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
-
Extent of Lobbyist Contributions Remains Unknown
The National Journal recently launched a new “lobbyist and advocacy” blog, which gathers together 60 experts from some of Washington’s top lobbying firms and advocacy organizations focused on campaign finance, government transparency and public accountability. Here’s our take on this week’s question: should lobbyists be banned from giving campaign contributions?
While many a lobbyist might be happy to have an excuse to stop writing checks, a ban on lobbyist campaign contributions wouldn’t really give them one. A lobbyist’s clout is measured not just in how many dollars are forked over personally but how much he or she can bundle. Unfortunately, how many dollars lobbyists actually control remains a murky mystery.
Consider this: so far in the 2010 elections, lobbyists have contributed $10.7 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s only a tiny fraction of what most PACs and executives associated with industries contribute. For example, the health care sector alone has given $38.4 million; the financial sector, $78.2 million; and the communications sector, $23.3 million.
When you start digging into the data, you find some interesting patterns. A recent joint investigation by the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics found Sen. Max Baucus had collected campaign cash from 11 major health and insurance firms–and their outside lobbyists as well. (You can see a visualization of this here.) The same investigation showed that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., collected lobbyist “bundles” from 14 major health care organizations. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., actually led the list, with 22 organizations–though much of that money was directed at his presidential campaign last year. (see the full list.)
Meanwhile, new Federal Election Commission (FEC) regulations requiring disclosure of bunding leave far too much to be desired. This report by the Associated Press used data from the Sunlight Foundation’s Party Time project (politicalpartytime.org) to show that hosts for at least 195 congressional fundraising invitations had yet to be disclosed as fundraisers by the candidates who benefited.
We need better disclosure of how lobbyists raise and contribute campaign cash. A first step would be strengthened bundling rules that capture more activity. Disclosure should also happen in real time, on-line rather than in periodic reports often filed months after bundling activity has taken place.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Weekly Media Roundup – April 24, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:
Sunday evening, BlogTalkRadio posted an episode of “Talking Gov2.0,” where Clay Johnson, Sunlight Lab’s director, discussed Sunlight, Sunlight Labs and the Apps for America contest. Speaking of Apps for America, Clay announced the winners on Monday. And Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb wrote about the contest, and included a screencast of the winners.
Victoria McGrane with the Politico wrote about the lack of online disclosure of campaign finance data by candidates for the U.S. Senate, and the efforts to rectify this through S. 482, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act. She mention’s Sunlight’s Pass S. 482, and extensively quotes Lisa Ronsenberg, Sunlight’s government affairs consultant, about the need for the Senate to join the 21st Century.
The National Journal reported on data from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) that shows last year’s top 20 Political Action Committee contributors to federal candidates poured a combined $22 million into lobbying efforts from January through March — an increase of nearly 20 percent over the same period in 2008.
Anne C. Mulkern with Greenwire (subscription required) used Capitol Words to look at the use of energy- and environment-related words by congressional lawmakers. The New York Times re-posted Mulkern’s piece.
-
Weekly Media Roundup – April 17, 2009
Here are a few of the more interesting media mentions of Sunlight and our friends and grantees from this week:Various media outlets and bloggers, including the likes of CNET.com, the Associated Press, the National Journal, Lawrence Lessig and Craig Newmark, have covered and congratulated the Center for Responsive Politics’ (CRP) for making its data records from OpenSecrets.org free for anyone to download. The Journal’s “Tech Daily Dose” column reported that more than 120 people had downloaded bulk data within the first 24 hours of CRP opening up its archives.
The Washington Post’s “The Reliable Source” column highlighted Capitol Words, which “slices and dices the entirety of the Congressional Record for your searching pleasure,” they write. McClatchy’s David Lightman reported that, in light of the financial crisis, words you would expect to be used by congressional lawmakers often, such as recession, bailout, stimulus and deficit do not crack the top 30 most frequently uttered terms so far this year. And Daphne Ritter with the New York Post looks at the top words used by several lawmakers from the Empire State’s congressional delegation.
Alice Lipowicz with Federal Computer Week used OpenCongress data in writing about how only 10 congressional lawmakers (four senators and six reps) post their daily schedules on their official Web sites. New York Newsday editorialized about how Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) is blazing a trail in her congressional career by posting her schedule and personal financial disclosure reports online. “While (congressional lawmakers are) at it, they should make sure that information is easy to locate, archived and searchable, so that watchful voters can track, over time, the lobbyists and interest groups bending an official’s ear,” the editors wrote.
Last week, Ryan Singel at Wired’s “Epicenter” blog wrote about Sunlight Labs‘ contest Apps for America, and asked his readers to vote for their favorites. This week, he reported back on the response he received, and issued what he terms the “Epicenter Reader’s Choice award.”
