If there is a “reluctance of corporations to spend on politics,” somebody forgot to tell the corporations. As far as I can tell, corporations are still spending ridiculous sums here in Washington. This surprising assertion comes from the New York Times’ Eduardo Porter, who wrote an article in today’s paper trying to puzzle through what would be a provocative question if the premise were true: “How did corporate America lose control of the Republican Party?” Porter’s thesis seems to be that corporations should have spent more money to shape the make-up of the Republican Party in Congress. If they had, they’d be better poised to get some action on immigration reform and infrastructure improvement. “Corporations’ reluctance to open their checkbooks,” Porter writes, “suggests an intriguing alternative explanation for the rise of Republicans who are willing to defy their will.” Let’s set a few things straight.
Continue readingIn Philippines, Summer of Potential for Open Government
As a member of the Open Government Partnership Steering Committee, the Philippines is uniquely positioned to be a highly visible leader on open government. However, the legislature’s failure to pass a freedom of the information bill has brought this role into question.
So, what’s going on in the Philippines?
In the parliament, bills on internet freedom, legislative crowdsourcing, and parliamentary openness have all been introduced this summer. The other branches of government are also turning increasingly towards technology to improve governance. All this suggests that the Philippines’ role as an open government leader may be back on track, but only if this summer’s promising work is sustained.
Today in #OpenGov 9/3/2013
News Rodney Alexander (R-LA) is giving up a plum position as chairman of the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee when... View Article
Continue readingOpenGov Voices: Roundup of voices you may have missed
We are switching up this week’s OpenGov Voices and giving you a chance to catch up with some of the major OpenGov Voices blog posts that you may have missed. It’s also a good opportunity for you to reconnect with the wonderful opengov initiatives happening around the world and perhaps inspire you to start the transparency conversation in your community. Without much further ado:
Derek Eder’s post on how you can keep tabs on your local city council using a tool called Councilmatic -- was one not to 
miss.
OpenGov Voices: Keeping Tabs on your Local City Council with Councilmatic:
In recent years, many city clerks have taken a big step forward by publishing this legislation online. However, the current generation of municipal legislative information systems are mainly built to help councilmembers and clerks’ offices manage legislation. They were not built to help the public to understand what their city council is doing. Well, like so many of our problems, now there’s an app for that: Councilmatic.
When we launched our OpenGov Grants program in June (you can apply for a grant here), it was only appropriate that we show you how these grants are already at work. What better way than to let you hear from our friends at TurboVote. Kathryn Peters’ post on how TurboVote (a previous Sunlight grantee) is shaping the future of voting that you don’t have to wait in line (and sometimes miss a chance to cast your vote) because their tool is changing all that.
OpenGov Voices: How TurboVote is Shaping the Future of Voting: 
In 2010, my friend Seth Flaxman and I set out to create an electoral system that would fit the way WE live: TurboVote, a new user interface for voting, as it were, complete with push notifications about election deadlines and a Netflix-worthy delivery system for all that paperwork, so we didn't have to buy envelopes or track down stamps just to stay engaged.Continue reading
Transparency Takes a Hit in CIA Budget Cuts
As part of recent sequestration cuts, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has closed its Historical Collections Division, which had been... View Article
Continue readingToday in #OpenGov 8/26/2013
News Federal agencies have been successfully turning to cloud technologies to reduce FOIA backlogs. New technologies are helping agencies search,... View Article
Continue readingAnnouncing the first seven OpenGov Grants
Sunlight Foundation is proud to announce its first group of OpenGov Grants awards. Launched in June with the financial support of Google.org, the OpenGov Grants programs offers one-time grants in the range of $5,000 to $10,000 to help open up government through creative innovations. Interest in the OpenGov Grants program has been brisk, and the selection committee worked at length to identify these engaging and lively projects.
Today in #OpenGov 8/21/2013
News Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) is looking to tackle dark money and the recent IRS controversies head on with... View Article
Continue readingA Modern Approach to Open Data
Last year, a group of us who work daily with open government data -- Josh Tauberer of GovTrack.us, Derek Willis at The New York Times, and myself -- decided to stop each building the same basic tools over and over, and start building a foundation we could share.
We set up a small home at github.com/unitedstates, and kicked it off with a couple of projects to gather data on the people and work of Congress. Using a mix of automation and curation, they gather basic information from all over the government -- THOMAS.gov, the House and Senate, the Congressional Bioguide, GPO's FDSys, and others -- that everyone needs to report, analyze, or build nearly anything to do with Congress.
Once we centralized this work and started maintaining it publicly, we began getting contributions nearly immediately. People educated us on identifiers, fixed typos, and gathered new data. Chris Wilson built an impressive interactive visualization of the Senate's budget amendments by extending our collector to find and link the text of amendments.
This is an unusual, and occasionally chaotic, model for an open data project. github.com/unitedstates is a neutral space; GitHub's permissions system allows many of us to share the keys, so no one person or institution controls it. What this means is that while we all benefit from each other's work, no one is dependent or "downstream" from anyone else. It's a shared commons in the public domain.
There are a few principles that have helped make the unitedstates project something that's worth our time, which we've listed below.
Sunlight Wins AEJMC Journalism Award
Sunlight joined very prestigious company last week by earning the 2013 Professional Freedom & Responsibility Award Winner by the Cultural and Critical Studies Division members of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). We are just thrilled to receive this recognition for our work to make government more transparent and accountable and thank the members of the Cultural and Critical Studies Division!
59063
