Making Government Transparent and Accountable
The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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This Week in Transparency – August 28, 2009
Here are some of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies over the past week:
CQ Politics‘ Richard Rubin reports how House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (N.Y.), already beset by a series of ethics investigations, recently disclosed more than $500,000 in previously unreported assets. Rubin notes that earlier this year, Bill Allison, Sunlight’s senior fellow, found similar problems with Rangel’s previous disclosure reports. According to Bill’s analysis, Rangel failed to report purchases, sales or his ownership of assets at least 28 times since 1978 on his personal financial disclosure forms. Assets worth between $239,026 and $831,000 appeared and disappeared with no disclosure of when they were acquired, how long they were held or when they were sold, as House rules require. “I understand being sloppy, missing an asset once or twice,” Bill said. “But what this shows is he doesn’t take financial disclosure seriously. How else can you year after year have these inaccuracies? It doesn’t look like there is a lot of care put it into compared to other members. It makes people suspicious when all of a sudden you double your wealth. Without knowing how a member accumulated that wealth, people are going to ask questions.” The New York Times‘ David Kocieniewski reported on Rangel’s discrepancies and quotes Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, saying the New York lawmaker’s haphazard approach to his finances had undermined his credibility in Congress. “Sloppy bookkeeping is not a valid excuse for a sophisticated member of Congress who is chairman of the committee that handles complex financial issues like the tax code,” she said. Glenn Reynolds, at his popular “Instapundit” blog, has followed the various Rangel stories and picks up on Bill’s Real Time Investigations post responding to the CQ Politics report.
Halimah Abdullah, with McClatchy Newspapers, reported on a study conducted by the Center for Public Integrity that found more than half the $1.1 million in campaign contributions the Democratic Party’s Blue Dog Coalition received so far this year came from the pharmaceutical, health care and health insurance industries. The report cites Center for Responsive Politics data to show how, on average, Blue Dog Democrats net $62,650 more from the health sector than other Democrats, while hospitals and nursing homes also favor them, giving, respectively, $5,680 and $5,550 more. Abdullah used Party Time data to show how coalition members are raising campaign cash at fundraisers. McClatchy papers across the country ran the story.
Wired’s “Epicenter” blog highlighted the Apps for America 2 contest finalists. Government Computer News quotes Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs’ director, discussing the finalists. (Continue reading…)
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This Week in Transparency – July 2, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies from the week:
Last Friday evening’s June 26th program, CNN’s Lou Dobbs broadcasted a piece by correspondent Louise Schiavone about the Cap and Trade Energy Bill that the House of Representatives was to vote on and pass later that evening. Schiavone interviewed Jake Brewer, Sunlight’s engagement director, who said, “This is the kind of bill that’s going to affect our economy on a massive scale, our climate, our national security, and is not the kind of thing to be taken lightly. The opacity of this process is — to be perfectly honest, it’s infuriating.” Schiavone then stated erroneously that Sunlight opposed the bill. For the record, Sunlight has no position on the content of the bill itself, but advocates for the Congress to put all non-emergency legislation online for 72 hours before voting on it. The transcript can be read here, and the video is below.
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This Week In Transparency – June 26, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and allies from the week:
CNN interviewed Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, in an article on lobbyists and the need for disclosure of their interactions with congressional lawmakers and other federal officials.
Katharine Q. Seelye at The New York Times reported on the fact that, five months into his administration, President Obama has signed two dozen bills, but he has almost never waited the five days, as he promised during his election campaign. She noted how open government and other watchdog groups have criticized the president for not living up to his pledge. Seelye quotes Ellen as saying it’s less important for the president to wait before signing a bill than it is for the Congress to wait 72 hours before voting on it. “There isn’t anybody in this town who doesn’t know that commenting after a bill has been passed is meaningless.” The article also has an accompanying video.
Politico’s Victoria McGrane reported on how the Senate is considering putting all their office expenses — including staff salaries — online, as well as requiring campaign fundraising reports to be published on the Web. The mere fact that the Senate leadership has conducted a whip count is an encouraging sign for the reforms’ passage, McGrane writes. And she quotes Lisa Rosenberg, Sunlight’s , “They wouldn’t be talking about bringing it up for a vote if it wasn’t pretty solid.”
