A new Sunlight analysis of campaign finance records from the Democratic National Committee finds party operatives have made frequent use of the White House grounds during the past four years.
Continue readingOpengov leaders: President Obama, use your bully pulpit to promote democracy reforms in the State of the Union
We asked a diverse set of leaders on the forefront of advocating for civic engagement, civic technology, government accountability and open government to weigh in on what President Obama should say in tonight’s State of the Union.
Continue readingPresident Obama is not on GitHub
While President Obama may have written his first line of code, he doesn't have a GitHub account. We need to clear up some confusion over the PresidentObama account we made.
Continue readingObama’s nonprofit gets more big donors
President Obama's nonprofit group released its donors for the second quarter on Friday, and the group is leaning more heavily on the megarich than it did in the first quarter, when it was launched.
The group also raised more money, bringing in $8.2 million in the second quarter compared to $4.8 million last time. Here is a downloadable .csv file of all the donors, though only those who gave $250 or more are included.
Continue readingNew appointees are long overdue but is the FEC broken?
Is the Federal Election Commission broken? That's the question a watchdog group asked a panel of experts on the day that the last of the current commissioners' terms expired, leaving the agency that oversees campaign finance law with one vacancy and five holdovers. Campaign finance reformers used the occasion to call on President Barack Obama to appoint new commissioners, something the president hasn't bothered to do since the Senate refused to act on his last nominee.
Continue readingObama’s ‘voluntary’ inaugural disclosure left out some big corporate checks
President Barack Obama's second inaugural committee promised to disclose who underwrote the festivities, but a new campaign finance report reveals that the now-defunct website of the 2013 Presidential Inaugural Committee, omitted the names of two million-dollar corporate donors -- Boeing and Chevron -- among others.
Continue readingHouse panel tries to open the (financial) books of presidential libraries
As President Obama faces choosing between Hawaii and Chicago as the site of his presidential library, a House committee today greenlighted a bill that would make donors to the institution public.
The next step will be a vote in the full House.
The bill would require future presidential library foundations to report donors to the National Archives on a quarterly basis. The Archives would then post them online in a searchable, downloadable database. The Sunlight Foundation's policy counsel, Daniel Schuman, testified in favor of the measure last week.
The state of Hawaii wants the library near this spot in ...
Pro-Obama group insists it’s not selling access
As donors and Democratic activists meet with President Obama surrogates today and tomorrow to discuss the launch of a political nonprofit group that will help advance president's agenda, new details have emerged about it. But not the list of high rollers who have been asked to pay $50,000 to dine tonight with the president.
Continue readingAfter $100,000 inaugural donation, nuclear deal gets closer
It turns out there was a good reason, The Nation points out, that we reported extensively on the donors behind President Obama's second presidential inauguration. One of the corporate donors, Southern Company, is expecting a big benefit from the administration.
An executive with the Atlanta-based utility said last week that the company expects to finalize its long-awaited $8.3 billion loan guarantee from the administration by the middle of the year to help it build a new nuclear power plant with two reactors, the Wall Street Journal reported. The historic loan approval was made in 2010 -- to the ire ...
Continue readingAmazon, AT&T donated services to Obama’s inaugural
While some information on the staggering sums given by the more than 20 corporations and unions that contributed to President Barack Obama's inauguration has been reported, like AT&T's staggeringly large $3 million donation, less attention has been paid to the goods and services that companies provided to the 57th inaugural.
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