The death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore brought up questions of police misconduct in the city. These answers demand access to police data, and drew Sunlight to look at the Baltimore Police Department’s open data offerings and beyond.
Continue readingNew reforms illuminate Maryland’s public records
Maryland is about to take a big step toward increasing transparency: Both the state’s House and Senate have passed positive reforms to the state’s Public Information Act (PIA), making its public records more accessible to all.
Continue readingAdding transparency to the processes behind open data
Montgomery County, Md., provides an example of how the prioritization process for open data can be open in itself.
Continue readingCampaign intelligence: Republican primaries in the spotlight
Outside money has coalesced behind Ben Sasse in Nebraska, while the leader of a crowded GOP pack in West Virginia's 2nd Congressional district gets most of his money from out of state.
Continue reading“Why would a little disclosure be better than a lot of disclosure?”
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., defended the DISCLOSE Act but said "congressional inaction" puts dark money regulation into the IRS' court.
Continue readingThe Great Montgomery Hackathon
About 25 programmers, civic activists and students spent last weekend holed up in a Montgomery County community center, working on projects for the public good.
Continue readingOn gun control, states are where the action is
While their efforts to win new federal gun regulations stalled out this year, gun control advocates did win some victories in big states.
Continue readingOpenGov Voices: Open Government is About Raising People’s Opinions
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Sunlight Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight 
Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest blog.
Lucas Dailey is a UX designer and Chief Innovation Officer at political social network MyMaryland.net. You can follow him on Twitter @lucasdailey.
The mechanism for citizen interaction with government doesn’t start and end at the ballot box. An essential goal of our fight for greater government openness and transparency is to give citizens’ opinions greater power. For government to be responsive it must have a fast, easy means to understand how constituents feel about any given issues. Ultimately, government itself is a relationship between the institutions that constitute a polity and its citizens.
MyMaryland.net wants to bridge the gap between voters and their representatives because we believe people’s voices matter. MyMaryland.net connects verified Maryland voters with their elected officials in democracy’s first 24/7 online Town Hall.
Participation: a two-sided problem
One of the keys to a vibrant representative democracy is an informed and engaged citizenry. Yet only 10% of Americans contact their elected officials between elections. We can do better by lowering the hurdles to participate and raising the political value of opinions.
Members of Congress get hundreds or thousands of emails every day. It takes a considerable amount of staff resources to separate constituents from non-constituents, and when they’re finally separated only a very small percentage of messages are from actual voters in their districts.
With MyMaryland.net we prescreen all users through the Maryland voter registration file then connect them with their actual elected officials. Since elected officials know all messages and votes in their MyMaryland.net Town Hall are from their registered voters then they don’t need to spend the time to verify them.
Voters can show their support or opposition to a post simply by voting it up or down instead of writing their own message, thus saving time for citizens and legislative staff. Legislative staff also save time by writing a single response to each post instead of multiple responses to numerous similar messages.
With MyMaryland.net voters and elected officials are able to convey more opinions in less time.
Continue readingFootball and the Art of Civic Hacking
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions 
of the Sunlight Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest blog.
Sharon Paley is the "chief operator" at gb.tc (formerly know as Greater Baltimore Tech Council.) Dedicated to helping improve her beloved hometown through innovation and technology, Sharon has been instrumental in building Hack Baltimore, a platform created by gb.tc and the City of Baltimore encouraging every citizen to develop innovative solutions for civic betterment. You can catch Sharon's podcasts and blog posts at gb.tc or follow her @sharon_paley.
I like to take this page from Vince Lombardi’s playbook:
“People who work together will win, where it be against complex football defenses or the problems of a modern society.”
What more modern way to tackle the problems of a society than the civic hackathon. They are great opportunities to learn about how our own government works, develop new tools that enable governments to work better, and make a difference in the community and world we live in.
Continue readingGun legislation in states forecasts close fight in Congress
As the Senate opens debate on gun control after a last-minute bipartisan deal, a review of legislation now before state lawmakers gives a striking evidence of how difficult it will be to enact restrictions on firearms into law, even given the political momentum such measures have received following the December shooting tragedy that left 26 people -- most of them young children -- dead at the Sandy Hook elementary school at Newtown, Conn.
A review of nearly 1,500 firearms-related bills introduced in the 50 state legislatures since the beginning of the year by Sunlight reveals that the post-Newtown push for stronger ...
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