The Washington Examiner reports on Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington calling on the Obama administration to release the names of health care executives who have visited the White House. “If you are going to criticize other people for secrecy, you better have an open door,” said Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director. “They talk about transparency more than they exhibit it.”
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This Week In Transparency – June 19, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:
In Sunday’s print edition, The New York Times editorialized about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordering electronic disclosure of lawmakers’ expense spending. They also encouraged the Senate to open up as well. Candidates for the Senate are the only federal candidates who fail to make their campaign finances available online in a timely fashion. “A measure to finally prod the Senate into modern times with electronic campaign filing awaits action, providing Republican obstruction can be defused. That’s not enough. It should be followed up by the Senate also putting expenses on line.” Getting the Senate to pass timely online disclosure is a Sunlight priority.
Also in its Sunday edition, The Virginia-Pilot editorialized about Congress opening up its data online. “Until recently, members of Congress have expended little effort to make their reports viewable online. But recent stories by The (Wall Street) Journal, as well as lobbying by government watchdog groups, apparently spurred lawmakers into action.” The editorial notes Sunlight pointed out that (Pelosi’s) plan calls for the reports to be posted in a “portable document format,” or PDF, file. However, a searchable database would be much more user-friendly, allowing taxpayers to pull up and compare multiple reports.
NextGov’s Aliya Sternstein reports on Sunlight obtaining and posting a version of the RFP for the Recovery.gov redesign. Sternstein quotes Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs director, “We’re not in government contracting, but we’re in transparency … and it’s crazy that the only place you can get this RFP” on Sunlight’s Web site. “The reason that we’re doing this is so we can inject ourselves into the process and expose it to the public,” Clay said. “We’ll be blogging about the whole thing. This Web site is supposed to serve the people, so let the people build it to their specifications.”
On Tuesday, MAPLight.org and their partner the California First Amendment Coalition achieved a huge victory when the State of California agreed to give the public access to the state government database of how state lawmakers vote. In December, the two groups filed a lawsuit seeking access to legislative votes. In response, the state has set up a database of Senate and Assembly bills and votes that it updates daily. MAPLight is working to combine data on all contributions California state legislators receive with the new database of how each politician votes. “It will combine data on all money given to members of the California state legislature with the newly available database of how each politician votes, revealing patterns of money and influence never before possible,” Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, blogged about the victory for open government earlier in the week. The Berkeley, Calif., -based MAPLight constructed a similar database on Congress, which The New York Times’ Freakonomics blog highlighted on Tuesday.
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This Week In Transparency – June 12, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this past week:
Federal law prohibits lobbyists and those that hire them from giving gifts or campaign contributions to congressional lawmakers. No such law exists prohibiting them from spending unlimited amounts to honor lawmakers or contributing to non-profits connected to them. Quite a limitation on the distinction, if you ask me. However, Congress passed ethics rules in 2007 requiring for the first time that lobbyists must report all such payments. On Monday, USA Today’s Fredreka Shouten and Paul Overberg reported on the paper’s comprehensive analysis of lobbying reports that found 2,759 payments, totaling $35.8 million, were made in 2008. They quote Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, “It’s another example of the many pockets of a politician’s coat.” The spending amounts to an “end-run” around campaign-finance laws “that are designed to limit the appearance of undue influence.”
(Continue reading…)
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This Week In Transparency – June 5, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from the past week:
Late last Friday, National Public Radio ran a piece by Andrea Seabrook about the Obama administration’s “Open Government Initiative,” a three-part process to craft recommendations on open government. Seabrook quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, saying the government should make it a priority to get the most important information up sooner. “And, in my mind, you got – priority data is the data that affects the public trust in its institutions. So, you know, personal financial disclosures, lobbying reports – there are many lobbying reports that are found in the Justice Department that have never seen the light of day. That is to say, they’re not online – that being the definition of light of day in the 21st century.”
