The Federal Reserve's Open Markets Committee opens two days of meetings Wednesday amid growing speculation about whom President Barack Obama will nominate to steer the nation's financial policy after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's term ends early next year.
The two presumed frontrunners, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Fed Vice-Chair Janet Yellen, both have active rooting sections. And there's plenty of handicapping about which one is in a better position to win favor of the president -- and the senators who must confirm the appointment. From our perch at Sunlight covering the political influence game, however, there ...
Continue readingPanel considers big-time Obama funders for cushy overseas posts
Of seven potential new additions to U.S. diplomatic missions that the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations will consider at a hearing Tuesday afternoon, three are among President Barack Obama's most successful fundraisers from his 2012 campaign.
The president's most recent flight of would-be ambassadors follows a familiar pattern: a mix of career members of the Foreign Service and mega-campaign bundlers.
Presidents have long reserved around 30 percent of available ambassadorships for political allies -- using plum diplomatic posts in U.S.-friendly nations to function as rewards for campaign loyalty. The widely-accepted practice has persisted for more than ...
Continue readingTimeline: Five years of Party Time, Sunlight’s political fundraiser tracker
During the five years that we've been compiling nearly 18,000 invitations for political fundraisers in our Party Time database, reporters both within and outside Sunlight, activists, and policy makers have found ample ways to use it to extend our understanding of how government works, to make headlines and to give the lowdown on political high rollers. This timeline shows some of the highlights, from reporter Harry Hanbury, who tried to attend every fundraiser held in the nation's capital in one day to the Twitter firestorm that followed Party Time's reporting of a Google-sponsored fundraiser for conservative Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. Jump in and take a look.
Obama visits Chattanooga: Land of GOP votes and Democratic bucks
President Barack Obama, who lately has been doing a lot of worrying aloud about the decline of the middle class, on Tuesday takes his rolling conversation about the economy to Tennessee, where local Republicans have prepared a not-so-welcome wagon.
The 30-second ad seen above, produced by the Tennessee Republican Party, showed up over the weekend in Ad Hawk, Sunlight's database of political advertisements. It credits the Volunteer State's economic successes to conservative policies, including one that makes it harder for unions to organize. In fact, however, Tennessee is not a bright spot when it comes to jobs: The ...
Continue readingPolitical ad watch: Now starring Steve King
Rep. Steve King has a starring role in a Democratic ad blitz that seeks to hang the Iowa Republican's latest controversial remarks about immigrants around the necks of Republicans trying to appeal to constituencies with heavily Hispanic votes.
The political powerhouse labor union SEIU has just released a Spanish-language ad that targets seven Republican House members, challenging them to say whether they agree with comments that "insult our families" or support legislation that would provide millions of immigrants now living illegally in the United States with a pathway to citizenship. Sunlight spotted the new campaign on Ad Hawk, our ...
Continue readingAnti-super PAC super PAC gets big money from Silicon Valley
Friends of Democracy, the hybrid super PAC founded by the son of George Soros that wants to spend millions of dollars to take money out of politics, raked in about $1.8 million in the first half of this year, with six-figure contributions from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Sean Parker and Google engineer Matt Cutts.
Continue readingFEC puts off enforcement fight
The Federal Election Commission demonstrated a rare burst of productivity Thursday, when commissioners settled one major issue, investigated another, but put off a brewing fight over how it conducts investigations for another day.
The Republican and Democratic commissioners had no trouble giving the green light to requests brought by two separate committees to treat same-sex married donors the same as opposite-sex donors. Married donors can jointly contribute $10,400 to a candidate, even if only spouse earns income. The move was expected after the Supreme Court's reversal of the Defense of Marriage Act.
The commissioners were also unified in ...
Continue readingDatafest project opens Uncle Sam’s daily ledger
Michael Keller shows off Treasury.io site at Sunlight offices.
McConnell opponent opens $29K air war
Political rookie Matt Bevin got national press attention earlier this week when he launched a political ad war within hours of announcing his primary challenge to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. But we now know the would-be Kentucky giant killer is prepared to put some serious money where his mouth is.
Contracts captured by Sunlight's Political Ad Sleuth show that Bevin already has dropped $29,375 at two Louisville TV stations to buy TV spots over the next two weeks. The figure is the first indication of the financial resources of the GOP challenger: As a just-declared candidate, Bevin ...
Continue readingNew FEC nominees stress compromise but also nod to their camps
After a Senate committee hearing questioning the two new nominees to the Federal Election Commission Wednesday, both nominees emphasized their willingness to compromise with the other, which would be a far cry from the partisan rancor that has increased at the commission in recent years.
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