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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Local Sunlight
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 work by covering local, state, and congressional political news. This week I have highlights from New Mexico, Georgia and Illinois.New Mexico FBIHOP has been live blogging the New Mexican legislative session. This year is a short 30 day session covering mostly budgetary issues. Matt is doing a great job keeping on top of what is going on, along with the live streaming action on New Mexico Independent this legislative session will be well accounted for. In the coming weeks we will be keeping track of the up and coming transparency initiatives in the state, so stay tuned.
Peach Pundit has a post about a former candidate for Governor’s PAC, which hasn’t filed a campaign report in a while, but had a great deal of money left over. The blogger wondered if they had to continue to file if they had any left over funds. Apparently they do not have to disclosure left over funds and can do whatever they wants with it.
Illinois’ The Quincy Pundit has a post about strange practices in the Quincy City Hall. The City Attorney sent out a letter to people in the community, on official letterhead, basically asking them to not vote for a particular candidate for Mayor because that candidate would fire him. Well, isn’t that special.
I also wanted to point out this awesome article by MediaShift highlighting great work by 3 local bloggers from around the country. I think this quote by blogger Chuck Welch sums up the local political bloggersphere perfectly.
“I think there are cases now where city council or city staff might be more cognizant that just because the newspaper reporter is not in the room it doesn’t mean the community is not going to learn about whatever it is they are doing.”
It is widely accepted that citizen journalists doesn’t replace investigative journalists, however, that doesn’t discount how important they are to keep track of local government. With the recent court decision transparency is more important than ever we need people willing to dig through disclosure data and an active political blogosphere is where we look to find them.
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Transparency Growing Pains In DeKalb, Illinois
I’m happy to have Lynn Fazekas from Illinois’ City Barbs guest blog today. City Barbs is a hyper local blog that covers issues that affect DeKalb, Illinois. The story of DeKalb struggle for transparency is not exclusive to DeKalb but is happening in small towns across the country. The lack of publicly available information prohibits people from actually being able to hold elected officials accountable and lets corruption reign free.
By Lynn Fazekas
City BarbsEvents following Victor Wogen’s controversial election to the DeKalb (Illinois) City Council prompted a citizens’ group to push for online access to more types of public information.
When Wogen was elected DeKalb’s Third Warders and others, including myself, wrote letters to the editor to call for the alderman-elect (Wogen) not to be seated in May. Citizens came to City Council meetings, some wearing t-shirts and buttons with “Wogen Resign” and “The Barbed Liar” on them (barbed wire was invented in DeKalb) to demand his resignation and to ask other Council members to denounce his behavior. Of course we blogged as well. Nothing much came of these activities but at least we’d officially registered our displeasure — or so we thought at first. Upon reading Council meeting minutes, we realized the City Clerk* had “sanitized” some of the citizens’ statements during these meetings. Comments in support of the new alderman were duly recorded, but remarks unflattering to him were summarized vaguely; e.g., “So-and-so commented on the Third Ward election.” Thus began another round of letters to the editor, neighborhood meetings, appointments with the mayor and clerk, and the birth of the Wogen Watch blog. By mid-summer the focus was more on how to combat the bias in meeting minutes than on the Wogen himself.
Expanded public access to records besides the meeting minutes seemed reasonable to request. In August nine of us – unnamed then but now known as DeKalb Citizens for Transparency – sent a letter asking for certain documents to be placed online on a regular basis. The request was well-received by the Council; promises were made and a deadline set for the changes.
On a personal note, I remember feeling relief that we could channel our energies into a positive, productive direction.
Two years later, the improved access helped lead to the discovery that Alderman Wogen has been awarded no-bid contracts under the radar during his term of office.
None of the public access improvements were more important than the online posting of the “agenda packet,” the collections of documents such as memos, preliminary drawings, surveys, etc., which accompany agendas and help City Council members, media, and other interested persons prepare for meetings. The agenda packet also includes the city’s check register once per month. It was the tracking of expenditures made possible by inclusion of the check register, along with the Illinois Secretary of State’s Corporate/LLC online database, which confirmed Victor Wogen’s ownership of Masonry Works, LLC and his additional city income of nearly $53,000 in 2008 for post-demolition repair work in downtown DeKalb.
Access to state records have also led to the discoveries that Wogen did not pay prevailing wages for the downtown jobs, that he is being pursued for unpaid payroll taxes, and that he owes the Illinois Tollway thousands in unpaid tolls and fines.