The second phase of the White House’s Open Government Initiative was a “brainstorming” session where the administration invited the public to submit ideas on how to achieve and sustain an unprecedented level of openness in government. The administration then encouraged participants to vote up or down on the ideas. They received 900 submissions and 33,000 votes on various ideas. House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (Ohio) submission to require Congress to honor a 72-hour public review period before voting on major spending bills ended up as one of the most popular, receiving nearly 1,000 votes. Roll Call (subscription required) and Federal Computer Week quote from Boehner’s statement noting Sunlight’s support for the 72-hour rule.
As normal, major press outlets depended on data from the Center for Responsive Politics to expose the power and influence of big money in Washington. The Wall Street Journal reported that in the first three months of 2009, the financial industry spent $27.6 million on lobbying and made $286,000 in campaign contributions to Congressional lawmakers. One industry goal was to get Congress to amend certain financial rules. So far, The Journal reported, they’ve succeeded in loosening one key accounting regulation and are working to get ride of it altogether. The Washington Post used CRP data to show the growing influence of tech titans Google, Microsoft, AT&T and Verizon. The same article mentions that the Center for Digital Democracy wrote to the White House protesting the Obama administration’s appointment of Google’s top lobbyist to the position of deputy technology officer. “We believe no special-interest connected person should assume a position of vital importance to the country’s future,” they wrote.
(Continue reading…)
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This Week In Transparency – May 29, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions on Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this past week:
Sunlight Labs’ launch of the Apps for America 2: The Data.gov Challenge in conjunction with the Obama administration’s launch of Data.gov generated a great amount of media interest. The contest is a development and visualization challenge to see who can come up with the best application and visualization for data from Data.gov. In an editorial about Data.gov, The New York Times mentioned Sunlight and the Apps for America 2 contest. The Times “Bits” blog mentioned the contest too in a post about Data.gov. The San Francisco Chronicle’s “Politics Blog,” in a post about Data.gov, mentions the Apps for America 2 contest and quotes Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs’ director, saying Data.gov itself is not meant for average people, but is geared more towards developers who will take the data and make it usable for the everyday person. Later in the week, Alyssa Fetini at Time magazine writes about Data.gov and the Apps for America 2 contest as well. She quotes Clay, “Government has made a move in the right direction — now it’s time for us to show them what we can do.”
Clay was a guest on the nationally-syndicated The Kojo Nnamdi Show, a program produced by National Public Radio-affiliated WAMU FM, where he joined a panel discussion on how non-profits and cities like Washington, D.C., are enlisting help from civic-minded developers to help make government data more open and usable. You can listen to the program here.
Peter Baker with The New York Times used data from the Center for Responsive Politics to show President Obama is continuing the practice of past presidents by awarding prestigious ambassadorships to top fundraisers. For instance, his emissaries to Great Britain and France raised respectively $550,00 and $800,000 for Obama’s election and inauguration. The Boston Globe’s Susan Milligan used CRP data to show how the business community, faced with Democratic congressional majorities, a Democratic president, and a voting public furious over Wall Street lapses, have shifted their campaign contributions dramatically toward the Democrats from the 2006 election through 2008.
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Weekly Media Roundup – May 22, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and
grantees from this week:Thursday’s launch by the Obama administration of Data.gov, the repository for all the information the federal government collects, generated a number of good press mentions. Vivek Kundra, President Obama’s new Chief Information Officer, built and manages the Web site, which developers can access data to create applications for the Web and handheld devices. The Washington Post’s Kim Hart wrote about the launch and quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, saying it “demonstrates the acceptance of the notion that providing raw data is inherent to establishing trust in agencies.” Ellen said that the administration is redefining public information. “To be truly public, it needs to be available online. That’s a dramatic shift.” Hart also quotes Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org, saying most federal agencies have not traditionally emphasized openness. “It’s not what Congress has told them to do in the past, and it’s not their culture. There’s going to have to be some real pressure on agencies to do this.” Hart also mentions Sunlight Labs‘ Apps for America 2 contest, and writes that it is modeled after the Apps for Democracy contest started by Kundra when he was the District of Columbia’s chief technology officer. Richard Waters at the Financial Times (subscription required) wrote about the launch and the contest, and quotes Ellen saying the launch represents “a sea-change in how government views its information.”
