On Thursday June 6th at the Personal Democracy Forum (an annual conference exploring technology’s influence on politics and government), New York City’s Comptroller John Liu announced that the code behind Checkbook NYC 2.0, the city's transparency spending web portal, had been open-sourced and made available for forking on Checkbook NYC 2.0's github page. This is significant because (1) Checkbook 2.0 is enormous: it makes over $70 billion dollars in New York City spending available online in a timely, structured, and human-readable form, demonstrating that best practices in data disclosure can be followed even at scale; (2) it marks a shift to proactive civic application-sharing, by the way of the municipality’s desire to share the resources they’ve developed with other local (and even state) governments and NYC’s partnership with common municipal software vendors in this endeavor; and (3) it raises questions about what’s next for government transparency tools, civic software partnerships, and reuse.
Continue readingBig spenders: How candidates backed by outside groups fared
Yesterday’s big win for the Republicans was also a major victory for some the outside groups that have spent liberally on the election.
American Crossroads, the conservative-leaning group advised by Karl Rove was the night’s biggest winner, helping Republicans take control of the House and narrow the margin in the Senate.
The Super PAC spent money on 43 candidates, and racked up 28 wins and 15 losses. Some of those losses include the Nevada Senate race between Majority Leader and Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle and the Colorado Senate race between Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Ken Buck ...
Republican leaning groups spend heavily on Nevada Senate race
The Nevada Senate toss-up between Majority Leader Harry Reid and Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle is one of the races which has seen close to $10 milion spent by outside groups to influence voters. The stakes are high and the ads are scathing. So far, the spending is skewed in favor of Angle where Republican-leaning groups have spent over $7.8 million, according to data reported to the Federal Election Commission.
The groups that are weighing in on the Nevada battle are big spending conservative-leaning groups including American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS that are part of this "hydra of independent ...
Continue readingSunlight Creates Database of Members’ Expenditures
We’ve put up a new database. On Monday, the House published their Statements of Disbursements online for the first time,... View Article
Continue readingHouse Expenditures to go Online
The US House is expected today to release the quarterly Statement of Disbursements online for the first time. Sunlight has... View Article
Continue readingSuccess! Senate to post expenditure reports
The Senate is going to follow the House in posting their office expenditure reports online for the public to view.... View Article
Continue readingIs Ensign’s Sex Scandal More Than a Sex Scandal?
Yesterday, Sen. John Ensign admitted to an affair with a campaign staffer who was also the wife of Ensign’s administrative... View Article
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