In appointing Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet as the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee the party will be getting a representative from a crucial western swing state whose 2010 election served as a model for President Barack Obama forging his winning campaign strategy.
Bennet first entered the Senate in 2009 as an appointee after then-Sen. Ken Salazar left Congress to serve as President Obama's secretary of the Interior. Plucked from his job as superintendent of Denver Public Schools, Bennet had never held elected office. But he went on to narrowly win a hotly contested race against GOP challenger ...
Continue readingEmerson was in formal talks with electric co-op days after reelection
On Nov. 19, nine business days after she won reelection with 72 percent of the vote, Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., began final negotiations for a new job with the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, official documents show.
According to ethics rules set in place meant to avoid conflict of interest, Members of Congress are required to file disclosures with the House Ethics Committee and the Senate Office of Public Records within three business days after they begin to negotiate for a future job while they are still in Congress. However, the definition of "negotiation" is left ambiguous and leaves ...
Mitt can’t quit Marriott
The big buzz about the Marriott Hotel company's decision to reach out and hire the unemployed -- or one of them, at least -- underscores the hospitality giant's knack for gathering and exercising influence in Washington.
Revolving door: Jo Ann Emerson leaves Congress for rural electrification co-op
Less than four weeks after winning re-election to a ninth term in Congress with more than 70 percent of the vote, Rep. Jo Ann Emerson announced she'll be leaving in February to head the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
Tech companies flex influence abroad at UN Internet conference
Does management of the Internet need an upgrade? That's the question before representatives of governments, corporations and civil society groups at a two-week conference that opened today in the Persian Gulf city of Dubai.
Continue reading‘Tis the season: Ads targeting 2014 Senate candidates already on air
For years, political advertisers have benefitted from a loophole big enough to drive a $10 million-dollar political campaign through. "Issue ads" that don't explicitly ask for a vote for or against a candidate, and don't run immediately before the election, don't have to be disclosed to the Federal Election Commission.
But new rules requiring about 15 percent of the country's broadcast TV stations to disclose these ad buys online are beginning to pull the veil off this secret spending. And, the documents help make clear, the line between "issue ads" and the endless campaign is vanishingly ...
Continue readingThe $2 billion lunch
Whatever will be on the menu when Mitt Romney and Barack Obama sit down for a mano-a-mano lunch today at the White House, we already know that those two diners have run up quite a tab.
At this point, we know that the two former presidential rivals and their supporters spent more than $2 billion on the campaign, as calculated by the Center for Responsive Politics. And that isn't even the complete tab. The post-election campaign reports are due at the Federal Election Commission on Dec. 6.
Of the money we know about so far, more than $600 million ...
Continue readingOutside spenders’ return on investment: Capitol Hill edition
Sunlight calculates outside spenders return on investment for congressional races and hosts a webinar on how to use the data
Continue readingPandora gets heard but many lawmakers change the channel
To the delight of the recording industry, a congressional hearing about a bill that would decrease the royalties that Pandora pays to record labels and artists turned into a larger discussion about how Congress regulates the music business.
The hearing, on the Judiciary Committee’s intellectual property subcommittee, was about the Internet Radio Freedom Act, a bill sponsored by panel member Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, that would subject Internet radio services to the same rate setting standard of cable and satellite radio.
MORE: Check out the archive of Sunlight Live's coverage of the hearing.
In a press release issued after ...
Continue readingLame ducks: Flying free or still dancing with them that brung ’em?
There are more than 80 "lame duck" legislators who won't be back next year but whose votes could determine whether the nation runs off the fiscal cliff or stops short of it.
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