Northrup Grumman spends millions on lobbying and campaign contributions — but those only tell part of the story.
Continue readingIt’s not just Bill Shuster: We need better lobbying disclosure
While the Shuster-Rubino story tells us much about Shuster, there’s a much wider world of information on lobbying that needs to be disclosed.
Continue readingWrangling messy political data into usable information
Former (and future) Sunlighter Zack Maril discusses his initial forays into advanced entity deduplication approaches.
Continue readingErring on the side of shady: How calling out “lobbyists” drove them underground
Recent disclosure measures were supposed to provide more accurate reporting of who lobbyists were and what they did. Instead, they just drove lobbying underground, making it harder to track than ever.
Continue readingWhat Have they Got to Hide? Lawmakers Should Allow Meetings with Lobbyists to be Disclosed
Recently, my colleague Lee Drutman concluded that banks met with regulators at the Federal Reserve, Treasury and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission more than five times as often as reform-minded consumer groups in the past two years. His analysis provides a valuable tool for the media, academics and the public to better understand who is trying to shape financial industry regulations.
His conclusions, and the follow up questions that can now be asked (Did the banks get what they wanted? Are consumers’ interests being served?) are only possible because the agencies posted information about the meetings online.
Which begs the question: If the regulators can provide information about who is trying to influence the regulations they write, why doesn’t the public have access to similar information about meetings Members of Congress or their staff have with lobbyists?
Robust Lobbying Disclosure Needed to Address Advantage of the 1% of the 1%
In the 2012 election 28 percent of all disclosed political contributions came from just 31,385 people. In a nation of 313.85 million, these donors represent the 1% of the 1%, an elite class that increasingly serves as the gatekeepers of public office in the United States.
During the 2012 election cycle, a tiny percentage of lobbyists gave a combined $34.1 million in campaign contributions, putting them in elite company with the political 1% of the 1%, individuals who have given at least $12,950 each toward identifiable federal election activities. And while lobbyists’ donations made up only a small portion of the overall contributions from the political 1% of the 1%, their contributions might net the most bang for the buck. Lobbyists more often gave directly to candidates rather than to outside groups; and it is to those candidates—when they are elected—that the lobbyists turn when they need help. Shining the brightest light on lobbying activities will expose to the public where the levels of influence are and who is pulling them. Sunlight has developed a set of eight principles that form the foundation of a comprehensive lobbying disclosure regime. Continue reading
Photos from Today’s ACT Event
The committee room before the full crowd arrived. The Advisory Committee on Transparency‘s event earlier today was a huge success... View Article
Continue readingImproving Federal Lobbying Laws topic of ABA Task Force Report
Improving federal lobbying laws is the focus of a new report released by a task force of the American Bar... View Article
Continue readingShould lobbyists be required to disclose anything?
That seems to be a question raised from The Next Right‘s Soren Dayton. Dayton is taking the position that lobbyists... View Article
Continue readingWeekly Media Roundup – April 13, 2009
Each weekday, Sunlight’s communications team collects all the press mentions of Sunlight and of our grantees. Instead of just keeping... View Article
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