. This post highlights some things Members are doing that you might run across while undertaking our new citizen journalist assignment.
Posting a schedule is an innovative way to provide constituents with more information and provide them with a better feel for what a Member of Congress does. While Gillibrand and Tester are at the forefront of a new kind of schedule transparency they were not the first to post some form of personal schedule online. Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) has been posting a schedule on his site for years now, although the schedule does not list more than one thing for each day. Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) also posts a schedule on his website that does provide a bit more information than Capuano’s schedule.
Continue readingCitizen Journalists: Are Congressional Web Sites Tools for Transparency?
We're launching a new citizen journalism project to find out what members of Congress are doing with their taxpayer-funded, official Web sites. Are they using the sites to further transparency and be accountable to their constituents? Or are they using them to post press releases touting their actions or to highlight favorable stories from the press? We're asking you to dig through the official, taxpayer-funded Website of a member of Congress, and help determine those that act as genuine tools for transparency. We're asking questions in three broad areas: do they provide access to basic information on what they do in Congress (the bills they sponsor, the committees they serve on); do they provide information from or access to any of the legally-required disclosures they have to file (on personal finances or junkets they take), and do they provide any additional information that furthers transparency (their daily schedule, lists of earmarks they've asked for or gotten).
Continue readingResearch Request on Spousal Lobbying
Here's an experiment occasioned by the excellent report by John Solomon of the Washington Post on spouses of members of Congress who lobby. Solomon identifies 6 lawmakers married to registered lobbyists (listed below). Is it possible, after reading the lobby disclosure reports that list these spouses (I've linked the results page in the Senate Office of Public Records page for each of them, making it easy to find the reports) to determine whether the member votes for the spouse's clients' interests?
Continue readingTracking Local Politics
"All politics is local" goes the old saw, and the more time I've spent looking into members of Congress, the more I become persuaded that it's mostly true, just as it's also true that most political corruption is local as well. House members attend to their districts, Senators to their states, and they know the local movers and shakers quite well, and are more than willing to use their offices to keep those folks happy, even if their interests aren't in the best interests of the country. Those local relationships and the local issues they create are probably best understood by--well, locals.
Continue readingStill Exposing Earmarks
Michael Petrelis may be a little late to the exposing earmarks party that we at Sunlight were part of last summer, but he asks exactly the kinds of thoughtful questions that any constituent, as part of his citizen oversight duties, should get answered from a representative in Congress. Petrelis is asking them of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the soon-to-be House Speaker--it will be interesting to see how quickly, and thoroughly, she responds.
Continue readingFamily Business — 3rd Update
The basic research is done, and before I begin making the earnest effort to digest the raw results, let me first thank all who participated--especially Beezling, who topped his prolific performance on round one with an incredible turn on round two--he did 319 this time around, doing by far the bulk of the entries. Get that man a fedora and a press pass! More information soon...
Continue readingFamily Business — Second Update
Nearly 7 p.m. Sunday, and we're through 296 members and 41 states--pretty incredible. To all who've joined this effort, once again let me offer a heartfelt thank you. Some preliminary numbers as we move toward the final leg, but first let me point out that these a). haven't been verified and b). need to be looked at more closely to figure out what they mean. So keep those caveats in mind. Citizen journalists have tentatively identified $480,029 in campaign expenditures going from a House member's campaign to a firms that employs that member's spouse in the current election cycle. Citizen journalists have also tentatively found that organizations for which House members' spouses work have landed a total of $2,788,663,441--that's $2.7 billion--in federal contracts in 2005 (the last full year for which information is available) and $2,649,935,942--$2.6 billion--in federal grants in 2004 (again, the last year for which we have complete data).
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