-
Weekly Media Roundup – April 13, 2009
Each weekday, Sunlight’s communications team collects all the press mentions of Sunlight and of our grantees. Instead of just keeping that to ourselves, we thought we’d try something new by highlighting some of the more interesting mentions and sharing that with you each week. (You can also check out our Delicious page and our Press Center to see who’s writing about us.)
Elizabeth Brotherton at Roll Call (subscription required), Associated Press Managing Editors, Paul Krawzak with CQ Politics and Deb Price with The Detroit News wrote stories about about U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers posting their earmark requests for the 2010 budget on their Web sites as new transparency guidelines required. Bill Allison, Sunlight’s senior fellow, researched the disclosures. Journalists used Bill’s research as the base for their articles, including many regional papers reporting on earmarks requested by their respective congressional delegations.
National Journal’s “Tech Daily Dose” blog reported that the Center for Responsive Politics’ site OpenSecrets.org is going “open data” this week. For the first time in their 26-year history, CRP “is making its most popular data archives fully available to the public for download for free,” The Journal writes. Sunlight helped fund CRP’s OpenData initiative to make millions of records available under a Creative Commons license, The Journal adds.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg with The New York Times wrote about President Obama’s promise to bring transparency to the federal government. She notes the administration is finding that fulfilling the pledge is easier said than done. Technological hurdles, privacy concerns and the Washington’s entrenched culture of secrecy have so far proven hard to overcome. Stolberg lists several steps the Obama team have successfully taken, the streamlining of a health care summit over the White House Web site and the setting up of Recovery.gov to help track the stimulus package. She quotes Ellen Miller, Sunlight’s executive director, as saying the site is “an amazing potential model of how information is made available to the public.”
-
Federal Agencies and Web 2.0
Elizabeth Newell, at GovExec.com, writes about how federal agencies are beginning to stick their toes in the social media pool. It’s beginning to dawn on agency leaders that when citizens search for government information, they will want to use the same systems they do in their everyday lives. But as David Herbert at the National Journal writes (reposted here by NextGov.com), many agencies still struggle to make connections online.
Newell cites the GSA’s GovGab, the Defense Department’s roundtable with military bloggers, and she referenced the growing list of federal agencies that post on Twitter. Herbert points to the TSA is an agency that gets it. The Evolution of Security blog is an effort by TSA to explain the bizarre airport security system and offer tips for travelers. The agency realizes that in the online world, “if you build it they will come” is not the way things work. At airport security lines they advertise their site with signs saying “Got Feedback?” The site has been up for a year and posts average 3,000 page views and 100 comments.
-
We’ll Be Following This New Blog
Here’s a positive development: The National Journal is putting more focus on the role lobbying and advocacy with its newly launched (and completely accessible) Under the Influence blog. (It looks like if they link to their own articles that you will need a subscription to read them.) In their press release announcing the launch they say that the blog’s mission is to help readers understand how the lobby industry actually works, as well as to cover the people who work to influence the laws and regulations that determine America’s future. Under the Influence will focus on fund raising, association mergers, who’s in and who’s out at Washington lobbying offices, and a discussion on whether an Obama administration would adopt the campaign’s professed disregard for the lobbying community, according to the release.
“Anyone who follows Washington wants to be first to know how a huge and powerful network of actors gets things done in the $3 billion-plus influence industry,” said Bob Gettlin, the blog’s editor. “Advocates, lobbyists, and policy experts serve a critical function in our democracy, educating elected officials on complicated issues. Yet, the world of lobbying is poorly understood and heavily stereotyped.”
-
Making New Connections
I’m excited to be in New York today to attend Jeff Jarvis’ Networked Journalism Conference, and I found it fascinating to read the background statements of many of the participants. When we were asked to pick who we most wanted to meet, I simply refused to pick.
But I am interested in having some talk time with Danny Glover from the National Journal and Air Congress. Included in the site are video clips and podcasts from members of Congress themselves, as well as original content that he mostly produces. The site also posts audio and video about what’s going on in Washington from bloggers, MSM journalists, trade associations, watchdog groups and even the executive branch. Sounds like a natural partner for Sunlight.
Glover has a good nose — for pork and for hypocrisy. And he’s one busy fellow, having covered Washington for the last 15 years with the National Journal and Congressional Quarterly. Danny runs the Journal’s "Beltway Blogroll," where in a recent post, he writes about how MySpace paid for six bloggers to attend the interactive debate with John Edwards the social network hosted with MTV on September 27th. He also edits the Journal’s "Technology Daily." In January 2006, Danny wrote "The Rise of Blogs" which was a great look at the growing influence of blogs on the political discourse of the day.
And he’s one of the many terrific people who will be at the Summit.
