Virginia is getting its citizens involved with opengov in multiple ways, including the 2015 Datathon Challenge and a new open data portal in Richmond.
Continue readingThe Week on Politwoops: a campaign to official account conversion, an omnibus flip flop and a basketball mixup
A weekly roundup of some notable deleted tweets archived by our Politwoops project.
Continue readingAfter loss at SCOTUS, what’s next for reproductive rights groups
Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice blasted SCOTUS' decision in the Hobby Lobby case and vowed to keep fighting. Here's how they have extended their influence in the past.
Continue readingAbortion rights prompts liberal groups to spend big, and early
WIth more than a year to go before the next congressional race, Democratic groups have begun to outspend Republican groups two to one. Much of that money is coming from groups focused on abortion rights.
Continue readingBoth sides of gun debate see hope in Virginia elections
Outside spending groups on either side of the gun control debate find reasons for optimism after Virginia's tight gubernatorial race, in spite of the fact that issues like the economy, healthcare and ethics scandals seem to have been foremost on voters' minds.
Continue readingTV air wars in VA gov’s race? Not so much
A review of the race's top outside spenders -- compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project -- combined with political advertisements gathered by Sunlight's Political Ad Hawk and data from Influence Explorer, sheds a little more light on the strategies of the outside groups jockeying for Virginians' votes. These figures represent the ad money spent at the major news affiliates in the state's four biggest markets.
Continue readingDemocrats making shutdown an issue in swing races
Democrats are making a political bet that swing voters will make Republicans pay for the shutdown of the federal government.
Sunlight's Ad Hawk database, which tracks political ads and enables smartphone users to identify sources of money behind them, picked up four ads on Thursday by Democratic candidates or political action committees that tie GOP officeholders to the shutdown.
In Virginia, where voters go to the polls Nov. 5 to elect a new governor, Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe is linking his GOP opponent, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, whose outspoken opposition to the implementation of ...
Continue readingClosure of disclosure, part II: Political ad filings go dark
The government shutdown is turning into a major denial of service for journalists and other citizens interested in tracking the influence of big money on politics.
Not only is it preventing scrutiny of campaign finance records -- potentially leaving voters in at least one Louisiana special election with NO information on donors before they head to the polls -- it's also making it next to impossible to provide up-to-date information on political ad buys.
The shuttering of the Federal Communications Commission's website has severely hamstrung Political Ad Sleuth, a tool that the Sunlight Foundation and Free Press developed last year to track those buys at hundreds of TV stations across the country.
And there are plenty of them -- some of them attempt to capitalize on the shutdown itself.
Ending Spending readies air war in Virginia governor’s race
Ending Spending, a group bankrolled by Chicago Cubs owner Joe Ricketts that spent $13 million in the last election, is gearing up in the Virginia Senate race.
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