I think that Harold Pollack, professor at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, sums up a lot of feelings people are having about former Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag's move from government to the offices of Citigroup:
With the exception of the president himself, Orszag was arguably the most important economic policymaker in the entire Obama administration. Orszag’s OMB role, his fingertip familiarity with policy, the budget process, and congressional policymakers made him central to the stimulus and health reform efforts. He was President Obama’s right hand man for much of that work, and more besides. He accumulated the ultimate rolodex of people inside and outside government, within the United States, and perhaps globally, too. Continue reading
Sunlight Unveils House Staff Directory (in beta)
Today I’m pleased to announce the release of a House Staff Directory in beta version. It is no secret that congressional staff are the lifeblood of Congress, but identifying the best staffer to speak with about a particular issue is a daunting challenge. The directory empowers the public to better communicate with their elected representatives. In addition to legislative offices, the directory also includes staffers from offices that support House activities.
What makes the directory unique?
- It's free.
- It's a directory of all House employees, including those who provide legislative support to the functioning of Congress, with data no more than 6 months old.
- You can perform complex searches by staff title, political party, quarter or state and download that information into a spreadsheet.
- You can search over multiple quarters to see the employment trail for a particular staffer.
Revolving Door: New hires on the Hill
There are numerous reports coming in that new and old members of Congress are hiring lobbyists to work in their... View Article
Continue readingLoopholes already being sought for earmark ban
Some House Republicans are already looking for a way around the ban on earmarks imposed on the next Congress. These members are rapidly trying to come up with a new definition for earmarks, or directed spending, to skirt the ban.
Politico reports, "[S]ome Republicans are discussing exemptions to the earmark ban, allowing transportation, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and water projects. While transportation earmarks are probably the most notorious — think “Bridge to Nowhere” — there is talk about tweaking the very definition of “earmark.”
What to do tonight in DC? Get Indecent with Sunlight!
What to do tonight in DC? Get Indecent with Sunlight! In DC? Join Sunlight tonight at Indecent Disclosure, a fundraiser, happy hour, and all around transparency hootenanny taking over Madams Organ (2461 18th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009) between 5 and 9 PM. Why, you say? Well, for starters, we throw a great party, and we love meeting other folks interested in transparency and open government. The party will include drink specials, a raffle (you enter just by buying a ticket to the event itself!), and Constant Alarm, an awesome, new, local band in DC.
Continue readingIncoming finance committee chairman relies on finance campaign contributions
The House Republican Steering Committee voted on Tuesday to name all committee chairman for the incoming Congress. Their choice to head the House Financial Services Committee, the committee in charge of overseeing the financial sector and the government's implementation of new financial reforms, happens to be the member of Congress most reliant on contributions from the financial sector.
Contributions from the finance, insurance and real estate sector accounted for 62.5 percent of all contributions received by Rep. Spencer Bachus, the incoming House Financial Services Committee chairman, during the 2010 election cycle. These contributions amounted to $1.23 million out of a total $1.97 million that Bachus' campaign and political action committees raised.
Sunlight Weekly Round-up: Commissioners Reject Code of Ethics Proposal
Since we started this aggregation of blog posts, different bloggers have expressed interest in sharing their thoughts on issues revolving around transparency and accountability in government. We continue to support this interest. I am particularly excited about furthering the transparency blogging platform and this is why I am inviting other transparency bloggers to join Transparency bloggers - our Sunlight Foundation Google group. For now, we understand that openness is an issue for both sides - as Amy Laff illustrates. But tracking transparency can be a challenge especially in cases such as North Carolina's government officials who rejected a proposal for a revised Code of Ethics.
Continue readingOpen Government Directive: Live Blogging the White House
December 8th is the one year anniversary of the Open Government Directive, and the White House is doing a live question and answer session to commemorate. We'll be liveblogging the event below - it's scheduled to start at 2:00pm ET.
Continue readingOpen Government Directive: Year One
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Open Government Directive, and Sunlight issued the following statement. Please also join us... View Article
Continue readingMake Lobbying for Foreign Interests More Transparent
Sunlight will be making a big push in the 112th Congress for improvements to lobbying disclosure. As part of that effort, we will also call for amendments to the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the law that requires anyone who lobbies the U.S. government on behalf of a foreign interest to register and report his or her activities with the Justice Department. FARA requires fairly detailed information from lobbyists, including the names of the government employees or Members of Congress contacted and the dates of each contact. (This fundamental information is not required by the Lobbyist Disclosure Act and is a reporting loophole Sunlight aims to close.) Unfortunately, many details regarding the work of foreign agents is hidden from public view because it is buried in unsearchable PDF documents. Sunlight and ProPublica have teamed up to put some of the FARA data in electronic form, but full transparency demands that FARA forms be electronically filed and all data reported made publicly available in searchable, sortable, downloadable databases.
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