A provision stealthily added to the just-agreed-to congressional spending measure — also known as the omnibus — will allow political parties to raise 10 times more money from wealthy individuals.
Continue readingIndia’s FOI Anniversary Spurs Political Finance Transparency
The eighth anniversary of India’s freedom of information law, the Right to Information Act (RTI), could become an important milestone in the country’s transparency agenda. The 2005 sunshine law has already made a tremendous impact on how Indian decision makers respond to public scrutiny efforts, and this year has seen a heated public debate around the finances of political parties with the anniversary creating momentum to rethink (and maybe even redesign) the country's current political finance transparency landscape.
Continue readingWhy does the IRS regulate political groups? A look at the complex world of campaign finance
The controversy over the Internal Revenue Service's handling of applications for non-profit status from Tea Party groups has put a spotlight on a subject with which we at the Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group are all too painfully familiar: The migraine-producing complexity of the nation's campaign finance system. To shed some light on the ongoing debate, we've decided to share what we know.
As often is the case with systems worthy of Rube Goldberg, it's easier to draw than to describe.
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