Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. I use this series to highlight local blogs that do a great job of covering local, state, and Congressional political news. This week I have highlights from Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Texas.

In Montana, MTPolitics.net highlights the new Montana Election wiki.  The wiki aims to be an all stop shop for all of Montana’s elections happenings.  It includes elections from the county to the federal level.

In Nevada, Blue Sage Views talks about how much money in earmarks Rep. Dean Heller has gotten in the last two years.  There is definitely some work in EarmarkWatch.org for Rep. Dean Heller according to his $32 million earmarks.

In Oregon, Loaded Orygun blogs about his experience trying to cover an Executive Session of the Lake Oswego Council.  Executive Sessions are closed except to journalists.  There are no clear rules about whether citizen journalists are allowed to be credited and so TorridJoe was asked to leave.  This incident is requiring Lake Oswego to adopt a policy regarding new media journalists.  Stayed tuned to Loaded Orygun for more info.  They should check out the Open House Project’s section on Citizen Journalism Access.

In Texas, blogHouston points to Texas Watchdog posting of Houston City Council’s financial disclosures on their website.  Since this information is not available online now this watch dog group is doing it for them.  How nice.