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Local Sunlight
Every week I climb into the depths of the local political blogosphere to find the Sunlight. This week I have highlights from Illinois, Louisiana, and Alabama.In Illinois, City Barbs has a transparency rally planned for Monday to ask their local government to clean up their act. The DeKalb Citizens for Transparency sent out a press release saying they will have a rally and march to city hall where they will demand a more transparency government. There have been corruption issues recently so the band of civic cleaners will march with brooms and vacuum cleaners to get their message heard. Hopefully they will post pictures!
In Louisiana, Between the Lines has a post about earmark reform in the state. The state’s Commission on Streamlining Government recommended that earmarks be eliminated but Jeff Sadan doesn’t agree. He goes into detail to find what the correct policy should be. I like this post even though I don’t understand all of it but it is always great to see what is behind some common problems like earmarks and think through better ways to solve them.
In Alabama, Doc’s Political Parlor has a post about non profits that were started by politicians given state money but are not being audited. Apparently three lawmakers got funds diverted for a tax and then created non profits to receive the money. The audit of the public funds has not happened around these non profits, it has been three years.
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Local Sunlight
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 Texas, Michigan, and Maine.Texas Watchdog reports on a loophole in Texas personal financial disclosure filings. Spouses of elected officials do not have to be included in disclosure filings. Considering that spouses could have considerable wealth and influence, this loophole should be eliminated. Spouses could have investments that are affected by policy and potential conflicts of interest should be made public.
In Michigan, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood highlights an OpenSecrets.org article on donations made to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee by the insurance industry. Rep. Mike Rogers is on the committee and is the fourth highest beneficiary of donations . The post notes that even though Rep. Rogers was elected in 2000 he is prominently placed on the insurance industry’s radar.
In Maine, Union Maine posts about Congresswoman Pingee answers some questions they sent to the Maine congressional delegation. The blog asked her office a few questions about their health care: “What does it cost? How much do they pay? How much do we pay for them? .” Rep. Pingee is the only office in Maine that responded to Union Maine’s questions. The post goes into more information about congressional health care coverage. It is a great example of how members of Congress can gain points by answering constituent questions. It really is that easy.
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Local Sunlight
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 Wisconsin, Illinois, Idaho, Georgia and Hawaii.
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Local Sunlight 8/6/09
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 posts from Texas, Hawaii and Illinois.
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Local Sunlight 6/1/09
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 Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, and Nevada.
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Local Sunlight: April 24, 2009
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 New York, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Illinois.
(Continue reading…)
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SocialGovernment.com and the States
Earlier this week, Alexander Muir at SocialGovernment.com wrote an interesting post about social media in the states; how they are using new media to interact with citizens and what are some of the best programs. Much like the federal government, he found that the states can and should be doing so much more.
Muir found that states were starting to use maps to inform their residents about traffic and other similar issues. He gives Maryland “extra credit” for the Old Line State’s interactive map displaying environmental initiatives having to do with the Chesapeake Bay. He notes that many states should do more with safety alerts. Currently, Amber Alerts are the most used new media app. He suggests a tornado watch system would be appropriate use of new media.
With the federal Recovery.gov up and running, many states are building their own version. He sites Illinois’ site as a “great start,” but added we’ll have to take a “wait and see” approach to see how transparent and useful these sites end up. And I would add we must take approach the states much like we are the feds by prodding and demanding that they are as open as possible.
States are starting to experiment with Twitter, but few are fully realizing its potential. He sites California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as an exception, who has set up a Twitter group on Buzzable to discuss what’s going on with the state government. He adds that states should embrace widgets much more, with Virginia doing the most with ones on wine, traffic and emergency notices. He also credits Virginia for setting up a YouTube channel, podcasts and a flushed out stimulus site.
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The States of Corruption
In light of the unfolding scandal involving Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, USA Today ranks the states on their level of corruption with some surprising results. They determine the ranking by comparing the states’ public corruption convictions per 100,000 residents from 1998 through 2007. Surprisingly enough, the rating system determined that North Dakota has been the most corrupt state over the past decade. And Illinois, a state who’s last governor was convicted in 2006 for corruption and now its current chief executive was arrested Tuesday only ranks as the 18th most corrupt. USA Today includes an interactive map that tells you for each state the number of convicts over the decade, its population and the per capita convictions.
The paper interviewed the director of the North Dakota Center for the Public Good who gives some context. He said that North Dakotans know their public officials better than many larger states, and as a result are better at rooting out corruption when it occurs. Also, he said the state has encouraged bad government practices in some cases by weakening disclosure laws. Plus, the state does not require candidates for state office to disclose their campaign expenses.
