NEWS ROUNDUP: International Criticizing Tajikistan’s president online could have grave consequences: With its announcement of a volunteer-run group monitoring social... View Article
Continue readingPutting Romney’s tax returns in presidential context
The controversy over what’s hiding in Mitt Romney’s unreleased tax returns continues. But even without the missing filings, putting his 2010 and 2011 tax numbers in context is strikingly informative. It dramatically shows what an outlier Romney is on a few basic tax and income dimensions.
Continue readingLaw Libraries, Government Transparency, and the Internet
This past weekend I was fortunate to attend the American Association of Law Libraries 105th annual conference. On Sunday morning,... View Article
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 7/23/2012
NEWS ROUNDUP: Transparency Obstacles to open records common in almost every state: While every state has an open records law,... View Article
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 7/20/2012
NEWS ROUNDUP: Transparency Newspaper group asks for Congressional tax returns, gets only 17: McClatchy Newspapers, who asked all 535 members... View Article
Continue readingAgency Report Transparency Bill Delayed For Technical Fixes
Markup of a bill to make agency reports to Congress transparent did not occur as planned on Thursday after the measure... View Article
Continue readingBig banks dominate Dodd-Frank meetings with regulators
This piece was prepared in collaboration with Drew Vogel In the two years since the mammoth Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act became law, federal regulators have heard overwhelmingly from the biggest banks, according to a new Sunlight Foundation analysis of financial regulatory agency meeting logs. The voices of reform-oriented groups have been much quieter – particularly in the past 12 months. Since July 21, 2010 (when the president signed Dodd-Frank), regulators at the three major banking regulatory agencies – Treasury, the Fed and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) – have reported meeting with 20 big banks and banking associations on average a combined 12.5 times per week – as compared to on average just 2.3 meetings with reform-oriented groups. The top 20 banks show up 1,298 times in meeting logs at the three agencies, while groups favoring tighter regulations of the financial markets show up just 242 times.
Continue readingFederal Spending Transparency Gets a Hearing, Not a Markup
Improved federal spending transparency was the topic of today’s Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing, which focused on the... View Article
Continue reading2Day in #OpenGov 7/18/2012
NEWS ROUNDUP: Campaign Finance DISCLOSE Act falls again in second Senate attempt: 24 hours was not enough time for the... View Article
Continue readingAgency Report Transparency Bill Set for Markup Tomorrow
Tomorrow the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act will get its turn in the spotlight. The legislation, which would require reports... View Article
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