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 Oregon, Nebraska, and Arizona.

Oregon Earmark’s Blog points to the Favor Factory and then highlights earmarks that the Oregon congressional delegation received. He quips “While I wear and like New Balance shoes, not sure they need the $2.4 Million earmark for cold weather equipment.”

New Nebraska has an interesting post about how the influence of lobbying has changed from term limits. Apparently requiring a new herd of legislators to come in every few terms causes lobbying to be harder because they have to start from scratch with new lawmakers. It will be interesting to see how the lobbying industry evolves in Nebraska to deal with this.

In Arizona, Expresso Pundit posts about earmarking and how it bypasses the checks and balances that the founding fathers put in place. He also examines some earmarking that Arizona legislators are doing.

0 Comments

This week I have highlights from Idaho, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Washington.

In Idaho, IdaBlue, has a new blog roll category, “legiblogs”, this lists all the state legislators that have blogs (or blogislators). There are four blogs currently listed and they all seemed to be updated regularly. It’s great to see elected officials considering blogging as a way to communicate with their constituents.

In Louisiana, Blagueur, highlights a Washington Post article talking about Rep. Richard H. Baker who is in talks to become president of a hedge fund lobby. Also in Louisiana, In the Loop highlights the historic state house organizational session. This included a day long briefing on Louisiana’s Code of Governmental Ethics. This was meant to lead the State Reps through the ethics code and educated them about the requirements for financial disclosure and lobbyist regulation. This was a great opportunity to learn Louisiana’s Ethics Code before the special sessions in February on ethics reform.

In Missouri, the Turner Report, talks about how State Rep. Dwight Scharnhorst introduced bill HB 1548, which, he admitted was written by a lobbyist. This bill would exempt sales tax on purchases of “equipment, machinery, materials, supplies, fixtures, and shoes used in the sport of bowling.” A little more research shows that this bill was previously submitted last year by Rep. Ron Richard, the House Speaker-elect, who happens to own a chain of bowling alleys. How convenient.

In Nebraska, Smith Watch, has a very interesting summary of Rep. Adrian Smith’s first year in Congress. Complete with voting summary and some analysis of who gave him money and how often he voted in their favor.

In New Mexico, LP at New Mexico FBIHOP, highlights the very cool The Santa Fe Reporter’s Muckraker’s Guide to New Mexico. The guide has links to campaign finance, earmark, crime, and various other information any good muckraker would want.

In Washington, Olympia Time, highlights how the state legislature now has RSS feeds for bills which will allow people to subscribe to bills and track changes.

Earmark Corner

The usual ruckus around earmarks has slowed to a disgruntled murmur with people mostly focusing on the election. I did want to highlight a great summary done by Smith Watch on Rep. Adrian’s Smith earmark requests and his opinion on the status of earmarking.

0 Comments

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 convering local, state, and Congressional political news. This week I have highlights from Arizona, Indiana, Maine, Nebraska, and South Dakota.

In Arizona, Expresso Pundit posted a very interesting letter from the Arizona state legislature. It is an invitation to a legislative workshop. This workshop discusses; how bills are drafted and moved through the legislature, and also will demo the Arizona Legislative Information System, the Request to Speak Program (this link will take you to a manual about the program), and how to use the legislative website.

Advance Indiana goes into some depth about how the city council of Lake Station, IN wants to ban private recordings of their meetings. The complaint, people are playing the recordings at local area bars to entertain customers.

Spud1 at Turn Main Blue takes this opportunity to challenge some opinions Sen. Collins posted on her new blog. It is great that Sen. Collins has joined the growing number of elected officials’ blogging their opinion and giving constituents a chance to respond.

I’ve been meaning to highlight Nebraska’s Smith Watch. Every week, they go through the actions of the House and highlight what Rep. Adrian Smith did. For instance, from 9/10 to 9/14 Rep. Smith did not submit or make floor statements but he did add his name to resolution H.Res.641, as a cosponsor.

In South Dakota, Lowell from Badlands Blue highlights Tim Johnson’s new We bsite. There is one thing missing Sen. Johnson, a daily schedule! Let you constituents know who you’re meeting with every day, Punch the Clock.

That’s all I have this week. Keep up the good work!

0 Comments