Wired’s Kim Zetter and Wired Science’s Alexis Madrigal both have articles about Data.gov that mention Sunlight and the Apps for America 2 contest. Madrigal also quotes Ellen, “Data.gov says that our information is your information,” and that “it represents this enormous change in attitude about what public means. It means it’s online. It’s means it’s available. I think it’s a dramatic breakthrough in the role of government.”
Federal News Radio’s Jason Miller produced a story on Data.gov, and includes an mp3 of his interview with Kundra who mentions the Apps for America 2 contest. Chris Dorobek, co-anchor of Federal News Radio’s afternoon drive program, interviewed Ellen about the launch and posted the audio. Jon Gordon with American Public Media’s “Future Tense” interviewed Clay Johnson, Sunlight Labs’ director, about Data.gov. Clay said the site represents “a good first step” by the administration.
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Weekly Media Roundup – May 8, 2009
Today, May 8th, marks the 125th birthday of Harry S Truman, our 33rd president. He once said, “Secrecy and a free, democratic government don’t mix.” Amen, Mr. President.
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:
Monday morning, Tom Lee, a technology director at Sunlight, appeared on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” taking questions about Recovery.gov, the Web site set up to track spending under the federal government’s economic stimulus program. Tom is working on SubsidyScope, a project of The Pew Charitable Trusts, that looks at the role of federal subsidies in the economy. Below is the video of the segment:
Speaking of Recovery.gov, Matt Kelley with USA Today reported that the Web site won’t have details on contracts and grants until October and may not be complete until next spring — halfway through the program. Kelley quotes Greg Elin, Sunlight’s chief evangelist, saying people accustomed to getting easily searchable information quickly could be frustrated. “If we have to wait until October to get the information or to the end of the year to get a powerful recovery.gov site, the Obama administration will have missed an important opportunity.”
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Weekly Media Roundup – May 1, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:David Herbert with the National Journal (subscription required) wrote about the grades new media experts from across the political spectrum gave the Obama administration’s Web presence. The experts gave WhiteHouse.gov an average grade of C+. Although they mostly see it as an improvement from the previous administration’s site, many noted that it remained a one-way forum and suggested it be opened to allow comments and other interactive features. Herbert quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, “This occasional use of interactive tools” is impressive, but “90 percent of the time the site is pretty straightforward, as it was under [George W.] Bush.” Recovery.gov, the administration’s site where citizens can monitor the expenditure and use of recovery funds, fared even worse in the Journal’s poll, averaging a C. The most common gripe about the site, Herbert writes, is that it’s “the view from 30,000 feet,” as Micah Sifry, senior technology advisor for Sunlight and Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) co-founder, told him. Without providing on-the-the ground details, Recovery.gov offers taxpayers few tools for staying on top of where their money is going, reviewers said. Recovery.gov has competition in the form of privately-operated Recovery.org, which has “more granular data and a real search tool, which one assumes we’ll eventually see on Recovery.gov,” Micah explains. “I don’t think it’s fair to compare this site to other Web sites yet, as it’s just weeks old,” Micah added. “Let’s take another look in three to six months, OK?”
Chris Lefkow with Agence France-Presse gained a different take by interviewing academics, technology analysts and nonpartisan groups on the administration’s technology efforts. Lefkow writes that they all said the first “tech president” is off to a good start. Lefkow quotes John Wonderlich, Sunlight’s policy director, “their first pronouncements are very encouraging,” and added that the challenge, however, is going to be the implementation. Andrew Resiej, Sunlight’s other senior technology advisor and PDF co-founder, said the administration been doing as much as it can to fulfill its promises in regards to transparency and technological innovation. “However they’ve been constrained by decades of industrial-age rules and regulations and procurement protocols that are handicapping the speed at which they can implement that vision,” he said.
