Tomorrow morning I will be testifying before the full House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about the Sunlight Foundation’s work... View Article
Continue readingVisitor Logs Hearing in Energy and Commerce Committee
I testified earlier today before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It was a... View Article
Continue readingClearspending Heads To Capitol Hill
I'm thrilled to say that tomorrow morning Sunlight's Executive Director, Ellen Miller, will be testifying before Congress about our Clearspending project. You can read more about it here, or just check out the posts we wrote about Clearspending back when it launched.
We think that the data quality problems identified by the project are important, and we're glad to see that government is taking them seriously. Without a clear understanding of how our government spends money, it's difficult to make smart decisions about how to adjust that spending.
Having Congress pay attention to our results is a tremendous vindication for the work that Kaitlin and Kevin have done on Clearspending. I think it's also a great example of why Sunlight is such a cool place to work.Where else can your diligent SQL-wrangling turn into a chance to give sworn testimony before Congress?
And speaking of working here: as I've mentioned before, we have a couple of open positions. As you might imagine, preparing testimony has gotten in the way of reviewing resumes. But we'll be diving back into that process very soon. If you've been thinking about it, stop hesitating!
Continue readingAn Oregon Story
Across the country people are going to government meetings asking for better government. In Oregon the Attorney General is asking... View Article
Continue readingSunlight Testimony for Senate Rules Committee
Today the Senate Rules Committee held the first of what’s likely to be a series of hearings on Capitol Hill... View Article
Continue readingOur FEC Testimony
I went in to testify last week on how the FEC can improve their website. Their hearing was actually the first to be streamed live on the Internet. I'm hoping we can get a recording up soon.
It went well. The commissioners were very amenable to feedback and heard what we had to say. I delivered all your comments, and they were receptive to all of them. Primarily in my own testimony I talked to the FEC about how they should spend less time making maps and more time making bulk data available in extensible formats, and that they should hire a New Media Director to carry the ball on this stuff and make sure it happens.
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