In stark contrast to the current crop of House freshmen, which we reported on extensively earlier this year, the soon-to-be newly sworn in members of the 113th Congress is considerably more balanced politically; however, analysts warn that it will likely be the most divided class yet.
Of the 89 new House members taking their oaths of office for the first time in January, 2011, after an election marked by a Tea Party tide, just nine were Democrats. So far this year (a few races remain to be called), there are 74 first-timers slated to take office next year, 44 Democrats ...
Continue readingDavis deletes 13 consecutive tweets following debate
Republican Rodney Davis, in a tight race with Democrat David Gill for Illinois' 13th Congressional District, deleted 13 consecutive posts from his Twitter account Thursday, hours after they were posted to his account during the congressional candidates' only debate of the campaign.
The debate highlighted many of the candidates' differences and provided insight into many of their positions including...their stance on Twitter? Both candidates' teams were actively tweeting during the debate; however Team Davis, which posted 17 tweets during the course of the debate, deleted 13 consecutive posts less than a day later. Politwoops, the Sunlight Foundation's database ...
Continue readingFall cleaning: DC’s Eleanor Holmes Norton deletes tweets
It looks like the office of Eleanor Holmes Norton just discovered that she has been tweeting to the wrong account, typically when publishing personal and partisan reactions in real time.
Politwoops, a Sunlight Foundation tool that aggregates the deleted tweets of politicians, was flooded with deletions from the Washington, D.C. delegate's congressional account this morning. She deleted 17 tweets so far today, some of which were days, even months, old.
While some of the tweets were mere typos, other tweets were not as insignificant. For example, Norton deleted a post that said “Paul Ryan is the affable face ...
Continue readingWho let the dog out? Frosh Republican Allen West’s tweet sics would-be pooch adoptees on the Marines
A tweet from Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., calling for volunteers to adopt IED-sniffing dogs has contributed to a situation that Marines might describe as a 'snafu.'
On West's Facebook page, a post stated that the Marine Corps has 400 decommissioned dogs in need of 'forever homes.' West (or a staffer) promoted the page on Twitter and deleted it two hours later. The deletion was captured by Sunlight Foundation's Politwoops, a site that records and posts deleted tweets from politicians. The Facebook post has since been removed.
Information about the dogs was based on a military listserv email sent ...
Continue readingSay what? Obama and others mistweet during VP debate
As Joe Biden and Paul Ryan spat fire at one another during the Thursday night's vice presidential debate, the online community buzzed with commentary, tweeting quotes, praise, and criticism of the candidates' performances. President Barack Obama's Twitter feed was particularly busy, feverishly posting Democratic debate points under the label #TeamJoe.
As Politwoops--a Sunlight Foundation tool that captures politicians' deleted tweets--proves, not even the president is absolved of error. In the social media frenzy, Obama's team misquoted his number two, taking a statement intended to support the middle class and turning it into one championing the rich ...
Continue readingTwoops! Scott Brown (briefly) hails Elizabeth Warren appointment
Sometimes the fastest thumbs in politics are just too fast for their own (or their bosses') good.
About 15 minutes into Wednesday night's debate between Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., and his Democratic challenger, Elizabeth Warren, Team Brown -- using the boss' campaign Twitter account -- tweeted out a brag about the senator authoring an amendment to create a consumer protection board for members of the military service "which is now headed by Holly Petraeus."
That's a good name to drop. Holly Petraeus is the wife of retired Gen. David Petraeus, who commanded U.S. and allied forces in Iraq and ...
Continue readingPolitwoops – Now With More Open Source Flavor
Thursday we released a revamped design of Politwoops! 
You can read about some of the changes to the features and content in Nicko's post on the main blog, but the main news of the day is that we've now open sourced the code. That means, you can create your own Politwoops instance to track the deleted tweets of any subset of people you fancy.
Politwoops Overhaul in Time for the Elections
Politwoops, Sunlight's project to track deleted tweets from U.S. politicians that was recently named one of TIME Magazine's 50 Best Websites of 2012, is getting a big refresh and expansion today.
Continue readingTIME Names Politwoops a ‘Best Website of 2012’
We are surprised and thrilled to see that TIME Magazine named the Sunlight Foundation's Politwoops project as one of their selections for the 50 Best Websites of 2012.
Continue readingOops! What House freshmen deleted from Twitter
Like other Twitter users, members of Congress delete and revise their tweets. Unlike most Twitter users, however, lawmakers maintain official accounts -- a use of taxpayer resources -- which is why the Sunlight Foundation considers them fair game to monitor for Politwoops, our database of deleted tweets by elected officials, launched earlier this year.
Freshman may be new to Congress, but they seem seasoned when it comes to social media skills. Based on our sample of congressional Twitter behavior so far, new members, who make up 20 percent of the 112th Congress, are sending out 19 percent of the tweets. On the ...
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